We were at our favorite Mexican restaurant this past Monday night, as we are every Monday night, and another couple came in with their new baby, 4 months old.  We exchanged pleasantries as we both had small children and went on with our evening.  It was interesting watching them interact with their child and I couldn’t help but think back 2 years ago when Layton was that tiny.  Seriously, how do they grow so fast?  I saw them getting so excited about the baby smiling and laughing, they were talking to each other about how big a milestone that was.  That got me thinking back to how I felt when Layton was achieving all these various milestones.  I have to be completely honest, I was nowhere near as excited as they were for their child or my wife was for Layton.  It’s not just the smiles or the laughs, I wasn’t all that excited about a first word or crawling or rolling over.  These are all huge things in a baby’s development and parents should rightfully be excited by it all.  I got to see Layton’s first step, that was cool; however, still not the crazy excited most parents get, even though I would have been upset if I missed it.  So at this point you’re probably thinking I’m a pretty emotionless dad (I was happy for all of these milestones, just not overly excited).  Wow, this guy doesn’t get excited for any big developmental things his child does.

Here’s my mindset on it, and you can disagree as we’re all entitled to our opinions.  As parents, as long as we’re doing our best to raise our children in a healthy, positive way, they are going to do all of those things, they need to in order to survive.  I feel pretty damn proud as a dad that I was able to encourage and support him to get to all those things, but eventually he would have needed to figure it all out.  I recently took the Real Colors personality assessment and “blue” was my lowest score so it explains my lack of emotion for this kind of stuff. (that’s how I’m justifying it in my mind)

So, all this stuff and I was only mildly excited about it.  You know what put me through the roof with excitement?  He sang his ABC’s and got past “Q” and made it to the end and sang “next time won’t you sing with me”.  Wow!  That was exciting!  Yes, I’m being serious.  In my mind it was a huge accomplishment.  Yes, I know he needs to learn his ABC’s and 123’s and be able to sing about it like the Jackson 5, but it was different in my mind than all the other big/bigger stuff.  He struggled to get past Q for so long (months that’s where he would end).  Finally, Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z!  Glorious!  And he kept singing it!  Yeah, I was that excited.  I was also really disappointed and sad that I didn’t see him catch his first fish, or his second fish, or any of the fish he’s caught yet.  One fish that wasn’t small either.  I wasn’t there for any of them, I was/am definitely sad about that.  If you didn’t know before, now you know I’m a little crazy.  Learned to walk?  Eh, that’s cool.  YOU CAN SAY YOUR ABC’S???? THAT IS AMAZING!!!  You smiled?  No big whoop.  You caught a fish and another fish and another fish?  BEST DAY EVER!!!

Here’s the deal.  Get excited about stuff your children do.  It doesn’t matter what it is get excited about it, about them.  Everything they do is new to them it should all be exciting.  As parents we may see it a little different.  Walking?  We do that everyday.  Walking to a 1 year old, that’s the most difficult thing in the world, be excited for them!  They caught a little bluegill?  Be excited!  I’ve gone fishing for entire weekends and caught nothing, who cares how big or what kind of fish, it’s a fish!  It’s all exciting and if we’re not excited about it for them they won’t be excited about it either.  So they climbed up the playset steps and slid down the slide, that’s the point, isn’t it?  To them that was the hardest thing they did that day, be excited about it.  It took the ABC’s for me to realize all this stuff is a big deal.

What was the most memorable milestone you have of your child?

“A B C, It’s easy as, 1 2 3, As simple as, do re mi, A B C, 1 2 3, Baby, you and me” Jackson 5.