Our Favourite Things About Being a Parent

I’m co-writing this with my husband Steve.  I wanted to make a list of all of our favourite things about being a parent and I’d love for you to share your favourite things about being a parent in the comments.  Lists like these make me remember, even on those impossibly difficult days, that there is so much to love about having a child.

1. Mornings no longer suck – Willow will wake up and say, “Hi Mommy!” with a big smile and it makes the entire world right.
2. Seeing things through fresh eyes – Willow this morning saw snow on the windshield and said, “Look! Sparkles on the car” and it changed the terrible drive.
3. The unexpected, hilarious moments – Willow picked up her stuffed pig not long ago and said, “Look Mommy, Bacon!” and I said, “Bacon?” and she said, “Name is Bacon!”
4. Hugs and kisses unprompted – when Willow comes up to me and hugs my leg or says, “Kiss together Mommy”, everything falls away and time stands still.
5. Watching her face and eyes while she is watching cartoons – everything is a new discovery, she is amazed by the smallest things and it’s impossible to not be enthralled.
6. The middle of the night – Willow still wakes up once in the night so when we hear on the monitor, “Daddy! Come get me daddy!” it makes us smile … even through the exhaustion.
7. Hearing her say Daddy – I love hearing her say daddy and even though she says it a thousand times a day (I’m a stay at home dad), it never gets old.
8. Having someone else to share our life and love with – we loved our life before Willow but having Willow added a new dimension to our entire life and gave us purpose.  Taking into account everything else I’ve ever done, becoming a parent was above and beyond it all.
9. Seeing how happy Willow makes other people – there is nothing more satisfying than seeing how Willow elicits the biggest smiles out of people that are around her.  Her grandparents, her aunts and uncles and her extended family enjoy her and she them and that’s a great feeling.
10. When she falls asleep on our chest or in our arms – it rarely happens these days that she’ll fall asleep while not in her room, ready for her nap or to sleep for the night, but when it does happen, we relish the moment.
11. Doing things we never would do otherwise – since becoming a parent, we do a lot of activities with Willow that we would have never done before.  It gets us out, active and experiencing things together.
12. Kissing away tears and fixing booboos – it won’t be much longer that a kiss will cure a booboo… soon, it’ll take the handiwork of a doctor.  But for the moment, we’ll accept that our kisses heal all and we’ll keep that philosophy in our family.
13. Being the center of her world – right now we are everything to her.  We take care of her, we love her, we keep her alive… before we know it she’ll be growing up and spreading her wings and she won’t need us as much.  For now, we’ll enjoy being the center of her universe.
14. Seeing bits of ourselves come out in her – one of our favourite parts of being a parent is seeing her personality develop and picking out the traits that are clearly mine and clearly Steve’s.  Sometimes it is a blessing and a curse
15. The open discussions and conversations – having Willow has brought my husband and I closer in the sense where we have more open conversations and discussions about what we want as a family, what we want for Willow and what we want for ourselves.  Having a baby has changed our lives but strengthened our relationship.
16. The sense of accomplishment – I love the idea that I created another human being not for the ego side of it but rather because life is so amazing and beautiful and precious and here is one amazing life.

We’d love to hear from you — what do YOU love about being a parent?  Leave it in the comments below.

Erin

Erin is a mom to a very outgoing little girl named Willow. Willow was born on November 24, 2010 – three years after Erin and her husband decided to start planning their family. Erin is the owner of an online media agency and also vlogs much of her life on YouTube. She loves reading, writing and sharing her life with others.

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