Raising Kids

Natie, my most persistent child, has decided that everyone in our family should have a blog. Natie's best quality is his persistence. To avoid the risk of being pestered every day for the rest of my life, I am now starting a blog.

Those of you who are just beginning the adventure of parenthood, be warned. This is NOT an 18-year commitment! Personal experience tells me that it lasts at least 30 years, and I'll let you know if it ever ends. But as far as I can tell, there is no end. (That's what my mother tells me, too!) It's all a trick. You see other people with cute little bundles of joy. These little bundles are soft and sweet, usually sleeping peacefully and smelling wonderfully of Johnson's Baby Powder. You think, "Oh, how cute! I want one of those!" So you decide to procreate. You throw up. (Or in Lixi's case, spend several months willing it back down.) You gain weight. Your feet swell. You become uncomfortable. You burst into tears for no apparent reason. Or worse, you have to live with a person who is going through the previous symptoms. But then you get that cute little soft, sweet, wonderful smelling bundle of joy, and when it first comes, it sleeps most of the time. That is the trick. You fall in love with that bundle of joy while it is still small and helpless and usually sleeping. By the time you realize that it is actually a 13-year old, stomping up the stairs and screaming "I quit this family!', or a 16-year old turfing the middle school soccer field with a car he isn't allowed to drive, or an 18-year old coming home from her first year of college who spends the entire summer fighting for female dominance with her 10-year old sister, or a 17-year old who tells you that the police are on their way over to pay him a visit, or a 16-year old who dyes her hair three different colors in ONE day, or a 14-year old who decides that if he is going to have to go on a family vacation that makes him miserable, by golly everyone in the entire family is going to be miserable as well, or a daughter who thinks that she needs to have one of every article of clothing ever made, in every available color option.....by the time you find out these things, it's too late. You're already very attached to the kid, and every time you look at them, all you can see is that sweet little bundle of joy that you fell in love with so many years ago. So you put up with them. And you love them still.

And you start a blog.

The bundle of joy that gets you hooked.