Changes part 3

She is an angel, she is in him
She's got my big toe, and her mother's lips
She gives fishy kisses, and great big bear hugs
42 pounds of pure love
Then one day she'll be 17, feelin' too big for her home
Seems she was just only 3, oh how our children they grow
You watch them grow, then you let 'em go

Watch Them Grow Zach Gill

There are some things in life you cannot understand until you experience them. Marriage would be one. Parenting another. You are welcome to read all the books you want, but it will not help (yes, this even applies to the What to Expect series). Until you have kids you have no idea what you are in for.

I am a big fan of having multiple children, though I prefer to have them one at a time. Why? Well, the tax write-off is not a bad thing, but really it has to do with practice. See, the first go-round you have no clue what the hell is going on. Everything is a mystery, from diapers to teething to school to soccer to dating to going off to college to... You make mistakes. Child number two comes along and you have a vague idea of what you are doing. Only, this child is different from the first and it takes you a while to figure this fact out. So you make more mistakes, though they are different than with your firstborn. Here is why number three is crucial. With your third child you get a chance to put your all-pro parenting skills on display. The five-second rule, which showed way too much paranoia on your part, matures into the if-nothing-is-on-it-go-ahead-and-stick-it-in-your-mouth rule. By child number three even that is really more of a guideline than a rule. You panic less, take fewer pictures, stop putting every finger painting on the fridge door, and accept that your children will eventually understand that ranch dressing is a condiment not a food group.

There is, however, always lurking in the back of your mind the knowledge that at some point in time you will run out of children. If you do your job right your kids will grow up into adults. And this, dear reader, makes me feel very uncomfortable. I love my kids. I love who they are and where they are right now. I have one going into high school. We go to the movies together and share our love of Green Day and Monty Python. My son is old enough to have his own interests but still wants to hang around with me. I can not tell you how much I treasure that. My youngest is not a baby anymore, but still of an age where she gets into things for free (and remember, free is our friend.) She likes it when I read to her, though she is learning to read on her own. I am at a perfect place. It's like a parenting buffet. I don't want it to change.

So, of course, it is changing. There is a part of me that can't wait to do adult things with my adult children (my oldest and I already have a date at a pub on her 21st birthday.) Yet, most of me does not want to lose what I have right now. I guess I could try and freeze my relationships with my children, always treating them like I do right now, but I doubt that it would work out well and the therapist bills would bankrupt us all.

As I ponder (read obsess) what to do I think about my relationship with God. God has watched children grow up billions of times, so there must be some great wisdom and insight I can glean (of course, God gets to keep making new children, which does not seem entirely fair, but who am I to complain?) What I keep coming back to is that I do not need to fear losing my children. They were of God before they were a gift to my wife and myself. They are God's children created in God's image and that will never change. I also don't need to be afraid of growing old myself, for I too will always be a child of God. Finally, it is okay to miss holding my kids hands when we walk across the street, but there will be other hands to hold. Perhaps my own grandchildren. If not, then the hand of another child who needs someone to care and love for them. There are a million different ways that I can interact with children each and every day and participate in the joy and wonder of their lives.

The fact that my children are growing up has helped open me up to God's call to live beyond myself. Instead of lamenting what I sense I am losing, I can reach out and share my love for children in new and exciting ways. Of course, I they are not "my" kids then I will lose the tax break. I will need to find a way around that little problem...legally, of course.

Changes part 2

I have always been told that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it would jump out (what creature, given arms and or legs, would opt to stay in? Really). If, however, you put said amphibian in a pot of water and slowly turn up the heat the frog will not notice and boil to death. Hmmmm. This sounds like an urban legend. I have not met a single person who has ever tried this out. Why would you want to boil a frog anyway? I always thought you fried their legs.
This illustration has been used to explain a number of different things in our world including marriages (I know, the image of a frog slowly boiling to death in a pot of water is oh so romantic. I feel a Hallmark moment about to happen!) Yes, in some marriages there are major events that happen that can threaten the relationship (death of a child, infidelity, major illness). Yet, for most of us, the changes happen very slowly and without our noticing it our marriages slowly die out.
I think there might be some truth to this (the marriage part, not the frog). I remember a decent chunk of the day my wife and I got married. Her uncle is the one who performed the service. There were people there. My wife wore white. After that, it's a blur. I do, however, recall what I was thinking as her uncle was giving his homily (oh, like you paid attention to what the minister said at your wedding. Please.) I looked at my wife and thought "yeah, I can grow old with this person." What can I say, I'm a helpless romantic.
The problem is, that person I married on a cold December day is not the one I am married to now. Nor is she likely to be the one I will be enjoying senior discounts with in the not too distant future. Want to know something else - I am not the same person she married, either (though I still have my incredible green eyes that make me irresistible to her. Most of the time. Well, some of the time.)
In seventeen years we have lived in two countries, four states, had three children, changed jobs a number of times, each of us has had experiences with unemployment, buying houses, selling houses, and a couple of medical problems that, while not major, still mattered. Oh, and did I mention we have three kids. Only an idiot in his twenties could stand up on his wedding day and think that the person he was looking at was not going to be changed by life. And I am that idiot.
I am convinced that there are certain times in every relationship where you have to fall in love with your spouse all over again. Fall in love with the person they are now, not the one they used to be. Some people don't do this. They stay married, for their own reasons, but at some juncture they chose not to love the person they are married to. I am not judging those folks, but I can't do that. I really am a romantic. I want to be in love with my wife. And that means at various times in our life together I have had to fall in love with her. And she with me. It will happen again, somewhere down the road, maybe many more times in the future.
I also believe that we have to fall in love with God many times in our life. The Bible is full of marriage language to describe God's relationship with God's people. As I change so my understanding of God changes. At various points in my life I have had to come to grips with this "new" God, the one I did not know before. I have to be honest here, I have not always liked the new God, much less loved the new God. Not at first anyway. I want what is comfortable, predictable, familiar. I want God to stay the same as when we first met. But then I would be missing out on so much because the new God is full of so many surprises and wonders and levels of love I never knew before. So, I say turn up the heat and let the water boil. OK, maybe just warm it up, about hot tub temperature, if you will. But let the changes come.