Rules Are For Fools So I Break Them

Rules are made for fools.I’m pretty sure I learned that on Sesame Street or something. Oscar the Grouch, that rebellious, off-the-grid, organic-living malcontent had a song about it. I can’t remember the words but it rhymed rules with fools, and suckers with…something else. Whatever the lyrics, it got its point across: if you want to have fun, screw the rules!Rules are made by The Man, and there’s nothing more annoying that doing something just because The Man tells you to. And there’s nothing more satisfying than sticking it to The Man. Since most of us have to live our lives somewhat responsibly (I say most because some of us think only of ourselves, damn the consequences, or the destruction we leave in our wake), we have to find small ways to stick it to The Man.Lately, my most common outlaw action has been breaking the speed limit. Now, I know that no one except for the person driving in front of the police car obeys the speed limit, but I actually used to respect it. I’d stick to going five or ten miles over, which meant I was among the slowest cars on the road.But sometime in the past year I suddenly decided that the speed limit is a mere suggestion. I’ve caught myself becoming irritated with cars that are only going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. I weave in and out of traffic. I pass cars in the right lane because they’re not going fast enough in the left lane. My daughter and I went on a little road trip recently and the speedometer topped out over one hundred miles per hour more than once.I drive like an asshole! And I’m not even sure why I changed the way I drive. But the horrible thing is that I just don’t care!But really, in our fast-paced, gotta-have-it-now world, is speeding even rule-breaking anymore?I do more serious outlaw, hoodrat stuff, too.I’ve never sorted laundry by colors or fabric once in my life. Maybe you can tell the difference when you see my clothes, but I can’t. They look clean to me. Maybe a bit wrinkled, since I don’t waste time with ironing, but I don’t care about that either.I recently heard a commercial for one of the fifteen million mattress companies that somehow stay in business, and they claim that we should buy a new mattress every eight years. I’m breaking that rule with gusto! Eight years? Are you kidding me? I guess they stay in business by peddling bullshit like that!Oh, oh, oh! I almost forgot. How about the rules imposed by oil change places? “Here’s a sticker to remind you to bring your car back in three months or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first.” Sorry, oil change dude, I think I’m going to follow the advice of the people who made the car and change the oil every 5,000 miles or six months, since they, you know, made the car!And actually, come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure I’m going to return to your oil change place. The fact that you can’t tell that I just changed my air filter and you’re trying to sell me a new one makes me wonder if you know what the hell you’re doing!I wear contact lenses, and when I got them the eye “doctor” told me to change them every few weeks. If not, my eyes were likely to fall out, or I’d go blind, or some equally horrendous fate. Newsflash: my eyes are already horrible. Short of literally going blind, I don’t think they can get much worse.So I guess I learned some of what Oscar tried to teach me all those years ago. I think he’d be a little disappointed though, because I pay my taxes, I haven’t murdered anyone, and I only vote once every election. I did almost get arrested, but that wasn’t even breaking rules. I had good reasons for that!I’ve actually just broken a rule. I was supposed to write and publish this little piece in one hour. It has now been 63 minutes. And guess what ChicagoNow is going to do about it?Not a damn thing!Our challenge for this month’s Blogapalooz-Hour (a ChicagoNow communal writing exercise in which we’re challenged to produce a post on an unknown topic in an hour) was: "Since rules are made to be broken, write about rules you routinely break or want to break"Enter your e-mail below for more Dry it in the Water posts!

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The Senate's Shameful Gun Votes

I’m so tired of being told how great this country is, and then watching as our democratically-elected representatives—you know, those people we send to Congress because we here in America have the best form of government ever devised by man!—refuse to do anything about one of the most basic problems in our country: guns.If we’re so great then why do we tolerate it when a bunch of spineless, mouth-breathing idiots disregard the will of 92% of the people, and vote against gun control measures as the NRA races to stuff their pockets with money? Are these cowards the sort of people James Madison had in mind as Senators when he was writing the Constitution?If Second Amendment fetishists can claim to know that Madison intended to protect their right to own super duper mega shoot ‘em up guns, then I can claim that he surely didn’t intend for any of these Cro-Magnon doofuses to hold elected office, permitting them to make decisions that kill innocent people.Is there any institution more shameful than the United States Senate? Has any governing body so resolutely refused to act in the face of such a dire need to act than this body? Has any group of people ever so blatantly chosen money over honor or re-election over duty?In case you didn’t know, the Senate on Monday failed to pass a number of amendments intended to help prevent gun violence. This disgusting inaction isn’t surprising to anyone who has followed Congressional response to mass shootings in the past. After twenty children were gunned down in their school Congress didn’t act. Why should we think they’d act now?One of the amendments defeated was proposed by Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California. She had the radical liberal idea of permitting the attorney general to deny firearms or explosives to any suspected terrorists. That seems like a pretty simple idea to me. Terrorists want to kill people. Maybe we should make it harder for them to get the stuff they use to kill people.Nope.Fifty-three idiots in the Senate thought this was a bad idea. This included Marco Rubio, a Senator from Florida, in whose home state 49 people were just murdered by a suspected terrorist who legally purchased his weapons! Good lord, do these assholes shutoff their brains before they enter the Senate chamber?Some Republicans argued that Feinstein’s amendment didn’t do enough to protect people who were mistakenly put on terrorist watch lists, or were linked to terror groups by mistake. Yes, Republicans are worried about such a thing the day after their own presidential nominee suggested that we should start profiling Muslims as a way to fight terror.Just to be clear, Republicans support profiling people as terrorists based on their religion, but are worried that we may take guns away from innocent terrorists.Abe Lincoln is rolling over in his grave in Springfield at the realization of what these fuckfaces are doing to his party!Senator Chris Murphy is from Connecticut, so he’s familiar with gun violence. He proposed requiring a background check for almost every gun sale, including those sold online or at gun shows.You’re smart. You read this blog. So I know what you’re thinking, “Why don’t we already require background checks for every gun sale?”I don’t know. Maybe because we’re a couple hundred years behind the rest of the world on the gun violence issue. Maybe because money runs our political system and the NRA has plenty to spend. Maybe because of an epidemic history of Senators born without spines.But Murphy provided a chance to right this wrong. To do something that makes sense, that 85% of Americans want.And the Senate couldn’t pass it. Not only couldn’t they get the 60 votes required to pass, they couldn’t even get a majority. 56-44 in favor of rejection. A handful of misguided Democrats even voted against it.So if you’re crazy, or a criminal, or a terrorist, or just a guy having a bad day, go on over to a gun show and get yourself a gun. No one will ask any questions except whether you’ll be paying cash, check or charge. And then you can walk out with a firearm.And go kill people. Lots of them.Our leaders are doing nothing about guns. They spew the same bullshit about the Second Amendment, and there being nothing we can do to stop it, and blaming mental health. We cannot accept their ineptitude. Their greed. Their selfishness. Their shortsightedness. Their idiocy.We must do better. They must do better. And if they won’t do better, then it’s up to us to find people who will do better and vote for them.Until then, I’d settle for every goddamn Senator who voted against gun violence prevention measures on Monday to be required to explain their vote to a relative from Sandy Hook, or Columbine, or Aurora, or Orlando, or whatever city is next in this godforsaken merry go round of insanity.Is this really the best this country can do?Enter your e-mail below for more Dry it in the Water posts!

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Why The Road Less Traveled Isn't

Our challenge for this month’s Blogapalooz-Hour (a ChicagoNow communal writing exercise in which we’re challenged to produce a post on an unknown topic in an hour) was: “Write about a time you followed the road less traveled and it made all the difference.”I immediately recognized the “road less traveled” reference to a Robert Frost poem. I also appreciated the additional advice given to us, “The famous Robert Frost poem idealistically wants taking the road less traveled to have been a good thing, but life doesn’t always work out, so also consider writing about a time when it didn’t work out.”A topic immediately came to mind. It’s a situation in which almost everyone on earth—or in America, at least—does one thing, and in which I will do a different thing.But before I wrote, I decided to reread the poem. I was familiar with it. Or so I thought. I’ve been interested in Robert Frost since I was a teenager, which is when I’d learned he’d written a poem for JFK’s inaugural. (I was—and sort of still am—interested in all things JFK.)However, I was surprised when I read the poem. It had changed. Or, actually, I guess, my understanding of it had changed.First of all, the poem isn’t even called The Road Less Traveled, which is what I thought it was called. It’s called The Road Not Taken. “Eh, close enough,” I thought to myself.And then I read it. And it turns out the damn poem isn’t anything I thought it was.All the times I’ve read it before, I’ve thought it was about a guy who had two choices—two possible paths to follow—and he chose the one less traveled, and because he chose the one less traveled—the implicitly less popular route—it made all the difference in his life, as compared to how things would have turned out if he had taken the other, more popular path.But that’s not what the poem says.There were two roads. He couldn’t take both. He looked down one path until it bent and he couldn’t see it anymore. He took the other path, which looked just as good, and it was grassy, but worn just the same as the first path. Both of them were equal. So he took the second and kept the first for another day. But he knew that this was a decision point, and he could never really go back and take the first path.And here’s where thing gets even more interesting. He knows that someday, when he’s at the end of the second path, the path he chose, he’ll look back and tell the story of how he made the decision, and he’ll claim that he took the path less traveled, and that it made all the difference.So really, the poem isn’t about overcoming adversity, or doing the difficult things, or making less-popular or riskier decisions based on principle. It’s about the way we shape, or frame, or mold the stories of our lives after those stories are complete.It’s the difference between The Road Less Traveled, which implies a romantic, daring, bold decision, and The Road Not Taken, which presents the obvious idea that in every decision we make, there’s a road not taken.So this is what I’ve chosen to write a blog post about? What the hell for?We live our lives. We do what we do in the moment we’re alive, and then that moment’s gone. And all we’re left with is a story. We can tell that story any way we want to. The way we tell the story can change every time we tell it.But we can only live the story once. Frost says in the poem, “I shall be telling this with a sigh/ Somewhere ages and ages hence:” And in that poem the sigh comes because he knows that the path wasn’t less traveled. That’s not why he took it. He took it because he had to take a path. He couldn’t stand there forever.In the situation that I mentioned earlier, it’s very clear to me that one road is less traveled. And that’s the road I will take. And taking that road will make all the difference, good or bad.No matter how things turn out though, there will always be the road not taken. But as the narrator points out, even though, “Oh, I kept it for another day!” the fact of the matter is “I doubted if I should ever come back.”So wherever this road leads, I won’t waste time wondering what might have happened if I took the other road. Because up ahead, there are, no doubt, two more roads diverging in a yellow wood.Did you like what you just read? If so, just enter your e-mail, and I'll let you know when I write something new. I promise I won't send you any crap, and you can ditch me any time you want.

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Donna Day: Let's Do Something to End Childhood Cancer

A child was just diagnosed with cancer.And since 1 in 285 children in the U.S. will have cancer, there’s a good chance that if you don’t know the child just diagnosed, you someday will know a child diagnosed.What are we going to do about that? Unlike the diagnosed children, who don’t get to decide whether they get cancer or not, (most childhood cancers aren’t caused by lifestyle choices as many adult cancers are), we have a choice. We can do nothing, and the problem will never be solved, or we can act.I choose action.I’m not smart enough to cure cancer. And you, Dear Reader, probably aren’t smart enough to cure cancer either (despite your obvious wisdom as a reader of this blog). But just because we’re not smart enough to cure cancer, don’t think for a minute that our help isn’t needed. In fact, without you and me, cancer will never be cured.Who’s going to raise awareness, if not us? Who’s going to tell these stories, if not us? Who’s going to donate money for research, if not us? Who’s going to get their friends to donate money for research, if not us? Childhood cancer research is severely underfunded by the government. We’re on our own in this, folks. We can wait for a cure, or we can help to find a cure.This blog post is going to help cure cancer. Everything helps. Anything helps. It’s time for each of us to do our part.It’s easy to choose inaction. All you have to do is nothing, and what’s easier than nothing?But if you choose nothing, and I choose nothing, and everyone else chooses nothing, then what happens? More kids get cancer. More kids die from cancer.We have so many things to worry about in this world that it’s understandable if we don’t want to worry about childhood cancer.Until your child is diagnosed. Then it becomes the most important thing in the world. Nothing else will matter. You’ll understand the urgency. You’ll begin learning scary facts, like more kids in the U.S. die from cancer than any other disease. Or that 80% of all childhood cancers have already spread by the time they’re detected. Or that 95% of childhood cancer survivors will still suffer from chronic health problems as an adult.But if we do something, if we each do our part, however small it may seem, then we’re that much closer to the day where you don’t have to worry about your child being diagnosed with cancer. So donate a little bit of money today, spread the word, help cure childhood cancer, and you’ll have one less thing to worry about in the future.This plea comes to you on Donna Day. Fellow ChicagoNow blogger Mary Tyler Mom began Donna Day five years ago to honor the memory of her daughter, Donna, who died from childhood cancer when she was four years old.So today, many ChicagoNow bloggers will write about Donna, and about childhood cancer. We’ll cite a bunch of figures, and provide a bunch of links, and try to persuade you into taking action.But really what we’re doing is talking about hope. And every good thing begins with hope.There’s hope that we’ll all donate some money. And hope that some scientist whose name we don’t know, and whose work we don’t understand, will figure out a way to cure our children. And hope that Donna’s story will spur you into action if my words fail to do so. But most of all, we hope that in the future people think of childhood cancer the way we think of smallpox.Read more about childhood cancer on the St. Baldrick’s website. Donate to the fundraising event being held by Donna's Good Things, an organization setup by her parents to do good things in her memory.. Share this post on Facebook. Spread the word.I've written almost 700 words. If you read at average speed, you've spent three minutes reading my words. So that horrific timer is about to go off yet again. Three minutes is up.Another child has cancer.Let's do something.Did you like what you just read? If so, just enter your e-mail, and I'll let you know when I write something new. I promise I won't send you any crap, and you can ditch me any time you want.

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Forgot A Valentine's Gift? Use This Letter

If you’ve forgotten that today is Valentine’s Day, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. Nothing’s better than a love letter, and if you don’t know how to write one, feel free to copy mine. You can thank me later.Dear Valentine,Just because I’m thinking about it, on this day celebrating love, I want to tell you that you are on my mind. That’s no different than any other day, except everyone else is celebrating their love today, too.And I must confess, I feel sorry for those other poor fools. What do they know of love? Perhaps they’re enamored. Perhaps they’re infatuated. Maybe they’re even enchanted. But they’re not in love. Not the way that I’m in love.Never would I claim to be the only one who can love. That’s absurd. But I am the only one who can love the way I do. For I am the only one who can love you. And for that dumb luck, that great gift, that good fortune, I feel blessed. There are billions of people in this world, my dear, but my love—the greatest gift I can give—is reserved for but one: you.Insanity sometimes cannot be avoided, and what’s more insane than love? We can’t try to make sense of it, for it’s nonsensical. We can’t try to rationalize it, for it’s irrational. We can’t try to think logically about it, for it’s illogical. We can only celebrate it. After all, what’s worth celebrating in this world if not love?Now that you know how I feel, what do you have to say? Could this have been a surprise to you? Surely you’ve known all along. You’ve not forgotten this, have you? How else do you explain those things I’ve done for you, those words I’ve spoken to you, those moments that we’ve shared? What about those years, and those places, and those times? Does any of it make sense without love?Every time I look at you, I’m reminded of that word: love. But it’s not just looking at you. It’s thinking of you, talking to you, smelling you, seeing your name, hearing your voice, it all reminds me of you, and the word that I associate most with you: love. The grandest of all the four letter words.Before you accuse me of being sentimental, of saying things I don’t mean, of getting caught up in the cupid mania associated with this day, let me remind you of one thing: today is temporary, but now that I’ve written these words, they’re forever. They won’t vanish at midnight, like this day must, without a choice. These words—like the feeling that drove me to write them—will be here tomorrow, and all the days after that.Any time you need reassurance you can read this letter and you’ll be reminded that when it comes to my feelings about you, every day is Valentine’s Day.Keep this letter with you. Read it often, and think about it always. And let this letter do for you, what loving you has done for me. Let it bring you happiness and joy. Let it bring you hope for the future, gratitude for the past, appreciation for the present.Each day is better because I love you. Colors are more brilliant, sounds are more symphonic, smells are more enticing, tastes are more delectable. And it’s all because of you.Radical you. Memorable you. Hilarious you. Engaging you. Caring you. Passionate you. Outrageous you. Just you.Love,Your ValentineNow, just enter your e-mail, and I'll let you know when I write something new. I promise I won't send you any crap, and you can ditch me any time you want.

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Daddy Daughter Dances Creep Me Out

Valentine’s Day is less than a week away, which naturally means it’s time for dads to go on dates with their daughters.Good lord, doesn’t that sound creepy?I’ve got two daughters, but one of them is eighteen years old, and I don’t recall Daddy Daughter Dances being a thing when she was little, say 2004 or so. However, my younger daughter, who’s five, somehow found out about a Daddy Daughter Dance and decided that she wanted to go.So we went.I love the idea of fathers spending time with their daughters. Any parent who will actually make their children a priority in their lives gets thumbs up from me. But there’s just something about Daddy Daughter Dances that’s always made me feel uneasy and creepy.Maybe it’s because I frequently hear people refer to the dances as an opportunity for father and daughter to go on a date. Yuck! Or maybe it’s for the same reason that those mother/son and father/daughter dances at weddings give me the heebie jeebies.There’s parent-child stuff in this world and there’s romantic couple stuff in this world. Let’s keep each of those things in its own realm.Daddy Daughter Dances also remind me of purity rings and this idiotic car commercial with Kevin Hart, and that whole idea of a possessive dad who has to protect his angelic daughter from demonic teen boys. I hate that crap, even though I was a teen boy once.However, even though the idea of a Daddy Daughter Dance creeped me out, my daughter and I had a blast! We got dressed up, got our picture taken, danced crazy to a few songs, ate too many cookies, played with balloons, and just enjoyed spending time together. I didn’t think of us being on a date, or at a dance. We did the same things we do at home, only in fancier clothes and surrounded by a bunch of other people.Those other people included fathers of all sorts. As my daughter and I danced, ate and wandered, I noticed that fathers at the dance could be classified into one or more categories.There was the No Way Am I Going to Dance dad. He stood off to the side and watched his daughter dance, but refused to step onto the dance floor. When the DJ announced a slow song and asked all the daughters to bring their dads to the dance floor, this dad turned around, walked away, and pretended like he didn’t hear the DJ or see his daughter.There was the I’m Not Dancing, but I’ll Do the Hokey Pokey dad. This dad is exactly who he sounds like. He’s just like the guy from the previous paragraph, but he’s willing to make an ass out of himself if most of the other dads are doing it. More dads “danced” to the Hokey Pokey than any other song of the night, probably because no dance moves are required since the song tells you exactly what to do.There was the I’m Just Here to Hang Out With These Other Dads dad. When we first arrived I noticed that more than half the dads in attendance were standing around in groups, or sitting at tables, and talking to other dads, with their daughters nowhere in sight. I’m sure all these dads knew each other, and were just being friendly, and there were groups of girls without a dad in sight, but it still struck me as odd. I wondered if any of the dads had the foresight to sneak in a flask. If so, their Daddy Daughter Dance was probably very similar to a regular night hanging out with their friends.There was the I’m Always on my Cell Phone, so Why Should It Be Any Different Now Just Because We’re at a Dance dad. These dads were by themselves, off to the side, staring at the screens in their hand, for more than just a few seconds. A few sat in the bleachers. It could be that their daughters ditched them to go run around with their friends. But still, if I had a cell phone I wouldn’t want my daughter to think that whatever was on that screen was more important than she was, no matter what she was doing.There was the You’re Not Getting Me Away from the Refreshments Table dad. I only saw a couple of these dads, but they meant business. We passed one guy a few times who I’m quite sure ate his weight in chocolate chip cookies and Ritz crackers. And he weighed a lot! Nothing wrong with getting your money’s worth out of those $25 tickets, I suppose.There was the Don’t Mess Up Your Hair or Your Dress dad. This was most dads, but only while waiting in line for pictures. I heard endless admonishments about being careful with hair and clothes before pictures. Those admonishments frequently ended with “…or your mother will kill me.” After pictures most dads went back to the status quo of not paying attention to their daughter’s hair or dress.I don’t know how many of the other dads fell into the Daddy Daughter Dances Creep Me Out group, but I’m sure there were a few. However, when your five-year-old daughter says she wants to dress up and hang out with you, you do it.And by the end of the night, you don’t care if it seemed creepy at the beginning. Because chances are you’ve had a wonderful time and you’ve created memories both of you will always cherish.And maybe—just maybe—you’ll look forward to going again next year.Now, just enter your e-mail, and I'll let you know when I write something new. I promise I won't send you any crap, and you can ditch me any time you want.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: My Daughter Came to Work with Me TodayPREVIOUS POST: How Did We Become Dog Owners?

How Did We Become Dog Owners?

“Should we put a sweater on the dog?”Those are eight words that I never thought would cross my lips in that exact order. Yet as we prepared to take our puppy outside into the unseasonably pleasant January air this past Saturday, I uttered those words.And I was serious!I don’t hate dogs. When I see a dog I’m quick to pet it, play with it, talk to it, whatever. I didn’t want a dog of my own though. They smell, and they’re expensive, and they lick their butts and then want to “kiss” you, and you can’t leave home for too long because you have to get back to feed the dog or let it outside or keep it from gnawing on something valuable.Doesn't that sound great?I do hate dog sweaters though. Dog sweaters are a typical example of the effort to anthropomorphize our pets. We want to act like they’re human, so we dress them in clothes, or refer to ourselves as their parents, and call them our children.Actually—just for the record—my wife and I go out of our way to not refer to ourselves as our dog’s parents. I’m sorry, it’s just creepy.So how did I end up worried that my dog would be too cold without a sweater?Of course my kids have always wanted a dog. What kids don’t want a dog? But my wife and I presented a united “No Dog” front, and we kept a canine-free house rather easily.And then the united front began a sudden and speedy collapse.First my wife mentioned a cute dog she saw in a photo. Fine. Doesn’t mean we’re getting a dog.Then she began asking her friend—whose parents just happen to own a pet store, and who owns a dog and loves dogs—questions about certain breeds of dogs. Why is she asking questions about dogs?Then she began doing internet searches about dogs. Wait a minute, why is this pet finder website on our computer screen?Then she began exchanging e-mails with a breeder. Oh shit, is she serious?Then she showed me a picture of the dog available from her new breeder friend, and said, “I want to get it. Today.” This must be what the East Germans felt like when the Berlin Wall collapsed. So the entire family loaded into the van, drove two hours on a Sunday evening to the house of some nice woman who had two puppies for sale, and saw the dog’s actual mom (not human!), and one of those two puppies took an instant liking to my wife.Now that puppy lives in our house.This is the part that always stumps me. Why on earth have we welcomed a wild beast to live in our house? Okay, maybe a toy poodle isn’t exactly a wild beast, but still, our ancestors created houses in part to avoid living with animals, and now, thousands of years later, we thumb our noses at those ancestors, and not only welcome the beast into our home, but use some of our resources to feed it, entertain it, and make sure it’s healthy.However, it turns out that this little dog isn’t a beast, and he’s fun to play with, and he’s lovable, and he’s funny, and he’s nice to have around. Yes, he’s sometimes inconvenient, like when I wake up at 6:15 on a Saturday morning so his routine isn’t changed while we’re trying to housebreak him, or when my wife can’t leave the room without him following her, or when my daughter can’t eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the floor because he’ll try to take it from her.But the good outweighs the bad. The kids love him, and he loves them, but not as much as he loves my wife. And despite the early morning—and sometimes middle of the night—sleep interruptions, I’m glad we have him. He doesn’t take up a lot of room, he doesn’t smell, he doesn’t shed, and so far he hasn’t torn apart anything he shouldn’t tear apart.And I don’t even mind putting a sweater on him when it’s too cold outside.He can still keep his kisses to himself though.Now, just enter your e-mail, and I'll let you know when I write something new. I promise I won't send you any crap, and you can ditch me any time you want.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Do You Know Where Your Dog's Tongue Has Been?PREVIOUS POST: Childhood: It's Just a Phase So Don't Miss It

Childhood: It's Just a Phase So Don't Miss It

There’s a picture of my two sons hanging on the wall at the top of the stairs, just outside their bedroom. They’re both wearing Bears jerseys, and they have their arms around each other. They look so genuinely happy that I smile just thinking about it. The picture was taken in April 2009, when my older son was four-and-a-half and my younger son was almost three.It might as well have been taken yesterday for how vividly I recall seeing it for the first time.They share a bedroom, and when I tuck them in at night I look at that picture. On the two flights of steps up to the bedroom, we’ve got at least a hundred photos of the kids and our family in collage frames. Sometimes I take my time as I go up or down the stairs and look at the pictures showing trips to the park, vacations, silly moments, special holidays, or just an instant in time that my wife had the talent and foresight to capture for eternity.And I can’t believe it’s 2016.Wasn’t it just yesterday that my youngest daughter ripped my wife’s earrings out of her ears when I picked the two of them up for our first date?How have almost eleven years passed since we worried as my older son had surgery when he was three weeks old?I can still feel the cold, wet dew on my feet as I scrambled out the front door without shoes on in the middle of the night when my younger son was born.And I think I’m still smiling from the swiftness with which my youngest daughter began chewing on her hand the moment she entered the world.Yet years have passed since all of these things happened. Thousands of days. And despite my best efforts to slow down and appreciate every day, it still seems like it’s all gone too fast.A video on Facebook drove this point home this morning. It showed the different phases of a young girl’s life. It shows her interests, her style, her friends, the ways that she changes over the years. It captures a feeling to which every parent can relate and appreciate. The video is very well done, but its true impact comes when you substitute the girl in the video with your own child or children. (Note: I borrowed the title of this post from that video.)It conjures the same feelings that arise during the montage of Jessie’s owner growing up in Toy Story 2, or when Andy goes away to college and leaves his toys with a little girl in Toy Story 3.It’s the feeling that childhood is a phase. But it’s not just one phase, it’s a series of phases, some overlapping, some leading into the next. And the beautiful heartache of watching our children grow and learn and mature while we realize that when these moments are gone, they’re gone. And sometimes we don’t even know a phase is near the end until well after it’s over.Other than birthdays, or last days of school, or new years, or other calendar markers, there’s almost nothing that tells us when a phase is over or a new one begins.One day my older daughter just stopped pronouncing hamburger as “hambahder”. She liked cats. She hissed like a cat. She liked frogs. She sewed. She liked hippie stuff. She liked Hannah Montana. She liked Twilight. She liked The Fault in our Stars. She graduated high school.My older son had meaty drumsticks. He liked Elmo. He’d repeat in a whisper words that he heard. He slept with a cuddle blanket. He loved flags. He loved sea creatures. He liked Handy Manny. He liked Super Mario. He played soccer. He played baseball. He took swimming lessons. He liked Minecraft.My younger son didn’t like me for the first nine months of his life. He had very straight hair. He’d act out scenes from Toy Story. He was obsessed with Caillou. He took swimming lessons. He played baseball. He wore an eye patch. He did planks all the time. He counts steps on a Fitbit.My youngest daughter wore cloth diapers. She had very dark hair. She repeated the same two sentences once a day for well over a year (“Remember when that dinosaur spit on mama’s camera yesterday? That was so funny.”) My wife took at least one picture of her every single day for the first couple years of her life. She took ballet. She likes Caillou. She says “Chicken butt.” She’s a vegetarian (except for pepperoni).These are things that we’ll remember about their childhood. The phases of their lives. Some continue, most are over. Those phases, along with all the moments captured in the hundreds of thousands of pictures my wife has taken, and the books we’ve read, and the movies we’ve watched, and the places we’ve gone, and the zoos and parks and museums we’ve visited, are the stuff memories are made of. The stuff life is made of. It’s why I tuck my kids into bed every night, and why my wife bakes with them, and runs with them, and paints their nails, and celebrates days like National Chocolate Cake Day.In my house we have a couple of tangible things that have marked the phases of childhood. There’s one bedroom that each of the four kids have called their own at one time or another. It was pink when we built the house, then we painted it yellow, and now it’s purple. And there’s a spot beneath the window, right up next to the trim—you have to get down on the floor and look up to see it—where you can see all three paint colors. And that one section of wall reflects the phases of childhood.We also have a wall in a closet in the basement in which we’ve measured the kids every few months for the past ten years. We began when my oldest son was about a year old, and continued as all four kids have grown. There are dozens of marks on the wall, each with an accompanying name and date. If anyone ever painted over that wall I’d cry for months.Childhood is a series of phases. But that wall better be like the memories we’ve created: Forever.So pay attention. Get involved. They're your kids, and they're only this age once. There are no do-overs. Live this phase. No matter what it is.Because tomorrow it might be gone.IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The 939 Saturdays of ChildhoodPREVIOUS POST: We Can Do Better Than Donald Trump, Can't We?Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. 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