stuff i think

What I know...and what they don't....

It's 6:07 on Christmas morning, and it is very, very good to be the Dad. Here are few thoughts that are uniquely Dadish at this point:

They don't know that I can hear them. Jackson and Grayson have bivouacked in Jackson's room until they think that it's ok to wake us up and open presents. I hear them talking quietly, playing with a metal puzzle they found in their Christmas stocking last night (we open those Christmas eve) and wishing that Zion would wake up and settle this dilemma once and for all.

They don't know that we were up way late last night. It took the boys forever to go to sleep....I chalk it up to one part excitement, two parts overdose on Christmas cookies, but they were wonderfully polite and cute about it. Kels and I were up later than we needed to be, picking up the living room and kitchen and just enjoying being in one another's presence. She is more beautiful, more gracious and more wonderful than she was the first Christmas we spent together back in 1988.

The don't know that Jesus was right....it is better to give than to receive. We've known this as fact for a long time, but we're learning it as experience. To give away - without waiting for excessive resources that would make the giving pointless - is a way of life we want to display. Christmas morning with our boys is that on a micro level; we want to live it out on a macro level with those God brings our way.

The don't know what's under the tree....including the one thing they have consistently asked about since, oh...July. Since deciding that we're moving, each time it's been mentioned, it's been predicated with "I know we're not going to get this, but....". Nevertheless, out there in a big box, behind the recliner, is a basketball goal, pole and base.

They couldn't possible know how good it is to be the dad.