The Indignity of Parenthood

Good-bye dignity. Good-bye lofty ideas. Good-bye sentences and paragraphs and conversations composed of words we can spell.

Hello drool on our faces. Hello raspberries, peek-a-boo and endless giggling. Hello to the wonders of sitting for a fraction of a second longer. And a big hello to the beauty of every subtle change in Jem’s expression.

Sometimes we look at each other and ask, “Are you the person that I married—or just a lobotomized alien with the same face and body?”

Oh yeah: Parenthood. We’ve arrived.