Eight Legs

When your two year old son wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning there had better be a very good reason, and as it turned out, there was.

There is no challenge that even comes close to that of parenting a first child. There is a natural fascination to be sure but just because they are diminutive does not mean they are without will or wile. Far too much value has been placed on size. There are many compensating qualities that can be used to even the contest or perhaps stack it to the advantage of the smaller of the two.

I grew up with younger sisters and so infants and small children were not unfamiliar to me. However, being a brother and being a father are vastly different conditions. The time I spent with my new son was not always filled with harps and violins. There was a completely new condition of inconvenience that had to be shouldered from time to time. But, to be sure, it was a very small part of the equation.

Infancy is not the part I enjoyed most. But, I will be quick to say that infancy is a magical time too. There is a spiritual relationship that is introduced which can be as exhilarating as anything you will ever do. All you need do to experience it is to sit and hold an infant in your arms with no agenda but to be there. If you do not feel God embrace you both, you are thinking too much.

Let’s get back to the two year old waking me at three in the morning. First let me just note a natural tendency for a new parent to do too much. I was guilty of that. I tried to teach my son everything I knew in the first year. I wanted to give him a head start. I explained things to him. Sometimes his eyes were so filled with wonder that I should have known I was pushing beyond reason, but I didn’t stop. We talked about music, science, politics and sports. Most of what we talked about was nature and words.

One of the things that have always fascinated me is spiders. So we explored nature for spiders in their natural setting. We looked at the spiders, their features and webs. We looked in nature, at home and in the yard. I told him that spiders were ubiquitous creatures and could be found in every setting imaginable. I instructed him about their anatomy. We even discussed their parenting skills. Spiders are not the only things we talked about but they got a considerable amount of attention.

Bud, my son’s sobriquet, was also a talented artist for his age. We would often use the large brown bags that groceries were packaged in for his canvas. We would cut the bag along its folds until it was completely opened. The artist would then be able to imagine in full size. Now you have the necessary building blocks for this story.

Bud was given to night time wanderings. His sleep patterns varied away from the convenient. On the night I opened this narrative with, he had gotten out of bed at some point…. let me just recall the event as it happened.

My wife and I were happily asleep in our comfy bed as was most of the world at three o’clock in the morning in the Flint, Michigan area in 1972. There was a tug at my arm. It would take more than a little tug to unhook me from a sound sleep so I’m sure there were several tugs and finally a strong enough tug to loose me from Morpheus’s grasp. There in his full splendor was Bud with a rather large smile on his face with his most intense look which could only mean something needed tending. As I slowly came to life I noticed a lot of light coming from outside the bedroom. I questioned my son and he could do no more than insist I come with him.

I turned to see if my wife was awake. I think I saw her eyes close quickly as I turned. I looked back at my child who was anxious and focused. I knew the jig was up. I got out of bed and hand in hand we walked through the house which I easily noticed had every light in it turned on. Our destination was the kitchen. When we arrived I saw brown paper bags cut to artist requirements on the floor along with crayons and magic markers.

Now Bud was excited! He took me directly to one of the paper bag canvasses. I knelt down and he said in his most enthusiastic voice, “pider”. And there on the brown paper bag were dozens of spiders drawn by this two year old, each with exactly eight legs. I was astounded. I was proud. I was amazed. And, truth be told, I haven’t stopped being amazed by him or any of my children. What a gift to be a parent who can make it a gift to be a child. Celebrate life, celebrate learning, celebrate children.

©Herb Ratliff, November 26, 2012, All Rights Reserved