Nick Bhasin realized that sometimes the wisdom of a child is exactly the help a daddy needs.
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As you guys may have gathered from another post, I’ve been down in the dumps. Feeling low. And as illuminating as my journal entries were, they didn’t really help me figure out what was wrong.
Of course, sometimes I just have to take a moment and actually listen to the things I’m telling myself that are making me upset. Things like…
“You’re always going to be fat. Give it up, chubby.”
“There’s no two ways about it. Your face doesn’t look good.”
“People don’t like you because you’re fat and your face is terrible.”
But I had no such obvious clues this time.
Of course, my little miracle baby, being extraordinarily perceptive, noticed and I was once again faced with the task of explaining a complicated situation to a two-year-old…
MY LITTLE MIRACLE BABY: You look depressed.
ME: I feel depressed.
MLMB: Well, I’m glad that’s all sorted. See you later…
ME: Wait. Don’t you want to know why daddy’s depressed?
MLMB: Should I?
ME: It’s something you might have to know about when you’re older.
MLMB: Ugh. Fine. Why are you depressed?
ME: I don’t know.
MLMB: Okay, great. Well, good luck…
ME: Hold on! Do you know what it means to be depressed?
MLMB: Does it mean you get hungry?
ME: Sometimes. Why?
MLMB: Well, you always seem to be chowing down on something or other.
ME: That’s an exaggeration.
MLMB: Is it?
ME: I think I’m depressed because it’s my birthday and I’m a year closer to death.
MLMB: No you’re not.
ME: I’m not?
MLMB: No, you’re just one day closer to death. Just because the number changed, doesn’t mean you got a year older over night. That’s pretty basic maths.
ME: I don’t like the way you say maths. It’s just math.
MLMB: I don’t like the way you eat eggs straight out of the frying pan. Get a *#&$ing plate.
ME: I think it’s bedtime.
MLMB: Finally! Thank you! Christ…
As you might have guessed, we didn’t really get to the bottom of my week of depression. But we got to the bottom of something else. The mystery of whether or not my baby is a little miracle.
And sometimes that’s all that matters when you’re a parent.
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Originally published at daddyslittlemiracle.com
—Photo Stefan Karpiniec/Flickr