One of the funniest things I heard in recent memory was from when my wife’s family visited us in Hong Kong just around a month ago.  It was my wife’s mother, her husband, and my wife’s nephew.

I was busy taking them around the town to the various sites, which is no easy task when you have a toddler who must eat regularly.  Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, snack, dinner (and maybe a few other snacks in-between).  Of course this is much different from a regular adult’s rhythm, especially those who are on holiday and who maybe do not eat breakfast so early – and it is especially different for people who have not had children for a while.

So, one day when we were on our way in the city, I mentioned that we had to plan where to go next so that we could eat.  My wife’s mother’s husband, a really nice and funny guy who is in his early 70’s, said, “Shall we eat once again?!”  He said this with a little bit of laughter and a little despair, as if he was really torn up that we had to eat yet again, when we had just eaten 5 mere hours ago.

I think it is kind of like this with a lot of things when you are a parent.  People forget or are unaware of what it is like when a child is young.  And it does not take long to forget it.  I could for example forget that a 6-month old needs to eat x number of times and is not on solids yet, even though that was only a year ago for us.  I could insist that we did X or Y regarding something with the little guy but in reality memories fade with every phase, and unless it is something remarkable, it is hard to place an exact age with a phase.

So surely in the future, maybe in 2 years, maybe in 30 years, I will hear myself saying “shall we eat once again?!” and I hope I will remember this first time I heard this with a good laugh 😉