2 min read

Bad Pizza vs. Good Pizza

A few nights ago, kiddo told us he hated the cheese pizza we ordered. He still ate half a pie, because it's pizza, but he made a big stink about how it was the worst pizza he'd ever had.

"You've never lived in Los Angeles," I thought. "That's where pizza goes to die."

I tasted it, and he was right. The crust was inexplicably chewy, like someone had folded a bunch of crepes over.

The odd part is that the adult pizza we got – the one with toppings – was really, really good.

There are few things in life worse than bad pizza.

bad pizza
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Of course, that's not really true. Many, many things are worse than bad pizza. Losing your health. Your family. Your friends.

Last night, kiddo was having trouble sleeping, and I cuddled him for a bit to help him fall back asleep in the middle of the night. As I was sitting there, I realized – not for the first time – how lucky I am. Not only did many accidents of birth favor me, but I did one thing in my life that I had been afraid was impossible: I was around for kiddo's entire early life.

My parents got divorced pretty shortly after I was born, so I didn't grow up in a house where my family was together. I had four amazing parents, but in my life, I really wanted something different: I was willing to sacrifice a lot to make sure I was home a lot.

This meant that I jumped off a lot of paths to traditional success: I wouldn't take a job with a heavy travel component, and didn't even really want to commute until kiddo was in school full time.

It's meant moving around my schedule so I can be there for school pick up, sports, and every other activity. Sometimes, I'm the only dad in a sea of nannies and au pairs.

It meant that there were some calls I didn't make, and there were probably some monetary repercussions along the way.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So if the worst thing that happened to him the other week was that he ate some bad pizza, awesome.

That's it for today! Thanks for reading.

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