Giving thanks, but not for Alvin

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baseball, birthdays, blue jays, chipmunks, colds, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, pest control

I came home from work Monday night and went through the usual routine.

After greeting Laura I dragged my gym bag to the basement to toss my sweaty stuff in the laundry. I flipped on the laundry room light and two beady, nervous eyes stared back. It’s not every day you see a chipmunk standing on your washing machine.

First reaction: This isn’t a good thing. A rodent by any other name is still a rodent. And this is a rodent.

The chipmunk was staring up at the small window. I was staring at the open washing machine wondering if there was some way I could knock the critter into the drum and close the top. Neither of us got what we were wishing for.

Alvin – let’s call him Alvin – jumped to the floor and disappeared into the labyrinth of basement that unfolds from easy access from the unfinished walls of the laundry room.

Ch-ch-changes

Tags

birthdays, blue jays, colds, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, kids hockey, man cold, parenting

It’s a funny thing about family and kids. I can’t get enough of mine.

When the kids are born, as any parent will tell you, all they are is work for the first few months. They don’t do much other than scream, sleep, execute normal bodily functions and create gobs of laundry and lineups of people who “want to see the baby.”

But in short order, the actually start developing personalities, then they learn to sit up, crawl, signal when they are hungry, smile . . . and from that point on, it’s 24-7 fun. No, really.

There were multiple stages of watching our two boys growing up that I said to myself, geez, I wish I could freeze this moment in time forever because this has got to be the best. And that might have been dragging one of them around the rec room in a cardboard box while he giggled crazily, or skiing, or tobogganing, or snuggling on a sofa watching The Lion King for the 4215^th time on a cold snowy day.

Or it might have been a moment of victory or loss in a rink or on a field. Or it might have been a band concert or school grad or an assembly. Or it might have been Christmas morning or Halloween night or watching one of them with a group of friends, happy and confident and articulate and smart.

My point is, I have learned that every great stage in parenting was followed by one that was just as great, or even better.