Hi Jake.
This is for you. For anyone else who happens to stumble on to this, firstly... get a life, why are you reading random blogs? =)
Secondly, Jake is my 3 year old son - to whom I would like to impart some wisdom but currently one or both of us lack the understanding of the other's mindset to make this the right time to have this conversation. For example how do I explain to a three year old that the title of this blog "shit happens the you die" is not meant as the negative summation of a pointless life - as the original author of the phase assumedly meant - but instead a matter-of-fact statement that sums up my life outlook and - with the right explanation - can be an optimistic view of the time we have available to us.
We have a number of years between us Jake. Thirty eight in fact. This means that by the time you are ready to hear what i have to say now, i will have moved on to a more bitter and twisted world view that will be equally out of reach for your young optimistic view of life. Better for me to get this down now and "freeze it in time" so to speak and give you a chance to catch up to a point where this might actually be helpful to something that is happening in you life.
Before we start, let me address a couple of small points.
1. You are three years old - what took me so long to get started on this?
Well a couple of things really.
Firstly this is the first chance I have had to draw breath since you were born(which is slightly bizarre because this is about the most tired I have been since you joined us because I haven't slept more than an hour or two a night for the last week). The first year was a blur. The second year i was just getting the hang of being a father....and in the third year you changed it all again so everything I had learned up to this point was effectively now useless again.
I was just starting to get my head around the idea that I would always be a little bit behind what was required to be your dad - but in my hubris decided that I would compensate for this in some zen-like manner and still be somewhat on top of things - and you went and threw an enormous spanner in the works and broke your right femur by falling off a climbing frame at day-care. As I sit here writing this first entry we are one week into what is likely to be six weeks of you in a cast from your armpits to you ankle and I am thinking that I will never actually work this shit out.
Secondly, I am lazy. Just like the title of this blog, my meaning here is probably different from the negative use of the word "lazy" that you have likely encountered until this point in your life by teachers or movies etc. I detest wasted effort. I don't mind working hard at something but I don't like doing it twice if there is a way of doing it once. I don't like wasting time repeating myself or waiting for idiots. Because of this, I notice (perhaps more than the average person) how often in life you do have to end up doing things twice because you screwed up the first time or repeating yourself for the sake of some idiot who didn't get it the first (or tenth) time around.
Lastly, despite being lazy, I do work long hours. Also, due to my laziness I do like to spend my down time "veg-ing out" either watching TV or playing on my iPad or reading a book. Actually, now-days reading a book is also on my iPad but I make the distinction because reading a book is considered slightly more highbrow than playing on your iPad although I suspect that this will make little sense to you by the time you read this.
Suffice to say that my spare time (which was even precious to me prior to becoming a parent) was even less likely to be used in something other than personal relaxation after you were born. As such, it has taken until now for the parenting instinct to eek its way into this aspect of my life and cause me to spend my precious relaxation time on passing on what are sure to be priceless pearls of wisdom.
2. Why now ?
Well as I have mentioned above you have just broken your leg and I find myself taking some time off work to look after you (with your mother whom I love dearly and have been married to since 1996). I am not sleeping at all during this period but that is not particularly unusual. I am a crappy sleeper. Some people brag about how little sleep they need - as if this somehow makes them stronger or better - but let me tell you insomnia is a curse. By the way, if genetics is an indicator one you may have to battle with as well as my mother and her father were both dreadful sleepers. I hope this skips you or you take after your mothers side and often know the joy of 8 hours sleep in a row.
Anyway, I have been away from work for a week (which is about how much time I need to stop thinking about it constantly) and I cant sleep. So this seemed like as good a time as any.
So, reading back over this it seems like a bit of a long-winded scary start to this and I don't want freak you out so I am going to leave it there for the first entry. Go and have a lie down an think whether you really want to keep reading this ramble from your old man. I will try and make subsequent entries more upbeat and funny (or at least informative) so I hope you stick with it a little longer.
Love
Your Dad.
