Fully Fazed

This was an actual statement made by my son’s wonderful kindergarten morah last month. I smiled at her, leaned in, and said, “Let me tell you the truth: So far, almost every single one of their phases have fazed me.”

And the more I think about it, the more I remember the many ways my children have kept me on my toes until now. This very minute, I’m only pretending to know what I’m doing, but I can assure you that parenting is the type of thing I can only improve at with experience, so I just do my best until enough experience has turned into some form of wisdom. (Sorry, oldest child.)

For starters, I went through the Child Learning To Talk Phase, which is both a joy and a delight, as each new word spoken is an obvious act of genius, and assured me that I was raising a future valedictorian.

And then, when I least expected it, because I was sure I’d done a good job explaining to my children who they can and cannot talk to, I end up crashing headfirst into the Talking To Strangers phase.