With five kids sprinkled throughout four different schools, life tends to go by at a dizzying pace, and before long I’m left to wonder: Where did the years go? Who are these gangly teenagers driving my car? How do they eat so much cold cereal at all hours of the day?
Take my youngest daughter for example. A hearty mix of tomboy and musical impresario, she has always been a unique flavor in our household. And while she’s always been a bundle of sass and spirit, her school years didn’t begin so easy.
She started out kindergarten with a very painful speech impediment. Just saying her name properly took a year of intense therapy.
On the last day of kindergarten her class gave a performance, after which all students stepped individually to the microphone to say what their life goals were as kindergarten graduates.
My daughter’s speech had improved significantly, but that morning we dutifully helped her practice her prepared line: “When I grow up, I want to be a veterinarian.”
Then came the moment. She went to the stage, and understandably overwhelmed by the crowd, shouted out, “When I grow up, I want to be … a … VEGETARIAN.”
Not exactly the response I was expecting, but definitely worth a laugh to be stored into the vault of parenthood memories.
Now that same daughter is preparing for middle school, and today she has no problem whatsoever belting out her name – or any tune for that matter. In essence, the story is an example of how challenges I foresaw as a parent, that could possibly hinder my children, ended up being easily conquered.
Yet the struggles that fell on other children came out of the blue, and required a higher level of commitment than we had expected. In some ways, those endless battles waged for the cause of family and parenthood are probably just beginning.
In just a few years, we’ve likewise seen Progressive Cattleman grow in ways we had never expected. And we’ve also seen challenges that didn’t show up on our radar. What remains constant, however, is the steady feedback of readers who appreciate our objective: to be the informational resource for the forward-thinking beef cattle producer.
Time has a way of sneaking up on all of us, and that includes the very subscription you’re receiving for this magazine. If the issue you receive has a subscription form in the front half, be sure to fill it out and send it back to us so that you continue to receive the magazine. Our journey as a fast-growing magazine is in large part due to you, so let’s keep the ride moving. 
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David Cooper
- Managing Editor
- Progressive Cattleman
- Email David Cooper
