Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

I was teaching my boys their reading and math lessons today when I had a feeling.  It was the inescapable realization that every parent eventually feels.  My kids are growing up, and I will never see this day again.  Life is full of happy days, and these are some of the happiest.  There are many good days in front of us, but this experience will never happen in just the same way again.  Watching them do their math, I remember when they first learned to add.  When I watch them read I recalled the day that I taught them to make the “a” sound.  I’ve spent the better part of today thinking about all the little memorable moments that have gone by.  I filled out baby books for both of them, and baby books are what parents often look back to when they want to feel nostalgic.  The first years of life are full of firsts, first word, first crawl, stand, walk, run, birthday… . All the firsts are important, and they conjure good thought in our aging heads.  But, what about all the firsts yet to come.  This morning I was feeling sad for all the times gone by.  Now, though, I’ve started to feel anticipation for all the cool stuff to come (and some firsts that aren’t so cool).  Here are some other firsts; some of them we’ve already experienced, some we haven’t.

Day of School

I’ve been reading on Facebook about all my friends who have taken their kids, in the past week, to their first day of Kindergarten.  I empathize with both their excitement and their trepidation at watching their kids go off to school for the first time.  It must be a true awakening for parents to see just how far their kids have grown since infancy.  We homeschool our kids, and that puts this first off the map so to speak.  Their first day of school will probably be high school, if that.

Bike

Little boys always remember their first bikes.  I remember mine; it was blue and had a big sparkly banana seat and high motorcycle handlebars.  I think it must have been a Schwinn.  Ironically my oldest son has a 1972 mint condition Schwinn Bantam that a good friend, who collects vintage bicycles, gave to him.  I’m sure he’ll remember it, and not just because he’ll probably end up keeping it for his own kids some day.

Brother or Sister

Neil’s little Brother, Alan, was almost born on I-35 during a trip back from Mexico.  We didn’t have medical insurance at the time so we decided to go visit my wife’s family (4 of whom are doctors) for the birth.  We waited and waited and finally gave up and started home again.  She began having contractions at the border crossing.  We drove like crazy all the way, 8 hours, back to Fort Worth where she gave birth 20 minutes after pulling into the emergency room parking lot.  Neil was in tow the entire way and he was even present in the delivery room (because there was nowhere else for him to be).  Well, that was an experience for all of us, Neil’s first and only sibling — so far.

Love

Eventually the kids will fall in love.  Who knows if that will mean marriage or a frustrating trial and error.  The point is that everyone remembers their first love.  Mine was in college.  Most people remember girlfriends and boyfriends from high school or middle school.  Not me.  I never had a girlfriend that lasted more than a week until college.   I look at my boys now, and I think it’s incomprehensible that they’ll fall in love and eventually get married.  To me they are my boys and I never want to give them up.  But, it’s inevitable.  I just hope I can give them good advice when that day comes and they’re confused enough to ask me about it.  That’s when I’ll shrug my shoulders and be forced to admit that I was always a doofus with the ladies.

Broken Bone or Trip to the ER

Alan almost died from croup two years ago.  We didn’t recognize it as croup quickly enough, and when we brought him to our rural doctor it was almost too late.  They had to rush him by ambulance to Madison’s children’s hospital where he spent three days in ICU.  It was a frightening experience.  I rode in the ambulance with him and watched as he stopped breathing.  The doctors were all great and he pulled through.  He still has his Project Linus blanket.  They are my favorite charity.  Donate if you can.  It really does make a difference.  Some firsts aren’t pleasant.

Babysitter

My first babysitter was a terrible liar.  I forget her name, but I remember that I loved her.  One night, when she put me to bed (I must have been about 4), she promised that she would be there when I woke up.  I was comforted and I fell asleep.  The next morning I awoke to find my parents, not the babysitter who I wanted to see.  I ran outside looking for what’s-her-face and was crushed when I found out she went home 10 hours earlier.  Well, the point is that I remember her.  The boys haven’t had many babysitters in their life yet, but the few they’ve had they remember.

Lost Tooth

Apart from the time my grandpa tried to yank a tooth with a string and a door knob, I don’t remember loosing teeth.  That’s something for parents to remember, not kids I think.  Teeth are like baby shoes.  Parents keep them because they like to look back at how small their children once were.  Kids just want the loot that the tooth fairy brings; they don’t remember the specifics.

Death of a Pet

We had a bunny before Mr. B (our current bunny) who lasted about a month with us before he suffered a catastrophic bunny meltdown and died.  He died because of me.  I tried to get him back into his cage for the night, and the dang thing was so elusive that I wound up chasing him all over the place trying to get him in.  I don’t really know what happened, but the bunny spazzed out and keeled over dead.  Boy did I feel like a turd.  I had to go bury him before the kids noticed, but they noticed anyway.  That was when we talked about death for the first time.  I’m glad we had that talk, and I’m also glad the bunny was only with us for a month; had it been a 5 year relationship it would have been much more difficult.

Birds and the Bees Talk

Of course, all parents worry about The Talk.  I have my own approach to the problem even though I know that I’ll eventually have to be their sex ed teacher (again, we homeschool), and that will be a little weird.  Nevertheless, I’m prepared.  It’s like walking into the boxing ring.  Your only choices are to run away like a pansy or stand up and duke it out and possibly get mauled.  I’m confident enough that I think it’ll go fine.  It is, however, an experience that every parent remembers and anticipates.

Best Friend

I don’t make friends easily.  I’ve had two best friends in my life, two people I consider so close to me that I think of them like brothers.  I met my first best friend in Middle School.  He and I were inseparable for three years.  We drifted apart after I moved to the East Coast (From California) but I’ll always remember him as my first best friend.  He died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.  My next best friend has been my best friend for 19 years.  I’ve known him for 22 years, but the first three years we were mortal enemies.  My boys haven’t made many really deep friendships yet.  We’ve moved so often that they haven’t had a chance to make roots.  But, they will make friends, and they’ll eventually make best friends who they’ll cherish as much as I have cherished mine.

No matter how many firsts go by, there will always be more to follow.  In writing this article I’ve started to remember things about myself that were dormant.  My parents remember much more about all my little accomplishments growing up.  I have no recollection, duh, of my birth or babyness.  My first memories start sometime around age 4.  There are certain firsts in my life that are more important to me than they are to my parents.  Likewise, my boys will find some things more noteworthy than I think they are.  But, in the end, it doesn’t matter which perspective we see because it all amounts to one lifetime full of firsts that can’t be replicated by any of the 6 billion other people on the planet, and that will never happen twice because firsts, by their nature, only happen once.

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