Lessons Learned from My Child: On Standing Up

I've considered writing something about the lessons my not-yet-one-year-old daughter is teaching me for a while. Actually, the idea to do so was planted in my brain well before she was even born, just a bump on my wife's belly swimming around and kicking like a mule (much to the chagrin of my wife's pelvis).

I started writing at one point about how she had taught me to have hopes and dreams in a way that I haven't before, and again at a point where she had taught me the value of a quiet cup of coffee, of getting somewhere near enough sleep, of surviving without anywhere close the 8 hours of slumber. And I thought, too, of writing about her prowess with the bottle and how I should think about trying to enjoy my food half as much as she does.

But it was this morning that I decided the time was finally ripe to put some thoughts down. As a father, I've worked hard to understand my place in the family, so that I can set a good example for both my wife and my daughter (and heck, even for the cats and the dog). I haven't always succeeded at that. I've lost my temper, fallen down, drank too much and eaten too little. And I've been feeling particularly down lately as I attempt to further balance life, family, my hobbies and interests, keeping the romance alive, long work hours and an equally long commute, and - newest of all - returning to the academic world at 30 with the hope of reinvigorating my career. There was a game I played as a kid where you had a spinning disc that balanced on top of a single point. The object of the game was to drop smaller discs onto the spinning disc in such a way that it continued to spin and would not topple. The more you dropped on, the greater the difficulty in finding continued balance and the greater the sense of loss when the whole thing inevitably came crashing down.

Life has, in many ways, felt astoundingly like that game in recent months.

But today, as she has for months now, my daughter stood up in her crib to greet me in the morning. She squealed, squeaked, laughed, then bit down hard on the wooden edge of the crib.

And that's the lesson that she taught me today: every morning is a chance to stand up. Every morning is a chance to encounter the day with a smile. And every time you stand up in that way, you have the opportunity to teach someone else something that maybe they forgot.

This wasn't a new lesson for me, by any stretch. But it was one that I sorely needed to be reminded of.

It's raining and slushy out today, clouds cast over the city like a duvet pulled up to the nose of a skyscraper. Still, I can clearly see my daughter's face as she stands up and embraces whatever may come.