Opus 2016-290: Ode to Old: Phases of Parenthood

Parenthood is awesome but like most awesome experiences it is multifaceted. 

You have the ecstatic beginning.  Holding your first child is enough to overwhelm any one with feelings.  They are incredible.  They are beautiful.  They are ugly.  They are full of potential.  They also seem to be full of fluids and they leak.

They are like a zombie attack.  You try to teach them about life and all they do is keep coming and eating your brains.  Will they ever learn to get that spoon of applesauce inside their mouth?  Will they ever get tired of watching gravity pull that same spoon to the ground?  Will they ever learn the meaning of “no”?  Will they ever get potty trained?  The answer is “Yes”.  You may not believe it now, but trust me, it will happen.

On the one side you have the duty of passing on the truths that were intrusted to you.  You mold the next generation.  They will take the values you live by and morph them into something that you never remembered demonstrating.  Eventually they will make you proud, I hope.  I know mine have.

Then you get over the hump.  On the other side you find the children dragging you kicking and screaming into the next century.  Routers?  Firewalls?  LOL?  Smart phones?  I look at all of the ingredients of my life that have been gifts from my children and are now standard.  Would I have ever  bought an I-pod?  Who would have ever thought you could charge a phone without wires?  Or that your phone could wake you up on time Monday through Friday and let you sleep on the weekends?  When was the first time you asked your kids, “What does _____ mean?”

In between are all the lessons of love and life that you learn in the process.  I think I am getting old.  I am enjoying the ride.

homo unius libri