How do you titillate an ocelot?

You oscillate his tit a lot.

(This joke was stolen)

People often ask me how fatherhood is, and the best adjective I can come up with is weird. I still really don't identify myself as a father, and it's bizarre to think of my father as a grandfather, and my grandparents as great-grandparents.

I have noticed that I'm beginning understand parents more. I'm sure all my readers can remember their own parents saying somthing to the effect of "You're not a parent; you won't understand until you are one." Those of you who are parents know what they meant. To those who aren't, well you won't understand until you have kids of you own.

A recent example: We watched a TV father go into almost ridiculous detail about how he worried about his daughter. My roomate said, "Wow. He put a lot of thought into that," and I had to exlain that's what parents do: they don't just worry about their kids, they obessively worry about their kids.

Someone without kids thinks "What would happen to a baby left in a car on a hot day? It would probably die." A parent asks that question and their mind is off and running: the scenario plays itself out in their head in the most agonizing, brutal, gruesome detail: in their mind, it's not just a random baby, it's their baby, and it's their car, and it's their fault their child slowly baked to death. They see their daughter screaming and screaming and no one sees or hears, then the screaming dies off into sobs which slowly fade and they baby is just lying there, her breaths coming slower and shallower untill they stop entirely, and you have to force yourself to stop thinking, because if you don't, you're just going to shut down.