It starts off so exciting. You’re thrust into a totally new situation—you have a kid. And then so much happens and keeps happening. Benchmarks. When they take their first steps, say their first word, when they learn to write their name. But then what happens?
It sort of slows down. You’re just in it.
In her fascinating book, A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhirst tells the incredible story of Maurice and Maralyn, stranded in a raft in the Pacific after their ship sinks. Although they don’t have kids, there’s a powerful passage in the book relevant to parents. “After the wedding,” she writes, “after the honeymoon—well, then it’s just those days. Ordinary days. The insurmountable, self-renewing chores. The bins, the laundry, the procession of meals. And those are the golden days, it turns out. The blissful, boring days that you long for when things go wrong….”
Parenting is highs and lows, sure, but it’s also just so many ordinary, regular days. It’s traffic on the way to school. It’s winter evenings when it’s cold and it gets dark early. It’s doctor’s appointments and referrals to specialists. It’s reminders to brush their teeth. It’s dumping rocks out of their shoes. It’s putting away hockey gear. It’s dishes, so many dishes.
Quality time…and as we’ve said, ‘garbage time.’
You’ve got to learn to love the latter because on the whole, there’s probably a lot more of that then there are family vacations or graduations or playoff games. It’s not much but it’s also a life. And one day—not many days from now—you’ll miss it.
One of my favorite ways to remember those ‘blissful, boring days’ is to journal about them—even if it’s just one line a day (if you’ve been here for a while, you know that I’m a huge advocate of journaling).
I’ve recently added the Daily Dad Five Year Reflection Journal to my practice. Each night, I write one line in response to a parenting prompt: a memory, a question, or something important that happened that day. It’s already been a rewarding nightly practice—I’ve been able to reflect on some challenges and remind myself of ways to be a better dad.
What if, at the end of each day, you traded just a few minutes of scrolling or checking your phone to write your memories down? To briefly answer a prompt about something your kids did on that day, or a question to help you reflect on parenthood? To create a memory to revisit later with your kids or with your spouse?
You’d have a meaningful reminder of these beautiful, irreplaceable ‘ordinary days’ with your family.
Get your copy of the Daily Dad Five Year Reflection Journal—or learn more about it—here.
