This morning, D (baby number four) had the biggest meltdown at daycare drop off. Usually, it’s their father who does the daycare drop off and I do the older two at elementary school. Of course the morning we switch for funsies, I get the meltdown! And why did the meltdown ensue you ask? Because I didn’t blow on his yogurt melt packet correctly.

Yes you read that right. My two year old was thrashing his whole body on the concrete road in the daycare parking lot because I, a board-certified pediatrician, mom of four, and professional dancer to Zootopia songs, failed miserably at blowing on the yogurt melt packet.

Why oh why could I not master this precise, sacred technique that was expected of me by my toddler??

We were running late after my 20th attempt of said request. So I carried him in, hugging him tight, telling him I loved him, handed him to his teacher, with him sobbing as if I cancelled his birthday, and defeatedly walked out the door. A picture sent to me five minutes later showed him smiling with his friends, eating said yogurt melts, happily. I was in the parking lot sobbing myself when I got that picture.

There is a lesson in this chaotic drop off, one that I thought of while starting my drive to work. Something so small, so utterly ridiculous in our minds, is so significant to that little toddler’s brain. I may have failed, multiple times, but I really tried my hardest. And he may not have seen that in that moment, although I do believe he will recognize that in the future.

That we try.

I keep coming back to a reel I saw last week. A father, a son, and a daughter were standing in a line side by side against a garage door. A person called out experiences from childhood, like your dad read to you at night, your dad made you breakfast, your dad said I love you. Each time an experience was said that you lived through, someone would move forward. The kids kept stepping forward, again and again. The father stood still. Each step, the children looked back at their father, slowly realizing the difference in his childhood with theirs. And realizing how there were gaps in his childhood that he filled in theirs. That he never had someone blow on his yogurt melts, metaphorically speaking. The pure empathy that these kids felt for their father as they ran back to him to give a hug was heartbreaking. It also made me realize the hard work this father, and many others, try to make in their lives to allow for a better world. It takes hard work to break through generational trauma, and it leads to a happier ending.

So I would blow on those yogurt melt packets all that I can, no matter how silly it may seem in a busy morning.

Another example of this would be from last weekend. I was working virtually and my husband offered to take the boys out for a bike ride so I could make some calls without my patients hearing yelling on the other side. A few minutes later, I hear my eldest run back in sniffling. “What happened,” I asked. V says that he didn’t want to learn how to bike and my husband sent him back inside if he refused to try. “I just want to walk. I am scared to fall off the bike.” I gave him a hug and told him to go grab a book and that I would be right back. I went outside and took my husband aside and told him what V said to me. He walked with me inside, and picked up V and put him on the pool table. He apologized and said that it was okay if V didn’t want to learn on that day. He encouraged him to try when he felt ready, and that my husband should not have reprimanded him for voicing his feelings. V said he would try in the afternoon that day, and they both hugged and said, I love you.

That was so beautiful and so real. I was proud of both of them, for the honesty, the repair, and the desire to try again. Breaking generational cycles together.

Nobody warned me about this part. I always thought the hard years were the early ones, with the diapers and the night feeds. And yes, that was a particular kind of hard. It seems as the physical load lightens as they get older, and the mental and emotional load quietly doubles. Somewhere between the last diaper and the first real conversation, the physical exhaustion quietly hands the baton to an emotional strain. Something that doesn’t show up in your body the same way, just follows you into the car, still thinking about your two year old’s sobbing face as you walked out the door.

Because my kids will one day understand that we were people before we were their parents. That we showed up to this carrying everything we came from in our pasts. And I hope what they see when they piece us together is people who were trying, even when they got the technique completely wrong. And maybe that’s the whole point.

So that one day, they will step forward. And forward. And forward again.