The Don't Wannas

Sometimes we don't want to go to school. It's fun there, most of the time. But sometimes it's scary. There are people there who rub us wrong, and there is food we don't like to eat, and there are problems we don't know how to solve. It's also frequently loud and and sometimes unfair. People don't do what they are supposed to do. People ask us to do things we don't want to do. Sometimes we're mean to each other. Sometimes we say things we didn't intend to say.

Come to think of it, school is just like home. Or the office. Or church. Or anyplace a bunch of people cluster and rub up against each other.

I'm going out of town soon. Because going to school is ruining our lives, I told Small Fry I'd come to her school lunch, but she had to make me a promise. If I came, no crying when I had to leave. Because it would make me cry, too. You know how that goes.

She promised.

After we ate our saltines and turkey slices and drank all the juice and sweet tea, it was time to say good-bye. And do you know what that turkey did? She lets out a big wail - Nooooooooo - and throws herself onto my lap. Great, I'm thinking. How am I going to get out of this?

Suddenly she pops up, one finger in the air and a smile on her face.

"But I'm not crying," she said. "I'm just shrieking."

Love that kid.

Taking Love

I really enjoyed this beautiful post about falling in love, all over again:

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/01/the-4-minute-marriage-habit-how-to-make-2012-the-year-you-fall-madly-in-love-all-over-again/

It reminds me of taking love.

Sometimes Cutie Pie gets claustrophobic when we cuddle up. I know, right? This is a source of great entertainment to me, especially when he tries so gentlemanly-like to scoot out of my hot embrace. I can always make him laugh by clinging on for dear life and breathing hotly on his neck, refusing to let him escape. We call this "taking love." Sometimes he does it to me, when I'm in a give-me-my-space-I'm-trying-to-read frame of mind. He does it to the pets sometimes, when they try to climb out of his lap or jump out of his arms. He holds them ever tighter and pets them over-enthusiastically, exhorting them to take love.

He does it to our kids too, when one is crabby and sulky. He scoops the offender up into his arms, gangly legs and arms shooting out at all angles, and tries to rock them as he did when they were babies, shaping them into the little footballs they refuse to become again. Back and forth, tighter and tighter, telling them to take love.

It's just a silly thing that makes us laugh, but there is something profound even in the silly things. Aren't we grateful for those people in our lives willing to reach out to us in our prickliest times, when we are all Push Away and Grumble? Those who determine to remind us: We are loved. We are loveable. Even when we don't act like it. Even when we don't feel like it.

I know well that God puts those kind of people in our lives for a reason - to give us a glimpse of Himself. And because He delights in giving us good gifts.

Take love, He insists. Will I?