Heaven Somewhere

Each of the rapper Common's albums ends with Common's dad, Lonnie "Pops" Lynn, rapping--in the pre-hip-hop sense of the word, meaning he's talking--on a song. On "Heaven Somewhere" from Electric Circus, Pops says:

Heaven?
Heaven is being Pops.
Heaven is spending the day with your grandchildren,
Listening to their voices when they laugh and play,
And then at the end of the day we hug, we kiss, and slowly they walk away,
And then suddenly they turn and rush back to me and hug me round the knees.
Yeah, that's Heaven to me.

Too many people, I think, wait until they're grandparents to recognize this. It seems silly to spend your parenting years waiting for your kids to grow up, then spend the rest of your life after that wishing you had little children around. I'm determined to enjoy S-Boogie now, while she's young. Days like today, when she's in a good mood and she does cute things like insist Mommy and Daddy kiss before either leaves for work or school, that's easy. Days like yesterday, however, when she has five-minute temper tantrums banging her toy cash register against the bookcase and yelling, "No no no no no no," it's not so easy. I'm glad there are days like today.