Mt. Everest

I’m a big fan of mountain climbing. I’ve never actually done it, my only extreme sport is marathon running, and I’ve only seen mountains from a distance. But I love to read about the expeditions. One of my favorite television shows is on once a year for 6 weeks and it’s on discovery channel about climbing Mt. Everest. I never miss it. I know a lot about mountain climbing. The gear you use such as crampons, O2 tanks, pickaxes and down clothing, mostly made by the North Face because they make the best hiking/climbing gear. If you showed me a picture of Mt. Everest I could correctly diagram the Lhotse Face, the Khumbu Glacier, the Hilary Step, the balcony, etc. I know that Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa, were the first to summit the mountain. I know it’s the tallest peak on earth, known as the top of the world. It is in the Himalayas, taking up space in three countries, Nepal, Tibet and China. There is a very brief window of opportunity to summit Everest, mid-May, and it only lasts about two weeks every year. It’s sister mountain in the Himalayas, K2 is actually not quite as high, but is known to be a much more difficult mountain to summit. I could go on, but I won’t. With all the knowledge I have about mountain climbing, I would never give advice. I have no practical experience. I can talk knowledgeably about it, but not from a standpoint of having lived it. And now to my point. This is how I feel about people giving me child rearing advice who have never had children. Or teen ager advice when their kids are still toddlers. Book knowledge is great. Watching Cosby on television definitely shows you how it should be done. But until you have lived it, experienced it, you have no idea. One example. I talked to a friend of mine on Sunday evening for a while. She has a daughter Whitney’s age. This friend is a nurse so she works 12 hour shifts, and she works third shift. Her daughter attends a magnet school that starts at 7:15 in the morning. She told me that one morning as she was getting off work her daughter texted her from school. She had gotten home late the night before and got up late that morning and she was hungry. Would mom bring her something to eat. Her mom told me that she thought at the time, are you kidding? Bring you something to eat at school? But for some reason she found herself at the middle school and signed her daughter out, took her to breakfast and took her back to school. Everybody out there is just in shock right now, aren’t you? (Not me, I would do this too.) She told me she was afraid her husband would be mad at her (he’s a high school administrator). This friend of mine lost this daughter shortly after this breakfast date in an accident over spring break. Was it a bad parenting decision? Maybe that day or the next day, we would’ve thought so. But now, it’s one of that mother’s precious memories of time spent with her daughter. And that lost hour didn’t mean a thing. To those of you who have kids, love and cherish every minute with them. Be careful of the advice you take. Be careful of who’s advice you take. Because you only get one childhood with them and they are gone before you know it. Nate’s at a college visit today. Baseball tryout, admissions, and he wanted to go on his own. I let him. He’s a man. He will soon be gone. Every moment I have with him matters. I may take him to breakfast tomorrow. Or not. He missed all day today. But I have to do it fast, he’s done in two weeks.