A Little Bit of Perspective
Only an hour into our morning, and I had already heard an earful of complaining between both my boys to last all week. Finally, Puck and I had a chat while he put on his big orange winter coat.
I held up two fingers close together in front of him. “Bud, picture this space between my fingers as your life here on Earth, okay? Now, you’re going to live forever, right? Everyone does. So if this space between my fingers is your life on Earth right now, the rest of your life after that starts here at this finger, and goes on forever. Forever. You’re doing a whole lot of time focusing just on this tiny space here, instead of forever down that way.” I pointed out the window into the beyond.
Maybe a little heavy discussion for 7:30 on a Tuesday morning, and a somewhat modified and borrowed Francis Chan illustration, but I could see it had made an impact. There was no more complaining.
About two hours later after dropping Puck off at school and delivering Oxbear’s laptop to him in Clayton, Yali and I arrived at the Big House. Yali walked through the door tossing his prized tiger mittens on the floor, a hand-me-down gift from one of Puck’s classmates, and almost immediately requested a temporary tattoo for his fist, which he dug up somewhere in the old art supplies hutch. It was already almost ten o’clock.
Puck’s nose was a little black at three o’clock. Apparently things had gotten a little crazy during Art.
“I smeared everything!” he explained. “And there was an exploding cannon and the paint and an exploding genetic bomb and there’s this contest and I think I might win!”
Turns out their class was entering the same art contest through the St. Louis Symphony that my siblings and I – many moons ago – entered multiple times as kids. My interpretation of a Mexican blanket had won a blue ribbon for me way back in First Grade. Although exploding cannons sounded just as promising.
It was only four o’clock but both boys were already starving. Yali braced both feet against the doors of the fridge, pulling on the handles with all his might, crying for food. Puck sneaked a share of leftovers when I wasn’t looking. I then caught him trying to wash “the spice” off a piece of fried chicken in the sink. I can’t seem to keep up with these boys and their wild appetites.
While I cleaned up the dinner dishes, my three boys enjoyed some reading, a wrestling match, and a whole lot of laughter in the other room. I really don’t mind being outnumbered.