Trucks.

Recently, I received a personal invitation to a "Home-made Monster Truck Race".  The invite came from a little neighbor who was wearing a hoodie about three or four sizes too big for his little frame.  He is probably about six years old. The race was set to take place in our neighborhood playground.  Our neighbor promised that it would "be at night, when it is dark, with flashlights".  He advised that I should consider wearing a coat and that I should be sure to have Buster wear a coat as well.  He also added that I could bring my husband along if I wanted.

Buster and I attended part of the race a few evening ago (with coats on, as recommended).  We watched as this little boy enthusiastically pushed Tonka trucks and mini-Monster trucks through the dirt and over jumps.  And, true to our friend's word, there were indeed flashlights.  He was pretty excited to have real life spectators.

Tonight, our doorbell rang and he was standing on our doorstep with his dad.  In his hand was my debit card.  I've developed a bad habit of just carrying a debit card in my pocket rather than carrying a purse - It just seems to me that an active toddler and a purse slung over my shoulder don't really compliment one another.  I had been missing and searching for this debit card for a couple days. He said that he found it laying in the parking lot and wanted to make sure that it got back to me.

I'll gladly attend more "Home-Made Monster Truck Races" if it means that I've earned some friendship from a little neighbor who'll bring back my debit card if he finds it in the parking lot.  Its just nice to know that I've got a friend watching my back in our 'hood.

Fire.

Perhaps we've gone overboard on trying to teach Buster about dangerous things that we don't want him to touch. Particularly with regard to hot things. Perhaps.

One of his most consistently used words is "hot".  He says this while bending his little body partway over and sticking out his hand like a school crossing guard protecting kindergartners from oncoming traffic.  Its quite dramatic and usually one "hot" is not enough.  Typically, there are at least several "hots".

He says this every time he walks into the kitchen and sees steam coming from something on the stove.  And every time he sees steam coming from a mug of coffee.  He notices exhaust coming out of cars and smoke coming out of chimneys.

Recently, he also noticed a man smoking.  We don't smoke and no one that we regularly spend time with smokes.  So, seeing smoke coming out of a person must have been pretty exciting and very dangerous looking for Buster.  Before I could stop him, he was standing in front of this unsuspecting gentleman in his most concerned bent over posture, arm straight out, palm flexed and facing the man, repeatedly saying "hot", "hot", "hot".

Buster probably lives by that saying that goes something like "If you're smoking, you'd better be on fire". All things considered, I think I'm actually okay with that.

Preferences.

Yes to vinegar dipped bread.
No to mashed potatoes.
Yes to lemon slices.
No to In-N-Out Burger (?!).
Yes to pickled okra.
No to green beans.
Yes to garlic stuffed green olives.
No to spinach and cheese casserole.
Yes to cran-raspberry, celery, and walnut salad.
No to sweet potato fries.
Yes to dirt.
No to apple pie.

Apparently, Buster is developing an interesting palate.  He sure does keep me on my toes.

A Gift.

I was given a lovely gift this past weekend.  Time.

A number of years ago I was introduced to the book, The 5 Love Languages.  The concept of the book is essentially that we all have a "mother tongue" through which we most naturally express or receive love - a "love language".  The book not only encourages us to identify our own love language, but, perhaps more importantly to identify and learn the languages of the people in our lives who we love.  The languages are generally described as Gift Giving, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Words of Encouragement, and Quality Time. 

I've decided that one of my love languages is probably Quality Time.  When someone spends time with me, I feel loved.  If I love someone, its most natural for me to express that to them by just "being" with them.  I think I read another book at some point that likens this love language to the behavior of a faithful Golden Retriever puppy.  It kind of makes sense.  

I think one of my husband's love languages is probably Acts of Service.  One of the ways that he naturally expresses love is by serving or doing something for those that he loves.  By way of example, he does the dishes every night.  Every night.  He also starts my car on cold mornings, shuffles the car seat back and forth between our vehicles, takes out the trash, and vacuums.  I actually could go on and on.  Suffice it to say, as he is doing all those things, I think he is speaking his love language, and I feel very loved.  

This weekend, though, my husband spoke his love language in a big dog way.  And, at the same time, gave me the chance to soak of lots of my love language.  He stayed at home with Buster for two nights.  TWO NIGHTS.  And, I got to go down the mountain to Denver to spend the weekend with three of my girlfriends.  We hung out, talked, laughed, poked around a bookstore, cried, made cake balls*, reminded one another of truth and grace, and encouraged each other.  It was a Quality Time heyday!

I'm feeling very loved.  And, that's a pretty amazing gift.

*Cake balls, if you've never come across them, are essentially balls of wadded up cake that have been squished with frosting and dipped in chocolate.  It's an acquired taste.  

Smitten.

What can I say? 

 I'm a sucker for a guy in a giraffe suit.

Words.

I've always said that one of the things that I love about working with kids in my counseling work is that they can be very unedited.  This verbal transparency does, of course, have its risks.  Like when I was about five months pregnant with Buster and I told a little client that I was going to have a baby just like her mom was having a baby.  This little girl's unedited response was, "Geez, I was wondering why you were getting so fat!".  Lovely.

The often unedited nature of kids' responses also, oftentimes, has its heartache.

Recently, a kindergarten age friend was perched at the corner of my desk in my office drawing a self-portrait.  It was probably a good thing that she was narrating the picture as she was drawing, "This is my head, these are my hands, these are my legs...", because it was one of those pictures that might of have lent itself to other interpretations.  Let's just say that it was a bit "free-form".  We've all seen them, and my guess is that we've all created them at some point during our artistic development.

Once the picture was complete, I asked some of my standard questions including "What's good about this person?".  This little person who had been fairly chatty up until this point paused, became very quiet, and then looked quizzically up at my face and said "Well, I try really hard to be good....".  I gently rephrased my question and asked again, "What is something special about this person?". My question was met with silence, and while my heart was breaking I heard a very quiet voice say, "I don't know".

At the very core of all that I understand humans to be, I believe that each of us has infinite worth and value.  This belief stems from a basic theological understanding that informs my marriage, my parenting, my relationships with others, and my counseling work:   We, as humans, are Image Bearers.  We bear God's image.  Part of what makes us uniquely human is that, somehow, we bear or reflect or exhibit the very image of God.  Amazing.

And so, when I hear from one of the littlest among us that she genuinely has no idea what is good or special about her, my heart breaks.  She's never been told.  And, chances are, she's heard plenty of other things that would lead her to believe that there really isn't anything good or special about who she is.  And, chances are, the big people in her life were never told what was good or special about them.  Or they were told, but those messages got drowned out by the messages of broken lives.  And the cycle continues.

So, now, please excuse me for just a moment while I hop up on my soapbox.  There is a proverb that says, basically, words have the power of life and death.

Words matter.

What we say to one another matters.  What we say to the littlest people among us matters.  It really does matter when we tell a child what is genuinely good and special about her.  Let's not miss opportunities today or this week to speak life into the little people who cross our paths.

I'm hopping off my soapbox now.  And, I think I might just go whisper a few things into a sleeping Buster's ear.

(*All identifying information, of course, has been changed regarding children in this post.)

Waving.

Buster's new deal is waving.  He's pretty much mastered a wave that begins at his elbow and involves lots of movement through the very ends of his fingers.  He waves at people, Lu, the clock, the hummingbirds on our deck, dogs at the park, and angels.

Yes, that's right, I just said that Buster waves at angels.

There are times when Buster will look at what seems like nothing and he will wave vigorously.  He's usually smiling when he does this.  Half jokingly, we decided that maybe, just maybe, he's greeting angels.

Without unpacking my theological understanding of angels, suffice it to say that I do believe that they are real.  And I do believe that there is a spiritual dimension to our world of which we are often quite unaware.  There is a part of me that just likes to playfully ponder things and finds gentle wonderment in the idea that Buster might be waving at angels.

Perhaps.