Papa Oom Mow Mow

Posted by Tom Wark on Oct 26, 2016

I made a mental note to myself today:

“Ask winemakers if the wine they made in the first few years of their first child’s life was either not as good as it had been before parenthood or if it was more difficult to make.”

It’s a question that concerns me for the simple reason that I’m absolutely positive I’ve lost a good chunk of both IQ and creativity in the two and a half years since Henry George was born. I”m really hoping that the response I get from the folks I’ll query is something like, “I became dumb as a rock” or “Everyone gets stupid when they have a young child, so relax.”

I hope this is the response because I don’t particularly relish any alternative explanation for my gradual intellectual degradation.

They way I know I’ve lost chunks of IQ and creativity is because it now takes me demonstrably longer to generate ideas and the ideas I do generate usually have to be abandoned for the second idea. This didn’t used to be the case. I’m not bragging. It’s just that prior to Henry George emerging from Kathy, my mind very quickly zeroed in on the right idea or concept. It still does, but it takes a lot longer.

And I know why. I spend a considerable amount of my time these days explaining to Henry why it rains. The clouds are sad. Who knew?

I spend a good deal of my mental firepower on instantly coming up with stories about imaginary monkeys and their friends the talking flowers .

I sing a lot more too. And it ain’t opera. That little boy of mine  literally falls over on his face laughing when I burst out into a rendition of The Rivingtons version of “Papa Oom Mow Mow”.

But the fact is, I spend far less time than I used too feeding my curiosity, learning new subjects, challenging myself intellectually and quietly thinking. And I love doing those things. Love it.

I know now that in addition to singing til my boy tumbles and and conceiving of new, but simple adventures for imaginary elephants, my piece of mind and my health depends on also find a way to also feed my mental beast.

So, I’ve stuck out on a new project. I’m going to try to discover how to turn a day into 28 hours.