Great Expectations (HoL 14)

Nancy and I decided that we just aren’t very good parents. A couple of days ago, I confessed to Nancy that despite everyone telling us how wild and wooly the first Christmas with a child is, I thought we had a pretty average one. Now don’t get me wrong, I had a wonderful time down in Florida, the two church services we participated in were meaningful, and it was nice to have time off work to spend with Nancy and Isaac, but it was pretty much like every other day. This is my failure as a parent. Isaac’s first Christmas wasn’t an earth shattering event, but instead a nice subdued day.

Nancy’s failure as a parent presented itself on this, her first week back at work with Isaac at daycare. She had been warned by other mothers to prepare to cry all day the first day back at work, and not accomplish much. Nancy didn’t cry and actually got quite a lot done.
Once again, our expectations and fears have little bearing on events that actually happen. Instead of being overwhelmed with emotion at certain set points, we are on a steady ride interspersed with small bursts of joy and slow patches of longing.

For example, Nancy slept late this morning. She let me know she was running late by yelling “Shit” when she first glanced at the clock upon waking. I decided that this was not a day to pretend to go back to sleep, and got up to make her breakfast. She was tense as you would expect, and I asked her why. A year ago, she would have been tense because she had so much to do to get ready. Today she was tense, because she was going to miss her morning hour of reading with Isaac. I could tell she wasn’t frustrated by her job, but by the fact that Isaac usually falls asleep shortly after getting home, and she wouldn’t get to spend as much time with him today. I reminded her that they get to spend time together each night at three in the morning, but this seemed to be little comfort.

I can understand why she wants more time with him. It’s always a party with this kid. In the mornings, Nancy wakes me up by putting a warm, sleepy Isaac into bed with me to ride out the last few minutes until the alarm clock goes off. When I give him his bath at night, he is fascinated by the water sprayer in the shape of a hippo’s head and insists on holding and examining it whenever I’m not using it to rinse him. He is amazed by the jet of water and will reach out to try and grab it. When it comes to meal time, Isaac has really taken a shine to solid food. I imagine that there is fishing line attached from the bottom of the spoon to his chin, because whenever I lift the spoon out of the bowl of mashed carrots, his mouth pops wide open.

Wednesday night, I went to pick him up at nursery at church, and he and I played with a large Tyrannosaurus Rex. I made it growl and bite at him, and he thought it was hysterical. It’s going to be a lot of fun when he really gets “into” dinosaurs.

Last Sunday, Isaac was my co-conspirator again in another practical joke. We were at a party watching the Panthers game, and Nancy told me that Isaac needed to be changed. I retreated to the back office, and changed him, but on the way back, I stopped by the bathroom, and filled a clean diaper with warm water. For those who don’t have much experience with diapers, a full wet diaper is pretty heavy and spongy. On the way back into the room, I casually dropped the full heavy diaper, into the sweatshirt hood of one of the youth in the room, and said, “Well that was quite a mess!”.

Chaos erupted. That diaper was thrown around the house, and there were screams from the other room.

Isaac and I had quite a chuckle.
Strength and Honor
Big Matt