Blink and You'll Miss It

To all you young whippersnapper first-time parents struggling with sleep deprivation, colicky babies and endless dirty diapers, when you are tempted to roll your eyes at veteran parents like myself who assure you that these days will pass in the blink of an eye and leave you wishing you could turn back the clock, let me say this: Just yesterday my baby was riding down the sidewalk on a bicycle laden with wobbly training wheels, strapping on tennis shoes with a Velcro closure and fumbling clumsily with his fork and blunt safety knife as he attempted to cut his meat all by himself. It was YESTERDAY, I tell you. And then I woke up to find a young man getting on an airplane and flying to another continent, a young man who’s just ten hours shy of getting behind the wheel of a car and driving with no parental supervision whatsoever, a young man who needs no help zipping up his coat or fastening that stubborn snap on his blue jeans. New parents, enjoy every last hour spent rocking your crying baby in the wee hours of the morning, every runny nose you have to wipe, every scraped knee you have to kiss, every monster under the bed that you have to banish for the forty-ninth time. Babies really do grow up overnight.

HAPPY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO MY PRECIOUS FIRSTBORN, Tyler Todd!