While sitting in seat 5-C on the Southwest flight from Houston to Nashville I couldn’t help but smile at the three-year-old across the aisle in 3-D, as she kept turning around to make silly faces at me. I shot a few faces back at her. I miss that age. (Our “baby” is now a 180-pound sixteen-year-old.) On the next row, in 4-D, a frustrated father was wrestling with his energetic hand-held eighteen-month-old who obviously wanted to run down the aisle while the “buckle-up” sign was on. Since he couldn’t out-muscle Dad, junior decided to scream for the rest of the flight. I miss those days too, I really do. Why do they have to grow up so fast?
Deborah and I have loved being parents, at every age and every stage. When my wife spots a newborn baby, she talks about how the first year was always “one of her favorite times” of parenting. Any time she sees a toddler, she oohhs and aahhs and declares that to be her favorite age. When she sees school-aged kids with lunch boxes and backpacks, she recounts more of her favorite parenting stories and memories. Of course, teenage years are also her favorite, as well as college. I am sure when our sons graduate, get married, and have kids, those will also be Deborah’s favorite times.
Listening to that screaming kid on SWA the other day sent my mind wandering down memory lane. My conclusion was, as my new hero Nacho says: “I have a gude life, a really gude life.”
Speaking of our “baby,” he has had a busy summer painting.
