Having kids has revealed to me a whole spectrum of emotions that I’ve never felt before.
The adoring love of a little one who is unable to express that love back (yet). The empty helplessness when your baby is coughing and feverish, but the doctor’s advice is to just wait it out. The innocent joy in the smallest of milestones.
And the other day, there was a new one that I think I could’ve lived life without and been just fine: the revelation that sometimes I can just be a piece of poop in jeans and a t-shirt.
I was enjoying what I believed was well-deserved free time, playing Super Smash Brothers on the Wii. I had just brought the Wii up from Florida, so it was fun to reclaim yet another little bit of my former less stressful life.
The boy liked to watch me play. He liked seeing the colorful characters jump and fly all over the screen, all set to dramatic music and funny sound and voice effects. However, he tired of it and got a book out of his stash and tried to hand it to me. I told him to hold on and continued to pummel Bowser a little more.
When I had my fill of the game, I turned off the Wii and put the controllers down. The boy picked them up and started mashing the buttons. He likes to see the blue lights that flash when you hit a button.
He was happily playing pretend-Wii when I decided to run a little experiment. I think I already knew what would happen, but I had to see it through. I had already judged myself guilty, and now it was time for the evidence.
I picked up one of my son’s books and held it out to him.
“Do you want to read this book with me?”
He looked up from his button-mashing and smiled. He put the controllers down and moved towards me, ready to take his usual seat in my lap during book readings. Dang.
Cool Baby was happy to put down the irresistible white with blue-blinky-lights super-fun gadgets to read a book with his daddy. I don’t think I even took my eyes off the screen when he asked the same.
I’ll leave the comparisons to how I treat God as an exercise to the reader.
Yeah, that was some raw conviction that I could’ve done without, but I think it’s better for my family that it happened. And the beautiful thing about children – and God – was that it was back to adoring love just a few minutes later.
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Man, CD, that’s rough. I am so guilty of that same thing…both with Photobaby and with God. I agree – the unconditional love both give is amazing.
Thanks for the reminder. Thanks for the honesty. Thanks for your transparency.
Aw you have a sweet kid.
It’s incredible how God can use even the youngest kids to teach adults important lessons.