Musings

I was lying in bed the other night idly thinking how parenthood has fundamentally changed me. My response to people in general and children specifically has improved dramatically. Walking from a seminar last weekend I heard the peal of of child's laugh. Instantly my mood was improved, and in a competing emotion I also instantly missed my boy, who was only a 10 minute ride away.

I watch parents struggle to simultaneously teach their children and participate in the world. Ordering and consuming a simple cup of coffee in public with your toddler can be fun, or it can be a nail-biting endurance challenge. Now I have an enormous amount of respect and empathy for people who, just a few years ago, I would have regarded as "Those A-hole breeders who can't contain their brats."

Those of you that know me will probably think that anything that gets me to be more accepting and kind is a good thing.

I was thinking these thoughts around 10:30pm, as I assumed the baby was winding down from a particularly late bedtime. He'd been putting himself to bed around 9pm all week, which was great. Then... things went sideways, he ramped up, and was far far far away from sleepiness. I wondered at some point if he'd learned how to make a pot of coffee. By midnight, we'd given up on trying any of the previously acceptable methods of quieting the baby and threw him in the car. He usually falls right asleep, but last night, at 12:30 in the damn morning, he stayed alert and interested in the drive until we hit 122nd Av. He managed to stay asleep the rest of the way home, and through the transfer to bed. He woke up again at 3am, screaming bloody murder. At that point, I recalled my bucolic parenthood thoughts and it all seemed like a fiction invented by an ailing, sleep-deprived mind.

I have some photos of him in a somewhat better humor:

This is the laugh I'll wait all day for.



Spaghetti is serious business.



I had to clean this all up

I'm going to bed.