"They are the best times..."

After church this morning, an older couple stopped to talk with me. They obviously knew who I was because the gentleman made some sort of comment about how he couldn't believe I had three kids already, that he remembered me back when Jon and I were just married. I made some comment about how I'm much busier now.

Then he said, in a reflective sort of way, "Those are the best times you know. They're hard but they're also the best."

I think this is now about the 10th time someone has said something like this to me in the past few months. The timing of these comments always come at strangely appropriate times. Last night at dinner, Jon and I were both hot, tired, and annoyed at our unappetizing food selection and unruly kids. We didn't have a good meal.

Is it a matter of romanticizing life with small, demanding children? Is it a matter of forgetting what it's like to feed a baby several times in the night, to break up fights between a 2 and 4 year old over who gets what color of plate, to discover a dirty diaper on your way out the door when you're already late for something?

Or, it is something that people in my stage of life need to constantly be reminded of? That because of the immediate/extensive demands that young children present, we don't or perhaps even can't always have that glorious "this is such a privilege to be able to do with" perspective unless those outside of our demographic remind us of this.