(Copyright 2008 by Valentine J. Brkich. First printed in the Aug. 2008 edition of The Point North Magazine, Wexford, Pa.)
Why is it, when you have a baby, that other parents are always spewing negativity at you? After my daughter was born, everyone kept saying, "Get ready, 'cause everything's about to change." And not in a good way, either. Now my daughter is 10 months old and all I hear is, "Enjoy her now – while she still likes you. In the blink of an eye she'll be a teenager and she won't want anything to do with you."
Thanks for sharing.
I have to disagree with this reasoning. I don't have to wait for my daughter to become a teenager; she already doesn't want anything to do with me.
For example, she always seems happy to see me when I get home from work. But when I go to pick her up, she immediately starts to squirm and look around for an escape route. Sometimes she just leans over my arms and lets gravity pull her entire 15-pound frame towards the ground. Apparently, she'd rather freefall the 5 or so feet to the hardwood floor rather than let me hold her. I can't say I blame her, though. I wouldn't like it either if some scruffy-faced giant scooped me up and slobbered all over me.
If you think about it, throughout your entire life you're trying to get away from somebody. Like when you go to Grandma's house for the holidays and the whole family is there and your Aunt Agnes corners you, grabs you by the cheeks and plants a big fat wet one on you. If you're lucky, you manage to fake a smile and squirm away with just a little lipstick on your face.
Or how about when you're at the office and that annoying guy from Accounts Payable corners you at the coffee machine and goes on and on and on about some "smokin' hot chick" he met at the bar last night who was "so into him," but she was with all her annoying friends and so he didn't get a chance to get her phone number, which is okay, though, because he's not really looking for any kind of relationship right now anyway. Ugh.
I guess it's inevitable that one day my daughter won't be as available to me as she is now. But you don't have to tell me that I should enjoy these times – times when my daughter is still a baby and unable to talk or walk and couldn't care less that there's a shoe sale at the mall or that she really, really, REALLY needs a new pair of strappy sandals and would like to borrow the car and that if I don't let her borrow it she'll just get a ride to the mall with her new super-cute boyfriend on his super-fast crotch-rocket motorcycle that he bought with his college savings and on which he plans to ride out to Hollywood to become a famous rock star, which, by the way, he will totally be someday.
No. You don't have to tell me that. Right now I'm just enjoying every little smile, every little giggle, and every little moment of this oh-so-precious time. Besides, she can try to escape all she wants. I'm bigger, stronger, and I'm not letting go.
Valentine J. Brkich is a freelance writer who's not about to let his daughter date some motorcycle-riding, lip-ring-wearing, no-direction-in-life punk. E-mail him today at val@brkichwriting.com.
