It amazed me at first to see my friends wipe their children’s noses with their own fingers. Then my kids came along. We have a daughter who’s two and a son who’s one, and together they’ve given me hands-on, hands-in training on how to remove the waste that the body makes in removing its waste.

But as learning curves go, the barehanded nose-wiping and the spit-up cupping-till-the-towel-arrives both pale in comparison to my most gut-wrenching scatological experience, which I’m sure some of you have also been through. One night after dinner I was watching our daughter, 11 or 12 months at the time, in the bathtub. She was having such a great time by herself, just splashing around with her toys, that after a while I began checking out my emerging gray hairs in the mirror. After thirty seconds or so her splashing slowed, and when I turned back to look, there were a few extra toys floating around her—brown ones of her own making. Then I saw her face—specifically, her mouth. As we all know, young children’s search for sensory experience is not limited by taboos against eating the same food twice.

I wish I could’ve seen my face as I fished out what was left of the chunk with my forefinger, wrapped it in a baby wipe, and bundled it in the diaper I’d taken off her before the bath. I would’ve looked shocked and worried—maybe frazzled is the right word—but the point of my story is this: I don’t remember calculating the unpleasantness of the task as I yanked her out of the bath and sat her onto my knee. I can’t completely forget some of my own sensory impressions from that experience—and it was an unpleasant one—but there was never any decision to make. I just did it.

Maybe, though, that impulse is not an instinct, but rather a progressive habit I began to develop the first time I noticed her nose was snotty and didn’t have anything handy to wipe it with, so I just used my fingers. Perhaps the most important thing I can take from the experience is to share it as advice to other friends of mine who haven’t started their families yet, guys who bring that all-too-common abstract fear of inadequacy into their fathering role. My advice for fathers-to-be is not to try to gauge and compare their future willingness to take care of their children to how other guys handle theirs right now. The old saying is true: it’s completely different when they’re your own.

I come from a nominal Christian home. You know the deal - went to church twice a year (Christmas and Easter). May as well have been a non-Christian home. I became a believer when I was a teenager, responding to pretty much the first complete presentation of the gospel I ever heard. My wife, on the other hand, comes from a faithful Christian home, and was in church any time the doors were open. She was saved when - well, she’s not sure exactly when. She heard the message of salvation from a very young age and, like most kids in that situation, made a pretty early decision for Jesus.

So now that I’m a parent, I’m asking myself a question which might sound silly: Do I want my kids to believe in Jesus at a really early age? Yeah, yeah, I know: “Let the little children come” and all that jazz. But here’s where I’m coming from. Our home church is full of people whose children become believers at an early age. These children then grow up resting in their “once saved always saved” and end up living a very nominal, meaningless “Christian” life (if they haven’t abandoned the faith entirely). I’m being harsh. But it’s not uncommon.

So while I don’t really plan to “stall” our kids’ (probably inevitable) early decision to follow Jesus, I want that decision to be a lasting one. I don’t want them to become complacent in an event that took place when they were six years old. I want to see them continually challenged in their faith, no matter what age. But you know what? I think that will be a continual challenge to us as parents. For I’m guessing that these super-churched kids who lose their way did so because they weren’t guided along enough by Mom and Dad.

What do y’all think?

A couple of nights ago I had a dream that my youngest, who is 3 and a half, was hit by a car. I would like to go on the record and say that this dream was one of the worst that I’ve had in a longtime. It was one of those dreams that felt so real it was just terrifying.

Earlier in the day our family had been to Starbucks (yes I know, I know!!) and as we were getting out of the car, she had run into the parking lot after her Mom. She just blazed into the street and in return had a strict talking to. After that, all was well and we proceeded to our breakfast. When we finished our sandwiches and coffees, we needed to run to the grocery store next door. Isn’t there always a grocery store within walking distance of a Starbucks if not one inside it?

Our girls must ALWAYS have a “Butterfly” cart when we go to this store. They spot one in the parking lot cart storage and I proceed to get it. Guess what happened next. Wait for it...wait for it… yep, she ran out into the lot right behind me! I grabbed her so fast that she didn’t even have time to think and we then sat on the bench in front. Boy did she get a mouthful!!! Not loud, but very stern! The faucet started, the tears fell, and they didn’t stop for about 15 minutes. I think she got the message. We sat on the bench and had Dad and Daughter time while the older one and Mom went inside to shop. The rest of the day was fine and I had my watchful eye on her for the rest of the day. I had forgotten the whole thing, at least in the front of my mind. Apparently my mind was just waiting for the right time to bring it all out! YIKES!!!

I woke up with a headache and just all sorts of sad thoughts. After I realized it was all just a dream, I walked back to the kids’ room and kissed them both on the foreheads and once again said, “Goodnight and sweet dreams!”

I come from a broken home.  That being that my parents divorced while I was still in high school.  It wasn’t easy of course, but at 15 I was obviously all-knowing and wise in the ways of the world and didn’t take it too personally.  It hit my younger sister harder. 

What it did is cause me to start living out of a suitcase, something I had never done before, but have been doing ever since.  I became a nomad, always on the move, back and forth from Mom’s apartment to Dad’s house and back again.  In college it was the same story, renting a new place every other year.  So I went to college for a while, so what?  It was fun.

I met my wife in November of 1998 and since then we have moved from Tucson to Seattle to San Diego to Tucson to Seattle to Los Angeles.  It’s a long and winding road and we travel it like gypsies. 

We have two children now, and for the most part we have been in one place the entirety of their existence.  It is too long for us.  We’ve been giving serious thought to chucking it all into an RV and seeing the world, well at least the landlocked portion of it. 

This sense of movement is soothing really, once you get past the trivialities of having to re-establish yourself every so often.  It’s actually refreshing.  You meet people, you see things, you go elsewhere, where there are more people to meet and new things to see.  It is a constant on a sea of change.

Then come the holidays.  As a kid, having two homes just multiplied everything.  All of a sudden I had two Thanksgivings, three or four when you start throwing in extended families on either side, two Christmases, two birthdays.  I was never good at math, but the equation seemed easy enough, 2 is better than 1.

Now I’m a parent and despite my glorification of adventure and wanderlust I can’t help but feel a deep need for tradition during the holiday season.  I yearn for the comforts of home.  I want Bing Crosby and fireplaces and the sounds of familiar laughter following the sounds of familiar stories. 

It’s getting harder to go home for the holidays.  Everybody works.  We’re in different states.  Who will watch the dogs or feed the cats?  How am I supposed to drive back to California with more toys than two kids should ever have in the back of my car?  There are reasons and excuses, and the holidays I long for become compromised more and more.

I wonder at what point the small steps we take one holiday will become just a stepping stone the next, and when will I look back and see that the tradition I have longed for is all around me, one of my own creation, molded yearly upon the memories of those I left behind?  Can tradition be built or must it be handed down? At what point do the holidays come to you?

My family is coming to us for Thanksgiving.  My parents, both remarried for years now, will make the trip, as will my sister.  The five of them will join us and we will all be thankful, especially me, knowing that my boys will sleep soundly with their idea of the holiday season being the only version they have ever known.  Theirs is a home that is fixed, wherever that home may be.

You know, it wasn’t that long ago that I was worrying about my son (now 2) putting pennies in his mouth.  Now, he’s telling me, “MuhNay”, and asks about the “Riiide” at Wal-Mart.  I used to worry about whether he could handle a Gerber star puff without choking.  Now he takes a whole piece of bacon, or cracker, or anything else food related that doesn’t bring the reaction, “no Daddy”, and crams the whole things in his mouth while saying, “Yum!”.  It is in light of these recent events that I’ve come to this realization:  He’s not a baby anymore.  He’s my a little boy.

I’ve also come to the knowledge that bringing this to my wife’s attention may not be the best of ideas.  Her immediate response was, “Don’t say things like that!”.  I pretty much have gotten the same reacton from every mother.  (By the way, my wife was just reading over my shoulder and told me, “He’s always going to be my baby.")

But, strangely or maybe not so strangely, I do not share this regret.  Sure, I will miss those times and I’m already longing to have another baby (feel free to slap me and bring me to my senses, but I’m much more excited about Reagan growing up and seeing him experiencing life.  I love sitting and thinking about his teenage years (insert another slap) and about the “good” experiences that we will share (the bad will come, I know, but why dwell on that 11 years in advance).  I think about playing sports with him, teaching him computer/geek stuff, teaching him about God, and creating an environment where he’s free to ask me questions about anything.  These are the things that make fatherhood so exciting to me.  There are times that the phrase, “I can’t wait”, is exactly how I feel.  And now that he is coming out of the baby stage, all these imaginings are happening.  He will throw me a football and sit and watch a game for a bit.  He can type me gobblygook messages, send them to me via IM, and loves Elmo at pbskids.org.  He knows what a “Bible” is (Not really a deep understanding of the mysteries of God, but it’s a start).  For the last, the only question he seems to ask right now is to put a new DVD or tape in, which he knows how to do on his own if Daddy will lift him up to the player. 

I wonder if this feeling of expectation is singular to me or if it is more of a Dad thing.  How do you all feel about this?  Do you look more to the past with a regret that it is gone or to the future and what it’s going to bring?  Or both?