Lesson #671 of Parenting...Armani Suits and Tube Socks

Tonight I put my daughter to sleep, and although I've done it literally a hundred times...two hundred times...more maybe...no, certainly more, tonight felt different. Tonight we laid blankets on the floor and camped out before bed. We hunkered down with a small camping lantern, some books, and a few pillows. We read and we talked. We hatched plans to lay in bed backwards...heads where our feet would normally rest, feet where our heads might typically be...or wait, maybe that's upside down? Whatever it is, we talked about looking at her room differently, at everything differently. It wasn't long before we were twisted back around, back in our usual position, head near the window, feet near the door. We talked more. I asked a lot of questions and got a lot of fun and surprising answers. She asked me to rub her back and then to write letters on her belly. I did, and then we both fell asleep. When I woke her hand was gripping mine, and her face was nestled into my neck. It was nearly 9:30 pm when I stumbled out of her room, and on so many other nights I might have considered a night slipping away as such a loss of valuable "me" time, on this occasion I was just happy...blissfully so. It's the little trick of parenting that I'm slowly learning. It's so typically all or nothing. Commit and follow through...you'll be happier. Halfway is no way to do this thing, regardless of circumstance. It's her first, and me last, and as difficult as that sounds in rhetoric, it's manifest in smiles and satisfaction when you finally embrace it. Her first... me last. I'm happy that way. How come no one told me that an Armani suit just ain't the same with white tube socks? That would have been good advice to tuck away.

You can't go most of the way. It's all or nothing, at least, as far as commitment is concerned, which translates directly into happiness, which is exactly what I felt stumbling groggily out of Zed's room tonight. Happiness because I wasn't concerned with my own as much as I was someone else's. Armani suits and tube socks. Write that down.