7 THINGS I'VE LEARNED IN 7 YEARS
For Zeke, on his birthday
Every year on Zeke’s birthday, I do the same thing. I stand him up straight and say, “Stand right there. Wow, your arms and legs look longer than they did yesterday.” He says, “Really?” I say, “Yeah, you got older overnight.”
This weekend he turns 7 years old. Seven years of overnights. Here’s what I’ve picked up.
1. Apples don’t fall far from trees.
I see myself in him constantly. Not just the version of me I’d pick if I were designing a kid from scratch. The curiosity. The creativity, the way his imagination runs. The kindness. But also the impatient parts, the stubborn parts. All of it. It’s humbling in a way nobody warns you about.
2. Parents can be mind readers.
Not mind readers, exactly. More that you come to know your kid better than he knows himself. My mom used to say she could see the gears spinning in my head. I didn’t really get what she meant until I had a kid of my own to watch the gears turn in.
3. Kids are well-intentioned — they’re just still learning.
Zeke wants to carry his own plate to the table. Takes two steps, drops the whole thing. Food everywhere. The instinct is to get annoyed. But he’s not being careless — he’s still figuring out that a plate needs to stay level, not lopsided. It’s just food. He’ll get there.
It goes beyond the physical stuff too. Sometimes my wife or I get overwhelmed in a moment and we take a break, leave the room, go for a walk. Zeke gets overwhelmed too. Too noisy, too many people, he lost a game. Early on that would just be a meltdown, the kind that wrecks the whole day. Over time he’s learned what it means to take a break, and that it’s okay to need one.
4. Kids are resilient, if we let them be.
The dropped plate isn’t the crisis. My reaction to the dropped plate is the crisis. Left alone, he bounces back in about four seconds. It’s usually me who needs the minute.
Part of it, too, is letting him try things even if he ends up with a bruise or two. That’s how the resilience actually gets built.
5. Two kids from the same DNA can be totally different from day one.
Zeke was an easy baby from the start. Slept well, took his bottles without a fight, never much fuss. He’s stayed that way as he’s gotten older. Judi, same mom, same dad, was needy from day one and has stayed that way too. Same house, same genes, same parents. Completely different people before either of them could talk.
6. Play on their terms.
I used to bring my own idea of what the game should be. Now I mostly just follow his lead and see where it goes. Sitting down to build Lego and just doing whatever he tells me to do. Letting him be the tour guide at a museum, where we zigzag all over the place, doubling back for no reason, and he has the best time of anyone there.
7. Doing things with them beats any toy — but buy the toy too, if you can.
I took Zeke to the Catskills recently, just the two of us, one night. Hiking, a cookout, the whole thing. On the way out we stopped at a random general store and I bought him a toy too. On the way home he asked if we could do it again next summer. I feel lucky I get to do both.
Last week, after we finished a book in my bed, Zeke asked me to carry him to his room. It’s not far, just across the living room. But when I set him down I did the math without meaning to: there’s a good chance that 12 months from now, he’ll be too big for me to carry at all. That thought made me sadder than it probably should have.
Seven years of overnights. Same kid, a little taller every time I check. I’m trying to remember that some of these things I’ve learned won’t be true much longer, and to notice them while they still are.