Those of you who follow me on social media know that last weekend I took Lucy to NYC so that I could throw gobs and gobs of my hard earned money at the sassy, underpaid teenagers that work at the American Girl Doll store.

Taking Lucy to New York to visit the American Girl Doll Store was something that I vowed never ever to do before I became a parent. But you know what I’ve discovered in the past 7.5 years? I didn’t know shit about anything before I became a parent. I had no idea that childhood would last for the briefest flicker of time, I had no idea that as a parent you have T minus 12 seconds to make lasting memories that will imprint on your child forever before you wake up one morning and they refuse to have anything to do with you.

Sure, Lucy still likes me NOW, last night she said she didn’t want to go to sleep because she never wanted to stop hugging me, and if I knew that she would still be saying that ten years from now I may not have spent the equivalent of two months salary on the NYC trip last weekend but she won’t (or at least she shouldn’t). She’ll decide one day that I don’t know anything and that she would rather be with her friends than me, someday she will tell me she doesn’t want to help me make her bed because crawling under the sheet while I fluff it up over her head isn’t fun anymore. She will go off to college and I’ll rifle through boxes of her old artwork and the pictures she drew of us holding hands under rainbows and I will wonder if she’ll think her childhood was a good one or if she’ll focus on how I never wanted to sit on the floor and play barbies with her or how we would nag her for HOURS to finish her dinner. She’ll get married and move far away and I will  struggle not to call to often or interfere too much. And hopefully someday 30 years from now when we are sitting down having a drink together we’ll reminisce about the weekend we went to New York City and walked 20 blocks for frozen hot chocolate and got her hair done at the American Girl Doll Store.