Before you become a parent, you never really quite expect the way your entire existence will soon revolve around the moods, whims, tantrums, fits, grades, desires, tastes and behavior of a creature so small that you could take eight of him in a fight, even if you’d just downed a few beers.
Your psychic well-being rockets up and down like a roller coaster at Disneyland – sometimes several times in one day.
You’re humming along, minding your own business, making a little snack, and suddenly you’re gobsmacked by notes written on little slips of paper the precious darlings have brought home from school, phone calls you receive concerning the precious darlings, and visits from red-faced neighbors with baseballs in their hands, anxious to talk to the precious darlings.
Happy that your boss just gave you a raise, you’re smiling to yourself, unaware that a missing soccer jersey is about to figure prominently in your life and, in fact, ruin the next few hours.
After your kid can’t find his jersey to wear to the Big Game, it sets off a chain of events that ultimately includes the soccer coach, his teammates, the other team and ultimately you, who feels like a pile of worm-infested dirt.
How do I know this? Let’s put it this way: Two months later, we found the jersey underneath his mattress. Why was it there? Why is the sky blue? Why did ET want to phone home?
But, for most of us, the fact that the kids have been genetically programmed to be so darn cute makes us put up with all of this bad news. And, really, to coin a phase, there’s always a sunny side behind every cloud.
Here’s the good news for every piece of bad news:
The bad news: My kids’ rooms are so messy that you can’t even walk in there.
The good news: If a burglar tried to rob us, he’d trip and break his neck.
The bad news: My daughter is wearing skinny jeans so tight they look like they were painted on.
The good news: She won’t have to worry about washing them because she can’t even get them off.
The bad news: My teenagers haven’t heard a word I’ve said since I bought them phones in 2010.
The good news: At least I can find them, because even deaf people can text.
The bad news: My children don’t eat dinner with me anymore because they eat In-N-Out with their friends before they come home.
The good news: I don’t have to cook dinner.
The bad news: I feel like a terrible mother sometimes.
The good news: The feeling goes away after a glass of wine.
The bad news: Teenagers will walk 10 steps behind you so no one can tell they’re with their parent.
The good news: If you drop something, they can pick it up for you.
The bad news: They flinch like you’re covered with toxic waste when you try to hug them in public.
The good news: It’s still so much fun to do it.
The bad news: Most teens curse like sailors. Yes, yours does too.
The good news: You can start swearing again, too.
The bad news: Your kid is getting high and refusing to go to soccer practice.
The good news: Drugs are cheaper than soccer.
The bad news: You caught your kid drinking beer in the garage.
The good news: He didn’t run away to join ISIS.
The bad news: Your kid hasn’t looked up from her cell phone for three days.
The good news: Eventually she’ll have to recharge it, and you can hide the charger.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
