“Look at me!” shouts the four-year-old…
“I’m wearing my dance dress…”
“Watch me dance!”
“Look at me, Pops, look at me!”
Behind me I hear a growling sound…
It’s the one-and-a-half-year-old…
He jumps out of a chair…
And starts running…
Making the noise he and I make when we play the running game…
The game where I chase him from one end of the room to the other…
He giggles and laughs and makes that strange growling sound while he runs…
Watching, waiting for me to notice him…
“Look at me! Look at me!” he’s shouting without ever saying the words…
And so I chase after him.
“Gonna catch you, gonna catch you!” I shout.
He laughs.
“Pops, Pops,” calls the four-year-old, noticing my attention has turned away…
“Can I play too?”
She starts chasing me…
“Catch you! catch you!” she screams.
Translation… “Turn around. Look at me!”
I’m babysitting at their house.
When the four-year-old was born, I took babysitting very seriously.
“Leave me a list,” I’d say…
-Feeding Time…
-Diaper Time…
-Nap time…
-Bed Time…
-Formula instructions.
As important as those things are…
I have come to realize that the number one job of a babysitting grandparent…
Is simply to give the kids my attention…
100% of my attention…
To each of them…
At the same time.
It’s tiring.
Here I am in a picture taken by the 4-year-old.
Resting.
Holding my Care Bear.
I never leave home without it.
If in quiet moments like this one, I forget the real purpose of my visit…
The grand kids remind me.
The noise level rises…
“Look at me!”
“Look at me!”
If I’m still not paying enough attention…
The activity level rises to the frenetic.
Higher jumping, faster running…
Until they are sure they have my attention.
“Kids!” I think as their shouting pulls me out of the chair.
But maybe we adults are kids too…
Shouting, “Look at me!” to the world around us…
Raising our voices…
Raising our fists…
Proclaiming our beliefs…
Mocking those who disagree.
How much of our discord is a cry to be noticed?
How much of our discord would vanish…
If we remembered we don’t need to cry out to be seen?
That there is One Who watches us always…
The Lord watches over you— Psalm 121:5
Loves us always…
… his love endures forever; Psalm 100:5
And is with us. Everywhere and for all time…
…God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5
