Play?

I wrote this last summer and I buried it as a note on Facebook. After re-reading it, I decided to move it to a more public viewing area.

It was 3000 degrees outside. The air was so thick with humidity I had to use a machete to cut my way through. The few times I ventured outside I was quite ready to go inside where my AC struggled to keep up. After several very non-active hours indoors, I finally managed to cool off.

Then the little one came into the bedroom where I was just watching TV. She grabbed hold of the side of our bed and struggled to pull herself up. I gave her a boost up and she played "king of the daddy" on my belly. It was fun, even if painful for me.

After a few minutes she looked at me with those clear dark eyes and asked "play?" in that oh so cute way. She then scrambled down the bed and headed out of the room. I did not follow.

Back she came, another boost up, more beating on my abdomen and again she asked "play?" once more. I said "ok, go play."

She slid back down to the floor and headed around the bed, but stopped before leaving the bedroom. For the third time she climbed our bed, with my help and got back in my face. "Play?"

Ok, I am dense. It took 3 times but I finally got it. After a quick search for her shoes, and mine, we ventured outside, which was only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun by this point.

By the time she was finished climbing around on the tractor, her little "gym" set, and the trampoline, I was soaked with sweat. Granted I could sweat in Antarctica during a blizzard, but yeah, it was pretty bad.

As the biting and stinging bugs were now venturing out, I managed to talk my little girl into a ride in the car. We have a long circular driveway and I drove around for about 15 minutes with the AC on high. Never left my driveway, never got above 8 MPH, but she was having fun, she was with her daddy.

She insisted on using the seat belt, a combination lap/shoulder belt definitely not designed for toddlers. Still, she sat there looking so satisfied that she was doing things like her older siblings. And I sat there satisfied that for now at least, its the simple things that make her happy.

One day, all too soon, she will be like her older siblings, and simple things like she enjoyed today will just not cut it. It was just the day before this "adventure" that I sat in the airport with her 18 year old sister as she was headed off to Dallas for a month. And it doesn't matter how old they get, they are still "little" to me.

I watched intently as my high school graduate made her way through security, wanting to be by her side and instructing her the entire time, but I couldn't. I had to let her fly. But she is still my baby, no less so than the toddler that convinced me to come outside in the stifling heat with just a word and a smile.

Even my son, now 20, who has moved in with my mother for a while and is working, he is still my little boy. He may be taller than me, wear bigger jeans, but still, he is "little" in my head. And the days when he was satisfied with simple things are long past. And even now, he is not at arms reach any more. But I will always remember how we played when he was just a toddler himself.

Such is the way things are. We have these kids and they can absolutely drive us nuts. Then when we see them actually taking steps out of the nest, it is hard to just let them fly. But that has always been the goal. Raise and release.

Well, after having this epiphany in the car with my toddler, and missing my son and the eldest daughter, I finally convinced the little one to go back in the house. Back through the stifling heat and back into the house with our struggling AC. She headed off in search of more mischief. I sought only a dry shirt and a fan.

I could have been watching Mythbusters or snoozing. But I chose to "play", in the manner my little girl chose, despite the heat, the humidity, and my lethargy. It was a good choice. It may be years away, but it will be all too soon she prepares to leave the nest and start her own life apart form her parents. There will be few chances to play then.

I can still see her little face and those expressive eyes as she got in my face and said "play?" A heart melting thing for sure.

And I am so glad I went out into the miserable heat. After all, playing with her was not miserable at all. It was a treasured moment. And there are only so many such moments to go around.

Copyright 2011, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)

Copyright 2011, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)