blue hats

I think that before you become a parent, you've got an unconscious, mental list of images that define what you think parenting is like:

(1) holding your baby for the first time and realizing, "Wow, this baby is MINE." 

(2) teaching your little one how to walk, ride a bike, or tie their shoes.

(3) experiencing lots of "firsts" with your child: their first snowfall, their first view of the ocean, their first time seeing Christmas lights.

Once your child actually arrives, you realize that, while occasionally parenting can be like that, most of the time parenting is made up of more menial tasks -- changing diapers, figuring out how to get another strong-willed human being to eat nutritional food, finding matching socks, saving your little one's life for the thousandth time that day. These are the things of parenting. The other stuff -- the special stuff you wait for, those milestone moments that most people long for -- those things come, but they're interspersed with the everyday tasks, like pepper specks in a bowl of clam chowder. They add spice... but they can be few and far between, compared to the thick, chunky broth called life.

I'm waxing poetic here, because these pictures are from one of those special moments -- few and far between, but something that makes everything else absolutely, positively worth it. 

It was a sunny weekend afternoon, and Charlie eagerly wanted to help his daddy fix something... except this time, he stuck with his daddy until the project was finished, and -- get this -- they wore matching hats while they worked. 

And that... well, that just made me smile, really big.

:)