I remember the days of bachelorhood or as I like to refer to them, the glory years. Those were the days of binge watching sports and movies all day before hitting the gym, the club or the pub…sometimes all in the same day. The world was my oyster. I often think back and wonder, what did I actually do with all of that free time? It was glorious.
Then, I had kids; the world as I knew it was flipped on its head!
These days, my typical afternoons are spent much like performing in a circus. I am the ringmaster trying to control the uncontrollable.
Do you want to know what it’s really like to have kids? Well, it starts out very peaceful most mornings before anyone is awake. Then, as the sun rises, all hell breaks loose.
Every day, it’s like a typhoon sweeps through my living room with unrelenting speed and ferocity. It doesn’t care about the damage it stirs up. It doesn’t ever say, “sorry, dad, I barfed on your shoulder” or “pardon me, I’m so terribly sorry that diarrhea is oozing out my pants.” Instead, this is a storm that destroys everything in site before unopologetically demanding to be fed crackers.
As the ringmaster of the circus, I try to guide these tyrants in the best direction. I’ll say, “no, we’re out of crackers,” or “you better save your appetite for dinner,” which inadvertently sparks an even larger explosion. Soon, someone is wailing in a piercing fit that will make even deaf ears ring, or flailing about like a convulsing breakdancer, slamming themselves onto the floor. These temper-tantrums often result in bodily injury.
I wish I was exaggerating. Once, my 1-year-old son was unhappy that he couldn’t have any more grape popsicle; this resulted in a headbutt directly to my face. For several days following, I looked like a fighter who had been pummeled on the wrong end of a brutal boxing match. Who knew that my opponent was only 1?
It’s fitting that we have an obnoxiously loud musical puzzle that aimlessly blurts out the tune, “Old MacDonald had a farm. E-I-E-I-O!” There is something wrong with it because you can be 20 feet away, and it will still randomly go off, blaring an abrupt reminder that my existence is sometimes parallel to that of living on a farm.
Patience is a virtue and hard to muster at times. At any given moment, you can have kids wailing, dogs barking, poop dripping, and the puzzle screaming about Old-freaking MacDonald…sometimes, all of it at once.
In spite of the madness of this circus, there is also a deep, underlying joy in raising kids. Having them can be challenging, but also extremely rewarding. The level of love and satisfaction cultivated from having children is immesarurable; for this, I feel blessed.
This love is very real, but it doesn’t make the ferocity of the storm any less intense.
