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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.
Dawn was breaking with the sun not quite peaking through the window yet. I feel a light tap on the side of the bed and peel my eyes open to see Squirts’ fully-opened eyes and huge grin.
“Come on Daddy! Get Mommy! It’s time to get up! It’s time to GET UUPPPP!!”
Only Christmas morning could bring that much enthusiasm at this hour of the day. The excitement of the unknown. The long-awaited anticipation of Santa’s visit finally realized. The weeks of preparation coming to fruition. It’s almost too much to bear!
But here’s the rub: it’s not Christmas morning. It’s the morning after Christmas. In addition to the big smile, Squirts has in his hand his favorite gift from the morning before. It appears that Squirts is still on some sort of Christmas high. He’s clearly still feeling the Christmas love. For Squirts, the excitement of Christmas day has spilled over into the day after.
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.”
