Law Students

you're doing it wrong

By Andrea

A few days ago I was feeding Becca her dinner, which was cheese pieces and a vegetable mix of peas, green beans, carrots, corn, and lima beans. She picked out the green beans first, then the peas and carrots and lima beans, then the cheese, and left a lot of the corn. I asked her, "What kind of a kid are you? You did that in the wrong order!" She rubbed her vegetable-juicy hands in her hair and smiled.

I remember a similar experience 2 years ago when I was in a Japanese restaurant in Manhattan with a friend, his wife, and his 1-year old. The baby took the lemon slice garnish off her mother's plate of salmon teriyaki, picked it apart, and ate it, ignoring the actual lunch. Because who's to say you're not supposed to eat that? My friend told me I had to have children, because you saw life in a whole new way, from the beginning. And, yes. It is like that.

I know a lot of people, especially twenty-somethings without kids, can't stand people who talk about their kids a lot. Because the stories are really boring, in an objective sense, like hearing about people's dreams or dog photos. Your kid didn't used to be able to stand up holding a ball, and now she can? After you say "How cute" once, yeah, the stories are all kind of the same.

But for a parent, once you're in the zone of appreciating the wonder of this small person learning how to be human, the tiniest things really are fascinating. Sometimes I feel like maybe this is what it's like being high (I don't actually know), the way I can sit on the carpet and absolutely blow my mind over the fact that my daughter is trying to put a hat on her head. Whoa, man. This is both completely ordinary and something that millions of people have watched their kid do, and at the same time, here I am and here's the man I love and we literally made a person out of that love, which that sounds like some ridiculous hippie metaphor, but that metaphor has Dan's face and my hands and feet and says "WHEE!" when she rides her rocking horse.

And you know what I did with Becca's leftover corn? I ate it myself. Life is full of unexpected opportunities.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).