Life before kids.
Remember it?
• Sleep past 9…every Saturday.
• Money in the bank
• Never touched, smelled or tasted poop (admit it –I know some of you out there have gotten the stuff in your mouth)
• Still “pee free”; meaning no human was yet to wet on you
• Big boy movies and TV shows were watched in REAL time most days or night
• 90% of your saved recordings weren’t from kids channels
• Milk never ran out
• Precious items around the house were fully intact and working
• Carpet was crisp and clean
• You didn’t own a mini-van
Life was good…or…so you thought.
On the way to work one morning recently I paused mentally and thought about my life with three kids, a wife and two dogs. I smiled so big I nearly wrecked into the completely stopped MiniCooper in front of me on HWY 360. (I’m sure everyone around me assumed I was texting.)
Regardless, it hit me that the life I had now was what “it” was all about. Kids truly make the world go ‘round and nothing is more rewarding than guiding another human being through the maze of it all. Sure sometimes you want to ship them off to the closest zoo but, to be honest life would be a little boring if you did.
My three kids are all 5 or younger as I write this and some of the words they use and comments they make prove my point perfectly. I’m sure you have a similar list.
Enjoy…
“Dad, why did God make brothers so mean?” Chloe asked me one day.
“CrapNCrunch” – what my son called Captain Crunch cereal for a long time
“ToothKip” –my daughter would say when she needed a toothpick
“I want to do magic so I can make Quinn disappear.” my daughter Chloe said at age 5.
“Daddy, I like when you say that.” Sidney said at age 5 with a very bashful look on her face when I told her she are pretty and she could sing well.
“Daddy, this is hard work.” my son Quinn said in all seriousness at age 3 when he was helping me rake leaves in the back yard.
“I got this bruise when I was running around the house with my shirt over my head and ran into the coffee table” Chloe said.
“Mom, that man has a lot of stamps” Quinn said pointing at a man with tattoos all over his arms at a local fast food restaurant.
I still laugh-out-loud when I think about this hilarious examples and I wish I had days to pillage through the mounds of others many of you reading this could send me.
Life might have been fun and more financially free before kids, but life without them would seem incomplete.
Many things are certain about kids, they stress you out, they break the bank, they do not use their brains often, and they stink most of the time. But only thing is certainly clear – nothing makes you understand love more than having a few.
Thank you God for kids. And thanks for letting us be yours.
Now I get it.
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Psalm 127:3-5
© 2010, J. Brady
"I say it how I see it and I make no bones about it."
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