"Freakonomics"

It can get get hectic! To be true to my thoughts and posts being a DaddyYO is tough, overwhelming and down right confusing at times. It's not all smiles and cute videos. Recently, we went to the store and LittleYO freaked out. These public FREAK OUTS is what I feared most about being a parent. Honestly, when this happens I'm a fish out of water. I don't have a clue what to do, how to handle him or myself. It's a place that reminds me of college at 4:20am in the morning where I cant find my way out of the bathroom. I'm lost.

The following week at a different store, the same thing, another freak out! Seriously? What is going on!? I try and talk him down off the ledge in the middle of the store. He screaming and like the incredible hulk he's trying to stretch free out-of-his-stroller. I'm waiting for his seat belt to snap and his skin to turn green! The eye daggers of parents walking by us, stab me in the back and is not helping my mental or current situation.

I'm not lying, I was profusely sweating and like the current situation, the room was starting to spin out of control. I stood up from my "crouching baby hidden tiger" pose to catch my breath. "I think I'm going to pass out"....It was time to leave.

LittleYO now securely in his carseat has already forgotten about what happen inside the store. Looking back at him in the backseat, he's smiling and having a good ol time. I'm left still feeling angry, disappointed, confused and some other emotions I have yet to classify. Driving home in complete silence....

At what point in our lives do we start to hold onto emotions that carry over into our days and our future experiences? It's because of this "carry over" of emotions from previous experiences that the mind has a way of deteriorating moments for what they actually are, positive or negative. As an adult, this effects everything!

When was last time I experienced a situation without the interference of memories of past experiences? Depending on how the current situation aligns with my expectations, that are based on previous experiences, will then interpret the outcome of the current situation; "good" or "bad". I think I may be living in the past....

Damn, I wasn't planning on getting this deep....I'm going with it...

The point to all of this is based on my last two experiences in store "freak outs" with LittleYO I mentioned to MommyYO that "I'm not going to the store ever again with LittleYO". I was wrong. Being a DaddyYO and living through these situations for the first time is closest I will ever get to experiencing what youth was like as an adult. Like LittleYO, we are experiencing something for the very first time, together. That's what's important. It was during this trip to the store I learned more from LittleYO than he did from me.

"For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so."
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet, II.ii