One of the things that I've learned about being a parent is that many of the acheivements that we look forward to for our children is followed rather quickly by a scamble to adjust to the new abilities that our offspring have acquired. It's a bit of a swindle in that every proud moment contains with it immidete regret and anxiety about our how life must now adjust to the trickier circumstance.
For instance:
Yay! My kid can roll over on their own!
Crap! Now I have to worry about them falling off of the bed!
Yay! My kid is crawling!
Crap! Now I have to put up baby gates!
Yay! My kid can stand!
Crap! Now he can knock my coffee off of the counter top!
Yay! My kid can walk!
Crap! Now I have to chase her!
Yay My kid is talking!!!
Crap! Now she can be called to testify against me!
Yay! My kid can use the toilet on her own!
... actually there isn't a down side to this one.
Yay! My kid is going to preschool!
Crap! Now I don't have an excuse to not post to the blog as often.
Yay! My kid entered first grade!
Crap! I may have to explain during parent teach conferences how my kid knows so much about zombies.
Yay! My kid is enterting middle school!
Crap! Middle school sucks.
Yay! My kid has her first boyfriend!
Crap! Now we have to leave the state!
Yay! My kid is entering high school!
Crap! I'm old enough to have a kid in high school!
Yay! My kid is getting his learners permit!
Crap! I have to start guilt tripping him about the negative impact that cars have on the enviroment and that mass transit is what cool people really do.
Yay! My kid got her drivers license!
Crap! I have to weigh the options between potentially dieing in a car crash or spending the next 20 years in prison for intentionally blinding my child.
Yay! My kid is graduation high school!
Crap! I have to try to remember what I did before all of this started!
Yay! My kid is starting college!
Crap! I have to look into how much my kidney's are worth on the black market!
Yay My kid is dropping out of college to pursue a career as a street performer!
Crap! My kid is moving back in!
Yay! My kid is going back to school!
Crap! I'm nearly out of kidneys!
Yay! My kid is graduating college!
Crap! I have a kid old enough to graduate college!
Yay! My kid is having a kid!
Crap! Didn't I just start this whole process?
Obiously I'm speculating on some of these, but I'm already pre-stressing. The boys are walking, Merritt is talking, Maggie is entering High School and the 16 year old will start working towards her license any day now. Where does the time go?
Cheers,
L&P
