Taking time on Thanksgiving to put certain priorities in place and to be grateful for what you have is fabulous. In a Utopian society, maybe we wouldn't need "Thanksgiving" because we would live our day to day existence in a state of gratitude. But, the fact is, that the vast majority of us do not take the time to express and acknowledge the wonderful parts of our lives which, without them, would make life unbearable. In that spirit, I offer the following.
Things I am thankful for
1. My faith -- My personal faith (protestant Christian, if you're wondering) has grown tremendously over the past few years. I have become fairly involved in my church both participating in an adult small group alongside my wife and leading a small group of high school boys who come to my house weekly for a bible study. I've always believed that you teach what you most want to learn. This is certainly true for me.
2. My health -- I am a fairly healthy guy. Sure, I could lose 50 pounds, and I should eat better and get more exercise. But all in all, I just don't have many physical ailments despite my wife's protests to the contrary (I am something of a baby when it comes to feeling bad). My health is in tact as far as anyone can tell. I am grateful for that. Many people my age and younger have serious, debilitating, and sometimes terminal health conditions. I don't, and I am thankful.
3. My family -- And for this, I mean my wife and 2 marvelous children. They are the proverbial foundation of my life. They give my life meaning, laughter, and great joy. They love me unconditionally, although I sometimes make that a difficult chore for my wife. They are always there for me, as constant as the number pi (away from a black hole, that is... pi ceases to be the 3.14 we have all come to know and love if you happen to be near one of those mass eating machines). By the way, I'm a complete nerd!
4. The rest of my family -- I have the best mother God ever created, 2 loving older sisters, and a caring father. Throw into that mix an aunt who adores me, several fantastic cousins who I see much less often than I would like, and you've got a pretty darn good set-up.
5. My job -- I don't think many people can say that they love getting up in the morning to go to work. God has certainly blessed me with that ability. Don't tell my boss, but I would do this work (teaching physics, that is) for far less than I am currently paid.
Ok, that's enough. Life might sound pretty unfair to many readers if I continued. I'm not sure I could continue much past 5, anyway. The list of stresses and uncertainties in my life could far surpass a list of 5, but I won't go there today.
For anyone unfortunate enough to find this terrible bit of reading, I hope your list of things to be thankful for in your life is far greater than mine. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
My First Regret, Or Maybe Just The First I Remember
I knew going into this "fatherhood" thing that it would be difficult and that I would make mistakes. However, I never knew how right I could be. I have so many mistakes and regrets that I cannot possibly enumerate them all in this blog. I don't think the server has enough space to hold that much text! Still, here are some things I've done, things I should have done, or things that I wish I never had done in my 11 year tenure as a father. Maybe you can relate to some of these and we can take solace in our mutual company of misery. Or, better still, maybe you can read the bonehead mistakes I've made and convict yourself not to repeat my stupidity. In this particular article, I'll only mention one. But rest assured, there are many more to come.
As a father, my biggest responsibility is arguably keeping my children out of harms way. And yet, I have been the direct cause of harm myself. I remember the first time I actually brought physical pain to my child. My son was just a baby, not even a year old. I was holding him and reveling in the wonder and awe that is holding one's own offspring. He was (and still is) so cute, I just wanted to "eat him up." Of course, that is a figure of speech. No one ever really bites their child. And yet, that's exactly what I did. As I was holding him, my excitement grew and grew until it nearly reached a fever pitch. I just couldn't contain my euphoria any longer. So, with teeth bared, I bit his shirt. As my teeth sank into his little outfit, I had the unusual feeling of softness between my incisors. "Wow," I thought. "This shirt must be padded or something." Then it happened.
My precious son let out a scream that could have broken a wine glass! I immediately let go of my death grip, shocked out of my dreamy happiness. His face was beet red and all scrunched up like raisin. He was obviously in a great deal of pain. Just as I began to inspect my son's body to uncover and eradicate the threat, his hand raised up to cover the exact spot where my teeth marks could still be seen on his shirt. "Please, no. Tell me I didn't bite my son!" Alas, I had. I lifted his shirt to see what amounted to a pinch mark with clear indentations in the unmistakable shape of my teeth. "Good Lord. I bit my son!"
His skin remained puckered up as if still caught in the grip of my sharp enamel. I instinctively started rubbing his wound hoping to wipe away the pain and soothe the nerve endings that must have been firing at full throttle. My wife, disconcerted by the abrupt squeal from our first born baby, came dashing into the room where she found me on the verge of tears and our son in an all out panic."
What happened?!" she let out, wondering why she had trusted me to care for him to begin with.
"I bit him! I bit Cameron!"
"What?! Why did you bite him? What were you thinking?!"
God, or the universe, or Allah, or evolution, or whatever you believe constructed this crazy existence we call life gave mothers a fierce instinct to protect their young. I wasn't completely aware of this, but looking back I realize that my own life was, at that moment, in grave danger of coming to an end.
"I didn't mean to! I just got excited because he's so cute!"
My dear wife must have thought I had lost my marbles. So, I was actually admitting that I had bitten her son? And my excuse was, "I didn't mean to"? What an idiot.
The rest of the night I swung between two emotional extremes: self-loathing for being a moron and rage towards myself for the same.
Fortunately, Cameron recovered quickly and well. Inexplicably he continued to let me hold him. I guess he still hadn't discovered cause and effect at such an early age. Had he associated that pain with me, the rightful owner of his misery, that may have been the last time for quite a while in which he allowed me to so much as touch him.
So, what do I take from this experience?
Don't bite your kids! It hurts them. Well, maybe there's a little more to it than just that. From this moment, and reinforced time and time again, I have understood just how careful fathers must be with their children. Even with the very best of intentions, we can hurt our prodigy in ways that we just don't expect. This moment is, of course, way too concrete. The fact is, there exist many more subtle ways in which we can misguide, and send mixed messages to, our children. How we fathers behave in both jubilation and flat out anger impacts the minds, hearts, and souls of these gentle creatures greatly. Every moment is a teaching moment. Every action, every word, every facial expression... all of it... is picked up and imprinted on these marvelous humans just trying to figure out how to make it in this convoluted, messy world. It's overwhelming, really. I can't wrap my mind around it. If I concentrate on the depth of it too much, I'm likely to have a panic attack! So, like everyone else I suppose, I trod through the day living moment to moment... just trying to remember to walk in a simple manner. Because those little footsteps I hear behind me will one day be leading another set of little footsteps. That's a hell of a responsibility... but that's what I've signed up for.
As a father, my biggest responsibility is arguably keeping my children out of harms way. And yet, I have been the direct cause of harm myself. I remember the first time I actually brought physical pain to my child. My son was just a baby, not even a year old. I was holding him and reveling in the wonder and awe that is holding one's own offspring. He was (and still is) so cute, I just wanted to "eat him up." Of course, that is a figure of speech. No one ever really bites their child. And yet, that's exactly what I did. As I was holding him, my excitement grew and grew until it nearly reached a fever pitch. I just couldn't contain my euphoria any longer. So, with teeth bared, I bit his shirt. As my teeth sank into his little outfit, I had the unusual feeling of softness between my incisors. "Wow," I thought. "This shirt must be padded or something." Then it happened.
My precious son let out a scream that could have broken a wine glass! I immediately let go of my death grip, shocked out of my dreamy happiness. His face was beet red and all scrunched up like raisin. He was obviously in a great deal of pain. Just as I began to inspect my son's body to uncover and eradicate the threat, his hand raised up to cover the exact spot where my teeth marks could still be seen on his shirt. "Please, no. Tell me I didn't bite my son!" Alas, I had. I lifted his shirt to see what amounted to a pinch mark with clear indentations in the unmistakable shape of my teeth. "Good Lord. I bit my son!"
His skin remained puckered up as if still caught in the grip of my sharp enamel. I instinctively started rubbing his wound hoping to wipe away the pain and soothe the nerve endings that must have been firing at full throttle. My wife, disconcerted by the abrupt squeal from our first born baby, came dashing into the room where she found me on the verge of tears and our son in an all out panic."
What happened?!" she let out, wondering why she had trusted me to care for him to begin with.
"I bit him! I bit Cameron!"
"What?! Why did you bite him? What were you thinking?!"
God, or the universe, or Allah, or evolution, or whatever you believe constructed this crazy existence we call life gave mothers a fierce instinct to protect their young. I wasn't completely aware of this, but looking back I realize that my own life was, at that moment, in grave danger of coming to an end.
"I didn't mean to! I just got excited because he's so cute!"
My dear wife must have thought I had lost my marbles. So, I was actually admitting that I had bitten her son? And my excuse was, "I didn't mean to"? What an idiot.
The rest of the night I swung between two emotional extremes: self-loathing for being a moron and rage towards myself for the same.
Fortunately, Cameron recovered quickly and well. Inexplicably he continued to let me hold him. I guess he still hadn't discovered cause and effect at such an early age. Had he associated that pain with me, the rightful owner of his misery, that may have been the last time for quite a while in which he allowed me to so much as touch him.
So, what do I take from this experience?
Don't bite your kids! It hurts them. Well, maybe there's a little more to it than just that. From this moment, and reinforced time and time again, I have understood just how careful fathers must be with their children. Even with the very best of intentions, we can hurt our prodigy in ways that we just don't expect. This moment is, of course, way too concrete. The fact is, there exist many more subtle ways in which we can misguide, and send mixed messages to, our children. How we fathers behave in both jubilation and flat out anger impacts the minds, hearts, and souls of these gentle creatures greatly. Every moment is a teaching moment. Every action, every word, every facial expression... all of it... is picked up and imprinted on these marvelous humans just trying to figure out how to make it in this convoluted, messy world. It's overwhelming, really. I can't wrap my mind around it. If I concentrate on the depth of it too much, I'm likely to have a panic attack! So, like everyone else I suppose, I trod through the day living moment to moment... just trying to remember to walk in a simple manner. Because those little footsteps I hear behind me will one day be leading another set of little footsteps. That's a hell of a responsibility... but that's what I've signed up for.
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