What kids can teach us about ourselves.
Somehow its 5 years to the day since my son Lenny was born. 5 years since we were sitting in providence hospital in Portland awaiting a C section because he was breach (feet down instead of head). 5 years since our focus had to shift to this tiny human coming into the world.
5 feels like a pretty big milestone to me, maybe its because that’s when you generally start school, and are figuring things out for yourself. So I thought I should try and pull my thoughts together as to what my son has taught me, maybe about parenting, maybe about myself.
Try to keep calm and think clearly. That said it can become tough when you are sleep deprived, trying to keep it together for work and your child is screaming at you. Literally every-time we are going through a meltdown with one of our kids I always think back to what my mum wrote to me in one of those books where you ask your parents to write down things about their life. One of the things she said to me was “if your child is screaming at you just think, when did they last eat, are they hungry? Have they had enough water? what time is it, are they tired? Do they need a diaper change? Its a pretty simple formula but one that has stuck with me because as complex as kids are and becoming a parent is, if you try and plan slightly ahead through the day you can head off a lot of situations going through that quick thought process.
Having kids is the most amazing experience ever. Make sure you don’t get so worked up to try and be perfect or just grinding through days that you forget to capture the experience. I dont just mean mindlessly filming birthday party videos. I mean doing something with it. I got into the habit of making 1 second videos at each birthday for Lenny. So 1 year in 60 short clips to sum up his year. For my daughter after the first year we made a book to try and have something different but then year 2 we went video. It works so good and I can’t help but imagine when they turn 21 pulling it out and putting it on the big screen.
3. Sleep training sounds great. I think it works. We haven’t succeeded with it but parents I know who have swear by it. I wish we had done it properly but advice to parents of kids under 6 months, do it, you’lll thank me for it. Thats one we messed up on.
4. Kids are versatile. This goes in contrast to the point above, but kids are so malleable and able to deal with changing environments, help them stay that way. We’ve travelled consistently since the kids were born. The first long trip for Lenny wasn’t planned but rather an emergency trip to Europe with a 20 hours travel at the age of 4 months old as my mum had a turn for the worse. He navigated that like a champ through the magic of breastfeeding when they plane took off and landed and since then has been happy flying. Infact I think its his happy place. At 5 years old he now has been on 50 flights and my daughter has been on 20. We’ve also done the road trip for Portland to San Diego and even Mexico 3 times now. Both kids have been absolute stars on that road trip. Its a solid 16 hours of driving but they are always stoked knowing there is a beach at the end of the roadtrip.
5. Bob Marley is your friend. I read a book just before lenny was born and they explained that most of Bob Marleys songs are around 60 BPM which is the same as the feeling of being in the womb when mum is walking around, so they find it soothing. So that, combined with a car seat has so so many times been our savior. When lenny couldn’t sleep at 1 year old in the middle of the night at the beach? Bob Marley for 10 minutes a drive up the 101. When Lilly was past tired on a road trip to California? Bob Marley and some of the I5. I have easily listened to the best of Bob Marley more than any other album in the last 5 years and I love it. If there was one album I could take to a desert island it might be that.
6. Bring a change of clothes. So much for me bragging about my kids travel schedule, if you dont bring a change of clothes with you. One time flying back from Europe to the US on a flight Lenny ate a ton of food, watched a movie and fell asleep. A few hours later he gets up and tries to find the bathroom on the plane on his own. This was a new thing so I thought, wow a good day to start using the bathroom. But alas no, he was looking for somewhere to get changed. He’d basically exploded all the way up to his neck so there we are in airplane bathroom cleaning him up before the realization that I forgot a change of clothes. So the rest of the trip home he was in my XL hoodie snuggled up with his feet tucked in, thats what I told myself anyways. Bad day for the dad there.
7. Kids will find what they like on their own. With someone who has a good few interests/passions/obsessions I was the dad getting his son on a snowboard at age 2, same with trying to get him to play football. I’ve realised through lockdown that kids one day will just figure out what they like on their own. With football it was crazy after a few days he just wanted to play football, everyday, which kind of showed me that no matter the age they will develop interests, you dont need to force them. Same thing with Guitar, one day he was just keen. Let them figure it out on their own.
8. Some days you will feel like you are crushing it as a parent. Its 11am and you have been out to the playground, made them lunch, tidied the house, read books together and feel like you’re really helping expand their mind of creativity. Other days its 11am and you’re about to start the second showing of Frozen and the chances of you guys leaving the couch that day are low to none existent, and that is totally fine. Get comfortable with it.
9. Listen to each other. You are your partner have never been through this kind of test, I mean unless you climbed Everest together, this brings in a new unexpected dimension, have patience and listen to each other and remember you are both doing your absolute best, whilst having a lack of sleep overdoses of poor coffee and likely not enough time for ourselves.
10. Laugh, smile, dance. These are the things that kids love almost as much as Mac and cheese. Films like sing and frozen are amazing ways to get us up, singing and kids love it.
11. Remember kids are a sponge. Be the example you want to see. If you wonder why kids always want a Phone, what example are you setting? I’m guilty of this but trying to get better all the time with this one, if they see a parent looking at a screen the whole time, what do you think they will want?
12. Everyone is figuring it out. Theres nothing worse than comparing ourselves to others for any endeavor but for parenting I think it’s exacerbated as its easy to see pictures of other people just crushing it as a parent and thinking they have it all figured out but they don’t. None of us do, we’re all learning as we go. This is likely the most important one.
I would love to know your thoughts and stories about what you have learnt as a parent.
For me its been the greatest experience watching our kids grow, learn and love to experience everything the world has to offer.