Parenting Fun

Here’s a story that will sound familiar to any parent.

On Saturday, Danielle had a birthday party to go to at a local gymnastics place. They do good parties, the kids run around a lot and have a good time. And since Danielle just learned to swim we took her to the YMCA (which is next door) for some swimming right afterwards.

So gymnastics followed by swimming. Then we get her dressed, she gets in her stroller because she’s tired and sure enough she falls right asleep.

A mid-afternoon nap on a Saturday is a rare event. We know we’ll pay for it later, but any parent knows you must seize the opportunity. So we go for an early dinner. An adult meal, conversation, drinks the whole deal. What luxury. OK, fine, it’s 4:00 in the afternoon, so hardly optimal. But you take what you can get.

So we’re finishing some sushi, sake (for my wife) and beer (for me) and Danielle starts to wake up. What’s the first thing she does? Throws up. Right in the restaurant (which is thankfully empty other than us – who eats at 4:00?). It turns out there’s a bug going around in Danielle’s school (and all her schoolmates were at the party). So she basically pukes the rest of the day. But it’s a brief bug and she’s ok the next day. She even makes it to another birthday party the next day (it’s apparently birthday season in her school).

It seems to me that this captures parenting in a nutshell. Plenty of kid-type fun in the parties, very occasional adult fun whenever you can sneak it in, and the occasional puke. And despite the puke, the whole thing is a blast…