Life 101
What to Expect When You're a Dad - Life 101
Although many of your friends may have them, nothing can prepare you for owning your own children. This is because it is impossible to know what to expect.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love being a husband and father. I love my kids and would do anything for them. I would even listen for their plaintive cry in the dark of the night and keep the bed warm as my wife attends to their needs. It’s this kind of dedication that is missing in our culture today.
However, I need to be very clear that there were some things I was not prepared for when I signed on to be a dad (i.e. when I let my wife trick me into getting frisky). For instance, I had no idea:
- How much food I would find behind the cushions of the couch.
- How a handful of strawberry jam could travel through my house so quickly.
- How much a kid rolls around at night when he’s in bed with you, even when he’s sick.
- How much energy kids will have in the morning even if they go to bed really, really late.
- How even the cutest kids (mine) would have the worst breath in the morning.
- The negotiations required to get them to eat Spaghetti Pie.
- How prevalent and widespread the art of Nose Picking (and subsequent snacking) is among our nation’s children.
- How many toys I would find jammed behind the cushions of the couch.
- How many times I would arrive at work, only to discover that somehow, somewhere, one of my kids had wiped his nose on my shirt.
- How many days of the year all of my kids would have runny noses.
- How many times you have to tell a kid something before he actually does it.
- How easy it would be to break the dishwasher.
- How normal it would become to have someone spit their gum into my hand.
- How much food I would find stuck to the floor underneath the kitchen table.
- How often I would hear my wife say, “The kids have grown out of their clothes again!”
- That they would play with a toy that they absolutely had to have for an hour; and a cardboard box for three days running.
- How much food I would find stuck to the upholstery of my minivan.
- How thankful I would be to own a minivan.
- How much I would hate buying AA batteries.
- How much I would cringe, walking down the aisle in a supermarket while my little ones pushed the shopping cart behind me. My heels will never fully recover.
- How much entertainment you can get just by talking with your kids.
- How, even though I am a very peaceful, gentle person, I would absolutely pulverize anyone who messed with my family.
- How many times every day the television remote would go missing.
- How many times every day I would feel the need to say “I love you.”
- How quickly $400 worth of groceries would disappear in a house that doesn’t even have any teenagers in it.
- How often I would seriously consider a plan to recycle all the food I found stuck to the various parts of my house and van.
- How much I would hate all the marketing aimed at kids.
- How much I would start sounding like my own father.
- How many times I’d have to walk through the house for the sole purpose of turning things off.
- How I would give everything up for those little monkeys.
The secret (for all of you husbands planning to get frisky) is in sucking it up, not whining (except if you are a humor columnist) and living the adventure.
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