Column: Parenting a child again is a challenge, a joy and a lesson about who comes first
LA TimesIt’s not very often that you get a chance to relive something as profound as parenting a young child, but quite out of the blue four months ago, a little girl I love came to live with me. “I really don’t like you sometimes,” she announced the other day. We read “Charlotte’s Web,” “Dog Man” or “Amelia Bedelia.” There is a mandatory 10-minute back rub, always to the strains of the “Govi” guitar channel on Pandora, a couple of bear hugs, and several smoochy kisses. “Why can’t we take an airplane?” On the first morning of our drive, after two bathroom stops, three “I’m hungrys” and four “I’m boreds,” I am asking myself the same question. When “Imagine” starts playing, she perks up: “The Beatles wrote that?” Every once in a while, after her 10-song cycle has repeated a few times, she takes pity on me: “It’s OK if you want to listen to news for a few minutes, Auntie.” I die of gratitude a little, put on the news, hear the beginning of a story about, say, mass bombings in Sri Lanka, and decide she doesn’t need to hear that noise.
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