Small Wonders...

I have no idea how many times in my adult life that I’ve walked out the door, straight to the car, turned the key and sped up the road….to work or to the grocery store or anywhere else. We all do, and it’s no big deal, right?

Well with a kid just shy of 20 months old that journey to the car is a big deal. Everything in the world is a big deal.

Birds become amazing creatures that have wings and soar through the sky. Planes too, only bigger and make humming noises as they push through the clouds. A cat crossing the street is and event. Flowers, leaves…..Rocks! Everything is so cool!

It’s humbling to see the world through my son’s eyes. Just the other day I watched him watch the crows pecking and cawing in the front yard. He was completely captivated by something that normally I would just walk past without even registering. But for him, such wonder! I held him up to the window, his eyes wide and enrapt with the crows. When they finally moved on he started waving, whispering “Bye Bye” as they flew to the next yard. Made my day.

A simple trip out to the yard is like a jaunt through a theme park. There’s so much to discover. The other day we played with twigs and sticks for nearly twenty minutes. Then it was the ants, quite the show they put on. Caterpillars, worms, even stinkbugs are all characters in this great wide open show called the world. Oh, and he really really like butterflies. Those get the brightest smiles.

He likes walks down the street. Those aren’t quite as fun for me, but that’s because I become a secret service agent--scanning the road ahead for cars, stray dogs, maybe even an errant tumbleweed. Who knows what may be lurking?

He points to cars, he loves the trucks. He squeals and mimics and just takes it all in. He never wants to go back inside. And he never ceases to surprise me with all the new words he knows. But he's not the only one learning, he's teaching me to relearn all of the things that as a "grown up" I take for granted. Like walking in a puddle at the end of a street, or blowing the seeds off of a dandelion. The curl of grass under my bare feet, mud on my toes. Hearing the birds sing their songs.

So maybe that’s why the posts here are less frequent, because we’re just having too much fun...

My Son's World...

On my way to work today, I heard on the radio that there had been a shooting at the off campus college dorms across the street from where I work.  Sure enough, pulling onto the street, police cars and forensic units were on the scene, halting traffic as driver slowed and gawked at what looked like the set of CSI in our quiet town.

As the details emerged, it appeared that a student had been shot by campus security.  Details were scarce, but it was a tragic event by all accounts.  

And then, only an hour up the road, I read that a state senator had suffered stab wounds to his face and abdomen.  Again, not much was being reported, but later it was revealed his son had taken his own life with a self-inflicted gunshot.

The world is a violent place, but today it just so happened to be a little more violent in my neck of the woods.  After work, I came home and enjoyed my son’s giggle, but after dinner the news again caught my eye.  This time the report was on a new teenage fad called the knock out game.  It seems teenagers are walking around slugging unsuspecting victims—men and women at random.

And with that I'd had enough, I turned the television off.  I already struggle with what seems to be an increasingly violent world, or at least more broadcasted world.  Just two years ago, none of this would have bothered me.  Sure, I would have shook my head and felt bad for the victims, but it wasn’t something I dwelled on.  Everything changed the day that my wife told me she was pregnant.  Now I worry, I worry for my son and the world he will live in.  A world that seems to be getting increasingly unstable. 

Parenting is now an elective, and the children of those who don’t wish to parent will become parents themselves.  And then what?  

I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom here.  I’m normally a pretty lighthearted guy.  But sometimes it gets to me and I get discouraged because I feel there is nothing I can do.

But then I think of the little stories and sights that get lost in the shuffle of punches and gunshots.  Like that little old man who sits at the edge of the road on my way home and waves to traffic. I think of those selfless kids over the summer who set up a lemonade stand and donated the profits to the humane society. There's the teenage Dairy Queen worker who watched a customer in line pocket a twenty dropped by a blind patron.  After refusing to serve the thief, he went into his own wallet to reimburse the victim.  This is the world I want my son to live in.

It reminds me of the words of a good friend when he had just become and dad.  When I asked him if he was worried about violence, politics, the middle east, or even another Rocky movie, he shook his head and smiled.

He said that while he couldn’t control the world and all of the craziness in it, could do his part in his house.  He could raise his son the best he knew how, to teach him to be polite and courteous, to do the right thing.  And to show him love and affection. 

On days like this I need these words more than I ever thought.  Because that’s what I have to do, raise my son the best way I know how, so that when he leaves the safety of these walls, he will know that he is loved.  And maybe that’s all it takes, is to feel loved.