Does It Get Better?

“Does it get better?”

That’s the question a follower asked me, in a lighthearted panic, after I posted a meme about unruly kids.

It’s just after my often-challenging eldest son’s 8th birthday, and this idea of things becoming easier is on my mind, so all (most) joking aside, I thought I’d try to answer. (But I hate being threatened by more experienced parents who warn me about the tween years or the teen years or the unemployed-and-living-in-my-basement years, so I’m going to try to answer without doing that.)

Cruise Control

There’s a running joke among parents that any vacation you take with your kids is not actually a vacation, it’s a trip. God knows I’ve leaned on this joke myself from time to time. Because it’s true.

If you ask most parents to name their best vacation ever, odds are they’ll cite one they went on before they had children. Or on which the kids were left behind. I would have said the same thing; both of my favorite vacations – my big fat Greek honeymoon, or our trip to Tuscany – took place pre-kids.

That changed last month, when I went on my new best vacation ever. And surprise surprise, I even brought my kids along! It was the best of both worlds.

Door Stoppers and School Shootings

Last spring, Mom and Buried found an unopened package of rubber door stoppers on the street.

In my neighborhood, people put stuff they don’t want on their front curb, and it’s understood that it’s all up for grabs until the garbage man comes. Sometimes it’s old books and DVDs, sometimes it’s random bits of clothing, sometimes it’s a gently-used AC unit or a TV or a bookshelf.

Door stoppers are not something I would have even looked twice at, and needing them had never really occurred to Mom and Buried either. But she grabbed the package anyway.

Because the door stoppers aren’t for us. They’re for our brand-new third grader.

22 Aug

Dad and Buried Posted in travel No comments

Parenting Travel Hack

In late February, during my son’s winter break, we decided to head to Philly for the weekend. It was a great call.

Not only is Philadelphia an easy drive from Brooklyn, not only had it been way too long since I’d had DiNic’s ridiculous roast pork and broccoli rabe sandwich, not only had we long wanted to take the kids to the hyped (deservedly, it turns out!) Please Touch Children’s Museum, but the city of Brotherly Love was also the site of my first date with Mom and Buried!

Needless to say, this visit wasn’t exactly the same as the one that had launched our relationship some 13+ years ago. Nothing is the same once you have kids.

Especially traveling.

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