When I was a kid I hated roller coasters and never road them; then I became a parent and now that’s how I roll. Today was a roller coaster kind of day for Aidan. There were flashes of brilliance mixed with evidence of incredible naivety.
At lunch, we road out to the no kill animal shelter to make some donations and take a look at the kittens. Of course, we found two interspersed between the raft of dogs, big cats and little kittens. This place had a ton of animals and they all were excited to see as. Walking down the main hallway of dogs I got a small feeling what it would be like to do a perp walk down a jail block. Every dog, small and large, decided they would great us. Of course, Iona who is now afraid, literally, of flies decided this was a little intense. So, we went upstairs to the cat rooms and started with the kittens. Maybe it was they were a little more her size but she, Aidan, Melissa and I warmed up to two specific ones. So, of course, pragmatic dad gets voted down into the ground and we are now signed up to adopt them after some runs to petco to grab the necessary gear.
On the way out, Aidan made the comment that he wanted to take his savings and not get a toy for him but contribute to the costs of the cats because ‘cats are a little more important than toys’. Amazing. I was ridiculously proud of my little empath.
Flash forward to 5 p.m. and I’m home. Iona was knocking down Aidan’s block towers because two year olds do that sort of thing. Aidan was getting increasingly upset due to lack of sleep and lack of patience and the heat and finally he blurts out ‘I WISH SHE WASN’T AROUND!’ (in a lot more mean way than I just said). So we had a great discussion on how you can rebuild towers but not relationships and when you say or do mean things to your sister; it takes time when you say hurtful things and sometimes they can be damaging. He didn’t want to get off the block tower issue but eventually got it it seems that words can hurt and be damaging and in the age of the Internet they don’t always go away quickly.
It’s obvious Aidan ADORES his sister and when he saw that his words were rash and not thought out he got it. I appreciate the opportunity to be Aidan and Iona’s dad. I’m wrestling with the temporary nature of these moments. They seem like they’ll go on forever, but I know my role is temporary; they’ll eventually be adults, they’ll eventually be ‘peers’ and not the same dad/son/daughter relationship that I have now. So I see this as a long term discipleship opportunity with lots of up days and lots of down days and a whole ton in between.