Deep End of the Pool.

Being a parent, I mean actually being a parent: planning, participating, developing, loving, caring, worrying, engaging, reflecting, hoping, wishing, praying, etc., and not tossing the kid off for someone else to raise, means swimming in the deep end of the pool, constantly, incessantly. It means immersing oneself in one’s child’s (rens) life. That is not to say, and please do not misunderstand me, that children who spend large amounts of time with grandparents, a nanny, or even daycare providers are not loved– this is just not true! Heck, the more time Taylor spends with grandma and grandpa the happier she is. All I need to do is mention we are going to Grandma’s and Taylor’s face immediately glows with anticipation. What I do mean is that, as I am finding out, quicker than I thought, children are all encompassing and, as steadfast as I have been against saying this, life changing.

For example, I have never been an ultra-clean person. Yes, I do enjoy an orderly and clean house, but I have never been, um…retentive, so to speak, about it. At one time I thought the dirty dishes could spend a lonely night in the sink without being washed and put away; the living room rug only needed to be vacuumed once every week or so; the shower did not need to be sprayed with Tilex until a little mold appeared, and since no one will ever look under the couch, why bother dusting underneath it? Boy! has my beliefs in cleanliness changed.

I have, with great pride, become a little retentive when cleaning our apartment. While it still looks a little cluttered here and there– my wife and I are closet packrats– our apartment is cleaner than it has ever been. The turning point in my not-so cleanliness occurred a couple of months ago when Taylor’s teeth really started coming in. At first, she was a three-fanged little monster for quite a long time, two teeth on top and one on the bottom. Then, seemingly overnight, another four teeth appeared! Besides chewing on anything that remotely fit in her mouth, it seemed like the girl couldn’t wait to put everything, I mean everything, into her mouth. The one thing she loved to eat, to my astonishment and horror, were lint bunnies: little round balls of dust, dirt, and hair, which, when the hair curled over, look like bunny ears, that magically pop up everywhere. I found them skidding across the hardwood floors, magically materializing out of the carpet, perching silently on the footboard molding, clinging to Taylor’s toys, hiding under the couch or on top of the orchids; they were everywhere. Had they always been there? I guess so. But while they, lint bunnies– along with all kinds of newly discovered filth-like dust devils, smut (flakes of dirt, not the other kind), grease and grime, were only nuisances before, they have become my archenemies. My new allies: Tilex, Pledge, Formula 409, Fabreze, Lysol, Murphy’s Oil, Clorox, and Comet all have joined with me to fight against these dirt demons. But like a drunken uncle at the family Christmas party, no matter how hard I work to rid our apartment of the little devils, they keep re-appearing. Damn the dirt!

Life has changed, for all of us. There are days I sit back and wonder what I have done all day, besides chase Taylor around the house, read to her, read with her, feed her, change her, play with her, run errands, finish chores; plan, prepare and cook dinner, and try to spend of a little bit of time doing something for myself– like writing or journaling or reading. Life has changed; and even though there are days that I feel like a completely useless member of society I know, in my heart of hearts, that my most ransacked day at home is more important, to at least the two most important people in my life, than my best day at work. And that more than anything positive or, more often, negative others say about our family decision reminds me of how important and absolutely final raising our daughter is. Time passes without warning or quarter. Yes, our lives have changed. They have changed for the better.