As of writing, I'm slumped over my keyboard and accompanied by a coffee-stained mug I emptied mere moments ago.
Safe to say, I'm shattered.
Lady Laura and I had suffered one hell of a night with the boys — one for the books for sure.
It seemed not a moment passed without incident; nappy leaks, Nathan crying, Liam demanding bottles he is being weaned from, and then subsequently wailing when he didn't get them.
My God, those cries.
The night was a series of fires that neither of us could fully put out. I'll admit, I lost my temper with our eldest and snapped verbally, which still has me ringing with guilt.
Yet still, I was greeted with "Dada!" and boundless energy in the morning.
Still, he sought the embrace of his fun, playful father.
Can you imagine an adult doing that?
It would never happen.
Perhaps in a monastery somewhere in Thailand, but not here in the West. We're too full of pride and ego to ever absorb the ire from another adult.
But children?
They are so naive in the best of ways (or perhaps just not jaded and pressure-tested from life).
Reminds me of an old short story titled Father Forgets by W. Livingston Larned, which I came across while reading How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I've attached it in the P.S. below, should you wish to indulge in it.
A worthy read not only for fathers, young and old, but for all adults who are guilty of being snappy and critical, even if only on rare occasions.
But the main take-home point is this:
Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them.
Something even your Overlord & Saviour could improve upon..
Anyway, I must now go off and muster the creative juices to finish off yesterday's chapter of Book 6.
Ta-ra.
DJJW
P.S. Father Forgets short story:
Listen Son, I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little hand crumpled under your cheek and blonde curls sticky over your wet forehead. I have broken into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guilty, I came to your bedside.
There are things which I am thinking, son; I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face a mere dab with the towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
At breakfast, I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. As you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” I frowned and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”.
Then it began all over again late this afternoon. As I came up the road, I spied you down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your socks. I humiliated you before your friends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Socks were expensive, and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that son, from a father.
Do you remember later, when I was reading in the library, how you came timidly, with sort of a hurt look in your eyes? I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption; you hesitated at the door. “What is it that you want?” I snapped.
You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, your small arms tightened with affection that God had set blooming in your heart, which even neglect could not wither. Then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, Son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, or reprimanding; this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you: it was that I expected too much of you. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
There is so much that was good, fine and true in your character. The little heart of yours was as big as the dawn itself over the hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else mattered tonight. Son, I have come to your beside in the darkness, I have knelt there, ashamed!
It is a feeble atonement; I know that you would not understand these things which I have told you in the waking hours. Tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, suffer when you suffer and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy–a little boy.”
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, Son, crumpled and weary in your bed. I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much!