My daughter and I were debating the need to change her diaper, which at one-and-a-half means her saying no and running from me, in the middle of an extended family gathering on my wife’s side.
The debate was a mild inconvenience and allowed me to step away and be with my daughter. Just as the small thought of “I can’t wait until she’s potty trained,” may or may not have been entering my mind, my wife’s uncle mentioned “those are the good old days.”
He said something along the lines of, “Ah, the good old days of diapers.” And he said it to his daughter who is now in her mid-twenties, as she was walking down the stairs.
To me, it was not only a reminder of how fast life can travel but it was also a reminder to be where my feet are. Or in this case, be where I’m kneeling and getting a diaper out of the bag.
You see I’ve tended to be one of those people who say I can’t wait until my kid can dress himself, or things will be better if I only owned my own business, or once she can talk things will smooth out. This type of thinking is also known as grass is greener syndrome. But the thing I’m realizing is that none of these things are until they are now.
There is the basic childish behavior of I want what I want and I want it now. Or there is the I’m not getting what I want, so I’m going to have a fit to try to get it. Either way, if the child doesn’t get what they want, you may find yourself with a full blown fit on your hands. (Hopefully the child’s and not yours.)
What I find is that when I’m practicing this grass-is-greener mindset or wishing for a certain part of my life to be here or be over, that I’m not fully wherever I am. My kids have been great teachers of this to me. Since my son could talk through about the age of four and you’d ask him what his favorite fill-in-the-blank–could be a food, a toy, a color–is and he would say whatever is right in front of him.
He’d be eating a roast, and maybe not even eating it for that matter, but he would say that the roast would be his favorite food. As him as he runs around with the stuffed animal that he never plays with, what is his favorite stuffed animal, and he’d hold up the animal in his hand.
This lesson in itself can help me remember that right now can be my favorite. After all, let’s face it, twenty years from now I may look at diaper changing as the good ol’ days.
Father Through Me 