We went out of town for a little retreat last weekend. Sunday (Father’s Day) was spent both goofing off at the pool and trying to calm down a fussy baby. The polar differences of activities over the weekend made me think about the popular conception (among people who don’t have children) that life is less exciting after you are burdened with progeny. I know that I felt this way before I had kids. Now I look back and think that my pre-child life was actually not that interesting. Life was generally a plain with the occasional hill now and then. Toss in a kid or two and your life suddenly has some topography.
I was 19 and my wife had just turned 18 when we married. We had been dating since high school and I was just starting my first semester of college, so it seemed like the perfect time. Our honeymoon was a road trip across the United States in four days. We settled into our new home quickly; I started school immediately and we both took on full time jobs to pay the bills.Then, about a month later, we found out we were about five and a half months pregnant.
Sometimes you Just. Want. Them. To. Go. To BED!!! But you should never (Never!) pass up an opportunity to talk to your kid. Even when you know that tomorrow AM will Not Be Fun as a result.
As a parent, seeing all of the electronic gadgets available to kids today can be a little intimidating. My teenagers want cell phones, iPods, computers, and video games.
My niece came for lunch today. The beautiful one. She is six, and has already appeared in TV ads, clothing catalogues and had a portfolio when she was a fetus. OK, maybe I exaggerate a little, but she really is pretty. The discussion turned to her current shoot coming up soon, and my wife’s parents and sister looked uneasily over at our three. They all had varying degrees of snotty noses, randomly selected old clothes and uncombed hair.
How do you get your kid to not just try again, but to keep trying in spite of failures and obstacles that come up along the way? How do you teach them that after you get past those failures and obstacles success is usually waiting for them?
