Little Don Meow has cut the ribbon on Rotavirus season, it seems.
His stomach is bothering him and things unspeakable of in company that may eat while reading this blog are coming out both ends. He is better now, which is why I can be a little more cavalier in my descriptions, rather than beside myself with panic and worry and missed sleep.
Also, he has the distinction of being number two. This is not my first time at the gastrointestinal virus rodeo, and while you can get bucked if you're not careful, the fall won't kill you.
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We all love our children.
It's hard to think of loving them when they are hale and hearty and getting into mischief. It really is. Strangely enough, it is easiest to love them when they are contained– like when they are quiet and serene; or asleep; or when they are sick.
The exuberance of children takes our sanity away. Their energy robs us of our own.
But their pain and suffering is the most potent fuel of all: the one that makes us realize that if any harm were to ever come to our children, there would be no hesitation in swiftly and blindly hurting the source of that pain so fast your head would spin.
No hesitation. No consideration for one's own life or limb: just swift and deadly action, if necessary.
And it's weird to think in those absolute terms, until harm comes knocking and then you know that it's not even a matter of what-if. You just tap into your parental Dirty Harry reserves, and go for it.
Which is why it's important to focus on this very thing whenever life doesn't go as you have planned it, parents and parents-to-be:
Do the children come first?
If they don't, you have failed as a parent.
The children come first.
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
The children come first, second, third, and last.
When someone tells me I should be taking time for myself, I give them a blank stare. Put myself first? Impossible thought. Difficult to do because I’m always doing or thinking of doing something for someone else. Yet, recent events have made me realize I have to think of myself more often or else I deprive the people I care about of me. So even when thinking of myself, I’m really thinking of everyone who relies on me to be here. So, yeah, the children come first.
It really is easiest to love them when they’re being quiet. That’s because they aren’t aggravating us or driving us to distraction, or panicking us with all the things they try to do. Which are all part of the reasons why we love them so very much. 🙂
Being a parent is the best experience of my life. Also the most annoying, terror-stricken, despairing, proud, and hair-pulling experience I will ever go through. I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
The children did not come first in my family. Well they did with me, as I was the first-born, but after that we became less and less first, until sibling #4 showed up, at which time none of us came first. Mom came first, and is still first to this day. We like it that way, too.