On being phased out

AAAAGGH! Blogger ate my last post! This is the second time it's happened. If I try to save a draft it's cool until I close the window. *sniffle* And I'm sure that one had tremendous social import.

Oh well.

*sigh* I have been so hormonal all day.

I've been tearing up over other people's blogs and now I'm having some sort of emotional verklemt moment over my son (my first child).

I was watching him struggle to put on his Spider-Man slippers this morning and I noticed how grown up his little hands look. He's almost 3 and they've lost that baby fat sausage-finger look. They look like the capable hands of a young man and, indeed, he only needed my assistance briefly

I realized suddenly that very soon those hands would be gripping a steering wheel, typing on a keyboard, holding hands with a girl. He'd no longer need me to help. He'd no longer need me for anything.

They say that you should spend the entire time you raise your children engineering your own obsolescence. You should work from day one to make them less and less dependent upon you, so that when it comes time for them to go out on their own, they can do so with confidence.

To this end you should teach them how to wash clothes and dishes, make them clean up after themselves, teach them to fix things, have them earn their money rather than just give it to them. A major part of this is insisting that they are responsible for their own actions. This covers everything from not doing their homework for them to not helping them out of every little jam they get in.

I believe in all of these things and plan to implement them.

But it doesn't make it any easier to watch my baby growing up.


Here he is at about 7 months
And at 2 1/2. Yes, that's Daddy's Maxim he's holding.