My 5 yr. old daughter was goofing around instead of getting ready to go to church the other night when I told her that she needed to hustle up and get her shoes on or else she'd "miss the boat". She replied, "Daddy, we ride to church in a car. We don't have to take a boat!" Isn't that cute? Isn't it so cute when you're kids say things like that, especially when you are busting butt to leave and the baby is screaming and you can't find your keys? Isn't it so cute to have that little sweet voice correcting you in the midst of all that? And later when you find out that little dolly was playing with your keys and that's how they ended up in the bottom of the toy chest, don't you just want to give them a big 'ole squeeze? Isn't it adorable how they took a fat crayon and wrote all over the walls of your house because the 4, 587 sheets of blank paper they had weren't ideal enough to draw a stick-figure Blues Clues treasure hunt map on? Oh the memories we'll have of the time when the baby crapped himself so profusely that it spilled out of his diaper and into his car seat - I'll never forget the way he got it all over himself and almost made us puke and how we had to throw away the car seat and hose him down like he was the only known carrier of a fatal disease - so precious! And if only we could forever capture the feelings we had the moment our daughter informed us that "somehow" her slice of pizza ended up face down on the carpet and then she accidentally stepped on it. Who would ever want to experience life without having worked on your home printer for 3 hours before discovering the source of the problem to be a penny lodged in a spot that only a malicious little hand could have put it?
Have you ever been at a friends house who had kids before you had kids yourself and experienced them changing a poop diaper? The smell will bring tears to your eyes and you'll be fighting your gag reflex like crazy, but then your friends will say "Ah, it will be different when it's your own kids. You won't mind it then." BULLCRAP. It stinks just as bad when it's your own kids! You could submerge my 1 year old in a submarine and you'd still be keenly aware of the moment he grunted. Yeah, I'll be sure to cherish the memory of those diapers for the rest of my life.
And who can forget the wonderful moments you spend playing with your kids?
"Daddy! Let's play the Princess and the mean Prince! You be the mean Prince and I'll be the Princess!"
"Ok, how do we play tha - "
(WHAM! "Disney Princess Ariel Magic Wand" to the left testicle...)
Good times folks...good times!
How is it that my kids can't manage to get their trash into the trash can, which has a huge opening, but yet never fail to smack me directly in the eye or across the jewels with any small, whip-like toys they own?
Praise the Lord for my wonderful wife, who puts up with this sort of thing to a degree I cannot imagine so that my children can have a stay-at-home mom!