1. Having your son stick his pee-soaked shorts in your face to “prove” that he needs clean shorts.
This lovely occurrence took place just last night as I was putting my 4-year old to bed. He wanted to go down to the laundry room to get, and I quote- “A new pair of shorts because I accidentally peed in my shorts.” When I insisted that it was bed time and he did not need to get a new pair of shorts until tomorrow, he grabbed the pee-soaked shorts and pushed them into my nose. Nothing like getting a nostril full of your son’s urine to close out the day!
2. Finally getting a date-night with your wife only to be pulled away from it it to take your son to the hospital!
I wasn’t having it but my wife told me I needed to have more compassion. Truthfully, she wasn’t having it either, but she’s a mom, with a warm-heart, and so she displayed much more compassion and grace than I did. As we sat in the hospital thinking about the delightful sushi we had just abandoned to take our reeling son, who had messed up his knee, to the nearest ER, we started to feel sad for our little guy and the pain he was in. However, the next day, after the oscar-worthy performance in front of the doctors and nurses, we were both filled with awesome thoughts as we watched him ride his bike around the backyard as if nothing had happened the night before. Good times!
3. Unpacking your kid’s summer camp luggage to find most of the stuff you packed untouched.
It doesn’t matter that you made putting deodorant on daily seem cooler than a slushy machine intravenously connected to his arm. Nor does it matter that you packed all of his favorite shirts, neatly, in color order. He (or she) is going to wear that same nasty, stained shirt all week long and only shower when their camp counselor threatens to make them sleep outside if they don’t. Oh, and while you’re at it, forget the nap you skipped on the Saturday afternoon before to wash all of their laundry and pack their suitcase! It amounts to a whopping zero on the credit scale. Somewhere, in the motherly or fatherly realms of heaven, a special gang of “hosts” are singing your praises. I promise!
4. Having your child drop to the ground in the middle of a crowded State Fair and scream that he’s “NOT TIRED!”
Every time my son does this, we take a picture of him. I am going to do a post very soon entitled “The Evolution Of The Cry” featuring my 4-year old son!
5. Discovering that I do not know more than a 10-year old!
I’m not pretending to be the smartest person on earth, but the truth is- I’ve lived 37 years of life and that includes a kindergarten graduation ceremony, a high school diploma and, yes, even a college degree. But my 10-year old insists on arguing with me over whether or not it’s going to be a “hot day” or a “cold day” as I look at the weather app on my phone that clearly says 88 and partly cloudy all day long. My other favorite is looking up lyrics to a song that he is singing wrong, explaining to him that the lyrics actually say this and having him respond with “Nuh-uh dad, nuh-uh dad, that’s not right!” As he does this it suddenly occurs to me- I can’t read. I forgot…I have no idea what these letters, pulled together to form a word, say on this page I’m looking at!
Oh, kids! You just gotta love em! (I feel like I type that a lot on these posts ;-)) I really do love parenting. I mostly love it because it gives me great material to post on a parenting blog with the word “Confessions” in the title.
What about you? Do you have some favorite things you’d like to share? Leave a comment in the comment section of this post and start the conversation!
