One day earlier this month I came home from work to find my two sons choking each other out trying to decide who would get to pull down our Christmas tree.
It was the same thing they were doing when I left the house in the morning.
“Merry Christmas-in-July!” I said.
“I quit,” my wife replied.
It was then that I remembered a conversation I had a few months back with an inquisitive friend who wanted to know what my typical day was like. He asked me specifically what was going through my head when I arrived home from work each day and I told him, with no hesitation, that the moment I walked through the door of my house each evening was always the best part of my day, every day.
“There’s no supper, we have no food,” a voice inside my wife croaked, snapping me out of my reminiscing.
Best part of my day, eh? Is it really? I decided to take a closer look at that statement. It’s an important question for anyone taking stock of their life choices: How do you feel when you walk through that door?
I sometimes feel a bit guilty because another great part of my day is when I leave the house in the morning, throwing on my headphones and settling in for a lovely walk to work.
The guilt comes on those days when I’m about to leave and I can tell the house is moments away from catching fire due solely to the sheer heat of the insane shenanigans my two boys are getting into. My wife looks at me with the desperate, pleading eyes of a zebra being attacked by two young lions and all I can do is keep on walking. It’s the circle of life.
But what about that return home? Is it really the best part of my day? Not every day is the same, so I’ve broken it down into a few general examples that every parent will recognize and every prospective parent should prepare themselves for:
The “Hi, here’s the baby”
This is a classic move that all new parents must face when they return home after a long absence. The partner who has been home all day, covered in week-old spit and stink and fear, immediately offloads the baby and then goes to pee for the first time in 10 hours.
The partner who receives the baby should not expect to move for the next six to eight hours. Note: don’t count on getting the “hi.”
The utopia
As kids get older parenthood gets, in theory, a little less terrifying, and sometimes it’s downright magical. Recently I came home from work and arrived at the perfect time, my four-year-old son popping up in the window just as I was heading up the walk.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
I could hear him through various open windows as he followed me around the side of the house to our entrance, where he was joined by my two-year-old who also started joyously yelling “Daddy!”
We played a bit of basketball on their mini hoop and then came inside to find a wonderful dinner on the table. Pure familial bliss, and further proof that my wife is capable of orchestrating order out of chaos in ways that I can only dream of duplicating. When I’m in charge of the whole operation my only hope is that I don’t burn anything too badly on the barbecue, children included.
The nuclear meltdown
Here are common thoughts upon arriving home in the middle of a meltdown: What’s going on? Who’s screaming? Why is momma locked in the closet? Where’d you get a crossbow?
On the rare instances when I’ve come home and encountered one of these nuclear explosions I always try to just cool down one of the reactors so that my wife can at least have a second to get her hazmat suit on. I worry that one day I’ll be too late and I’ll have to watch her melt away through the window like Captain Kirk watching Mr. Spock at the end of The Wrath of Khan.
“I have been, and always shall be, your friend,” she’ll say with her dying breaths, to which I’ll reply, “Is supper ready?”
These examples are the extremes, the truth almost always landing somewhere in between. What never changes, though, is that someone will scream “Daddy!” and there will be hugs. The screams might not always be happy ones — seriously, where did that crossbow come from — but it’s the hugs that always go straight to the heart.
So yes, without a doubt: best part of my day.
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour and lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
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