It is safe to say that when we had our first child we were literally languishing in a lair of despair. We were renting the lemon of all lemons, as far as homes go, and what we initially thought would be a unique and spacious fixer-upper, quickly proved to be a rotting, rat-infested, asbestos-ceilinged mess. The one, absolutely glorious thing that happened in that home was the birth of our first baby girl.
There are few fond memories of that place, other than becoming a dad for the first time, and that memory has to compete with the memories of painting over vaulted popcorn ceilings and banging at pipes with a monkey wrench and tearing up rotted planks to place rat traps while the landlord skirted our calls and occasionally came by to apply what were basically band-aids.
Couple that rough go at things with the fact that my superhuman wife, who’d endured a lengthy and excruciating labor – the likes of which I’d never preconceived of- before being carted off for an emergency cesarean section, was undergoing brief but severe postpartum anxiety in an uncomfortable environment and you have the makings of some dark days.
Four years removed from that quick ripple in our lives- now, a healthy and happy family of four in a fine home, doors down from several similarly aged kids, blocks away from schools and parks- it seems almost silly to look back on the little things that got us through those dark days.
One of those “little things” that stands out is how we moved the mattress off of our bed and into the other bedroom to ease the c-section recovery as well as to assist the general shifting and re-positioning that comes with those early night feedings. We basically moved the mattress, TV and DVD player into that smaller room and set up our own little recovery den. We got through those anxious first nights, together, with love and patience and the movie How To Train Your Dragon on the TV. Literally fell asleep to it every night. It was one of my wife’s favorite movies and we allowed it to take our minds off of things when things were tough – carried us to fantasy lands of dragons and Vikings and adventure.
This summer, Netflix is streaming the all-new Netflix original series Dragons: Race To The Edge from the critically acclaimed How To Train Your Dragon franchise and when I heard the news, I couldn’t help thinking about the stories we will tell our oldest daughter about how the adventures of Hiccup and Toothless, that I’m sure she will come to know and love as much as we do, were an integral part of her parents becoming parents.
From Netflix:
“Soaring beyond their home on the island of Berk in search of new dragons, Dragons: Race To The Edge introduces some of the most exciting dragons yet, each with its own amazing abilities — shock waves, cannon balls and fire blasts, just to name a few.
With the magical Dragon Eye, an artifact Hiccup finds aboard an abandoned ship, Hiccup learns there is more outside the confines of Berk, and that a little curiosity and determination can make every day an exciting journey. In Hiccup’s own words, “this changes everything.””
Check out the official trailer:
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Disclaimer: Netflix provides us with a subscription to their service for the purposes of review. The opinions expressed in these #StreamTeam posts are solely our own. In addition, Netflix sends us periodic “goodie boxes” of fun stuff to play with. Please enjoy these images of the girls playing with items from this month’s box, below.
Training dragons at the local park.
Typical kid. Her favorite part of a box of toys is what you can do with the box itself.