superfluous

This picture sits in a frame on a side table in our living room.



Last night I was sitting on my sofa, reflecting on life and circumstances. Feeling grateful for the good things in my life and guilty for the not so good things. And I looked over at this picture of me and B. I marveled at the three-and-a-half years that have gone by since this moment. And was incredulous remembering the one-and-a-half years left until the age of accountability.

Where has the time gone? And what have I done with our time together? All those parenting books stress how the preschool years are the most impressionable years of your child's life. B's preschool years are gone. Gone. He is a boy. A boy who is almost accountable.



This knowledge is weighty.

With the arrival of a new baby, our love is wrapped in secret feelings of hope and dreaming for the little one. We want them to be smart, bright, stylish, funny, fun, athletic, graceful, beautiful, handsome, charming, creative, artistic, or talented. Because we think these are the traits that will make them most successful in life. Or - to go deeper still - that these are the traits that mean we, as parents, have been most successful in life. So we sign them up for dance classes and soccer and piano lessons. We buy them cute clothes and make sure they know the alphabet by age 1 and the multiplication table by age 5. And we play classical music while they're still in the womb, because psychologists have dedicated years of PhD study to its effects on producing highly intelligent offspring.

Superfluous.

My babies really only need two things: light and truth.

Today B asked me some heavy, Atonement-related questions on the way home from school. We pulled into our garage and I parked the car. "Wait, Mom," he said. "Don't get out yet. I just want to talk a little more about Jesus."

Clearly, swimming lessons could wait.