Sunday, February 1, 2015

My Son flew home

After about 10 days with us my son flew home to his wife and child. Mostly I think he was resting here because your first year with a baby is pretty overwhelming. My wife sort of could relate to this because we had our daughter(her first) when she was about 40 the same age as my son now. So, she remember how shellshocked she was in trying to come up to speed as a new parents this late in life. She had been a successful business woman with three degrees including an MBA (Master's of Business Administration) so she had been successful before we met in her late 30s.

So, she could relate to his emotional shock at trying to make sense of what had happened to him just like most new fathers and mothers of any age.

However, in your 20s I think you are more adaptable and more easily able to make this transition in your lives.

However, I had my own problems when I think of my son coming when I was 26 and I had a motorcycle and liked to ski a lot so I used to put my 3 year old son on the tank of my motorcycle with me and ride around sometimes in the summers in the mountains. And, I also once put my 3 year old in a Gerry Carrier and went skiing until I fell down and he shot out of the Gerry Carrier and I felt like a real shit as a father. I was 27 or 28 and my wife had gone shopping and left me with my son so I went cross country skiing. Even though he wasn't hurt but just crying from the snow being cold I felt stupid and knew I had to grow up. So, trying to grow up so you are worthy of your children can be tough at any age even if you actually want to be a parent always like I always did.

So, most of the 10 days my son was resting a lot and trying to make sense of what just happened to him the last year or so (his son was born in early June).

His main complaint was that he couldn't save money like he could before the baby came and feeling like there was never a time to rest anymore or go on vacations like before either.

I told him this all changes pretty fast now. The first year is like this and the next thing you have to do is to child proof your home so the baby survives (as well as any thing you care about) and you have to find a way to prevent them from getting into dangerous chemicals like under the kitchen sink because babies put literally anything in their mouths like dirt, bugs, chemicals whatever. And the strangest thing of all to me is that a baby can drown in a 5 gallon bucket of water left unattended even though the water might only be 5 inches deep.

I can remember when my daughter was about 3 years old and I left her in the bathtub and something didn't feel right so I ran back to the tub. She had fallen asleep in the tub (bad idea) and only by luck had she not drowned. So, these kinds of moments are very sobering for new parents or parents of any age.

I can remember one time even at ages 8 or 9 I had climbed the kinds of clotheslines we had in the 1950s that were made of strong metal poles set in cement. I had climbed one of these with a leather jacket on and the jacket got caught and I was hung sort of like Jesus strangling on the metal pipe clothesline. The only reason I survived is a friend saw me strangling from the leather jacket caught on the clothesline and my parents came and rescued me before I died, even though I almost passed out because I couldn't breathe in the interim. IT was very strange because my back was to the pole so there was no way to save myself and my feet weren't touching the ground. There was nothing I could do to save myself at the time.

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