They'll Get Ya.

Kids. What are you gonna do? You get some "that's my boy! (or girl)" moments; you get some trips to the Principal's office. A couple of months ago, Lady Di and I helped Davis move up to his cousin Rob's house in Greenville. Rob's kids were over, and I snapped this lovely pic of LD holding Rob's youngest. They actually got along quite well, in spite of the appearances here. I thought the picture was a pretty good summary of the relationship between parents and children: we love 'em; we do our best to teach them stuff; we sacrifice our wants for their needs (and sometimes for their wants). And they poke us in the eye. Of course, if you're doing a cost/benefit analysis, then children aren't a great investment. But it isn't about that, is it? Love is its own reward, in spite of everything. I like the way C.S. Lewis (he of the "Narnia Chronicles", "Mere Christianity" and "The Screwtape Letters") put it in "The Four Loves" (and I've quoted him a lot, through the years):

"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in a casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."