A Sharp Life Rewind - Raising Children Brings Questions, Exhaustion

This column originally appeared in the Odessa American newspaper March 28, 2017. It appears here by permission of the newspaper.

Aaron Sharp | May 28, 2020

I live in a house with my wife and three small humans. The Zoologist is 6, the Ballerina is 4, and the Demolitions Expert is 21 months. The arrival of a fourth child is imminent. By imminent I mean that at any moment I may have to stop writing this because my dear saint of a wife has gone into labor.

Parenting is a big part of my life. I was prepared for many parts of parenting, but one thing that I was not truly prepared for was the onslaught of questions. I assumed that I would handle this well. I like to learn, and I assumed that boundless amounts of curiosity would be occasionally aggravating, but largely adorable.

I was wrong.

It is a little-known fact that small children can sense fear and weakness in adults; they are like Pit Bulls in this respect. This is part of their coordinated attempts to wear you down. Small children hunt in packs. They think if they get one parent cornered, and apply the right amount of pressure, that parent will ultimately end up in a corner, crying in the fetal position. If they accomplish this they’ve only got one parent left to break before they get to run things. If they get to run things your best chance of survival is to barricade yourself in a room and hope that you can escape when they are lethargic from binging on crackers, juice, and cartoons.

The kids know that I have been struggling with allergies so whenever they get a chance they bombard me with questions. On a recent car ride the Ballerina got things started by questioning the “smoke” emerging from a car. She was talking about a car’s exhaust, and I did my best to explain the process. But then the Zoologist stepped in, quizzing me about all manner of things related, and unrelated, to a vehicle’s exhaust system. I might have been more articulate had I not been so focused on trying to cause an accident blowing my nose while driving, but you know what, probably not. Anyway, this led to the Zoologist pondering my clearly insufficient answers for a minute and saying, “‘Stuff’ is what you say when you don’t know, isn’t it?”

I said, “Pretty much,” and mumbled a few things under my breath.

Then, despite the fact that Christmas is now several months past, the Ballerina strongly requested we all sing “Joy to the World,” so we sang the beloved Christmas carol with gusto. Thankfully she only wanted to run through it once. Usually she requires that we sing it three, four, maybe five dozen times.

Then the Zoologist saw another car’s exhaust and said, “That car is exhausted too.”

The car wasn’t the only one.