So tonight, my youngest daughter cried over a dollar. Now, this presumed dollar that she felt she wouldn't get stemmed from trying to find the black slip per I had been looking for. It really wasn't the dollar or the slippers (although my cold toes would claim otherwise), that caused her mini meltdown, as precious as it was. It had everything to do with time and love.
Daddy, sometimes you don't spend time with me. You and mommy are just mean. You don't love me.
She's seven, I should remind you, dear reader. But the knife in my heart cuts the same as if she was 20.
This past Sunday, the sermon series "Questions Too Big to Ignore" delved into answering, "What Makes a Great Parent." I had been lucky to arrive at church that Sunday. I was alone, which was a rare occurrence (my wife elected to sleep in and get the house and prep work done for our last day of soccer celebrations), and I had barely been awake 30 minutes. I thought the sermon series was planned to speak about marriage but was pleasantly surprised it was parenting. Sometimes I feel like the sermon series is just for me and everyone just gets to be in an audience of my own design.
To be honest, parenting has been one of my greatest gifts and an area where shame and my own self doubt has generally found a seat on my home sofa, slurping my diet coke and hogging my late night tv snacks. It was always a great story, the making of our family. The trials of miscarriages and the testing of our resolve rewarded when we opened our home to our future-to-be older daughter at age 10. Cruz was conceived months later, and Lisa just a few years away from being officially adopted, became a big sister. Reycina arrived like a miracle surprise 3 years later. Suddenly the Cordova family was a table for 5, not including the cats and one stupid dog.
I had no idea what parenting was. As a teacher, I had an idea of what it wasn't. I had seen too many kids at my previous school come through wearing the sores and scabs of their parents broken lives. Parents who slept with prostitutes in front of their sons, dads in jail, moms with several kids and none of their last names were the same, moms who rarely made conferences while their kids missed days upon days at school. Of course, other judgments come into play to. Rude kids who talked back, kids who constantly teased other kids, kids who always talked back.
I wasn't much better myself growing up. I was hard on my teachers, what we call now "high maintenance." If you allowed me, I acted like a class clown. When I didn't get me attention needs met, I acted out in sarcastic, rude ways. I wasn't terribly nice to other kids, unless you were popular. I'm sure my teachers made judgments then about my parents, but they didn't know what happened between closed doors. There was plenty of love. My mom sent her best to school each day, a kid with not just a notion of college, but with a reality that college was my future. A kid who knew how to behave around adults (shaking the hands of bank presidents and meeting countless friends of friends had its advantages) but didn't quite have a shut-off button. The kid whose mom continued to encourage even when he thought he'd never have a girlfriends, or that his sports writing career was over because I had moved high schools. A mom who didn't sugarcoat life by making excuses for my behavior. A mom who taught me it was okay to cry, more important to listen, and that family would always have my back. Although the blogs I have written have sometimes put some undue spotlight on my mom, I would have not been able to pull myself out of the deep self-hate I had before I met my future wife.
We've had some ups and downs behind the door of house Cordova. A hyper active boy who just recently threw his X-box controller at the wall in the basement causing a hole in the wall (thank you, Madden 15), but who just made the B honor roll in 5ht grade (all A's except for Language Arts). There's Milly who cries each morning because her top doesn't match her pants or because she thinks she's dressing for a ball gown every morning (I think she could be in a dress and stockings for 24 hours). This past week at her soccer game, I yelled from the sideline to her to stop kicking the ball up the middle (she's a goalie). She looked at me from across the field, that stunned look on her face, holding the ball in the air.
Where do I kick it then?
Not in the middle!
The sideline parents had a laugh on that one. The tone of the way I said it cannot be explained in the sentence in type, but it was one of those daddy/daughter moments that will probably become the nexus of some future sad bastard poem of my daughter's. I remember having similar moments with Lisa back when she was playing softball, when I envisioned my expectation onto her ability as a player. This is your chance to succeed, I'd always think, as if I could shake winning out of her like a bully shakes out coins from a kid hanging upside down. While Lisa and I had several car travel moments where we hashed out life, I had many times where I couldn't hold my tongue, and the criticism of my expectation reared its ugly head.
And while I was folding towels in my bedroom, standing in front of my daughter, it became apparent that my parenting skills that were preached on Sunday needed a lesson in application. One of the talking points about the sermon was to allow space in our hearts big enough to listen to what your children have to say. So God spoke to me through her tears.
Daddy you don't help me with my homework.
I don't get to snuggle with you but Cruz always gets to.
You're just being mean.
And while the details of her pleas become lost in the small details of our lives, the one thing that is clear, it's much more than a dollar. She wants my time, my love. She wants her daddy. Before share group I sat on the couch with her and snuggled like it was the first time home from the hospital. Just a baby with arms too small to hug me back, but just little enough to wield a tiny hand and grasp my finger.
The idea of parenting is so much cleaner and easier than the reality. The nights when they are sick and you're cleaning up vomit from your sheets. The twinge of frustration when I get call from one of their schools. The times when you can't answer your college-age daughter's text without going into a mini-sermon. Times when your son has a tantrum in front of your friends.
Oh, but to experience the love from each breath they breathe. Earlier today my little one was dancing in the kitchen to a "Royal." She's oblivious to my watchful eyes, the smirk I'm giving as she shakes and twirls and pop-star preens in front of an invisible audience. She's my queen bee, that's for sure.
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