We must be Parents ... or something!

If we hadn’t already realized we are parents, what we did on Saturday confirmed it in our minds. We walked four blocks downtown in the rain and joined a throng of other weary parents and exited children just so Meredith could meet her beloved Elmo. When we got there we had to stand in line for thirty minutes.

Kevin kept looking at me like, “I can’t believe we’re doing this. We are crazy.”

We nearly missed Elmo since he and Grover took turns, each doing a thirty-minute rotation. We’re glad we squeezed in on time because Grover just wouldn’t have been the same experience for Meredith. We thought she might be scared of Elmo—which is how she has reacted to large stuffed animals in the past. But she loved him! She walked right up to him and gave him a high five. Then she sat on his lap and gave him a hug and a kiss.

In the end we decided it was totally worth it. Even Kevin said, "It's worth it" after Meredith got so excited when she spotted Elmo in line and started talking it up ("I hug Elmo! I give him a kiss!"). And, when she asked to "hug the pig too" after spotting "Piggly Winks" (another PBS character), Kevin said, "Let's do it. The line isn't quite so long." Sigh ... the things only parents do.

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Today I did another “parent thing” with Meredith and went to the Children’s Museum to meet up with Sarah and Nora. It was so great getting in a conversation with Sarah while the girls played—we haven’t seen each other for more than a year. It's fun because our first-born children are weeks apart and our second-born children will likely be days apart.