Hammerblog

I never used to consider myself an especially sentimental person. Heck, even the wedding scene from Fiddler on the Roof wasn’t enough to get me choked up–but that was before I had a couple of kids of my own. Nowadays, I find myself blubbering at the least provocation. Daughter goes off to her first day of preschool? Cry myself silly. Son gets too big for that set of yellow duckie pajamas? I’m in recovery for a week. God only knows how I’ll face graduations, proms, marriages and grandkids one of these days.

Which brings us to the latest crossroads: my youngest is finally getting too big for his crib. Little Christian will soon be making the move to the Big Boy Bed, and yours truly is already getting mopey about it. After all, he’s only TWO years old! Why’d he have to grow so fast? Before you know it, he’ll be asking for the keys to my car. When the heck did I get so old?

That’s one of the great ironies of parenting. Before you have a baby, you think the whole diapers and midnight feeding thing is going to take forever–but little do you realize that life begins to zip by at warp speed once the little ones take hold of your heart. I honestly have no idea where the last half-decade has gone, or even what life was like before I became a dad. I just wish there was some way to hold on to these years for a little bit longer.