“He’s cuter than he used to be.”

This was a comment that I overheard recently at a family gathering. When I realized the speaker was referring to my son, I laughed involuntarily. Not a belly laugh, but a sniff of disbelief as though I were trying to expel a gnat from my nose. Cuter than he used to be! Absurd.

Her words seeped into the spongy part of my brain that processes and analyzes. I was surprised when I started to feel a little indignant. What exactly did she mean by that? That Sean wasn’t cute to start with but was just now approaching entry level cute? She was obviously unaware that the nurse in the delivery room had pronounced him “too cute” at birth. Too cute — too, as in unbearably cute, a level of cuteness that could not be tolerated, criminally cute. A professional nurse would not lie about something as serious as that.

It was the first time that it had ever occurred to me that there might be someone on the earth who didn’t see Sean as I do – that someone might actually think that he is not cute, but just average, just so-so. I was astonished.

As conversations about cousins, weather and jobs rose and fell and floated around the room, I held the expression of someone who was listening intently. I nodded and said things like “Is that right? You don’t say” all while diagramming those six words in my head. Cuter than he used to be.

What if she were right? What if I was mistaken and Sean wasn’t catalogue cover cute? I kneaded this idea like a cat atop a velvet pillow. Silently, purposefully, obsessively pushing, pushing. Would it be so bad if my kid wasn’t cute or would it just be bad that I was so blind?

As I pondered these things, I recalled that it was just the other day that Antique Daddy and I were looking through some early photos of Sean and we both agreed, and even laughed about how deluded we were. We didn’t remember him looking so goofy. We didn’t remember that his head looked like a big bald happy toothless bowling ball attached to drunken rag doll body. We thought he was too cute.  And in our eyes,  he was too cute – so stunningly and unbearably cute that we could do little else but sit around and look at him and sigh.

It turns out that he is cuter than he used to be. And I am even more blindly in love with him than I used to be.

* * * *

This post was originally published in June of 2006.  Every season Sean is cuter than he used to be and his daddy and I are astonished at how much more in love with this child we are than we used to be. We didn’t think it was possible.

A parenting magazine that I sometimes read recently ran the headline, “The Secrets of Motherhood.” 

And honestly, that kind of headline makes me roll my eyes.  Because really, after several thousand years of recorded history, am I supposed to believe that women are just now  revealing the secrets of motherhood? That we’ve been able to keep those secrets under our collective hat all this time?  I don’t buy it.  I know better.  Women like to share. Women like to share in a way that makes men queasy. There are no secrets among the motherhood. 

For example: 

Woman A sees Woman B for the first time ever at a local playground. They share a park bench as they watch their children play.  Woman A turns to Woman B and compliments her shoes.  Woman B repays the compliment by telling Woman A her birth story in complete and graphic detail from the conception through the delivery of the placenta. Woman A reciprocates by tellling Woman B that she pooped during the delivery. Woman B then says, “I like your shoes too.” 

See? There are NO secrets in motherhood, all is known, revealed, discussed and blogged.  And then commented upon.

And if the secrets of motherhood were somehow going to be revealed after 6,000 years, I’m sure they would be revealed to Oprah first.

In my previous life, I played golf three or four times a week. I love golf. I even love to watch it on television.  In fact, before I met Antique Daddy, I wouldn’t even consider dating someone who didn’t play golf.  It was on my non-negotiable list.  We played quite a bit until Sean came along and I hope that one day Sean will take it up and we will play as a family because the family that golfs together, well, they spend a lot of time together.

On Twitter the other day I saw that my friend, the author Jill Shalvis, asked the rhetorical question, “Why do I have children?”  Actually, she said it more like this:  WHY DO I HAVE CHILDREN?  If we are honest with ourselves,  we all feel that way at one time or another.  There are just some days when you want to throw your kiddo in the lake, just like a big bag of golf clubs and say, “I quit!” and then stomp off to the club house for drinks and nachos.

But in parenting, there is no club house. There’s just another day. And if you throw your kid in the lake, chances are they would just swim out and keep pulling on your sleeve and talking in that Alvin the Chipmunk voice.

Where was I?

Yes, how parenting is like golf.

So on Twitter the other day, in response to her question, I said to Jill that parenting is like golf.  And that was it. Which makes no sense. I’m like some geekzoid girl who walks up to the cutest guy at the party and just blurts out some random fact and then I shove my hands under my armpits.  So here then, in this space where I am afforded more than 140 characters, let me tell you how parenting is like golf.

Clothing should be comfortable. Matching is optional.

It is a darn expensive hobby.

It takes up a lot of time.

No cheerleaders.

A lot of people do it, but not that many do it well.

Those who don’t do it, think it’s boring. It’s not.

It’s not as easy as it looks.

Like dancing, you can look really silly while doing it.

It will make you cuss. Even if you don’t.

Everyone has advice on how you can do it better.

Aspire for par.

It’s all about patience and discipline and finesse – not strength.

It will make your back hurt.

It takes balls.

There are lots of books and videos promising to make you an expert. They won’t.

Sometimes the harder you try the worse it gets – relax.

Wear sunscreen. ( Just thought I’d throw that one in.)

A bad day of parenting is better than a good day of not parenting.

If you are much younger than me, you probably don’t remember the television show Hee Haw and therefore the title of my post today will make absolutely no sense.

Anyway, that’s just my way of saluting all you moms in the northeast and midwest and other snowy places who dress their kids in snow clothes four and five times a day.

After dressing Sean in our make-do snow clothes several times on Thursday, I need to rest for the remainder of the weekend.

Glory be it’s exhausting! — all the pulling and tugging and tucking and snapping and buttoning and velcroing.  

Mental note to self:  Make sure child goes pee pee before beginning the pulling, tugging, tucking sequence.

At one point I looked out the back windows to see him shoveling snow with his purple plastic beach shovel. Two observations: 1) He was shoveling the snow in such a way that is was blasting him directly in the face and 2) He thought this was fun. 

At some point he was shoveling so vigorously that he broke the shovel in two.

Southern boy cannot operate snow shovel.

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The other day as I was dressing Sean for church, he thrust Mr. Monkey in my face.  “Be careful,” he warned solemnly.  ”Sometimes Mr. Monkey gets angry.”