In a general sense, I very much agree with you here. Some of my happiest moments have come when I was prepping food or cleaning up and listening to loved ones enjoy the aftermath or anticipation of a meal or a round of good snacks.

But I've been observing parents for a couple of decades now, and there seems to be a consensus about the special delights of those first few years of your offspring's life--the ones before they refine their natural selfishness and start getting good at deceiving and manipulating their fellow humans. Teenagers can still be beloved children, and more fun in some respects than younger children can be, but almost all of them have lost the helplessly sweet nature that most kids have during the first few years they are able to walk and talk. 

When they grow up and move out it seems like the time of their childhood just flew by.  I know that MC and I spent as much time as we could with our kids, with all the games and activities and recitals and plays and all that, but it still went by too fast.  We are fortunate to have all but two of the grandkids here in the Swirl, and we love that, but we both miss the days of our own littlies being around.  

BFD, I hear ya.  Hindsight is seen through rose colored glasses and like anything else in life, whatever you have now, you long for something else.  When you have babies, you long for the day when you can get some sleep.  When your babies are grown and gone, you long for the days when you had nothing else going on except caring for those little ones.  The saying that youth is wasted on the young comes to mind.  When you're a kid you can't wait to grow up and "be able to do whatever you want" but once you're a grown up you long for the days of no responsibility.  

I struggle with the fact that my baby making days are over.  I battle that thought with how great things are now and what neat people my kids are becoming.  I'm excited for them to have all the great experiences life has to offer and I fear the pain they will experience too.  I'm certainly in no hurry for them to grow up but I am so proud of who they are now and that's where my new happiness lies.  That's the thing about life, you have to keep finding your "new happy".  Life changes and it will never go back to the way it was but you can appreciate what you had and find new happiness in what you have.

"Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, Today is a Gift-that's why it's called The Present"