Sitting in the clinic last week, a little boy climbed all over the seats beside me. He’d stop climbing, ask his mom a question and then go back to exerting energy. At one point, an ambulance and a fire truck pulled up to the clinic with their sirens on. One of the patients being seen wasn’t doing well, I gathered. As the lights from the emergency vehicles reflected in the hallway of the clinic, the little boy’s mom asked him, “Do you see the firetruck?”

“Firetwuck! I want to go see! I want to go see!”

I could feel the mom’s pain. You could tell that she wanted to go take her son over to see the firetruck and ambulance. But she didn’t want to miss their name being called to be seen by the doctor.

“Your sick, baby, we have to stay here.”

“Firetwuck.”

9 years into parenting someone who was once a little boy, I miss the made up words. I miss the those earlier stages. Stages where I thought he was so much older than he was. The hardest thing about having an only child is knowing that this is it. There is no going back and doing things different. I don’t often live in the past, I try and regret nothing, but I miss having a little kid. I miss hearing the word hella-ca-ca (helicopter).

Yet life marches on, and I enjoy the moments we have.

Dads, enjoy your kids.