Sometimes We Forget

One of my favorite books is Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, which in and of itself is something of a miracle.  I didn't want to read the Harry Potter books at all, and I started reading them kicking and screaming in protest.  Anyway, from that book, one of my favorite quotes I've ever heard comes from that book:

"Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young..." - Albus Dumbledore

That quote hits me almost daily since I've become a father, as my children think and do the very same things that I did when I was their age.   The biggest one I can think of; when I was young, I was ABSOLUTELY terrified of the dark.  I could not bare to be alone in the dark; I was convinced there were things lurking in the shadows that I could not see that were just waiting to do unthinkable things to me if I let my guard down.

When we deemed our oldest finally old enough to be taken out of the crib, not only did we change her bed, but we also changed her room down the hall.  We hadn't remembered that she already had a history of night terrors.  A month or so went by, and nobody was getting any sleep, and we just could NOT understand why she just wouldn't lay down and GO TO SLEEP.  After all, we were only down the hall, and it was still just our house...But then we as older adults had absolutely forgotten what it was like to be that young, and have that much change thrown at you at once... Hopefully future therapy bills won't be that much.