Little Packages and Big Decisions

Anyone who is contemplating having kids can hang out with mine for a day.   

Assuredly the best form of birth control. 

I am never going to read her blog again because she mentions somewhere that the single life is like being on holiday 365 days a year (thanks Corinne). Did you know what that number equals when you add it all up, counting each and every day of bachelorhood? It equals an eternity, which was once upon a time a blissful forever that we can never really return to despite how bad we may want to go. Every...single....day..... of the rest of our little lives. Think Milton was right? I frickin' hate poets.

At least that’s how we tend to reflect on it when we’ve already turned down the road and are lost in the fog of parenthood, trying not to loose sight of where we thought we were supposed to be going as we fumble around the dashboard for that light switch. But we are too aware that we need to keep the other hand on the wheel because of the other passengers in the car we need to think about now, hoping that everyone’s strapped in just in case we hit a bump or pothole along the way. Sometimes I do have trouble trying to remember which side of the road you are supposed to be driving on. Sometimes the fog is so thick you can’t even see if there is a dividing line. 

So, still thinking of starting a family? If yes, click here.

You’ve got no excuses for not making the best of what you’ve got, squeezing every last ounce of joy from your unbridled freedom, developing interests and hobbies that fuel your soul with enough energy to get you through the days when you’ve got no choice but to pull yourself out of bed when you might have only gotten only a few hours of restless sleep over what must have been the past few weeks, but you are having trouble remembering because you must be punch drunk from the impact of it all and at this very moment your little bundle of joy is making some primal screaming sound and you are trying not to panic because that tends to be when the worst kind of irreparable mistakes are made not to mention the fact that going without rest for so long does something to the brain that seriously impairs the moral judgment you had sworn to the world you thought you knew that those were the values held dear to you because you’ve got this ‘life thing’ figured out, “got it by the balls” so to speak, but you are wondering what that debilitating pain in your groin is until you realize it’s your own hand that seems to have a death grip on your family jewels,  not that I ever woke up screaming but I sure as hell felt like I should have…

It never STOPs!

If you are still thinking of starting a family, well, there are the simple joys and funny moments, because life does appear to have a sense of humor, at your expense of course. Like when you are out in the garden and start pulling up the roots you planted together, the ones that you’ve nurtured and watched grow to maturity, using them as a clever way to teach the kids about life, where our food comes from, all about the universe, and yes, everything, because they are going to ask questions and start demanding legitimate answers soon enough. But for the moment... oh, to see the joy on the little faces as they seem to ‘get it.'

And then, as you continue to put things into the basket (so you can teach about the virtues of cleanliness by washing them off later), you look up to see the youngest kid squatting over the row you thought you’d all agreed to leave because they weren’t quite ready yet.  At first, there is a sense of pride in the fact that your youngest prodigy, although not yet able to speak, is following the example you just set through keenly observing your work. And then you realize, as your offspring turns, you are about to be witnessing the inexplicable joy of parenthood everyone has raved on about. “Ah, so this is it, one of those moments!” you think…

You think? 

Your twinkling eyes meet and you have an epiphany of sorts because you are somehow simultaneously experiencing elation and horror, a combination that seems to make as much sense to you as it did the first time you saw the pizza-curry special and then looked at the price. Because your beaming child flashes what should be a bright and shiny smile. 

Should be? 

Despite being so high on that eternal life-moment experience (like the first time you actually figured out how to use the controls on the pimped-out toilet seat), you are struck by a down to earth realization that those blood-reddish bits on your child’s teeth are, as you look at the remaining nub of what is so steadily clutched in the little one’ hand, all that is left of what you are hoping is the other half of a radish.  

I’ll never forget that mud-eating grin and how devastatingly elated I felt while wiping it off.