I don’t have children, not because I don’t want them, but because that’s simply how it’s worked out. So, now that the boys, my nephews, live less than 2 hours away, I spend as much time as I can with them. It won’t be too long before it’s just not cool to hang with their aunt.
They were with me for four days, and it was the first time they’d come by themselves sans parents. The first night and day flowed like melted chocolate; I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter or easier time – it was a set-up. I awoke the second morning to what I imagine the first stirrings of the War of the Roses sounded like only over something much less glamorous than crown and country.
Z and Auz were fighting over a DS, and as they each have their own, their argument made no sense whatsoever. Therefore, using my highly honed powers of deduction: they were fighting merely for the sake of fighting. Lovely. Gotta adore the simple aggression of boy-ness.
Now, I’m new at this parenting thing, but I figured they needed an outlet for their aggression, sort of like a pressure cooker. So, I took them to a trampoline park where we all played dodgeball. Together. All of us. Yes, I threw balls at them, too. (Disclaimer: The balls were no harder than fluffs of lint, I swear it.) Is it wrong that I enjoyed it so much? After two hours I was exhausted, but they were not – nope, not even a little. I’m hoping it’s just an age thing. And, you know, they were still fighting.
I took them to lunch at a deli (to which I will never return – keep reading). Z had a meltdown because the sandwich came without the crust cut off. I very calmly remedied the situation (with the tiniest plastic knife I have ever seen provided by the surliest teenager) while explaining that there was nothing to cry about. He dialed it back. Then my lunch came, and it was also totally wrong. I watched the boys watch me, closely, for my reaction.
Honestly, I, too, felt like throwing a tantrum. I’d been with two grumpy fighting boys all day, dealt with major temper tantrums – some even from the boys, and all I wanted was my freaking sandwich to come the right way. But there were two little faces staring at me expectantly who would notice every bit of how I responded to the girl who delivered my not-correct-lunch. So, I smiled, and told the gum-cracking teenager (Yes, she of the teeny, tiny knife.) that the sandwich was not what I ordered and asked for the correct one to be brought.
I was very proud of my very mature behavior while the teenager rolled her eyes and walked away. She did, however, bring me a new sandwich. I did not even check to see if she had – uhm, defiled – my lunch in anyway. I just ate it.
Later, after quiet time – more me than them – , a trip to the park, more fighting, and Lunchables for dinner (Don’t hate me for the nutritional deficit.), I sat on the bed with Z snuggled up beside me for a bedtime story. Now, I have shelves full of children’s books written by lots of different authors, but Z is interested in one writer – Dr. Seuss. And each night he carefully selected a different rhyming volume and presented it to me as a treasure, “This one.” That night it was Green Eggs and Ham.
He placed his little finger under the words visually tracing my voice as I read, and gradually, gradually he chimed in as he recognized words on the page. As he gained confidence his little voice grew louder and his contributions more frequent, and I let mine trail off until finally his voice was the lone sound in the room. Occasionally he stumbled, and I helped encouraging,”Sound it out.” He would, rapidly finding his way back into the story. He’d remember the word, too, that he had difficulty recognizing the next time it appeared.
When he finished with Sam-I-Am, I kissed him on the forehead. “I love you so much, Little Dude.”
As I turned out the light I pondered how learning to read is truly similar to learning to know God, or if you are not a believer, just becoming a decent human being. We start out fighting, pushing, pulling, and totally without Him. He brings us to a place where we are accepting of Him, similar to being able to distinguish the alphabet. Once we have letter recognition, we learn to put those letters together to form words that make sense and then string those words together into sentences, like discerning His desires for our lives and behaviors. Occasionally we come across vocabulary with which we are unfamiliar, and we stumble – we sin. But He’s always there to help us “sound it out” and bring us back into His arms.
Looking in at my nephews sleeping – finally, finally quiet – I smiled. (No, not because they weren’t fighting.) So they fight. So they throw tantrums. They’re growing up, and they will learn to control themselves, learn to love God the way they learned to read. And if they don’t learn to behave, there’s always dodgeball.
The Unexpected Life 