Hell, it’s a jungle in here. Any parent will tell you that. In the course of a day, our kids can take many forms of wildlife: Docile as a fawn. Prickly as a porcupine. Lazy as a panda. And this is all before they have breakfast.
And we haven’t even gotten to the sounds and smells.
Every month, I compile a post called 6 Words. Hemingway inspired it when he said any story can be told in a six-word sentence. I ask bloggers, friends, strangers, and a few strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt.
It’s a fair question. Vanity? Narcissism? Book-deal dreams? Some bloggers speak of an end game we must have when we hit publish for the first time. For some, it’s their toy box, full of everything from LEGO to Barbie shoes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
We write blogs to learn. And we blog to share.
It might take me a while, but I read blogs of every single person who comments on my posts. And, I pick out some of the people who commented on their blogs. It’s a referral of sorts. I’ve discovered all kinds of awesome that way.
No, not the Colorado Rockies’ postseason chances, although those are gone now, too. I mean, the summer. Technically, we have a few more weeks of it, but the focus has shifted from “when can we go to the pool?” to “which one is the carpool lane at school again?”
It exhilarates, exhausts, disgusts, and lifts us like nothing else possibly could.
How would you sum up the journey in six words? Inspired by Hemingway’s assertion that a story can be told in six words, I asked that to parents around me – at soccer practice, in the blog world, even at the grocery store.
Here are 55 responses … from the anxious to the delirious to the simply joyous, all honest, all from the heart.