First off, let us all admire this beautiful fish that I caught on Lake Limestone this morning while fishing in a tournament with my father-in-law and the rest of the Gatesville Bass Club
"I caught you a delicious bass."
Moving on.
This parenting thing is easy, said no-one ever. That parenting is hard is as about as obvious as Liberace hanging out in an NFL locker room. Everyone can see it. However, I've discovered, at least for me, that the hardest parts about parenting aren't so much about the logistics of parenting, or establishing routines, or making sure the boy isn't accidentally wearing his sister's underwear. For me, the hardest part is doubt. I've always felt that doubt is actually healthy. I think we should always question or else you end up swallowing idiocy from the loudest person around, then the next thing you know you're sporting a bad haircut and marching with tiki torches. Also, Nickelback, Low-rise jeans, and JNCO's. Pretty much anything that involves white people. What I mean to say is, we should always question if we are doing the right thing. Of course, this can also lead to being paralyzed with indecision, but that's a whole other blog. To bring this back around to parenting, and this is of course nothing new to those of you who already have/had children, but the doubt of making sure you are doing the right thing is EASILY the hardest part of this respite endeavor that we are partaking on right now. Is it ok that I let her have 4 more taquitos? Should I not have let him wear that shirt 2 days in one school week? Am I turning the child into another millennial zombie by letting them play on the iPad? Should I not have filled the bathtub up to their eyeballs and given them the toaster, liquid Drayno and muscle relaxers to play with? That's the doubt. So far, THAT has been the hardest part of parenting. Perhaps its just a matter of realizing that no matter what I do, no matter my motivations, I'm going to mess my kids up. My parents did it. Obviously, they didn't mean to, and I am in no way blaming them for my deficiencies as a human being, but you can only hear "you're going to be tall" so many times until the day comes when you sit in Kuczek's class and he tells you "you're screwed" and you then realize that you have to doubt everything your parents tell you for the rest of your life, and now you have lost your sense of trust in the world. Perhaps they also made me dramatic.... Anyways, coping with that realization has been tough. You make them go to bed early (no story time) because they didn't follow directions at dinner, and then you watch them cry for the first time, and you are left wondering if you just traumatized them and now they don't think of you in the same way that they did 20 minutes ago, and boom, you're one more thing that makes their life even harder. And you sit down as a couple, and you talk about it, and you realize that all you need is to hear the other person say what you really know in your heart to be true, "We made the right decision. This is what they need. This is what we need. It was only a matter of time. We got this."
They have been amazing, and one of the great things about this is you understand what parents say when they talk about kids being worth it. My dad told me that there is nothing that gives him more joy than his kids and that its a whole different level of happiness. I know my mom feels the same way but there is a chance that her level of joy with us might be matched by an old re-run of the 1960's TV show, "Combat." But really, that speaks more to how much she loves "Combat." Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is that these kids do things, and say things, and act in ways that makes me happy in ways I hadn't experienced before. Developmental speech impediments, songs about donuts, the fact that he freaks out giggling every time you say "go put on your pannies", its all one big ball of Massey joy. And these aren't even our kids. They are just kids who got to spend 3 weeks in Hotel Massey. It's going to be hard to let them go. By the way, what is the max penalty for kidnapping? I kid, I kid....maybe.
We got this.
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