Parenting can be quite a humbling experience

Parenting will humble a person.

When kids grow up to their teen years, many of them spend day after day trying to tell Mom and Dad why they're soooooooo wrong and sooooooo stupid.

I know; I was there once. On the dishing-it-out side. Some 10 years from now, I'll be the one taking it.

Part of me knows I'll be spending the better part of the next two decades trying to stay relevant to my children. I'll have to follow the new advances in kids' books and video games. I'll be peering over their shoulder when they're on the Internet and scanning the backs of the DVD boxes at the video store, figuring out which actors are "in" and which ones the kids find lame.

Life will have gone full circle, from my mouthy, know-it-all days to the years when I run the wrong way up life's downward escalator, struggling to keep ahead of the curve.

Humbling, indeed.

Which brings me to my point: The humility's already being dished out.

Join me in your imagination. It's a hot August night at a minor- league baseball game. Nine friends and I have rented out a pavilion deck in the outfield to take in the game. We're eating and drinking and enjoying the company.

A couple of us have also brought our children -- two 3- and 4- year-old boys who hit it off immediately and go to the patch of grass behind the pavilion to play together.

The weather cools off as the game starts, and a breeze kicks up when the sun finally sets.

I'm through a cheeseburger and some potato chips, talking to a friend, when a thought startles me, causing me to turn to my wife.

"Honey," I say, "has our son told you he needed to go to the bathroom since we've been here?" I look at the scoreboard. It's the bottom of the fifth inning.

"No, actually he hasn't," my wife replies.

It's about that time I turn my attention back to the plot of grass, where my 3-year-old son Eric is playing with the 4-year-old son of my good friend Mike Fetscher.

As I get out of my chair, I see Eric pull down his pants and -- in front of 80 pavilion guests, three concession workers and every member of the home team's bullpen -- "water the grass," if you will.

A big thanks to Mike for doing his best to shield the little guy from the audience. By the time Eric finally finished, I was standing in front of him as well, willing to risk a damp shoe so my son could enjoy some improvised privacy.

We laughed it off, but not before a few seconds of sheer terror I spent running down the wooden stairs to get to my son. I think my face was as red as his St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt.

In the end, I got a reminder that "potty-trained" doesn't always mean you've trained them to go in the potty.

I also got a solid dose of humility. I'm thinking of it as a down payment on his teenage years.

Ryan Reynolds is an editor at the Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press. Contact him at ryanr@evansville.net.

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