Oh, to be five again...

What would I give to do it all over? Ok, I don't think I could take a second round at adolescence, but one of the joys of parenthood is the living vicariously through our children. I don't mean having them become the famous athletes or actresses or politicians that we never were, I mean experiencing their joy as if it were your own. Now for those of you who are parents, you will know exactly what I am talking about, and for those who are not, you will, someday, maybe... Here's the thing, we've all been in love, felt like our heart was going to burst at the seams with love, like not being with another person was a fate worse than death. But the love that you feel for a child is an entirely different kind of love. It feels as if your entrails are being twisted into a ball, and you hang on every utterance or noise, every coo or giggle that your baby makes. It is a force so powerful that it wakes you in the night so that you can sit and contemplate the profile of their rounded nose, or the way their lips part ever so slightly, or how they suck the air in their deepest sleep. Of course this degree of obsession gives way to other things, but I fear I may still be guilty of being utterly and hopelessly in love with my child. Even when she is being a brat, and speaking nonsense in her sort of Italian, sort of French made-up language while turning up her nose and saying "Mommy is an X" or slipping her hand stealthily down my shirt in the middle of a restaurant and then pouting when I repeatedly remove it. (I confess that when she is really really tired I just let her do it, she never had a "wubbie", I guess I am it.) I can't help being shamelessly and slavishly devoted to her, so I don't try.

So despite my personal aversion to kitsch and kvetching children, crowds and ultra-processed, canned fun, I can't deny the happiness that it brings not only my child but others from all over the world. God, I wish I weren't such an f'ing snob, but I am, AND I am willing to forego aforementioned snobbery for the love of my life. So here's the damage: don't laugh too hard, ok?






















So here's to the last family vacation in a long time (heading home on Sunday!)