These past days, you really couldn’t have missed the news that a European robot probe has made the first, historic landing on a comet. Even I can tell that’s a very important milestone, big step for all of us, a mission that took time and effort. Just imagine, only the probe journeyed 10 years to the comet, while the planning for the trip began 25 years ago. And that got me thinking. We, parents are almost like scientists working in a Space agency. From the moment we conceive it takes us years to get our specimen to become independent, while right in front of us we often don’t get what they are made of, we applaud their milestones, though we don’t hold press conferences for starting high school, though it takes more than 13 years to get there. We think the paintings they create are a masterpiece, just as these scientists think the images the probe sent should mean something to all of us. That’s your baby fellas…

So, what events in parenting can equal the historic Comet Landing? For me they are….

• My kids eating veggies without me disguising them as fruit, hiding them under the mash potatoes or pureeing them. While the planning started, I think it will take me about ten years to complete it.
• Wondering: »Houston (Stela) do you copy? « Is she even getting this? Just once I want them to do something after I say it the first time.
• My kids going to bed in one take. Not getting up to pee, to brush their teeth again, to drink, to tell me something important, to check where the shoes are, etc. Brings me to the verge of bursting almost like Supernova.
• My kids sleeping in on a weekend. If that one takes me 25 years, then Houston we have a problem. Scotty beam me up.
• My kids picking the right shoes and clothes for the current weather. The chances of this happening equal the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth.
• No questions on the umpteenth time of reading the same story. Now that one almost calls for a press release, but we are light years behind.
• Not pleading: »Just one more time« when we already agreed that was the last time.
• Realizing Disney has made more than just Frozen. Now that would be like finding evidence of extraterrestrial life.
• Coloring on the paper, not the TV, computer, walls and doors. Yes, I am aborting their mission.
• Not throwing tantrums when they hear a NO.  That one makes me want to lose more than the visual.
• No sudden changes of velocity – meaning speed or direction when we are in crowds but holding my hand.
• Putting away their toys, all of them, before going to bed. Building blocks might be atom size, it still hurts like hell if you step on them in the middle of the night.
• A pacifier where it should be, not lost somewhere in the black hole of our apartment.