First comes the alarm. A fitting reminder of the previous days lack of warmth. Out of bed and getting the bath ready for my seven-year-old, I attempt to get the coffee going so it will be ready by the time he gets in the tub. This effort is proven weak compared to the depth of my sons reverie. He will wake up only after that point of no return, at which a couple minutes for a cup of coffee has become unlikely. Giving up on the coffee idea, I start making his lunch. Intermittently shaking him,trotting to the kitchen and wiping up the jelly I have just dropped on the floor, I am disappointed with my lack of creativity. It was just last night I challenged my son to find a picture in a scribble I had made on a telephone message pad. He said he saw a bird eating a bike helmet. Now standing over a particularly Byzantine sprawl of jam, I see nothing. I can’t find anything there that resembles anything more than a gelatinous mishap. Some day I will tell him about this kind of morning but for now it would not be healthy for me to make him aware of his ability to control the households functioning even while asleep. So I grunt and try to tempt him away from his peace. He mentions his lack of enthusiasm and pushes the covers off, with a curt slam of his legs to the mattress. So goes the first ten minutes of the day.

It can’t be said that I do not love my son with every fiber of my being. I do, and will always. But also, I wonder if all is lost if I admit to myself that I do, at times, resent my responsibility. Would I now be the miserable parent raising next years Jerry Springer guest?

As I run into my class (todays lesson “Empathetic Response While Counseling a Client”), I notice I am three minutes late, not by the clocks face, but by the professors. After class I chat with some of my classmates and some of them, sans family, say they know how tough being a parent must be. I respond with something like “So how has the new job at the thumb screw testing factory going?”. Did I say that!? By the look on their face, I did.

My New Years Resolution:

I must hide my occasional shortcomings in the area of perpetual parental bliss, lest I be labeled “normal”.

Kevin Lucas

Father,Husband,Student,Employee, and Son