Parenting through transitions

I am stunned by how difficult it is to change my parenting tactics to keep up with my little ones new skill sets. Each time she changes or advances I find myself bewildered at just how to parent this little different but overwhelming change.
Really she is just tweaking her technique, and that's all I need to do as well, only it I find myself baffled at what the little new change needs to be sometimes.
Sometimes its as simple as just skipping the counting, or coming up with clever consequences, but these things can really trip an unpracticed parent up. I have found it takes me about a week to even notice it's changed, and then at least another week of changing my thinking as to how to handle it.
Then I think, these are the most frustrating times for me as a parent because suddenly in all the chaos I have to solve a puzzle I didn't attend to make time for. Deep breaths. All is well.

Real quick

There is no such thing as doing anything "real quick" with little children in your life. I look around and find myself in the middle of about eight started projects wondering when and how I am going to complete them. At least half of them before I start dinner. It's easy to move from breakfast leaving a mess on the table to get everyone dressed, but then the rush to clean up breakfast before lunch is good fortune.
My husband, when returning from work on evening, expressed his frustration that it seems we are always doing dishes. We are!
Laundry goes pretty smoothly around here, only the baby doesn't like when he gets left so I can change loads and carry up the folding. Even worse is when I go to do something and his follows and he is left alone.
The day goes so quickly unless I go to the park, which is dreadfully boring for me. I can't help but think, how come my toddler who is half my size gets all the free time so she can burn energy my fat *** should be burning energy.
That's enough of a rant.. The truth is, I wouldn't have it any other way, I just laugh at this seemingly easy tasks that get left half done because of constant interruption and hungry needy little ones.

It is like it used to be

A friend of mine was telling me how her almost twelve year -old daughter came home from school saying the boy on the bus said "you don't even know what 69 is" and this began the very practical factual explanation of what 69 is. Now later when I told my husband the story I added "it's not like it used to be" only to reflect on my first memory of a sex conversation in the neighborhood.
The first time I remember learning about oral sex I was twelve, it was the summer before 7th grade, when kids were making fun of a neighborhood girl saying she is called BJ for a reason, not her name. Her name was Bobbie Jo, but they called her BJ because she gave blow jobs to boys. So it is like it used to be. Oral sex conversations happen around eleven, periods happen around eleven and twelve, and boobs happen and sex conversations happen and it is like it used to be.