Quote of the day - You don't care

I'd warned Brielle that the bath would be over if she fought with Ashlyn one more time.

They fought.

I hated to do it. But I hate breaking promises even more. So I did.

I grabbed the soap, and washed her hastily. She wriggled and cried. Eager to get her out, I slapped shampoo on her hair and scrubbed it over her scalp and wet locks. It dripped into her eyes. She shook her head and screamed. And screamed.

This is what she screamed:

"You don't care about me! You don't care about me! You don't care about me!"

Except that, knowing how slow I am to get things (she has heard Mommy try to communicate with me), she helpfully repeated this something like a dozen times--for a total of three dozen.

There are two possible responses to this.

The one I normally advocate is an acknowledgment of the speaker's feelings, respecting the fact that her words reflect reality as she perceives it. One might paraphrase the child's feelings in order to validate her viewpoint and confirm that one has heard and understood her. Diplomacy.

Then there's the response I chose: "That is a lie, Brielle. And it is a mean lie. I care about you too much to let you fight your sister. I told you what would happen if you fought with Ashlyn again, and I care about you too much to tell you I'm going to do something and then not do it."

I don't know if I responded well or not. The words she spoke seemed so opposed to all that I'm about that I didn't have what it took to just leave it alone. Maybe my defensiveness made it all about me, which demonstrated her point.

But what haunts me more is the source of such talk. Really, where does she come up with this? Is she repeating what she's heard others say? If so, where has she heard this stuff? Movies? School? It's certainly not a game we play here at home.

And how much does she mean it? Is she really feeling uncared-for in this moment? Or is she already advanced enough in the way of the Guilt Jedi to be laying this on with strategic intent?

Is this just the primal cry of every heart when we've fought in the tub, the soap's in our eyes, and judgment has been passed against us? On even the best days, is it the cry of our worst fear?

Quote of the day - The bare necessities

The rest of us were boarding the minivan for the quick run home from grandma's Friday night.

But not Ashlyn.

She had a song to sing. And with a song, a dance.

She wiggled her way around the Odyssey at least enough times for its gray walls to come a tumblin' down, singing,

"The BARE necessities. Don't forget your worries and your strike!"

Around the rear bumper she sped, half-running, half-boogying, throwing the full weight of her little chest into the emphasis on "BARE." Almost colliding with the front fender, the modified lyric from The Jungle Book came back like a Zen mantra, over and over with each lap around the vehicle. "The BEAR necessities. Don't forget your worries and your strike!"

Her literal wording may have upset Walt Disney's original message. But her performance--free of cares beyond the moment, true to life's essentials of song, dance, passion and childlike power--clearly captured what Baloo was trying to tell Mowgli.

Quote of the day - I love Satan

Melía was going through the motions of bedding down last night--a prelude to her hour of requests, potty breaks, talking to self and to knocked-out twin sister, playing and patiently enduring the silence before sleep sneaks in and takes her away.

With no visible provocation, she announced:

"I love God and Satan."

I was disarmed, not sure what to say. I'm not sure now what I did say. Maybe I said, "You do?"

"Yeah," she said, pleased with herself. "I love Satan!" She giggled, aware of the scandal of these words, but sticking to her guns.

Knowing Melía's heart, I sensed this declaration--dark as it may have sounded from other lips--was worth celebrating. "That's good, Melía. Do you think God loves Satan too?"

"Yes!" said Melía.

"No, He doesn't," Ashlyn protested.

"Really? I think He does love Satan. Because Satan is His child, and even though he does bad things, God loves him anyway, just like He loves us when we do bad things," I said.

"Yeah!" said Melía.

"Everyone is His child," said Ashlyn.

Amen and amen to living in a universe run by Love big enough to encircle the old friend-turned-enemy who crucified Him.

And amen to living in a house with little hearts big enough to get it.

(Click photo at top or PLAY arrow at left to see a short clip of Melía speaking for herself on the topic of God's unconditional love.)

Quote of the day - I cannot tell you

I wish I could remember how this conversation began. What Melía said captured me so much that I forgot what led to it. Or maybe I didn't really start listening soon enough.

Despite these fresh efforts to tune in to my children and meditate on their words, my listening still kicks in too little and too late.

We'd just pulled into the gym, this time with all three girls and car seats crammed into the back of the Accord. As always, none of the girls was in a rush to jump out.

For a change, neither was I.

Melía had asked me some kind of "Know what?" question, and I was having fun answering this rhetorical by guessing what she was going to say. I threw out a couple bits of random silliness and a couple serious attempts at intuiting what she was getting at.

I was having fun at my own game.

But that was enough, she decided, and told me so:

"No, Daddy. If you are telling me I cannot tell you."

Her reprimand reminded me to do what I already know to do. "Seek first to understand, then to be understood," as I teach my students, in the language of Stephen Covey's Habit 5. Stop operating on what you think people are going to say, and let them say it.

Shut up and listen.

Thanks for the reminder, Melía Grace. I'll try to do that--and sooner next time.

---

"...O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love."
(From the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi)

Quote of the day - Favorite space picture

Brielle's Kindergarten class is studying space. I picked her up after school. After a giant bear hug that lasted all the way from the pick-up bleachers to the car, the first thing she told me inside was this:

"I know what my favorite space picture is." She was giddy. I hadn't even begun to ask questions about the day. "It's called called 'Oh-Daven.' It's a group of stars."

"Orion?"

"Yeah, Oh-Ryan. And inside it there's a giant black hole. Astronauts can see it." She couldn't talk fast enough now. "And God and Jesus are going to come out of it!" Her grin was about the size of the great hunter's belt. "And that's why it's my favorite!"

Not a bad reason to choose a space picture.

---

Maranatha, come Lord--by whatever path You choose, whatever time You know is best. (But sooner is definitely better.) And however, whenever that is, come now and restore my childlike excitement about how perfect that day will be.

Conversation of the day - Trinity talk

Driving home from church yesterday, I made a comment about something Jesus could do.

From the back of the minivan, Brielle corrected me (believe it or don't): "God."

"That's right, Jesus and God."

"No--God," she insisted.

"Jesus is God," I said.

Ashlyn weighed in. "No he's not!"

I hitched up my theological pants, drew in a deep breath, and set out to explain the Trinity to 4- and 5-year-olds. "Jesus is God's Son, but he is also part of God."

"No, he's not. Jesus is not part of God. Even though they do the same work."

"Brielle, is your pointer finger your hand?"

"Yeah."

"And is your thumb your hand too?"

"Yeah."

"It's kind of like that. Your fingers are all different, but they are all part of your hand. And Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit are all God. And like you said, they help each other do the same work."

"Oh."

"Or maybe it's more like ice and water and steam. Ice is water that is frozen. And water is water that is just water. And steam is water that is evaporating. But they're all water--just in different states."

Sometimes I wonder how in the same sentence I can remember to limit my vocabulary enough to utter something like "water is water that is water," yet drop an odd homonym like "states" at the end. This is why I never taught Kindergarten.

Brielle giggled. "Not in different states!" She said "states" in that high-to-low pitch sequence that means, "You're being silly, Daddy!" (I hear that sequence often because my daughters think I am silly often--even more often than I attempt to be.)

I laughed back. "I don't mean a state like California or Texas or Alaska, but like water in a different way of being, a different circumstance, a different condition."

"Conditioner?!" she laughed. Now her twin sisters were laughing too. "Daddy, you said 'water in a different conditioner'!"

Mercifully, my Trinity lesson had ended, and on a silly note, a note of comical ambiguity. Maybe a pun is one more Godhead metaphor.

And maybe silliness is an underused path to God.

Conversation of the day - Everybody loves God

Home late after a meeting today, the twins were jumping, crawling, hugging and kung-fu fighting all over me on the couch.

It was unmitigated delight.

Meanwhile, Brielle sat front and center before the TV, watching yet another screening of The Story of Jesus for Children. It fascinates me how absorbing this story is for her.

Right in the middle of the wrestling match on the sofa, with Jesus feeding the five thousand via DVD, Melía looked at me and said:

"I love God a lot."

"I'm so glad to hear you say that, Melía," I gushed, caught off guard by the move from hand-to-hand combat to praise. "God loves to hear it too!"

"And you love God a lot too, Daddy."

"That's right, my Melía." I was glad--relieved, actually--that she noticed. Sometimes I wonder if this reality shines through the fog of my anger, haste and general preoccupation with things mundane.

"Everyone loves God," Ashlyn chimed in.

I could not leave that alone. "Actually, Ashie, not everyone loves God."

"Why?" she asked.

"Some people don't know God and some people don't like God," I told her.

"Only bad people don't love God," said Ashlyn.

"All people are mix of bad and good, Ashlyn. It's just that...."

The tickling, elbowing and head-banging resumed before the discussion went any further. Maybe it was for the best. I often err on the side of too much information.

But even that much had begun what I know is next for my girls. The difference between facts and beliefs, knowledge and faith. The coming to terms with how often black and white end up being gray. And more troubling, the reality of hypocrisy.

It's going to be an exciting ride.

Maybe, if we'd just stick to Melía's opening statement, "I love God a lot," none of the rest would get under our skin so much.

Maybe.