Thirty-One and Thirty-Two Months

June 14, 2014

Seth,

It’s been a busy two months, things have just flown by. I guess that means we’ll just have to sum up two months in one post here. With friends and birthdays and traveling and getting ready for a crazy summer, it just seems to be going faster and faster. With all that going on, it seems easy to miss the little moments that really matter. but, then looking back it’s clear that we aren’t missing the little things together. It’s just that we don’t so much remember than unless we write them down. It’s a blessing for us that you’re growing up in a time when we can take so many pictures and easily record life together.

April and May were just packed, between friends and birthdays and visitors and getting ready for a crazy summer. Wow! And now you’re in Colorado with Mommy and cousins and all your grandparents. It’s quite the summer. Nevertheless, each and every day with you brings its own little details.

You may be only three feet tall now, but you’re tall enough some days to push all of our buttons. It’s more than a little hard to learn to listen when you have so many exciting things to learn and do every day. You bought balloons for my birthday, but I think you enjoyed them far more than I did. From a shower for them, to feeding, rocking, giving them water, who needs expensive toys? they also got to have pancakes and coffee for breakfast.

You get a lot of points for ingenuity, even when it’s not something we want you to be doing. You got your toys taken away for not picking them up. You proceeded to bring the soccer ball inside to throw at the top of the cabinet to get them back down. This has continued to one thing and another. “I need to wash my hands! They are dirty!” We went into the bathroom to find that you had covered your hands and the sink in diaper cream. Finally, you’ve realized that you don’t have to stay in bed when you’re going to sleep, which results in things like us finding you lying on the floor on your tummy, reading a book and singing twinkle twinkle little star when you’re supposed to be in bed sleeping. The flip side of that is slipping in to turn off your light, pull the book out from underneath you, and tucking you in when you fall asleep reading.

Another selection of top quotes:

• “Can you put me through this basketball hoop?”
• “Daddy, snuggle with me! There’s a pillow here for you.”
• “Daddy, will you snuggle? Will you stay lots of minutes?”
• “That’s a brilliant idea!”
• “Seth? Where is your book?” “Ummm…probably somewhere?”
• “Can we do the Mentos experiment?” – referring to putting Mentos into a 2-liter of Coke. We have a little scientist on our hands who constantly wants to do experiments.
• When Mommy suggested he go outside and play, “that’s a good thought, Mommy!” and then wandered out of the room.
• “I dranked it!” “You drunk it?” “I finished my milk.”
• “Please don’t pull Molly’s hair.” “Molly doesn’t have hair, she has fur!”

Finally, we regularly hear “Can you tell me?” when we ask questions. You are somewhat reluctant to answer questions, even when you know the answer. Fortunately, we just encourage you that you know the answer and that smooths things out.

The gymnastics continue, from jumping off the laundry basket on the bed, to jumping off the top of your slide and the side of the swimming pool. Crashing results in quite the dialog, too: “My knee hurts. I need to have knee surgery. I broke my knee, I need to go to the doctor.”

As you would expect, the parenting diverges slightly depending on the parent involved. With Mommy: “A spider!” “Don’t worry, Mommy, I’ll kill it.” With Daddy: “Daddy, a spider!” “That’s ok, it’s a tiny one, it can stay.” “I will give it water, then.”

Being a Daddy, it’s easy to see how God loves us just like we love you. Sure, we’re smarter than you are, we see the world more clearly, and you make mistakes and don’t listen. But we love you so deeply that it doesn’t matter. We could judge and demand and force. But we can’t, because we love you so much. Watching you grow and learn and interact with the world on your own is so much more rewarding. Sure, we do want you to learn common sense, and wisdom, to listen and obey, but just being with you brings so much joy. We enjoy so deeply when we get to experience your excitement at new things, your love for others, your joy in play and quiet. I don’t know why we don’t recognize that aspect of God so much more clearly, and keep that in the forefront of our minds. Because God loves us like we love you. That’s pretty fundamental, buddy. Maybe you have to be a parent to see it. Anyway, keeping growing and learning, we love you.

-Daddy and Mommy