Every day’s a new adventure

On Saturday, my son Eric will be a 17 months old. I know, crazy right? While most parents will warn you that time fliess when kids are this age, they don’t tell you quite how fast.

Watching Eric grow has been a joy like no other. He’s now running around, speaking jibberish and eating regular people food for the most part. It’s amazing how every day seems to bring a new skill or understanding for both parent and child.

The infant learns things, tries new foods, and sees new objects. The parents try to learn patience while cleaning up the new food he didn’t like, then changing a diaper that is just objectionable. However, just like they taught you in school, “learning is fun because knowledge is power”. Once you know the things that will calm them (and you) down, the foods they will actually eat, and cheapest diapers that still do the job, things do become a bit easier.

Now, of course, I say this as a part-timer. While I do work from home, my wife takes care of Eric for most of the day. One of the toughest things is trying to figure out things to do every day. It’s not as if you can just go to the zoo or the mall everyday. Our son has a sleeping and eating schedule that must be maintained. There are only a few key times throughout the day where Eric will be well behaved for a little trip.

Christy’s entire life is now bound by that schedule. Sure I try to help where I can, but I can only do so much.

I try to tell her every day that I appreciate how much she does for our family, but by then I’m sure she’s just too tired to even hear it. We sneak away for a few days whenever we can, but it’s usually only to see her parents who live a few hours away. They don’t get to see Eric as often, so we obviously can’t leave him at home with my parents. When you have a kid, no one wants to see you anymore without the baby close behind.

That’s one of the big reasons for the recent push for some “family property” that I wrote about last week. It will be a long time before we can take any kind of extended trip, so having a place that’s close is the name of the game.

While being a parent can be a trying experience, it’s also arguably one of the most rewarding things you can ever do with your life.

While two of my friends had kids at the same time as we did, another of my good friends is now expecting. He’s the last of my close buddies to have a kid.

I’ve mentioned before my hatred for people giving parenting advice when your expecting. Therefore, when he asked me what to expect as a new parent, I just smiled and paused for a second before saying the only thing I know to be true: “Every day’s a new adventure.”

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