You get to a point in parenting where you recognize you are:

no longer a manicured image,

no longer going at your preferred pace,

no longer focused on your own narrow trajectory.

Our children have asked us to: do, and go, and be—

in our very imperfection, in imperfect timing—

pulling us down from lofty places we once espoused to.

And, in that way, they have brought us to the ground—humbled us.

But from that humbled place, we have become free.

We are now kneeling in the dirt working through a meltdown, regardless of our perfect jeans.

We are concerned more about interpreting a tiny “coo” and babbling, than digesting the latest x, y, z.

We are watching a caterpillar crawl on a blade of grass, instead of watching a scroll of every other ‘nothing.’

We are wondering why a firefly lights up, rather than wondering what everyone is thinking.

We don’t loose our ‘life’ when becoming parents, we start actually living it.