An unexpected result of parenthood

As a non parent I took a lot of things for granted.  These were freedoms that I would no longer have as a parent, but knowing what I was getting into I was mentally prepared for this.  One unexpected freedom I lost was the ability to peacefully wake up.  It's something I have never even thought about except when I have an alarm, but even then on the weekends I could always lay in bed and get up at my leisure.  I didn't realize that this had changed in me until last weekend when I went for a float.  For those that are interested read here for a in depth description of floating. For the purpose of my story though floating is sleeping in a sensory deprivation tank where all of your sense are rendered neutral.  It is the most relaxing sleep you can imagine.  At the end of the sleep they gently start playing bells and chimes to wake you so you can wash up.  As soon as the gentle chimes started playing I sat bolt upright and was immediately climbing out of the tank.  I couldn't have gotten out of there faster if I wanted to.  Later that evening I reflected upon the experience and I realized I'm so used to getting up for The Dude (aka our little guy) that I reacted the same way after my float.  When we get up for The Dude it's because he is crying, hungry, uncomfortable, can't breathe properly, or some other somewhat serious problem so there is no time to groggily wake up.  Instead we go straight from fast asleep to full alert mode in seconds.  Now I miss the ability to peacefully wake up.  

An early cyberspace memory

Out of the blue this morning I had a flashback to the early days of the Internet as we know it today.  I'm not talking about the birth of the Internet when it wasn't in common use, but rather the days of dial up modems, AOL/Compuserve/Netscape/Alta Vista/, and most importantly no Google. One day my dad came home and mentioned how he had heard the story of someone who had committed a heinous crime.  He related how the name sounded strangely familiar, but he couldn't place it.  He kind of left it at that until I suggested we get on the Internet and see if we could find more information.  Back then we made sure no one was on the phone and then initiated the dial up modem to connect to AOL.  Once online we had to navigate out of AOL's internal interface until we could search the Internet.  It seemed so vast and abstract then.  This was probably 1994 or 1995.  I don't remember what we did next, but I would imagine we used Netscape or some browser to go to Lycos, Yahoo, or Alta Vista to search for more information.  Ultimately we found out that the criminal was approximately the same age as my dad and then it all clicked.  This criminal was a former college classmate of my dad's.  In contrast I think of today when at the drop of hat we reach for the iPad or our cellphones to look up some obscure fact to prove a point.  The search wasn't hard back then, but it was more involved and thus more thrilling.  

The smile

One would think that the difficult part of parenthood is the smelly diapers, the odd hours for feeding or changing, sacrificing your time, or even getting sick more frequently as your little one becomes a germ carrier.  Those parts are all trying, no doubt, but they are not anywhere near the most difficult part.  To date the most difficult part is looking into the little guy's eyes when he has the biggest smile you have ever seen.  This may seem strange and counter intuitive, but it's when he smiles that makes it so heartbreaking.  Right before we go in for his shots he just looks at you with one of those light up the world smiles. In my mind I know what's behind that door and how he's going to be in pain for the foreseeable future, which makes his smile so hard.  Another day we were trying to teach the little guy to soothe himself to sleep.  Many people know the technique as crying it out and he had been going at it for quite some time so I decided to just go in and roll him over on his stomach.  In the middle of non stop crying his tears stopped dead in their tracks and he looked at me with the biggest time stopping smiles.  It just breaks my heart.  This is why the hardest part of parenthood is his smile.