"DON'T BLINK" On Graduations, Growing Up & Learning to Be Where You Are

New episode of Why Am I Yelling? is live — and this one is called "Don't Blink" for a reason.

We're talking about:
✨ The Milestone Paradox — why you feel grief when you get exactly what you wished for
⏳ Why time literally speeds up the older your kids get (there's actual science behind this and it's wild)
🛑 6 real tools to help you SLOW DOWN and actually be present for the moments that matter

Spoiler: one of them takes 30 seconds a day and will make you ugly cry on your kid's 10th birthday. You're welcome.

This episode is for every mom who has ever stood in a parking lot, or a kitchen, or a school gym... and felt time moving faster than she was ready for.

Link in bio 🎙️💕

#WhyAmIYelling #MomPodcast #MomLife #YoungMoms #Parenting

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello, yellers. Welcome back to Why Am I Yelling? The podcast where we keep it completely real about the chaos, the comedy, and sometimes crying in the grocery store parking lot moments that come with raging menopausal hormones and also parenting. I'm your host, Krista Rizzo, and oh my gosh, you guys, happy summer! Woo! We have officially started summer camp in our neighborhood, which means my little guy, who is now too old to be a camper himself, will go and work as a junior tennis instructor for the campers in the camp. He is following in the footsteps of his brig brother, who did this when he was 13, 14-ish years old. Um, I was talking to some of my uh co-workers last night and you know, letting them know about all the activities that we have going on where we live. And my friend was like, I have to come visit where you are because it sounds insane. And I'm gonna say, we live in a pretty idyllic place. It reminds me a lot of my childhood growing up in Westchester, New York, and uh because we had a neighborhood filled with, you know, kids and families, and you know, it was the definition that you see on the Instagrams and TikToks now of, you know, kids growing up in the late 70s and the 80s, getting kicked out of the house. We're total Gen Xers uh by our parents, you know, during summer in the mornings to go find our friends and don't come home until your dad whistles that it's time for dinner. Like that was literally my life. And then during the summertime, my grandparents had a place in the Poconos, and my brother and I would go for that with them for weeks at a time, and my parents would come up on the weekends after they worked um during the week. But the Poconos house or or place was um a lake community and it had a clubhouse, it had pools, and it had lots of community activities. And that's the kind of place that I live in now, and it is the absolute best. Like we have free-range kids all year round. Uh, but in the summer, it gets taken up a notch because our days are looser and freer, and it is 10 weeks of pure bliss and chaos because there are so many activities going on. Um, but that makes it nostalgic for me because I feel like it was just yesterday that I was doing this as a camper in our big summer place in the Poconos. But now I look at my kids who used to be campers, and one is about to enter his senior year of college, which literally like makes my heart stop. And the other one is gonna be a freshman in high school, right? And I feel like, wasn't it just yesterday? Wasn't it? I mean, I know we ask ourselves this all the time, but it feels like just yesterday that we were dropping them off at summer camp for the very first time. And this season of our lives, which is a season that we are in literally all the time, um, but the one that I'm personally in right now is has made me like feel nostalgic, right? I've been a little bit of a mess for the last couple of weeks because my little guy, my junior tennis instructor, uh my baby graduated from eighth grade a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, I know there are some parents out there who are rolling their eyes, be like Krista, it's middle school, it's not high school. Even he said to me, Mom, it's not a graduation. It's called moving up. It's not that serious. Like, could you imagine your baby graduating from eighth grade? Like you're done with your middle school years that literally you feel like just started because they were just in elementary school a minute ago, and just in pre-K and just in daycare, and just in the womb, right? It didn't matter that he didn't think it was a big deal because I think everything is a big deal, right? So my heart didn't get the memo that it wasn't a big deal. I sat in that audience with my paper program fanning my menopausal hot flash face, and I couldn't stop watching his life flash before my eyes as his big brother sat next to me and his dad, right? And I know that I'm not alone in this, right? I was with a bunch of my friends who were going through the same thing in that same audience, right? But when I post about things like this on Instagram, when I posted his graduation on Instagram, there are a lot of moms out there saying, oh my gosh, already, oh my gosh, I he wasn't he just in elementary school. Oh my gosh, weren't you just graduating from, you know, PS34 kindergarten in Brooklyn, right? Whether it was that kindergarten graduation or the preschool graduation or, you know, giving up their pacifier, whatever. We all have that moment where time stops feeling abstract and starts feeling very, very real. Not to mention, on the flip side of last week, we also hosted a birthday party for my mother-in-law's 80th. And so that is also part of the equation, too, as you are in your parenting journey, in your life journey, that when you look around a room after a week filled with milestones that span quite literally decades, it really gets you thinking. Right? I had my kids and my mother-in-law, and it they just finished milestones over here, and now we're celebrating milestones on the other side. So that got me to thinking, and we're just gonna go there, right? Today we're gonna talk about the bittersweet season of graduations and milestones, the wild phenomenon of time flying faster the older that they get. And because I would never leave you with just being in your feelings without something to hold on to, we're gonna talk about tools, real doable ways to slow down and be present for the moments that matter. This episode is called Don't Blink, something my late mother used to say on Repeat to Me as I got older, especially after I started having my kids. So let's get into it. And thanks for the heads up, mom. So uh the milestone paradox is where we're gonna start, right? If you're a seasoned parent, think back. And if you're a new mom, you are probably in the thick of it, in some part of it, right? So let me paint you a picture. If you're in the thick of it, we're talking about sleep deprivation, the spit up on everything. You haven't showered since Tuesday. You don't even know, you know, how to spell your name at this point, and you're white knuckling it through the newborn infant baby stage. And every single day you're thinking, I just need to get them to sleep through the night. I just need to get them to talk. I just need to get them to walk. I just need to get them to be potty trained. So I don't have to deal. I just need to get them in school so I can breathe. That's called wishing time forward. And every single one of us does it, right? Whether it is trying to hit those milestones that we have uh pressed upon us that are so important, right? Oh my gosh, my baby's not a potty train by the time they're two and a half. Am I failing as a parent? No. My pediatrician said to me, Your kid's not gonna go to college without knowing how to go to the bathroom. You're gonna be fine, right? But we all do it, we are completely human. We are in these moments where it's like, should I be here or should I be there? And it's comparison and all the things, but also we're in these moments where, oh my gosh, I'm so tired. How am I gonna get out of this? And then this is the part that gets me. It happens. They sleep, they talk, they walk, they potty train, they go to school. And instead of feeling that relief that you thought you were gonna feel because you're in the next phase, you feel something you did not expect. Hello, grief. This is actual real grief for the thing that you wished away. It's what I call the milestone paradox. The moment you finally get what you're waiting for, and instead of feeling joy, you feel loss. And that is a specific kind of confusion because you're so proud of your kids and the place where you are, and you're excited for them to move on to the next milestone or step that you have read about in the what to expect parenting books that I never bothered to read, thank goodness. And at the same time, part of you is quietly devastated because they're never gonna be in that stage again. I remember, and I have actually talked about it on this show, when my boys stopped calling spaghetti pischetti or calipitter, caterpillar, calierpitter. I still say caliberpitter because they haven't grained that in my brain. They just self-corrected on a random day, probably not even noticing the shift. But you sure did. I know I did. I was like, wait a minute, you used to say pischetti, or wait a minute, you used to say caliberpitter. Ambulance was another one that my big one used to say when the ambulance used to go by. And when they course correct and shift to the correct pronunciation, it might make you cry because it means they're growing up, and that's another tiny irreplaceable piece of their babyhood, of their childhood, but that's gone. This is so, so normal, you guys. And I want to name it for you because I think a lot of moms and parents feel this and then feel guilty about it. Like, why am I sad? This is a good thing. They're growing up, and yes, it is a good thing, but it's also a loss. And both things, two things can be true at the same time. There is actually a term for this in psychology called ambivalent grief. It's when you grieve something that's simultaneously positive. Therapists often talk about it in the context of kids going to college. But honestly, it starts way earlier, right? And that it starts in the kindergarten drop-off line or the daycare drop-off. My forever, my whole entire life, I will remember the first time I dropped off my oldest at daycare. I thought I was leaving an appendage behind, right? It starts when they don't need you to cut their food anymore. It starts when they start saying, I can do this myself. Mom, that I can do it myself is supposed to be the goal, right? Independence, responsibility, confidence. And it is the goal. It's also tiny pieces of your heart falling away, right? I want to give every mom and parent and caregiver listening to this permission to feel it all. The pride and the grief, the celebration and the sadness. You are not dramatic. You are not ungrateful. You are a mother who loves so deeply that even the good things, the good changes hurt a little. And that's not a flaw. That, my friends, is love. It's love. So let's talk about why time speeds up. Uh, I want to geek out on something for a second because I feel this genuinely fascinating, and I think understanding it actually does help. Why does time feel like it speeds up as our kids get older? And not just like dramatically, not it's not a little, it's a lot, like dramatically faster. Like even my older kid says that now too. He's like, uh, how is it possible that I'm a senior in college? And it's like, uh, I can't even talk to you right now. So no, right? I feel like I blinked and my newborn was potty training. And then I blinked again, and then the graduation came, right? And it's like, what is actually going on? And my mom, again, thank you for all your wisdom, used to say this all the time. So here's the thing: this is not just a feeling. Scientists and psychologists have actually studied this, and there are reasons why time perception accelerates. The first reason is called the proportional theory of time. Basically, when you're five years old, one year is 20% of your entire life. It feels enormous because it is enormous proportionally. But when you're 35, one year is less than 3% of your life. So the same 365 days feel like nothing compared to the years before them. I'm 53, I have like no life left, really, right? The same thing happens with our kids from our perspective. When they're babies, each month is a massive chunk of their timeline. Every week there's a new milestone. Things are changing so fast you can barely keep up. But as they get older, the change happens in bigger, slower acts. A whole school year starts to feel like a season instead of a lifetime. The days are long, but the years are short. Gretchen Rubin said that, and I think that it is maybe the most accurate sentence ever written about parenting. Because ask any mom of a toddler, that day was long. But somehow three years just disappeared at the same time. Right? The second reason time speeds up is about novelty. Our brains are wired to pay attention to new things. When something is new, a new job, a new city, a new baby, our brain takes tons of snapshots. Lots of memories are being formed. That richness makes time feel slow and full. But then life becomes routine. The brain stops making as many distinct memories, it starts filing things under, same as before. And when you look back, it all kind of blurs together. A whole month can feel like it happened in a week. This is actually really important for us as parents because it tells us something. Novelty creates presence. New experiences, even small ones, make time feel richer. Which means one of the actual science-backed ways to feel like you're living more fully in the season your kids are in is to keep introducing novelty. Keep doing things for the first time. And the third season, this one I think is the sneakiest, is distraction. Oh, modern life is just a lot, right? We are operating with more mental tabs open than any other previous generations of parents. We have our phones, we have the news, we have the mental load of groceries and school pickups and permission slips and dental appointments, and did anybody feed the dog? And when our attention is split, we are literally not present enough to encode strong memories. The moments happen, but they just don't land because we're too distracted. And then we look up and wonder, where did the time go? But part of that answer is we were there, but we weren't there. This is not a guilt trip. Okay. This is me saying, You're not failing because every single parent is dealing with the same fractured attention. It's a structural problem, not a personal failing. But it does mean that being intentional about presence isn't a luxury. It's actually the thing that gives us the feeling of a full, rich life with our kids. Okay, so here's the toolkit we're talking about, right? I spent a lot of time on this segment because I want to give you a list. I don't want to give you a list of like flimsy Pinterest suggestions that look cute on an Instagram post. I want to talk about things like I always do that actually work in real life, right? They're grounded in research. Um, they are real experience from myself and people that I know, and they are coupled with, you know, each other. And so let's talk about the tools. Some of these tools I've done, and some of them I haven't done, and I've I've gotten them through some research, and I think that they're great, and I might just implement them. But the first one is called the pause practice, right? In any meaningful moment, pause and name five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel physically, two you can smell, and one you can taste or appreciate. What? This is called grounding. It's used in therapy to bring us into the present moment by engaging all of our senses. You don't have to do all five steps every single time. Just even saying it to yourself. I want to remember this. What do I notice right now? Can be enough. So, for example, graduation ceremonies, first days, bedtime hugs, the silly dance they do in the kitchen, anywhere you want to land. I tried this at my son's graduation a couple of weeks ago. Instead of immediately reaching for my phone to record what was going on around me, I just gave myself time to just kind of be there. I looked at his face from the crowd. I noticed he was fidgeting with his shorts the way that he does when he gets nervous, excited. I saw the kid next to him whispering something when they were walking in, and they both laughed. I felt that hard chair under my butt and the paper program in my hands. And that took about 60 seconds. I can still close my eyes and be back in that. And that memory is more than the video or the photos that we took, right? That was me being in the moment. The second tool is called the one line a day journal, which I have started and stopped on multiple occasions, right? It's not a full journal, it's just one line, and that's it. It's a low bar, and it's a low bar on purpose because we don't have time to write journal entries every single day for ourselves, let alone for our kids, right? At the end of the day, here's what you do write one sentence about your kid, something they said, something they did, something that made you smile or made you crazy. Quote unquote. She told the grocery store cashier she wants to be a vet and a princess when she grows up. Done. That's your one line for the day, right? After a year or a month or six months or a scattered year, because we all know if you're me, you're not going to be consistent for every single day, and that's okay. But after a length of time, you have a portrait of who your child was at that age. And it takes about 30 seconds. There are apps for this, but it doesn't really matter. You just open your notes and, you know, or open a documents page. And every night before you go to bed, part of your gratitude practice or whatever can be the one thing that you your kid said today. Again, I have started this, I have stopped it, I have stopped it more than I've started it. Um, I think about going back to it, but my kids are 20 and 14 now, and so it's like probably a little bit too late for me, but not too late for people that are on the younger side of the parenting because that could potentially be a really fun book for them for their birthdays. I do photo books every year as a gift for the grandparents of our year in photos. Uh, and I think something like this could be super, super fun or a milestone birthday. I give my kids milestone photo books for their 10th birthdays and their 20th birthdays, actually, not 20th, I'll do 21 this year. Um, and that could be a fun thing to kind of add to it. Quotes that they said throughout that book. Okay, tool number three is the phone down window. I'm a big fan of this. We do this every single night. I think it's really important. Pick one window per day, even if it's just 20 minutes, where the phone is physically not in your hand during the kid time, and vice versa. If they have phones, put them in a drawer, put it in your bag, put it on the counter. Just make it inconvenient to reach for. Research shows even the presence of a phone on the table, even when it's face down, reduces the quality of conversation and connection. Out of sight is genuinely out of mind. Best windows to do this after school for the first 20 minutes, right? The debrief window, whether it's in the car line pickup or Um, after they've just gotten home and they're getting a snack and you're in the kitchen and you can be chatty with them if you're home with them. Dinner, that's when we do it. No phones at the dinner table, full stop, not allowed. And the 10 minutes before bed, that was also a good time for us when my kids were growing up, when I was still tucking them into bed at night and having chats with them, which I no longer do because I go to bed before they do now. But uh, we used to lay in bed and have talks about our day, and I would not have my phone with me. And it was a really great 15 or 20 minutes for us to connect. It's not about perfection because you all know I know that this does, I tell you all the time it doesn't exist. It's about creating pockets of uninterrupted presence. Right? These windows, the after-school window is huge. Um, you know, it's it's really good to have these conversations with our kids when they can feel like they're not being interrogated, right? A lot of times we ask our kids questions and we're like looking them right in the face and they don't want to answer because they might be a little bit um detailed, right? But if we are in a space like the bedtime space where it's dark and everyone's looking up at the ceiling, you can actually open up and feel more comfortable or in the car because you're not staring at each other. They might be behind you or next to you. So think about where you're gonna do this ritual, but I highly, highly encourage it. Tool number four, the season ritual. Choose one recurring ritual that belongs to each season of their childhood. Something they associate with this age and time. It does not have to be elaborate. Sunday pancakes, Friday movie night, annual birthday interview, which I think is a cute idea, reading a book together, a summer tradition you might have. Rituals do something remarkable. They create anchors. Your kids' brains will form stronger, richer memories around repeated, meaningful experiences. And they give you something to hold on to. The years may blur, but you'll remember the pancake years. You'll remember the chapter book stage, the going to bed and having your conversations when they were little, the summer firefly nights, the annual trip to the ice cream place on the last day of school. Ask yourself, what is something we do right now that I would want them to remember when they are grown? Sixth tool, five number five tool, the milestone letter. Okay, so on a big milestone, whether it's a graduation, the first day of school, the last day of a grade, a birthday, write your child a letter. I know people who do it on birthdays. Uh, I started it again, this is an intermittent one for me. Like I've written them letters, I have emails, I have sent them to them. I do it for my big kid now when he starts a new year of college. And I cannot believe he's gonna be a senior this year at the University of Connecticut. And I cannot believe that I'm going to be writing his final college letter. I don't want to think about it. Don't blink, right? But create something for them to read. Not necessarily now, but maybe for them later. Like if you start writing them letters when they're little, give it to them for their birthday at their 16th or 18th, right? Write about who they are right now, what you love about them, their favorite things, their funny quirks, things they've said, things that make them unique and special. What you love about the season that you're in right now in this moment with them. Seal it, save it, and then give it to them at a later date, right? The act of writing also forces you to be present for you to think about and notice who your child is in this particular season of their life and not just who they're becoming. Tool number six. I literally did this the other day with my girlfriends. The what I'll miss reframe. When you are in a hard season, toddler tantrums, teenage attitudes, the whining phase, the they are now in college and need their independence, but they're home from college, and it's like, what are the rules? Are they blurred season? That's me for one of my kids. Pause and ask yourself, what will I actually miss about this someday? You will miss the way they mispronounce things. You will miss being needed, you will miss the tiny hands. Oh, the tiny hands. You'll even miss the arguments because arguments mean that they're there. This is not toxic positivity, by the way. You don't have to be grateful for every hard moment because they're hard, and I'm not grateful for a lot of them. But the question creates just enough distance to see the beauty inside that chaos. What will I miss? Try writing what I'll miss about this phase in your notes app when you're in a tough season. Read it back a week later, a year later, and watch your whole heart shift with that. I literally just did it with my girlfriends the other day when we were floating in the in the lake. Um, you know, our kids, we are our kids are all pretty much in the same season of life, and we were having this conversation, and I actually said to one of my friends, You're gonna miss this. And she was like, you know what? Yup, I'm gonna miss it. So pay attention to that one, right? My mom used to say that to me too. She's like, You're gonna miss this. I know that they're being a pain in the ass. I know that they're not sleeping through the night, I know, but you're gonna miss it. And she was right. I would give my left arm for the ease of babyhood over the worry that accompanies young adulthood. We always think it's gonna be easier when they get older, and it's just a different level of worry. It's not a level of, oh, they just fell down and when they're learning to walk. It literally is here are the car keys, go blue, be safe. That's a completely different level of worry for sure. I asked a question on Instagram this week, what parenting moment made you feel time moved faster than you were ready for? And I got some really good responses that I want to share with you because some of them might pull at your heartstrings. And you know, I love a heartstring moment. Moments like, you know, graduation milestones from kindergarten to college. Um, one of my friends said the first time she put her kids on the school bus, realizing from that moment on they would have endless other people in their lives that she may or may not know about. What? Heartstrings pulled. They're little babies getting on the bus. And it's like, who are you gonna meet today? And are you gonna tell me all the things about it? The answer to that is probably not. Then there was another one about kids learning how to drive and not needing her as much. Yes, I felt every single one of those. Not because they're sad, because they have come and gone. And now they're on to the next thing. I want to thank everybody who shared with me your vulnerability. I appreciate that. And your kids, I appreciate you. Um, it really means a lot when we are sharing these things and learning from each other. So I love that for from you. Thank you. Okay, my loves, my yellers, my peeps, we're coming in for a landing on this one because we are at 29 minutes. But before I let you go, I want to say something directly to whoever needs to hear this today. If you are in a season that feels like survival mode, if you are running on empty and just trying to get through the day, you are not behind. You are not missing it. You are in it and that counts. If you're in a beautiful season and it's going by too fast, I know, I know. Take a breath. Put your hand on their little backs or their big ones. Memorize the weight of them. And then write that feeling down tonight. And if you're in a bittersweet season, the graduation cap, the empty kindergarten backpack, the last time in a car seat, let yourself feel that. All of it. The pride, the grief, the love that is so big that it doesn't know what to do with itself. And you're allowed to cry literally anywhere. You're supposed to cry anywhere. Don't blink, as my mom used to say. And yeah, it's true. But also you can blink. Just come back. Come back to the table, to the couch, to the conversation, to the small stuff that is actually the big stuff. You can miss a moment and catch the next one. The moments don't stop coming until they do. And until then, you've got more. You always have one more. The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. Thank you, yellers, so much for being here today. If this episode resonated with you, please will you share it with one mom who needs to hear it? Just one. Drop it in a text, put it in a post in your stories, leave it in a DM. Word of mouth is everything from my small podcast, and I am so grateful for every single one of you. Leave us a review if you haven't on the YouTube or any of the places where you get these podcasts that really does help other moms find us. I started this podcast, I can't believe it, a year ago as just a project and a let's see what can happen to this. And we have grown, I get my my stats every single week, month over month. It is so exciting to see that we went from, oh, you had five downloads this week to you've had a hundred downloads this week to a few thousand overall. So let's keep it going. I love doing it. And I will definitely see you back here next time for another episode of Why Am I Yelling? Musings from a menopausal middle aged mom. Did I say that right? I don't even know. You're doing better than you think, you guys. I love you.