Surprise, Surprise
The many ways kids can blow your mind. Plus, my thoughts on that big Bluey episode!
Before you have kids, you’re often told that there’s no way to prepare for it.
I myself say this all the time (just read the intro to my book!), but it’s not always meant in a negative way. As hard as it is to be ready to have kids, it’s even harder to understand just how incredible the experience is before they arrive.
I complain about it a lot, because parenting is hard, and children’s ability to confound and frustrate is unparalleled. But those things pale in comparison to their ability to astonish, in ways both big and small.
One of the primary parenting stereotypes is that young children allow you to experience the world anew, through their prism of innocence that opens you up to feelings you haven’t had in decades, if ever (give or take that time you took mushrooms in college)! Like most stereotypes, this is rooted in truth—for better or worse; when I had my first kid, I definitely hadn’t seen the sunrise in the same way, or at all, in the previous twenty years. Hooray?
But even if gaining a fresh outlook and brand new appreciation for the beauty of the world isn’t your cup of tea (guilty!), there are still plenty of ways your kids can surprise you.
For example…
This morning, I had my 3000th conversation with my teenage son about not leaving his cereal bowl on the table when he heads to school and lo and behold, he still left his cereal bowl on the table! It’s extraordinary!
My 8-year-old constantly catches me off-guard with his willingness and desire to keep throwing the football around, even when my arm is falling off and I’ve begged him for a break, and my 13-year-old’s ability to roll his eyes at literally everything I say is no less astounding for the fact that I know it’s coming.
Quite simply, kids are founts of wonder!
Look no further than my 13-year-old’s lack of awareness of his own body odor, or my youngest’s refusal to ever, and I mean ever, put his socks in the hamper instead of taking them off and dropping them on the floor by the door the literal second he walks in the house.
Shocked I was both the first and the 500th (and counting) times my beloved middle-schooler told me a “deez nuts” joke, and shocked I will forever be at how soul-crushingly bad his sense of humor is!
Constantly amazed, I am, at how many times I step on the broken LEGO set my second grader swore he would - and swore he already had! - put away. And I can’t possibly impart how mind-blowing it is to find nearly complete meals - and place-settings! - under the sheets in my eighth grader’s bed. (Honestly, I think I finally found out what happened at Roanoke: it was just a bunch of teens who just never put anything away, the goddamn animals!)
It will never not be stunning to me, the way neither of my kids knows how to properly close a bag of chips so they don’t go stale, or to pick up a wet towel off the floor and put it on a rack in such a way that it might actually dry at some point. And my brain melts at the pure blissful ignorance it requires to not realize that spills need to be cleaned up rather than stared at in disbelief until Dad comes running in with a roll of paper towels.
Have you ever marveled at the uniqueness of a snowflake, or at the sheer spectacle of the northern lights? Then prepare to be shaken to your core, because not even nature itself can compare to the breathtaking grandeur and sheer scale of the stool my adorable 8-year-old somehow expelled from his bowels and inexplicably forgot to flush, and thank God he did, for if he’d remember one of the three basic tenets of proper bathroom usage (close the door, flush the toilet, wash your hands), then none of us would have been witness to such a physics-defying miracle. Praise be!
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the guy from Memento, waking up every day, if not every few hours, to a world you can’t remember? That’s what it’s like parenting a teenager. There is no limit to how often you find yourself saying the same things over and over, and the minute you do it’s like you never said them at all and have to start again.
Are you curious about what it might be like to be insane? Have a five minute conversation with my youngest son, who somehow has at his fingertips more information about snakes and sharks and the fucking Titanic than that Crocodile Hunter guy and James Cameron combined, and yet still punctuates every new fact by asking if he can watch someone race ANIMATED MARBLES on YouTube. They aren’t even real marbles! They’re computer generated! WTF IS HAPPENING?!
Sorry, sorry. Got a little overwhelmed there, but such is the surprising life of a parent. Even a black-hearted cynic like me can occasionally be overcome with emotion at the magic and majesty of it all, and if it can happen to me, it can happen to you too.
Just be ready with the paper towels.
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Mom and Buried was annoyed with Bluey.
As I’m sure you know - and if you don’t, you are missing out, because the hype is real; the show is great, and delivers on multiple levels - Disney+ just aired the big 28-minute episode. The rumors are that it may be the series finale, but nothing has been confirmed. As such, the stakes were high, and everyone expected something momentous. Like a new baby or, as was teased in the preceding episode, a family move.
Mom and Buried likes the show - who doesn’t? - but given all the anticipation and the build-up around the supersized “The Sign,” she felt like the payoff wasn’t necessarily worth it. We all liked the episode—even I got a little verklempt when Bandit finally got his hands on the sign—but I see her point. Then again, if they do announce that the show is over, the ballyhoo makes sense. Regardless, it was a funny, touching episode. Which is pretty much par for the course.
I hope it’s not over but at the same time there are a lot of episodes and they are pretty much all infinitely rewatchable. My favorite might be “Cricket,” in which a bunch of neighborhood dads can’t seem to best a local kid, and we see all the ways he’s gained his skills. And there’s a nice sibling moment at the end. Maybe I like it so much because I never see nice sibling moments at home.
Oh, and I just found out that they hide a little “long dog” figure in every episode, one way or another, just like they used to hide that Snarf-life creature on the old She-Ra! I’ve said too much. But now I’m excited to go back through and look for long dog!
Bruh… your dirty towels go in the wash, not hung up to be used again 🤢
You just complained about cleanliness… but you make them reuse a towel they’ve dried their butt on? 🤢🤮
You can’t complain of stench when you make them reuse towels 😂
I loved the way you surprised us all, sounding like such a loving parent, until paragraph 2….. theeere’s the Mike we expect.
Yes! My kid will legally become an adult in 6 weeks and this still applies! Put a bowl in the sink and add water? An inexplicable request of high nonsense, obviously. Brush teeth before falling asleep so you don't have to do it when waking up momentarily at 02:00 and remember you haven't? Why bother with common sense...