Lil Urchins and Their Parents

I’ve been thinking about my children all day today. I’ve also been thinking about my mortality as well. The two, unfortunately, go hand in hand. Last night as I lay awake in bed, I said to myself, “Man! You are going to die. Not in the next ten minutes or so, but you are definitely going to die”. What got me to thinking about this? Well Starbucks of course. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but on the side of their cups there’s usually a quirky “thought of the day”, or as they call it, “The Way I see it #111”. On # 198 it says this, “You can shower a child with presents or money, but what do they really mean, compared to the most valuable gift of all – your time? Vacations and special events are nice, but so often the best moments are the spontaneous ones. Being there. Every moment you spend with your child could be the one that really matters.” You know who wrote that? Tim Russert. He died on June 13th of this year from a massive heart attack. He had one son named Luke. I hope my writing is not as prophetic as his was. (My wife will probably print this out and read it at my funeral in November and say, “and the saddest part of all; he must’ve known that he was about to pass on.” Let me say for the record, I want to outlive the healthiest nut in the office. I don’t want to die, but who knows when that will happen? It seems like just last week, literally, that I held my tiny baby son in my arms and wept, even though I wasn’t the one that pushed him out. It seems like last Monday when I held my tiny baby girl Shelby in my arms and wept. Each one of those happened 14 and 11 years respectively. It seems like only yesterday, that I held my tiny baby girl Ally in my arms and wept. That was three and a half years ago. I know I sound old when I say this, but where the hell does the time go? There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “life is like a vapor, here one moment, then gone the next.” The older I get, the more that rings true.
For instance,

1. I have hair where I don’t want it.
2. I don’t have hair where I want it.
3. I say “Pardon me?” or “Do what?” a lot now.
   I say “remember when…….”
4. I say “Well when we were kids……”
5. I can’t lose weight, unless I crap.
6. I have to shave at least 3 to 4 times a week now. In my 20’s, it was once a week.
7. My stomach looks and feels like I’ve dipped it in Rogaine©. In my 20’s it was Slick as a baby’s bottom.
   i. I’ll be watching a movie intently, and will, out of nowhere feel an intense pain. I look quickly to my left realizing my wife has just pulled out a hair from my ear.
   (i) Sometimes, she’ll say with her voice elevating, along with her eyebrows in almost a song like tone, “That one was white!”
   (ii) Sometimes, she’ll say “I think you have a white nose hair.” In the same tone.
8. My feet and back hurt all the time.
   (i) My wife says in the same sing song tone kind of like Mary Poppins, “It’s because you put some weight back on.”
9. I keep 4 sizes of pants and 2 sizes of shirts for my “Fat Days”.
10. I hate being around any kind of teenager for longer than 15 or 16 seconds.
    (i) I want to make them wear tighter pants.
    (ii) I want to give them a freaking hair cut.
    (iii) I want them to wear more loose pants.
    (iv) I want to understand that everything is not (a) “the worst thing ever” or (b) “the greatest thing ever”. Some stuff is just ok.
    (v) I want them to be nice to adults outside of when they want something.
11. I keep popping my knuckles, and afterwards I think of what my grandparents told me about arthritis; but only after I’ve already popped them.
12. I find myself more often than not saying something my father or mother said, verbatim.
13. I sometimes think about all the bad stuff I’ve drank or ate in my life and wonder how many days it’s taken off the total days I’ve been allotted.

Bottom line is we’re all going to die. Some of us sooner than others. Most of us are going to do everything in our power to escape the horrible and dreaded “C” word. (I don’t mean my ex wife). I’ll try not to come off as a dope to my kids or my friends. I won’t say stupid things like my dad. “Well when we were kids, all we had to play with was a stick and a dogs butt!”
Love your babies every day, no matter how old they are, and like there is no tomorrow. Always remind them that you love them, and that there is a real good chance they’ll have to clean up your poo when you get Alzheimer’s.
;-)