EXCEPT IN RETROSPECT

Dear Spike:

When you're a parent, you get to say a lot of big words like "retrospect."

For instance, in retrospect, it might have been a good idea not to spend the past two weeks talking about all the fun we're going to have on the occasion of your second birthday, because now — on said birthday's eve — you're so giddy with anticipation that you can't get to sleep. And it's going to be a bit tough to make good on all those exciting promises tomorrow if you can't keep your eyes open.

Lesson learned.

There have been a lot of those over the past two years.

For instance, if you want your daughter to be excited to see you after a week away from home, it's best not to do something to drastically alter your appearance, as I did when I shaved my beard on the way home from Cuba, last year.

And if you don't want your kid to puke up rotten milk all over her bed covers, it's a good idea to make sure she hasn't hidden a bottle under her pillow during nap time so that she could have an extra few sips before bed.

And if you decide you want to teach you daughter to spell the word "fun," it's a bad idea to laugh when she mispronounces the letters "F-U-N" as "eff-you-man" — because that's the way she'll spell that word for a long time to come.

I've learned what songs make you laugh and which ones make you cry. I've learned how to hug you when you say you need a hug and how to hug you when you say you don't. I've learned that I need to remind you every day that, even though your mother has gone off to work, she'll be coming home soon.

I've learned all this because, in retrospect, there was a time that I should have done something else.

There are very nearly 7 billion people on this planet — and every single one of them had parents. And every single one of those parents had parents. And every single one of those parents had parents. And so on and so on until our Eve.

You'd think, with all that experience, our species would have developed a full-proof plan for parenting. Of course, we've got nothing of the sort. Even good parents — and I think your mother and I are good parents — manage to screw things up quite a bit. Hence the little girl in the room right next to ours who, in between adorably off-key choruses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" has been chanting "birth-day! birth-day! birth-day!" for the past 30 minutes.

The trick is not to screw up in any irreparable ways — and so far (I think) we've managed to guide your little ship past any catastrophic crashes upon the rocks of life.

I guess we won't know for sure, though, except in retrospect.

But we're doing our best. And we're having a lot of fun.

That's "F-U-N," by the way.

Lesson learned.

Love,
dad