Dear moms of preschoolers, It gets better.

It was one of those days. Everybody was crying. I was crying. My two toddlers in the backseat were crying. I was overwhelmed and frustrated and angry. “Stop it!” I cried at the crying toddlers, which only made them cry louder and now with a tinge of fear, adding guilt to my frustration.

Oh, the 0-4 crowd. So cute. So fun. So precious. So frustrating. I remember days of wanting to run. Wanting to hide. Wanting anything but grabbing hands and whiney voices and illogical meltdowns. Wanting sleep. Needing sleep! I was desperate to know that at some point things would get easier. But no, they said. It never gets easier. Just different.

Sometime ago I was cooking dinner. Music was playing in the background. My daughter was slicing zucchini next to me. My youngest was absorbed in coloring a picture and my middle child was putting his clothes in the washer. And it struck me. This was the bewitching hour! The time of day that for years and years was full of meltdowns and trying to cook dinner while stepping over the myriad of things emptied from drawers and cabinets and willing their dad to get home sooner… but here we were. Enjoying a peaceful pre-dinner hour. That was when I realized that yes – things had gotten easier.

So I want to encourage you other moms of preschool age children, in the trenches of sleep deprivation and diapers and tantrums. It does get better. I can play games with my kids that I enjoy. I can have logical discussions over their behavior. Instead of following me around undoing all my work, I can hand them sticky notes with a list of chores and THEY CAN DO THEM. Does sibling bickering sometimes make me want to tear my hair out? Yes. Does my son enjoy taking no for an answer? No. But compared to those little years, the non stop, exhausting intensity is definitely down.

My advice to you is press on. Swim upstream. Make the choices that are harder now but reap great rewards later. (Like making a whiney 4 year old learn to make his bed). Don’t sweat the small stuff. Take a break. You just can’t do everything right now, but many things you’ve given up will start to show back up. You’ll have hobbies again. You’ll have uninterrupted conversations. You’ll go to the bathroom by yourself. Parenting is an undertaking. Don’t be surprised when it’s hard. But it gets better. So slowly you won’t even notice until one day your daughter is helping you make dinner.

Granted, we haven’t hit the teen years.