Party Pooper

Party Pooper

Newsflash: Kids are stressful. They disrupt your life, and the lives of the people around them, even when they’re on their absolute best behavior. They are the ultimate party pooper.

That’s why we parents often prefer to hang out with other parents. Not only so we can bitch about the stress to someone who has had similar experiences, but because when there are other kids around, your kid has something to do rather than keep pulling your arm and causing you to spill your drink.

Also because your own kid’s bad behavior is less noticeable when he’s part of a team. There’s strength in numbers. For parents, numbers provide solidarity.

For our children, they provide camouflage.

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Teenage Dirtbag

Teenage Dirtbag

Most of the fears you have as a parent involve unlucky things, unfair things. Accidents and disasters, illnesses and tragedy. Most of the fears you have as a parent involve things that aren’t supposed to happen.

But the scariest nightmare of all is neither an accident nor unlucky. In fact, you’re lucky if it does happen. It’s what you want to happen. It’s how life is supposed to go. Your children are supposed to live healthy lives and grow up and become teenagers.

Too bad it sucks so much when they do.

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The Parent Lapse

The Parent Lapse

So we have this baby gate. No, we’re not embroiled in some shocking political controversy involving a baby (Babygate, coming soon to theaters near you!), it’s an actual gate for babies.

Like all baby gates, it’s used to prevent babies (and toddlers) from getting places they shouldn’t, particularly staircases (and the Oval Office!). Having exclusively lived in urban apartments, we haven’t had that much need for it, because an apartment with stairs is not an apartment we can afford. However, for the past few months, Detective Munch has been in Grandma and Pop-pop’s house, and Grandma and Pop-pop’s house has stairs. So the baby gate was put back to work.

Except not really. Because I never close it. Because I’m a terrible father.

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