Today was one of those fussy days for our 2 year old Eli. The kind where most requests come out as a whine, and every thing that goes wrong is a huge traumatic endeavor. So tonight, I’m giving my son a bath (that’s after his whiny “nooo” in response to my upbeat “Do you want to get a bath?”). Shortly after he’s sitting in the water, he takes his right hand, raises it over his head and flat-hands it into the surface of the water. This splashes me of course, but Eli lets out a little chuckle.
Now, my first instinct was to tell him not to splash…I didn’t really feel like being a part of the bath in that way. But then in the few seconds before he raised his hand again, I had a change of heart. A chuckle after all is a lot better than a whine. This time as he smacked the water I jumped playfully (off the toilet seat where I was sitting) and screamed. The chuckle graduated to a hearty laugh this time.
For the next couple of minutes this playful splashing on his part, and overreacting in shock on my part continued until he was red-faced and struggling for air through his laughter. I was wet, the wall next to the tub was wet, the floor was soaked, and we were both happy.
I wonder about our Heavenly “dad”, and his enjoyment of us. I don’t know about you, but I tend to think of God’s relationship to me in black and white terms much of the time. Did I do the right thing? Or did a just do something wrong (and disappointing even)? I don’t naturally think about whether I just did something that cracked him up; something that was neither right nor wrong, but only me being his boy, and him loving it…and me.
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