Everybody always talks about the joys of those midnight rocking chair cuddles, or the little giggles, or the toes being pulled to the little mouth.  Yeah yeah yeah, cute, sure. But I feel I’ve got some joys to share with you that maybe surpass all those cliche little moments. For example…

Nobody told me it would bring me THIS MUCH excitement — nay, sublime serenity — to go through all the past dreary winter’s worth of sweaters and long sleeved shirts that I am SO VERY SICK of seeing, then sorting them into the resell/give to cousins/save for another kid someday piles, nice and tidy as you please, and then — THEN! — finally moving a few items that can stay for the fall down to the bottom most drawer, and then moving the new spring and summer items up to the most accessible drawers.  It is such a great feeling to bid adieu to the old and welcome in the new! And we’ll do it all again in the fall!

Nobody told me it would be so great to make up the game “sun naps” wherein you and the kids lie down on the picnic blanket under the sun and pretend to sleep in the sun.  It doesn’t last long, but the minutes it does last are warm liquid gold.

Nobody told me how great it would be to let kids choose birthday presents.  Yes, sure, taking a kid into a store and saying, “Pick something out that Daddy would like,” or “What do you think the baby would like for his birthday?” is not fast or efficient or always reasonable, but it is one thing consistently, and that’s hilarious.  For his birthday, the baby ended up with a giant stuffed hamburger. I mean, how can one say no? I laughed and said, “That’s perfect.”

Letting my almost-four-year-old take portraits of me is something nobody told me would be so great.  I mean, they’re mostly photos of my feet, but it’s still funny.

Speaking of portraits, nobody told me how funny it would be to watch my daughter draw us all in chalk, describing in detail how she’s giving us our proper hair and glasses and so on.  Seeing yourself through a little person’s eyes is illuminating.

More than anything, maybe nobody told me how great parenting would be, orrrrrrr maybe I wasn’t really keyed into what they really meant.  I’m sure if I tell a mother-to-be how great parenting is, knowing in my heart what I mean, she’ll probably think I’m going on about the rocking chair cuddles too.  And those are good. But those chalk portraits man, they are even better.

Find the stuff that brings you joy.  Document that for the baby book, write it on your heart, tattoo it in your brain.  The special things that bring you joy are yours forever, cliche or not, goofy or not.  And while parenting is HARD (lord is it hard, hard in ways you can’t begin to get a non-parent to grasp entirely, I think) it is also so goofy and golden.