Having a Kid is Like…

…beautiful angelic light from heaven, and the clear ringing of silver bells…ahh screw it.  Toddler Harbat bit me last night and I called her a wild dog.  She cried, there were hugs and apologies all around, and all was forgiven as we had dinner together.  So is having a kid all joy?  Nope.  Neither is it pulling down your pants to look at a blood blister on your thigh.  Usually it’s both in surprising proximity.

If we rewind a half hour, Toddler Harbat and I got home and she wanted to read a book before dinner.  “A Sesame Street book,” she requested.  I plopped down on the couch with one of the volumes from the1970s-era collection of Sesame Street books my wife found on eBay.  They smell glorious, like old paper and new stories waiting to be discovered.  Toddler Harbat climbed onto the couch and sat beside me and that’s when it hit me.  Holy crap, she’s a little person.  A real person. 

Please don’t think she wasn’t a person to me before.  But if you have kids, you know the first few months you don’t have a person, you have a crying and snuggly lump that can’t see too well.  But last night on the couch, there was a real person sitting next to me, one with friends, fears, hopes and aspirations.  Even if those hopes are to get another My Little Pony to be friends with Toola Roola, a new acquisition from this past weekend.  She can talk now, well enough that we can have conversations.  She can sing songs I don’t know, can pass on all the scuttlebutt from school, “Addison fall off the slide and hurt her arm!”, and can even make jokes.

So having a kid is like…

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Writer, architect, father, husband.