Cycle of life

Okay, so my last post (phrases including Eugene) was a bit of an inside joke with Daughter Two. I'd apologize to the rest of you if it hadn't been so much darn fun to torture the daughter. Which brings us to the topic de jour.

There are definite phases in the life cycle of a Dad. Somewhere between clueless first time parent and clueless, frumpy old geezer, we go through stages in our development. And they all revolve around either the parent or the child being made to appear or feel like a dufus.

When the children first arrive, they have but to lay there to convert otherwise witty, urbane adults into doting parents (read: dufae or would the plural be dufum?). I know that I thought spit bubbles were cute when extruded from the innocent lips of baby mine. I saw a wino producing precisely the same bubbles and in far more interesting colors this afternoon and 'cute' was nowhere to be seen in my thought balloon.

Mary and I thrilled to each new achievement by our babies, even those that are embarrassing to admit today. I can't imagine what led us to believe a blown out diaper was an object of amusement. Also can't imagine what synapses were misfiring in the old noggin to make me find mirth in strained pea garp.

But time goes by and the parents recover some modicum of dignity only to shift the mantle of dufusness to the kids long about kindergarten time. Kids at that age will wear the dufusest , most outlandish colors or pattern of colors. I have proof, I have photos. They'll even do it to themselves, concocting hairdos - frequently with the aid of a licking dog - that make our parental guts explode trying to hold back the guffaws.

There's a pause during the middle school years when the kids struggle to be cool and the parents struggle just to keep them from imploding. Most middle school kids are pretty sure they're the biggest dufuses in history and tragically, many of them are at least in serious contention for the title . It's a brutal in-between time.  But you know life will get better eventually and mostly, you concentrate on convincing them of that life fact.

Just when you think the whole family might walk off a cliff together, along comes high school! Parents no longer care about being cool to their own PTA friends. No-o-o-o! For some reason known but to Yoda, parents of high-schoolers struggle to be cool to their children's friends!!! It would be tragic if it wasn't so damn comical. The duficity meter goes off the scale as parents pretend to understand sagging jeans and coal miner eyeliner. We totally ignore the fact that the minivan that made us the cool parent who always chaperoned field trips in grade school, that very conveyance now marks us as irretrievably, insufferably, painfully, stupefyingly uncool. Prisoners in dufusdom.

The college / first real job years represent a truce as both sides hold their collective breaths. Then...wait for it...

Yes, the former kids become first time parents and the cycle begins anew. Which is really bad news for the now-grandparents, who can only make room in the dufe-cycle for their newborn grandkids by themselves vacating the playing field, sliding off the merry-go-round into the dreaded zone of geezerdom.

I am still in the slide zone. Okay, I'm hanging on with bleeding nails, but still there. Neither Daughter One nor Daughter Two has produced offspring so I hang on to my position on the field of honor. The Daughters and I battle over who's the current holder of the Dufus Cup. My absolute lack of ego when it comes to doing things embarrassing in public give me a slight edge.

Anyway, I don't blow bubbles yet.

I think.