I was very lucky to have my children when I did, completing my family before becoming entrenched in my forties with all the impatience and crankiness that comes with it, along with new reasons to be selfish.

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My daughter used to have a habit of clapping her hands quickly when she was trying to think of something that escaped her and I would tease, “Well, if we had a Clapper, the lights would be going ballistic, but think of the fairies you’d save.”
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My son was walking around the house doing a very bad DeNiro, trying to get a reaction from someone asking, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” 

I took the bait and asked, “Who are you supposed to be?” 

To which he, of course, replied, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”

“What, you wanna be a gangster?  You better think this through first.  All the good names and body parts are taken…Lefty the Fist, Pee-Wee the Chin.  You’re liable to get stuck with something like Ernie the Elbow.”
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When I say something to my daughter that she doesn’t like, she responds with, “Remember, I get to pick the home.” 

And I fire back with, “Eh-eh, when I leave home, I’m wearing a body bag.  No, I plan to die right here, after I’ve used more diapers than all five of you did combined.  You know when you hear elderly people say they want to be surrounded by their children?  By then, they can’t hear their kids fight anymore, so of course they want them around…to change their diapers and clean up after them when they get messy, along with lifting them when they fall or need the TV channel changed.  The home has already been picked and it is YOUR HOME.”
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When requesting assistance or a favor from one of my children, “I’ll give you a million dollars, provided of course, you’ll take a check.”
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In response to one of my children asking for milk, I’ll say, “You’d better want it in a glass, cause my milk giving days are over.”
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I remember my father, who was 46 when I was born, teaching me how to ride a bike, getting a running start alongside it and then jumping on; or engaging in a snowball fight with me, jumping over the railing on our porch landing smoothly on his feet in the driveway below just in time to pelt me with snowballs I did not expect or was able to dodge.  Still in admiration of this man, I envy his apparent enthusiasm for parenthood and wonder where he got his energy.  

Delaying parenthood was an excellent opportunity to hone my organizational skills, convincing me that I must have been a general in another life.  I’m not sure which one I would have been, but it had to be either Patton, Sherman, or Napoleon.