There are moments as a parent you know that for some reason will be with you forever. No matter how old and forgetful you get those moments will still exist clearly to be relived again and again.
I remember my two year old telling me to make the car go faster because the moon was chasing us and when we pulled into a parking lot the moon went out of sight behind the strip mall. She said, “I think we lost ‘em.”
I remember my daughter’s first goal. The poor girl was simply following the herd when someone on the other team kicked the ball and it bounced off her head into the goal. I remember her standing there while her friends cheered, unsure if she should cheer or cry. She cheered all the way to the sideline until she reached me and cried.
I remember my seven year old telling her younger sister who’d just gotten out of the stroller and walked into a bookshelf, “I told you it was dangerous outside the stroller.”
I’ll remember the sight of my girls running out of school towards the van, smiling.
And I’ll remember something that happened yesterday forever too. But in a different way. This one takes a little explanation.
I’m rereading “A Tree Grown in Brooklyn.” Actually I’m rerererereading it. It’s one of my favorites. It’s about a little girl growing up in Brooklyn early in the 20th century. Dog eared doesn’t begin to tell you how this book looks. It’s been through it. It’s been smudged by kid’s fingers. stepped on by muddy shoes, ripped while they were playing school, left in the van for a few weeks, even used to kill a spider once, and used as a coaster and a plate for kids eating on the way to basketball practice. It’s been in the bathroom for about a month now.
All this is a long way to tell you something else. But it comes up again trust me.
My mother in law called yesterday to tell us she was in the neighborhood.Hooray. So we all ran around the house cleaning up until she showed up.
When she got to our house she suggested I get out for a little while. I said sure and it was all I could do to not make a Matt shaped hole in the wall on my way out. She asked me where I would go and I said I was probably going to the bookstore because I hadn’t had a book to read in weeks.
My five year old said, “He reads books all the time!!!”
Now, I didn’t want my mother in law thinking I neglected my children and locked myself away reading books all day long so I engaged the five year old. Big mistake. I insisted I hadn’t had a book in weeks.
My five year old then drops this on us. “You read the dirty book in the bathroom all the time.”
Oooooooooooooh.
Now, I knew right away that he was talking about “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” but my mother in law started looking out the window as if she’d found something very interesting. I’m standing there thinking about explaining what he means and I’m deciding whether it’s worth it or not and then he adds this little bomb: “The one with the little girl on the cover.”
OoooooooooK. Well then I had to explain. You just have to at that point.
That’s just one of those moments I know I’ll remember forever.
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ROFL!!!
While I was reading this, my 5-year-old came stomping in, arms outstretched. She announced “I’M the HUGINATOR! I HUG everyone I see!” She then proceeded to hug me, and left.
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking my dunkacchino for this one. Coffee definitely would have been shooting out my nose!
Hahahaha! Hilarious!
So much material, so little time. I don’t know how many ways to say, “You should write a book”, but I’ll try to keep thinking of them:-). Reading this is delightful, in the deepest sense. May God bless you, your wife, and your children.
A couple of church funnies - in a children’s teaching -
Teacher: We can put Jesus first in our lives.
4 y/o: How about third?
Teacher (on ways to be closer to God, live a better life): How about reading the Bible as a way to know God?
SAME CHILD: How about not reading the Bible? How about reading Batman?
You had me at “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”...one of my favorites growing up. I’m thinking it might be time to reread it. That said, your stories are so awesome. I’m thinking that my kids aren’t living up to the funny factor, so I’m going to start co-opting your stories just to add a little flair to my storytelling. Ok? ;)
And a voice came out of the desert crying, “Moses, Moses, come forth!”
But Moses tripped and came fifth.
When I re-read Dickens Dombey and Son, as I do from time to time, I am struck by what can be called “The Impact of Innocence”. This is always evident in children as they are growing. There is this open smile. It is always full of confidence. That is why what must have hurt Jesus most as he lay stretched on the ground in Getemani had to be the injuring of the innocent that keeps happening in our world. Every time I see a child, I feel like bowing down and greeting the Christ Child I can see clearly in them. Re-read the “Little Princes”, or “Little Lord Fountelroy” by one of your good american writers, and you will see a very clever use of innocence to help people around those children re-discover reality.
They keep us in check and humble, don’t they!
Matt
I love reading your stuff and this story is especially funny. I had a similar situation that I found myself in many years ago when my son was about 3 or 4. I walked him to the library to select a movie for us to watch one Saturday morning. Thomas the Tank Engine was his favorite. He selected an episode in which the jacket of the video showed Thomas all covered with soot and off we went as fast as we could to get home. As we approached the house, my wife greeted us as she was leaving. She asked my son, Ivan, if he would like to join her while grocery shopping. He said, “No I’m going to stay home and watch the dirty movie with daddy.”
When my oldest was 4 years old, we asked her to say grace. She said, “O ben shump tem, O ben shump tem, thank you for this food.” looked up at us and smiled. When we asked, she said that this was the way they prayed at her pre-school. The following day, when my wife dropped her off at the school, she asked the teacher what kind of prayer this was that she was teaching. The teacher broke into laughter and said, “Before, we have lunch, we check to see if the children’s hands are clean. We say, ‘open them, shut them.’”
It is very seldom that reading a link from the National Catholic Register makes me laugh out loud, but this did. Thank you for sharing it.
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