That knowing smile

What a weird week I’m having. First of all, I haven’t written in quite a while, which nearly blows my New Year’s resolution within the first month. Then, three out of the five school days this week were more or less cancelled due to snow. (I say more or less because on Tuesday we had a late opening followed by an early dismissal. So basically, I came in for lunch.) I have a friend whose wife is a few days overdue with their first child, and it being their first, they are probably completely panicked, not realizing that *nobody*’s baby delivers on time.

This reminds me, I’m definitely turning into my parents. See, Dora called my wife, basically saying, “Today’s my due date and there’s no baby….what’s wrong?!” While Christine was consoling her on the phone, I was standing by with that smile on my face. I’m sure you know which one. It’s the same one your parents gave you when you swore to them that “when I’m a dad, I’m gonna let my kids stay out as late as they want!”. It’s the slow, not-quite-sad grin that comes with a little shake of the head, with the unsaid words left hanging in the air like the sword of Damolces: “You just wait. You’ll see what life’s *really* like.”

And of course, now that I’m starting to know better, my parents have switched from the faint “You’ll find out for yourself” smile to the ear-to-ear “I told you so” grin. I can’t argue with them.. they did tell me so. The only recourse I can take is to smile at my friends, shake my head, and think, “Oh, they’ll find out soon enough.”

And there’s plenty of opportunity for this. Off the top of my head, I have 8 close friends who are either expecting or have children under 1 year old. It must be something in the water. A great side effect of all these little ones is that they act as a natural birth control. If we want a baby fix, all we have to do is volunteer to babysit.

Back to learning how to be a parent. No one’s written an instruction manual for this. Oh, there are plenty of self-proclaimed experts, and a family member of ours keeps sending us books by them, by many of them contradict the others, and I have serious doubts as to how many of them actually have children themselves. Or at least wait until they’ve grown and gone before writing the book. Maybe I should write one myself.

Another benefit of experience as a parent is learning to appreciate Bill Cosby more. Oh, sure, his stand-up routines were funny when I was a kid, but now they’re downright hilarious because they are *true*. He really hits the nail on the head, and really gets to the bottom of what parenthood is like. I have actually said to my children, “How many times have I told you….?”, as if I expect them to keep count. And upon arriving home one day, I asked my daughter “What do you think you are doing?”, when it was perfectly obvious that she was shoving a blue magic marker up her nostrils. (I then compounded the problem by asking her “Why?”. She looked at me as if I were a moron and the answer was self-evident. I never did figure it out.)