You are currently browsing the archive for the Disappointment category.
I try to be Christ-like. I try to do the right things. I try to say the right words. I try to think the right thoughts.
I try to smile at people as they pass. I try to support the appropriate causes. I try to love my neighbors even when they don’t love me back. I try to be kind and supportive to those in need.
Every day, I try to be like Christ.
Every day, I fail. I laugh at the wrong joke. I pass judgment on someone else’s life. I turn a blind eye to life’s injustice.
“What if every tow truck ran out of gas?”
“How do bodies get to heaven after they’ve been buried?”
“‘Si usted está contento y usted sabe que aplaudas! That means, ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap you hands!”
It’s not unusual for a period of 15 minutes with Squirts to follow this or some similar line of conversation. Sometimes, it’s like trying to chase popcorn. Just when you think you know where a topic is headed…pop, we’re off in another direction.
Read the rest of this entry »
The other morning, after Squirts ate his breakfast, I set his clothes out and told him it was time to get dressed while I went to get ready for the day. About 30 minutes later, I returned to the living room and – Squirts was dressed. Shirt, underwear, shorts and socks! Hallelujah!
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t the first time that’s happened. But no matter how many times it does, I’m still haunted by the days we battled to get the boy dressed every day. Here’s how the playback of those days runs on the screen in my mind, backed by the flashing lights and music of the Little Einstein’s:
While the child is distracted by educational TV, we strategically lay out a clean set of clothes for easy reach; then with ninja-like agility, dad makes a sneak attack from behind sweeping the child from his feet and pinning him to the floor; mom swoops in and deftly removes the pajama bottoms with one hand while reaching for the clean underwear and pants with the other; with little more than a look, parents make a tag team reversal and mom pins the boy while dad quickly replaces the pajama top with a crisp, clean t-shirt; with a high-five and a “Hoo Ya” the child is dressed and released.
One night this week, I was in the family room listening to Squirts and his mommy go through the nightly pre-bedtime ritual: brush teeth, use mouth wash, go potty, and head to bed, all narrated with a steady chatter of dialogue between the two. But then, as they moved from bathroom to bedroom, the normalcy of the routine was broken. Squirts punctuates the ongoing conversation with an appropriately confused, “What the hell?!”
Yes, our four-year-old son busted out with “What the hell?!” And, I later learned, he had used the phrase in a correct, though totally inappropriate, context. The outburst was, of course, followed by his mommy’s calm, but insistent explanation about the evils of words like that. Squirts apparently understood the potentially dire consequences of the phrase he’d just used, because the last thing I heard him say before the bedroom door closed was, “Mommy, please don’t tell daddy what I said.”
