Parenting From A Big Kid's Point Of View

***Guest Post By Brian!***

Ok, so I'm not really a kid, I'm 35 years old, but I have a basement full of arcade games, I still play Nintendo and Sega and I collect classic automobiles.  Now, amazingly, I also have a kid.  25 year old me would never have believed it, let alone 30 year old me.  But, here he is, and now Lisa gets to live with two kids (at least one is potty trained, though).

I never knew what to expect when having a kid.  I never read any books on how to be a good father or how to raise your child.  I never even WANTED kids until a few years ago!  Luckily, I had two incredible role models growing up in my mom and dad, and I always just planned to take their lead and raise Calvin with the lessons that they taught me.  They did a fantastic job raising me - I'm happy with the way I turned out.  They always gave me the freedom to be who I wanted to be, make the decisions and mistakes that I was going to make, and learn from them.  That's how I plan on raising Calvin, and Lisa shares this philosophy.  It's like Princess Leia said to Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."  Basically meaning that the more restrictive you are, the more you're going to have rebellion.  I got along great with my parents even as a teenager because they gave me the freedom to be me.

Why does Leia have a British accent in the first movie, but not the rest?

It does become so interesting, though, to see life through a new set of eyes.  As an adult, so many things have lost their, for lack of a better word, wonder. A tree is a tree, a cat is a cat, and swinging in a swing makes me kind of queasy.  But to Calvin, this stuff is freakin' fascinating.  His eyes get all wide when he grasps a leaf in his hand; he laughs his little head off when one of our cats rolls around on the floor, and when he's in his swing?  Forget about it.  It could be a rocket ship speeding through space for all he knows.  He's smiling and kicking his legs and waving his arms.  Even mundane things amuse him.  He absolutely loves ceiling lights.  We have this one fixture near our front door that he will look at whenever he's near it - to the point of craning his neck waaaaaay back to keep it in sight.  It's a nice light, and I like it, but he LOVES it.

Yes he does.

The point is, it's neat to see someone just learning all of this stuff.  Learning life, so to speak.  I can't wait for him to go to the beach for the first time, see the ocean, see animals at the zoo... all of these things that are old hat to us get that layer of dust blown off and become new again.  I never thought that sitting on the floor playing with blocks would be considered fun and exciting, but now it is.

So the journey begins - one adult woman, one baby, and one adult man who never grew up.