This evening I took my two-year-old son Emerson out on a drive to get him to go to sleep. He went to sleep almost immediately but I still went ahead and extended the drive for at least 20 minutes.
As I carried him inside, his blonde head resting on my shoulder, I redirected my footsteps toward the rocking chair in the living room and stole a few minutes. Just for Emerson and me.
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When Edward was born, my attention shifted pretty heavily to Emerson. Being two, he was already a bit of a handful and since Christina was nursing a newborn and Ellery could follow instructions pretty well, I spent a lot of time playing "defense" on Emerson so that he wouldn't...like, kill himself or anything.
Seriously, there was one time Christina set him down and he immediately tried to run and jump into a pond situated behind me. I had my hands full so I straight up kicked his legs to make him trip and fall down. THAT'S NOT CHILD ABUSE, THAT'S SAVING A LIFE.
So a game we started playing was "Kiss Monster" where I would sneak up on him, grab him, and give him like fifty kisses on the cheek while he would squeal with laughter. After doing this for a while, I would pause and he would look at me:
"Kiss me, Daddy!"
"Oh, man! I'm sorry, I'm all out of kisses!"
Then he would hop up to me and give me a big ol' kiss on the cheek.
"There you go!"
And then the game restarts.
For whatever reason though, I had the saddest thought on the planet a couple weeks ago. There's going to come a day when I'll be up for playing Kiss Monster and he's going to say he doesn't want to play that game anymore, that he's too big for it or he wants to do something else. And then I'll be left sitting there thinking:
"Oh, yeah, cool. You know. Whatever. It's just a stupid game. No biggee.." **sobs**
Ever since Christina and I started having kids, we've had older friends and relatives say to treasure it, that it will go by fast. It's impossible though to treasure it enough. There is no way that I can live in the moment enough to get enough of my fill that I won't look back on things like this with nostalgia and a tender heart.
There's also no way I can ignore the fact that on most days, my children seem designed to destroy my house as well as each other. It's a bit tricky to see them as little cherubs in those moments.
But tonight, I can steal a few minutes. And I can take solace in knowing that every now and then, I took advantage of some of this time. That for just a while, a little blonde head drifted further into sleep as it nuzzled against my shoulder.
It's enough.
