Monday, June 4, 2012

Bluezin Bearzin


So this evening, I overheard my sweet 4yo son putting his Blue Bear to bed.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Tears of pure joy welled up in my eyes.  I was walking down the hall from his sister’s room to his room to put him to bed.  But I stopped short of his view in the hallway when his sweet little voice alerted me to his pretend play.  This is what I heard: “Jesus had five friends to help him. Six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve helpers. Wow, twelve.  That’s a lot of helpers, Blue Bear.  Jesus taught his twelve helpers about God’s love.  That’s it!  All done.  It’s time for bed now.  Get in bed.  Let’s turn off your light. (C turns off his lamp, and nears the door.)  Good night, Blue Bear.  I love you. Mch mch mmch mch. (blowing kisses to Blue Bear from the door).  Got it.  Got it. Got that one.  Got them all.  (He half closes the door as if he’s about to leave, then stops short and opens it back up a bit and says…) What? (pause) OK, I love you too. Good night.”  He closes the door and finds me standing there grinning from ear to ear with tears threatening to roll out onto my cheeks. 

I couldn’t help it.  He went through our routine perfectly.  Even to include the pause at the end when I’m closing his door, and he’s still trying to prolong our conversation.  His intonation was a perfect imitation of mine.  Unreal.  Actually it’s quite scary, because tone of voice communicates so much, even more than the actual words being spoken.  The "what?" sounded a little bit annoyed with Blue Bear.  I was rather humbled and convicted about how I often have a harsh with tone when speaking to my little ones.  Need some help there.  Don’t we all?  I need to relax and bring it down a notch.  Not everything is a crisis.  Sheesh, mama.  But I digress…

Ahh, but C… He was surprised to see me standing there, but smiled and told me that Blue Bear is going to bed.  He invited me back into his room, telling me I need to be quiet because he’s already asleep.  However, the tickle-monster woke Blue Bear up, and we read another book and a Bible story, and went through our routine together.  I paused at the door just because, and said I love you again.  After I closed the door, I heard him start to roll and hum himself to sleep... something he’s been doing since he was able to roll his little infant head around… and he was out in 3 minutes. 

This is what it’s ALL about, people.  These are the moments to write about so that we can remember just exactly how perfect and innocent they are when they’re little.  I can hear my dad in my head saying this about my sister and me: I want to bottle up this moment and keep it forever.  I don’t want them to grow up.  C’s last day of school is tomorrow… next year he’ll be in pre-K… then Kindergarten… then first grade… Oh, I can’t bear to think about it now.  It just all goes much too fast.  I’ve been told numerous times that it would.  I know we all have our moments, our days, even our weeks and perhaps months of frustration with our babies, but it is in these precious moments that all of that melts away.  Would you mind taking a moment to share some of the funny, precious, astounding or precocious things your little ones (maybe they’re bigger ones now!) have done to bring those tears of pure joy to your eyes?  Maybe it might help to think of something heart-warming, if you’ve had one of those days.  Thanks for indulging me, friends.