The Beatles were right

We’ve had a crazy week with dusty, costly, last second renovations. Our builder has gone over time and over budget and could seem to care less. Yesterday, the workers left the deck door off our bedroom open, and the room was coated with sawdust. Today, the junior man on the job miscalculated a few cuts, so I had to spend $50 to rent a truck big enough to carry three lonely 16 foot baseboards. Then, when the other carpenter drove a nail into a new piece of door casing, all the power in the kitchen instantly went out. We thought he had driven a nail through the electrical wire.

In the few hours before the electrician arrived, I was feeling overwhelmed. We were broke, in the dark and covered in sawdust. At any moment, my wife was surely going to go into intense labour and have our baby on the spot. I would have to deliver my second son into a world of toxic made-in-China-melamine-laden sawdust. He was going to look like a shake-and-bake pork chop seconds after coming into the world. If that wouldn’t give him cancer, surely the lethal fumes from the paint and the calking would give him brain damage.

Then I had to endure the recent pattern of struggles with my son over dinner (which began, not coincidentally, the day after Halloween), followed by the tooth brushing wrestling match.

Finally, I got him into bed and read him a story. As I was kissing him goodnight, he caressed my face, fixed his eyes on mine, and said, “I’ll never stop loving you, Daddy.”

My heart burst. “I’ll never stop loving you either, my son.”

“I can’t turn it off,” he said.

“That’s a good thing,” I said.

After thinking for a second, he added. “Love is important.”

“Yes, love is very important,” I answered.

“Glasses are important, too,” he said, fixing mine snuggly to my face.


As well as slaying me on multiple levels, this was an almost cliché reminder of what is truly important in life. Time with your children can put your true priorities in order often as you let it.

Tonight also reminded me of how easy it is for children to love. They come into this world wanting to love, and little else. Let your child remind you of a time in your life when loving came so easily.

It seems fitting that one of my son’s favourite songs at the moment is “All you need is love.”

First or Last?

My heart is breaking as I write this.

Ever since we went on a two week family vacation where my wife, son and I found ourselves crammed into one bedroom accommodations, we have grown accustomed to one of us snuggling down and falling asleep with our son. After stories, one of us will lie with our little boy until he falls asleep. Sometimes that takes 5 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. We’ve been doing it for over a year.

As you can imagine, when one is trying to work, maintain a household and have some sort of relationship with one's spouse, giving up an hour a night to lie with a squirming child is not a luxury that most of us can afford.

The problem is, despite the regular frustrations and the time constraints, we love it. It is glorious to feel a little hand slip inside the sleeve of my t-shirt and squish my arm, or to hear a great big contented sigh followed by, “I love you so much, Daddy.”

We are about four weeks from the birth of our second son. We know with the impending birth will come the inevitable sleep deprivation, the exhaustion and the short fuse. We know that one of us lying down with our eldest son will be next to impossible. However, we want to get him used to sleeping on his own before his little brother arrives so he won't have something else to blame on his sure to be less-than-popular-already sibling.

Tonight is the first go. We set up a fountain with soothing gurgles and soft glowing lights. He thinks it’s beautiful. But when I just left his room seconds ago and told him to look at the beautiful lights while I go work on the computer in our bedroom, he said, “But daddy, I can’t feel you when you are in your bedroom.”

My wife is currently taking a moms writing course. The assignment the other night was to write about a “first”: a first step, a first word, anything to do with baby’s “first.” It got me to thinking; we are great at recognizing firsts, but not so great at recognizing lasts. How would you look at things differently if you knew you were holding your child’s hand for the last time? If you knew this was the last time he’d want to play catch with you, or kiss you goodbye in front of his friends?

Try to savour the simplest little pleasure you get from your child like it might be the last. It will force you to slow down, make you focus on the present, and deepen the love you have for your child.

A love like no other

I got married in 2004 and became a father in 2006.

I always joke with people that when you get married, you say all those right things to your wife. “I love you so much—I’d lay down my life for you.” You say you’d lay down your life, but you never really mean it. It sounds good, so you just say it and hope to God you never find the two of you held captive by a terrorist who says, “I only have one bullet. Who is it going to be?”

The instant your child is born, however, you are prepared to hurl yourself in front of an oncoming bus just to stave off a case of the sniffles.

I used to laugh uproariously at those “Baby on Board” signs, until the day when I pulled away from the hospital with my one day-old son in the back. I was gripping the wheel so tightly I had lost all circulation in my fingers. “I’ve got a newborn in the car” I shouted as the car crept out of the parking lot, “now BACK OFF!”

I always thought those “Baby On Board” signs were designed to get others around you to drive more carefully. Now I realize they are really code for, “I have a baby in the car, please forgive me for driving like a ninny.”

I never knew love until I had my son. The moment I laid my eyes on him, I began to cry. I’ve been doing a lot of crying since then, but it is all good. There is an old Yiddish saying, “when the heart is full, the eyes overflow.” That more or less describes how I feel when I look at my son.

Little did I know before I held my son, I would be capable of so much love. Little did I know that this little person came into the world with a key in one hand and my heart in the other.

Guess what? Your child came into the world carrying both of those things (but holding your heart, not mine.) But the question is, have you let them keep the keys, or did you snatch them back?

From my perspective, our children will be the best teachers we will ever have. They can teach us patience, nurturing and unconditional love. They can teach us about change and enlightenment and eventually the ability to let go. They can improve our marriage, our work performance, and our free time. They can shape the relationships we have with close friends and complete strangers. They can save our environment and bring about world peace. If I could convince you our children would also help you lose 10 pounds in 3 days, lower your golf score, and cut the time you could cook a roast chicken in half, I’d sell you one for just three easy payments of just $19.99. But the fact of the matter is, that what sounds too good to be true isn’t. Your children have come into this world prepared to offer you the most amazing gifts. The question is, did you see the gifts, or did life, old habits, and conditioning get in the way?