Complications
I have decided that the process of having a family, is the process of your life (as parents) getting increasingly complicated.

First, you're single. You drink the milk from the carton, and wear your underwear around the house. When it's dirty, you take it off and leave it there.

Then you get married, and things get a little complicated. You need to use a glass or cup, and you discover the value of dressing gowns and laundry hampers.

Then some time may go by (i.e. 11 years), and you have a kid. Then things get complicated. First there's the pregnancy, and you have to decide names, decorating schemes, and all the million or so details that happen with your first baby.

Then the delivery comes, and you pray to God there are no complications, but it's complicated anyway.

So you take the baby home, he looks at you, you look at him, and somewhere in the dark recesses of your mind, a little voice says "Things are about to get complicated."

But it's not bad at first. The baby is hungry, you feed it. It's wet (or worse) you change it. And for the first 6 months or so, when you put it down, it generally stays there.

Then it learns how to crawl, and things get complicated.

You have to "babyproof", and take all the books off of the bottom two shelves (with 5 bookcases, that's an undertaking), so the baby doesn't injure the baby's self in a rain of hardcover Can Lit.

But then you get used to it, and it's ok.

Then the baby learns how to walk, and it starts to get really complicated.

Suddenly all your normal babyproofing is useless, and the climbing starts, and you have to anchor the aforementioned 5 bookcases to the wall, lest an unfortunate crushing incident occur.

Then, so help you God, the baby learns how to talk. If you thought things were complicated before, it's a whole new ballgame now. Not to mention that shortly after talking comes "talking back." Which for Isaac is just starting to get rolling. He now knows what he wants, and eating normal meals with his parents, performing certain bodily functions in a timely way, and a variety of other safety related things, are not it. Talking babies are complicated.

Then, all of a sudden, your brain shuts off, and you stop thinking about how complicated things are. You start thinking how wonderful it was when the complicator used to coo alot, or sleep on your chest, and you enter into the most complicating/complicated process yet. You have another.

That's when things start to get complicated. Beyond belief.

Despite all of this, however, it occurs to me that (and if you read my lottery post a few months ago, this will make more sense) that the level of joy a person experiences, is directly proportional to how much they had to overcome in order to get it.

For instance, if you are born in a family of millionaires, and you inherit a multi million dollar fortune, chances are, you're going to take it somewhat for granted. But if you come from the "hood", and fight and claw and scrape your way to your first Million, then you are going to savour every Pina Collada like it was Gold Juice.

That's why I think the joys of parenting are so intense. Because the struggles are like nothing you ever experienced when you were just a couple, to say nothing of how easy things were when you were single.

Don't even talk to me about calculating parental leave.