The Good Life – May-June 2018

Their First Self-Delivered Bite
The day your child learns to feed himself is the first major
milestone on the road to true self sufficiency… the last
stop being potty training. It’s also the first day you get to
begin thinking about the day when you’ll once again be
able to feed yourself an entire meal uninterrupted. I’m still
waiting for that day — Mack knows how to get food into his
mouth, but he’s not winning any gold medals for efficiency
or cleanliness. Side note: toddlerhood should come with a
free dog; real time cleanup is a wonderful thing.
When Mack figured out how to shovel food into his own
mouth, it immediately freed his mom and I up from having
to sit by his side throughout meal time. We suddenly had
time to finish preparing the rest of dinner, throw some
dishes in the dishwasher or run a rag over the counter.
You can get a lot accomplished in the 45 minutes it takes
a toddler to consume six chicken nuggets and some corn.
Independent Play
Don’t get me wrong. Crawling around on the floor playing
with toys, pushing Macklin on the swing at the park and
carrying him around town on my shoulders are some of
my favorite times. But when he slowly started figuring
out how to play by himself, it was one of the more proud
parenting moments of my life.
I could see his creative genius taking root as the newly
formed neural connections in his brain began firing in
rapid succession trying desperately to keep up with the
unfolding possibilities before him. He was a mad scientist
clocking in for his first day of work inside his own private
lab of destruction. And while he’s busy destroying, I get
some work done in the next room door without worrying
he’s going to accidentally roll down the stairs.
The Car Seat Climb
Parenthood brings with it a range of challenges and
rewards, heartache and joy. All boiled down, though,
parenting is basically the intersection of three things:
boundless love, intense exhaustion and good ol’ fashioned
lower back pain.
With a ten pound baby who has steadily maintained
his 99th percentile weight average since birth, imagine
what a magnificent surprise it was for my wife to walk
around her Subaru to find Macklin already sitting — and
smiling — in his car seat. She didn’t even get the groceries
all loaded up before she texted me with the good news.
As I read the announcement, my back instantly relaxed,
almost audibly so.
Spontaneous Love
You can rank these and other milestones however you’d
like, but there will be no disagreement on what stands at
the top of the list. When your child looks into your eyes and
blurts out an “I love you, Daddy,” good luck, my friends.
Gooooood luck. It’ll never get any better than that. •
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