It is funny how becoming a parent changes the way that you view things and your reactions. For example, Baby A has had a few pee accidents at school and when he told me Friday that it happened again, I just smiled, hugged him and said “It Happens!”

I had two choices, make a big deal out of really nothing and more importantly, make my son feel bad like I was upset with him or blow it off and make it really a non issue, which it was.  Kids need to learn that in life, there are important things to get upset over and then there are things that just don’t matter in life. I want my kids to know right from wrong. I want them to learn that there is a time to be serious and a time to laugh. I want them to understand that it is ok to make a mistake, because It Happens.

I’ll never forget when I was 16 years old and I had only been driving for a few months. It was a winter Monday morning, I was approaching a curve at about 30 miles per hour and I never saw the black ice. I remember after I flipped my jeep, my dad is going to kill me. As I got out of my jeep, I surveyed the damage and was pretty sure that it was totaled, but I did the hardest thing to date, I called my Dad. That was the longest 15 minute wait for my Dad to arrive and I remember apologizing and him stopping me. He asked if I was ok? And when I mentioned the jeep, he stopped me again and asked if I was ok? I reassured him that I was and he said simply, “it was an accident, it happens.”

My accident cost a lot of money that day, but the lesson that I learned was that my father could have come down on me or he could have taught me about love and that sometimes that the best lessons in life, are taught with the simple phrase, “it happens”.

So later that day, my sons and I were talking and I was not paying attention and I dropped my apple on the floor and Baby A looked at me and said “Daddy, it is ok, It Happens”.