I hate clichés. I love clichés. I just find it weird when I feel as if my whole life is one big cliché! Being a parent means you will undoubtedly experience any number of them. Here’s an arbitrary list of parenting clichés. Be honest, how many have you used?
So, I had a little ski accident that I’ve already written about in “Just A Guy Overcoming His Fear.” The only residual damage I’ve had is that I keep getting fatter and I can’t lose the weight I gained from the period in which I had to be relatively sedentary! I then went back to my usual routine of working out and couldn’t bloody lose the extra 15 pounds! What gives?
Dennis Prager, one of the most influential men in my life, spoke on his talk show recently about the impact of a first year of marriage. He asked if an easy, successful first year or a difficult, hard first year were indicative of the long-term success of the marriage? He didn’t take a position either way, allowing callers to offer their stories, which were both positive and negative about the impact of their first years on their marriages.
As I’m about to survive, I mean celebrate, my first year of my second marriage, it raised some questions for me, worthy of thought. Our first year has been both wonderful and rough, in many unforeseen ways, and I’ve wondered what it means for our future.
The classic second marriage dilemma is the parent of the kids choosing between his or her kids and their spouse. Recently, I faced that problem times ten with choosing between wife and kids.
First, my wife had a medical emergency that involved paramedics, 911, and a morning rush to the hospital, followed by surgery, recovery, and coming home – all in the same day. Between it all, I had to deal with my boys getting to and from school and try and do a little necessary work. While my wife was obviously going through the worst of it, I was completely worn out trying to balance everyone’s needs.
