The TRUE effect of children

When did I get old? I know, I know. I'm only 31 (although that's something that the 3 1/2 year younger Elisa likes to tease me about). And when you're growing up, you have this idea about aging - that things are all good until you hit about 40, the downhill slope commences, and you say the big "sayonara" around 80. Living it is a slightly different experience. Now, granted, I don't say I'm getting old as a negative. And to be fair, while there are some physical signs that I'm not an 18 year old anymore, its the mental and lifestyle changes that have been entertaining me lately. Because well...my kids made me old. It's their fault...or blessing.

The whole point of this was an analysis of our weekend thus far. For those of you not single, do you remember your youthful weekends? Should I paint the picture to remind us all? Stay up on Friday night watching something meaningless like a Real World marathon, crash at 3 in the morning, sleep in until 11AM, scoot around the house looking for something good to eat while you surf the TV trying to find some interesting movie to watch. Follow that up with a late lunch involving fast food, french fries, and grease, which miraculously never finds its way to your "love handles" or "thighs". No, food just disappears into the great oblivion known as a hormone ravaged metabolism that only knows full speed. Then it's time to start calling your friends to find something to do, hopefully involving more fast food, mindless entertainment like heading to the "sev" for a slurpee and then wandering around looking for trouble. You get home just in time to realize that the Road Rules marathon started 45 minutes ago, and you can't look away. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

You get married and your life changes - sure, you still go out, still stay out late, and still eat more processed food than is humanly possible, but you find yourself heading to bed at midnight instead of 3. You wake up at 9 instead of 11. Subtle differences, but surely not enough change to make you think you're turning into your parents - after all, it's still easy and natural to look at their lifestyle and choice of activities and say "I'll never do that!"

So here I sit, one 7-year marriage, 2 dogs, a 3-year old, and a 3 1/2 month old later, and I realize that I'm starting to like some of those things I used to scoff at as I watched my parents go about their business. For the new parents of my generation, raise your hand if you've experienced any of the following (lets cover the weekend routine again):

• Friday nights are pure bliss because you might be able to sleep in until 7 instead of 5:30. That is, if one of the kids doesn't decide that it will be fun to wake up 3-4 times that night in hopes of hanging out in mom and dad's bed.
• The nightly news provides the lovable bookend to your day - you tend to turn the TV off right after the weather (if you're female) or just after sports (for the males)
• You wake up sometime in the middle of the night, wondering when you last slept through the night.
• You realize you actually have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night (this only happened in youth when you polished off a 6-pack before collapsing for sleep)
• You're woken up by a child staring you right in the face whispering "Daddy" or "Mommy". It's like a nightmare when it happens, because the kid likes to get REALLY close to your face when he/she wakes you.
• You throw the kid into bed, hoping that he/she will go back to sleep. You still convince yourself that it's possible. You end up disappointed.
• The first thing on TV is Mickey Mouse, or a Little Einstein. Sadly, you find yourself thinking "oh I know this episode!"
• You're out of bed at 7:00, thinking its a waste of a day to stay in bed any later.
• Breakfast in bed is for those who are physically unable to face the world due to sickness - instead, you make your meal and wolf it down, staring at the house that experienced a twister called child #1.
• The highlight of your day is when the newspaper arrives. Pure bliss, as you find a way to drink your coffee, read an article, put a pacifier in your child's mouth, stop the other from crashing their tricycle into the couch, and read another article.
• You actually get excited about errands - especially when the word "Costco" is involved.
• You find yourself interested in activities listed in the newspaper, but by the time you finish the paragraph stating times/dates, you have already built a checklist in your mind of what you'd need to finish before being able to do the fun activity, and decide it's probably not worth it.

This is all before 10:00am. And the sickest part of all? You love every minute of it. And then spend the rest of your day, finding ways to convince yourself that you're completely different from your parents.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.