KING YODA
I am now convinced that procreation (or merely having or being around children, however you come by them – but please, don’t steal them) is not solely so that we can carry on the human race – we’re crowded enough. It is so that we are forced to learn a plethora of life lessons some of us can’t grasp without going through this sobering step – there are many that do not need children to learn this stuff. I say well done to you, go get drunk and sleep in for me please.
Take the King, for instance. In eight (loooooong) weeks, I have learned more about myself, what I can handle, what I can’t handle, and that all the things I knew about life are all the more emphatic now. For instance: I have learned that without prolonged periods of sleep I’m an irrational lunatic that bursts into tears on a daily basis. I have learned that a child’s butt can fill a landfill in a week; I have learned that I can bathe, get dressed and eat breakfast in under eight minutes (yes, I get indigestion). I have learned that I can easily forget about what I look like, how I feel, or how much I want to lie down in the middle of the street and pass out, if I simply get a really good burp from my son - or a smile, that pretty much trumps all. And I have learned that half the crap you go out and buy for this little person is just crap, no matter how much the 'experts' tell you it is needed.
It is like the King’s sheer existence is a crash course for what one needs to learn in life. In short, if they’re small, consider them Yoda as there are some heavy lessons coming your way. Lesson one, patience. If you don’t have any, you better figure out how to get some cause you’re going to need it. Oh sweet mother of donkeys, you’re going to need it. My patience is in short supply on the best of days, then take away sleep, rationality, reason and calmness and that’s where you find yourself post birth. And in this state you are confronted with a small creature that screams its head off and doesn’t want to sleep, eat, or poop until it is ready to do so. Talk about a challenging situation.
Another lesson the King serves up like a bowl of indigestible pond sludge – life is utterly unpredictable. Just when you think you have it figured out, it’s going to change on you, often in the blink of an eye, and that change is potentially going to hurt badly. Case in point, we recently put the King on a schedule. We kept a diary, wrote everything down, had things working like a well-oiled military operation, thinking we had cracked the code and this baby was putty in our hands. The minions were on the brink of mutiny! And then of course the King – who I’m sure was internally laughing his baby head off - reminded us that he was in charge, and if he wanted things to change – similar to life – they were going to change. Take your schedule and shove it, serfs.
Lesson number three thousand and twenty: the King may define narcissism (always Me Me Me. Geesh), but as far as a parent holding onto that characteristic, good f**king luck. Your days of all about you are over, see ya,sayonara! Ayn Rand be damned. You’ll be lucky if you can feed yourself, bathe and comb your hair let alone think the universe revolves around you. Unless of course you have a fleet of nannies that enables you to retain your freedom, and then please god send me one. In a way this lesson is refreshing and I think more people could benefit from not always putting themselves first.
Another thing the King has taught me: babies are Buddhists, and hence, a good reminder of how one should live in the now. The King is so about the now he’s like a freaking monk. I’m hungry NOW. I’m tired NOW. I need my diaper changed, NOW. He doesn’t care about what just happened or what is coming in the future– case in point when he got his first immunization, he cried for 3 seconds, then fell asleep having totally forgotten it even happened. See, he’s in the now. Got to love that.
And my other favorite gem that these little life suckers teach you, if it (they) doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger. Just when I think I can’t handle the grind, or in my case, The King, I somehow find my way through and feel all the more victorious for it [or beaten down within an inch of my life]. See, I’m learning.