G Sounds Like Nine

“Write a story about me, Mom.” My 3 year old son told me.

“What should it say about you?”

“It should say B and C and X,” he answered. ” And your favorite letter G that sounds like nine.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“T looks like I.” He looked at the screen and sighed. “That’s a lot of letters.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, because then the people know you love me. Because of the lots of letters.”

“They didn’t know that already?”

“Now they know it bigger.”

There’s a lot of sense in his 3 year old self. We spend our time and energy on the things which are important to us.  #6 sees me writing and rewriting and knows how important all of those letters are in my life. He may not always understand exactly what I’m doing at the computer, but he wants to be a part of it because he loves me.

I could learn a lot from my little boy.  He rinds me that sometimes love means being interested in what the people we love are interested in, even when it’s not our thing.  Sometimes, especially when it’s not our thing.  It shows them that we love and value them and are willing to give them the gift our our attention, the gift of ourselves.

I need to remember that when he’s asking me to play trains with him, or even Angry Birds (the bane of my existence). It’s not the activity he’s craving, but my time and attention.  He’s asking, in his own innocent way, for me to show that I love him.  He wants me to give him the gift of my time, and of showing him how beloved he truly is.

“Write a story about me,” or “Play trains with me,” or “Read me a story,” the request isn’t as important as the message “Slow down for a moment out of your busy life to show me I’m important to you, too.”

I love him so much, this silly boy of mine. I love that he wants nothing more than to sit on my lap and just be my boy, so that’s my plan for the rest of the evening.  I’m going to be playing games, tickling toes,  and showing him how I love him.  It’s the most important thing I will have done today.

And I’m going to find out exactly how the G sounds like nine.  I’m still not exactly clear about that.