Just enjoy it!

"Enjoy this time while you can, it goes by so quickly."

When someone says that to me, I hear this: Enjoy this root canal while you can, because pretty soon it will be over and you will have healthy, happy teeth and lots of free time.

Sure, my kids are cute and say funny things. Sure, I love spending time with them. When they're not screaming. But mostly they are screaming. And their screams say, "You are not good enough. In fact, you are terrible. Now stop being so terrible and get me more milk."

To which I reply, "I cannot wait until you move out." In my head, because saying it out loud would be mean and probably put them in therapy. OK, there was one time I said it out loud, but she probably won't remember it anyway, and I have a special bank account for therapy bills.

Speaking of things we remember, or forget. This quote by Joshua Foer, who wrote a book about memory, may explain why so many older people think "it goes by quickly."

Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next—and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.

Life seems to speed up as we get older because life gets less memorable as we get older.

Less memorable indeed. I can't think of anything less memorable than changing thousands of diapers and wiping thousands of dirty bottoms. One dirty tush blends into the next, until before you know it, your kids are in college and you're telling some young mother to just "enjoy it while you can, it goes by so quickly." It doesn't go by quickly. You just don't remember it.

So, the next time someone tells you to enjoy this time while you can, instead of just rolling your eyes, you should kindly suggest that if they miss it so much, they should spend a few days in your house helping out. You can bet time won't pass quickly enough for them when they're up every two hours to get a glass of water and clean up an exploding diaper.

When they "wake" in the morning, groggy and cranky, tell them they should enjoy their time with your children while they can. It will go by so quickly.

Be prepared to duck and run for cover.