Here Lies My Life Before Kids

My life ended six years ago. It happened slowly at first, so I didn’t notice. But looking back at my first child’s birth, I see a headstone where my life as I knew it took its final resting place.

Parenting killed me.

The squirmy buggers start off small, and dads don’t do so much of the work, so I didn’t notice at first. Then I awoke up one groggy day and found three squidgets underfoot and realized that six years of my life were over with.

I’m just not the same person I was back when I was single and childless. Marriage didn’t require all that much adjustment really. The first child changed my wife’s life more than mine since she chose to stay at home rather than work. Until the kid was mobile, we still had most of our time free. By the time the second child was born, my Daddy hat was on quite a bit, keeping Kid #1 busy so mommy could have a break and so that he wouldn’t poke Kid #2 in the eye (“But I want to!” he said. True story.)

Now that Kid #3 is here, I have approximately 60 minutes every day in which to fulfill myself. That means cramming photography, writing my blogs, reading other blogs, eating a snack, surfing the net, reading a book (I have lists of dozens that I’ll never get to), catching a favorite show, fixing whatever the kids might have broken, scratching off something from my wife’s “Honey Do” list, and tying up loose ends on business projects. Very little of that ever gets done, of course.

Lest I catch the wrath of the Mrs. for sounding like I have it bad, let me admit right up front that she has it much worse. =)

But rather than mourn the loss of my free time—my luxurious, sensational free time—my only-means-of-coping-with-life free time—my how-the-heck-am-I-gonna-get-anything-done free time—my what-am-I-gonna-do-when-there-are-FOUR-kids free time—my what-did-I-ever-do-with-all-that-time-when-I-was-single free time—I’m just going to say something sappy about how I wouldn’t trade it for all the free time in an unbroken infinity loop ‘cause the kids are incredible, beautiful, and bring me more fulfillment than anything else in life.

It’s true. And it's worth dying for.