Too Busy Loving

It’s time to leave the playground.

He begs for my phone. (They’ve become as attached to these devices as we are.)

I’m trying to hold better boundaries, for them, as well as myself.

Plus, it’s almost out of charge.

I tell him no.

He wails like a banshee.

As soon as we’re all buckled in and pulling away, he goes for the jugular.

I don’t love you Mommy.

He knows I’m a sucker for his sweet affection.

I don’t bite.

I’m onto this recent pattern.

We’ve talked many a time about how he can be really disappointed, upset, even mad with me, and still love me.

He and I both know his words don’t match his heart.

I say, OK, I still love you, you know.

I light up my face and lock eyes with him in the rear view mirror.

He doesn’t crack.

He really IS mad.

He breaks my gaze, looks out the window.

I don’t love trees.

I don’t love dinosaurs.

I don’t love babies.

Pause.

I look back and catch a sheepish grin.

The truth is, he can’t keep his eyes or hands off babies.

In fact, just an hour earlier, he leaned into his friend’s baby sister,

           and said, Hey cutie pie!

She beamed up at him and cooed.

He told me in the car afterword

           Eleanor’s so cute, she blew up my mind!

           She’s so cute, I fell into love with her.

I don’t love babies, he now says. 

And we both continue the litany of all the things he adores.

I have to believe this is how God loves us.

We can beg and plead, we can wail, we can rage.

We can say we don’t love what we love.

No matter.

I just hope we don’t miss Her crinkly eyes and wide grin in the mirror.

“It is truly hard for us to see the truth that disapproval does not seem to be part of God‘s DNA. God is just too busy loving us to have any time left for disappointment.” (~Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart)