I had thought it would be funny to mess with Dee and bit last night and switch sides of the bed.  She is such a creature of habit, this wasn’t easy for her to accept but I insisted.  I mean, we are in a hotel for 2 nights and why not?  Live a little!  Well, my little scheme brought a couple of laughs from the kids as Dee tried her best to negotiate changing back but in the end the joke was on me.  Woke up bright eyed at 4am and Dee was still sleeping peacefully on my side of the bed.
This little joke backfiring has led me to find out that there are interesting discussions to be had in the hotel lobby at 5:30am.  It’s the time before the breakfast buffet starts, there is CNN streaming with news of the Paris attacks and a 40 something man came up to ask me if there had been any updates.  I told him what I had read this morning and he said, “you know, this is why I don’t want grandchildren”  I immediately thought he meant that the world was such a horrible place that he wouldn’t want his grandchildren to live in it, but no…I asked him why he thought that and he continued on to say that he loves his kids and all, but that he worries about them all the time and he knows he would add that same worry about grandkids and he doesn’t want to go through that.  He also loves his kids so much he doesn’t want them to have to feel that.  So selfish yet with deep love.
It’s interesting, because you do worry about your children in a way that a non-parent just can’t understand but I would never let that worry stop me from experiencing the love that comes with being a parent.  It’s pure, it’s deep, it’s something you also can’t explain to someone who has never been a parent.
Parenting isn’t easy, it’s not always fun but the rewards are incredible.  Does the love outweigh the worry?  For me, it does.  Apparently not for all.  Food for thought for the day.