With our children moving through high school, one of whom will be off to college before we know it, my wife and I were beginning to ponder what life would be like as empty nesters. It turns out we’ll have a lot longer to ponder than we thought.

Surprise!

Yup. This time next year we’ll have one child in college, and another in diapers.

Reflections

The impending arrival of child number three has led to a great many reflections on my part about what this all means, and I figured I’d share a few. Some are sublime, some are selfish, and some reveal what kind of a sarcastic twit I am.

Selfish

• Ohmygosh I just got done with trick or treating!
• I really didn’t want to see another diaper blow out until I wasn’t one of the people responsible for cleaning it up.
• I need my sleep!

Sublime

• Hmm, well now I have a reason to remain mentally young, so this will be good for me.
• We’ll finally be near my family when the baby is little, so that’s cool.
• After being in this community for fourteen years we’ve got a great support network, so I’m sure we’ll have help.
• Huh, it looks like one of my children will be born in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area after all.

Sarcastic Twit

• Now that the beta tests are out of the way, we’re finally ready to work on the production model!
• How I can rig things so my wife will go into labor over in PA? That way we’ll end up with one child who is a Pennsylvania Native ¹.
• Oh crud, in this kid’s class we’ll be the only GenX parents around.
• You know, I was wondering how we’d handle taxes after we lost the tax credit for our kids. Now I’ll get to hang on to it for a another couple of decades.
• Awesome, I have an excuse to buy all the Lego movies ².
• This child will only see the prequels when they are in college, because that’s when you’re supposed to learn about emotionally traumatic material.
• Dang it! If we were going to have a third child why didn’t we have the baby sooner so my son could suffer middle child syndrome like I did!

A different world

Aside from my reflections, I’ve also been pondering how everyday life has changed since our other kids were growing up. Things like “online shopping” and “texting” don’t make the list because they’ve always been part of my children’s world.

Things #3 will consider as, “Didn’t we always have those?”

• Smart phones
• Streaming Entertainment
• High quality video chat
• Electric Cars
• Tablets
• “The Cloud”
• Cardless Payments
• Keyless entry
• LED bulbs
• eBooks

Things #3 will see as part of ancient history

While #1 and #2 remember these things as part of their life, they will not play a big role in #3’s world.

• Cable TV
• Landline telephones
• Video Cassette Recorders
• DVD Players
• Blu-Ray Players
• Flip phones
• Using a key to unlock a car door
• High Fructose Corn Syrup ³
• CRT Televisions
• Printed Newspapers ⁴
• Incandescent lightbulbs

This is going to be a wild ride.