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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I once gave myself a nosebleed when I did a belly flop off the cliff dive at the local water park, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons I learned when I became a dad.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
When I was growing up I can remember talking with my friends about what we thought our families would be like when we got older and what we thought life would be like when we graduated. I thought that I’d graduate high school, go to college for 4 years, find the right girl along the way and get married when I was around 22. I then thought after I’d been married for a few years that I’d have kids. I wanted 2 or 3 kids. I think most of my friends pretty much had the same plan.
Funny how things change once stuff gets real. I didn’t graduate college 4 years after graduating high school. I didn’t get married at 22, but I was close. I got married shortly after my 23rd birthday. Once I got married, something weird happened. As a kid and even a young adult, the thought of having kids and starting a family was a really cool idea. I looked forward to it. However, once I got married, that all changed.
I don’t think it happened immediately, but some time very soon after I got married I realized that the idea of having kids freaked me out. My wife soon started having an interest in starting a family, but the idea of it really made me uneasy. We talked about it from time to time and I’m grateful that it was never a point of frustration or tension between us. We were always able to talk about it honestly. After a while I realized what my problem was.
I was not at the point where starting a family was a far off and intangible thing. I was at the point where it was a reality. The reality of the responsibility of everything that comes with having kids was really weighing on me. Kari was patient. Her biological clock was ticking, but she wanted to make sure that both of us were ready. So that was the way things went for at least a year after we started talking about it.
One day it hit me. I was not going to suddenly wake up one day with a new found realization that I’d just arrived at the day where the fear of having kids was gone. I thought about that reality for a little while and then made a decision. I decided that since I would never wake up one day and suddenly be non freaked out about having kids, then any day was as good as any other to try and start a family. After talking about it with Kari, we decided together that we would start trying to have kids and then just see what happened.
I don’t know what month that was, but it was 2002. We had been married about 3 years. In almost no time at all Kari was taking a pregnancy test and the result was positive. I was still pretty freaked out about the idea of being a dad, but I was pretty freaking excited too.
In November of 2002, Addison came into our lives. It was awesome! Addison was a good baby. She started sleeping through the night pretty quickly and didn’t really cry a whole lot. She was a very happy baby and we were feeling very fortunate. We’d heard so many horror stories from other parents that I think we had expected that first year to be much worse than it was.
At some point the topic of having more kids came up and we both decided that one kid was enough. Addison was such a good baby that we thought there was no way we could be that lucky again. We were also content with having a family of 3. However, things don’t always go as planned. In February of 2004 Kari took me out to dinner for my birthday. Once we sat down at our table she handed me a birthday card. Inside the card was an unexpected message. We were going to have another child!
To say I was shocked is an understatement. Kari anticipated this and had the camera ready. She took my picture as I read the card and smiled at all the nice things she wrote. She then took another picture as I read the part about being a dad again. The look of shock on my face is pretty hilarious.
Later that year, in October, Colby entered our lives. As unbelievable as is was for us to imagine, he was an even better baby than Addison had been. We were now a very happy family of four.
Here’s what I learned.
We can never be fully prepared for what life brings our way. The truth is, even if I had thought I was ready to start a family, there’s no way that I could ever be fully ready for it. Parenting is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever done. Some days I lay my head down to sleep and think that I’ve just had a day that should go into some sort of parenting guide book. Other days I think that I was a real clod.
Honestly though, I can’t imagine my life without Addison and Colby. They are so amazing. They bring such joy and fun to my life. When I think about those days when I wanted to be a family of 3, I realize that to have remained that way would mean that I would have never met Colby. I love him so much and love hanging out with him that I’m glad God had other plans. Addison is so imaginative and creative that she amazes me. Sometimes I just shake my head in wonder at how much creativity she has.
Life never follows the path that we plan and it never equips us ahead of time for all that it will throw our way. But we learn as we go and try each day to do our best and learn from the day before. And sometimes we do ourselves a favor to look at all that we’ve been blessed with and accomplished along the way and return thanks for all we have. I am so thankful that I get to be the dad of Addison and Colby and I have Kari by my side each step of the way.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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