This sweet little baby turns eight on Saturday.

I’m dreading it. And not just because his party is at Rockin’ Jump which means this time next week we’ll all have norovirus.

When my kids turned one, I could not wait to celebrate their birthdays. My enthusiasm was unmatched — like a pre-teen about to walk into a Taylor Swift concert. Same when they turned two, and then three. I had fun with the themes, coordinating the favors and the decorations, picking out what they’d wear, and if you know me, making the cakes.

The few birthdays after that were fun because the parties morphed from mostly our friends in attendance to mostly theirs, and it was exciting to get to know the little people they deemed worthy of spending time with. And then a little less exciting to have to tell them that no, that one friend would absolutely not be allowed back in our house and that from there on out, they could choose their friends from a pre-screened list.

Lately, though, I have found myself looking forward to their birthdays less and less. I still love having a day to single them out and make them feel special and celebrate the amazing people they are growing into. But with each year that passes, the birthdays hit more like Library notices — you know the ones that remind you that the book you just started is about to come due, and you realize you thought you’d have more time to finish it. You’re barely through the prologue.

Let me say two things here. First, as someone who has buried babies, I will always, always recognize the immense gift that being able to pass the years with them is, and every year they grow older is exactly as it should be. Second, I realize my kids are still quite young in the grand scheme of things. I promise I do. But I have always operated about ten years ahead of myself, so humor me.

This month my baby turned three. And, if you can imagine the audacity — he did it the same week as my firstborn started wanting to wear bras and mascara and heels. I loved celebrating Fitz, and I think I am going to love (parts of) helping Evelyn navigate this in-between phase she’s in. But once those little jerks are in bed I have cried myself to sleep more than once in the last few weeks.

I’m just not ready, for any of it.

My whole life I dreamed about being a mom, but a mom to young kids. I never daydreamed about how many times I’d hear my nine-year-old say the word “nipple” while bra shopping, or how many times my seven-year-old would call me “bruh” in one day. I pictured the baby snuggles and the toddler story times. I did not picture hearing “I hate you, you’re the worst!!” over cutting my son’s daily screen time five minutes short.

I’m not ready for what comes next. Namely because I have no idea what to do around teenagers. If possible, I’m more awkward around them now than I was when I was a teenager. The last time I talked to one I actually finished a sentence with the “ba dum dum, tssss” sound effect.

Young kids, I know. For the decade before I had my own kids, I helped take care of other people’s kids, always in a cycle of babies to toddlers to preschooler, which is when they stopped needing the help so it was back to babies again. I was good at it, on solid ground.

Now, not so much. It’s more like I’m standing on the quicksand I grew up thinking would be a much more prominent threat in my life than it’s turned out to be. I’m about to be 40. We’re on borrowed time with our first dog, who’s more like our first baby. Everything’s changing and if my many emotional breakdowns of the past few months are any indication, I don’t think I’m handling it very well.

A big part of my problem, and this is just a theory thrown out by a therapist or four, is that I tend to “disastersize.”

For example, my 6-year-old asks me what French kissing is, tells me she wants to French kiss her crush, and then leaves me sitting at the kitchen counter debating whether I’ll go by Mimi or Nana when I’m a grandmother at 49.

My 9-year-old starts to show signs of being a people pleaser and I try to calculate how old she’ll be when she comes home with her first face tat because someone dared her.

My 7-year-old lets his temper get the better of him yet again and I wonder what hard drug he’ll be addicted to because he thinks it helps him cope.

Basically, my kids turn six and in my mind it’s all downhill. And at the bottom of the hill, it’s all teen pregnancy and drugs.

I paint a real pretty picture.

I miss when their interests were simple. When they didn’t even know what streaming was and only knew that every once in awhile in the afternoon they’d get to watch an episode of Daniel Tiger. In case there’s any question about where the interests in this household are leaning at this stage — Evelyn’s first word, besides mama and dada, was Dog. Alex’s was Dog. Lottie’s was Dog.

Fitz’s was our parental controls password.

I swear to God. He can barely talk but he wakes up from nap, plops himself on the couch and tells anyone within reach of the remote “you push up up, down down down.”

I realize this defeats the purpose of having one. But when there are four crotch goblins underfoot while you’re taking the babysitter through the instructions, someone overhears. And I can’t change it, I don’t have anymore passwords left in me.

So, that’s it, really. Alex is turning eight and I am unwell. Every life change up until now — graduation, career, moves, marriage, babies — has been mostly about potential and excitement. This next one feels like it’s mostly about crippling anxiety, mammograms, more skin tags and impending irrelevance.

Please comment with whether or not you think Mimi or Nana suits me better.