Beck Vass: The light at the end of the parenting tunnel

The fights they were having every day - over everything - appear to have become mixed with friendship. They are playing. Together. Photo / Getty

Parenting stresses tend to come in waves. You can go through weeks, or months, of hell where you literally feel like you're drowning.

Then something shifts*, and it feels "normal" again. Until the next wave.

I've talked to lots of people who experience this.

I have just come out of many months of feeling breathless with the exhaustion of dealing with two irrational, demanding toddlers. Some days I felt like I could not breathe.

Our girl is four, almost five, and our son is two-and-a-half.

Life felt very hard for a while there and I felt like I was never going to come up for air.
And then something shifted. I don't know if it was me, or the kids.

The fights they were having every day - over everything - appear to have become mixed with friendship. They are playing. Together.

Things felt so hard for so long that I would see friends' Facebook posts about their siblings being mates and I would feel sick about my own parenting abilities and worry why my kids weren't friends. Or I'd wonder if the posts were fake.

They still fight all the time but there are snippets of friendship coming in. Partly I think what's happened is my workload has decreased.

My son, bless him, toilet trained himself overnight. I apologise again. I'm not sharing this to brag - I have had massive, massive issues with his sister - a story for another day.

I am sharing this because for however briefly it lasts, it feels as if a fog has lifted - enough for me to see how much hard work it has been having children in that highly-dependent stage, needing me all the time for everything.

It feels like I can suddenly see a light at the end of the tunnel that wasn't there before. I can't remember the last time I bought nappies, or wipes, or used our stroller. We went away and stayed in a motel and went out for dinner and didn't have massive dramas in either location.

Our world suddenly feels easier and as if it is expanding.

I don't know if I am writing this to reassure anyone struggling, or to remind myself in a day, or a week, or a month from now - whenever that next wave comes (and it will) - that the advice they give you is right. It is all just a phase. And phases end.

So why ... WHY... am I thinking about wanting a third kid?

*Please note: As I soon as I finished writing this piece, my kids started behaving like psychopaths. So please tune in next week when I remind you that there really is no light at the end of the tunnel after all.