For more than 20 years, nothing that I had previously considered mine belonged only to me. When I wasn't at work (and sometimes when I was), my time, my thoughts, my possessions, my body became communal property.

It was wonderful, and incredibly difficult, and then it was over.

Oh sure, my clothes still go missing occasionally and my now-adult children do, on occasion, hurl themselves upon me as I lie reading on the couch. When two or more are gathered, the refrain of "mom, mom, MOM" can still ring skyward.

But the cacophony of three kids home from school or wondering what we are going to do this weekend is long gone. No one tugs at my shirt demanding to be picked up or to let me know their sibling has done something terrible or to drag me into the backyard to see a very cool bug.

My youngest still occasionally looms over me, offering me tales from school, demands and requests, her need for advice or a hug. She still has things she wants to show me — her latest thrifting haul, a funny video she made, a prize she won.

But soon even that will come to an end, at least on a daily basis. Soon much of my motherhood will occur over texts, or phone calls if I'm lucky.

My older kids, like older kids everywhere, think their youngest sibling is spoiled. Comedian Nate Bargatze has a bit about this that begins: "I have a sister and she is 10 years younger than me and apparently she was raised by her best friends."

There are arguments to be made against this; younger children often complain about the dearth of photos of them as babies, or that their early memories are built not around the playground and Mommy and Me classes but being dragged to their older siblings' soccer games and dance recitals and generally fighting to be heard.

Certainly the last child does benefit from a relaxation of rigor, which is, in part, the result of experience — the first child is, essentially, a test subject — and exhaustion.

But the youngest child also spends time in a nest that is almost empty, with parents who are suddenly aware of all the "last times" they've missed. With mothers like me, who actually gets a little choked up when she realizes she has read half a book without being interrupted once, or fights tears when she realizes that her laundry burden will soon be halved.

Which is precisely why I don't make that girl do her own laundry. Pretty soon it won't be there for me to do.

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