Whirlweekend

It’s been a great weekend, I recollect as I’m warm and cozy on my couch after a great Sunday. Joe Sangl brought a frenzied energy to the NewSpring stage today and a solid message to boot. Apparently there’s some sort of football game on, or that’s what they tell me. Today went well, especially with a few different production variables.

But the highlight of tonight was when I got home and checked on Gardner. He (of course) wanted me to tell him a story. Unless you live in my house, you probably haven’t heard this epic tale I’ve been developing with him for the past year or so. It began with a story of how he rides around in my Jeep Cherokee. Then it evolved. Then it evolved again (this time the cats are teaching him how to drive). A few thousand more iterations and I’ll just give you a glimpse, tonight Gardner requests this…

Can you tell me the story about the jeep and odyssey and ajala (those are our cats) and how we drived around and then the bulldozer and and the jeep is flat and then pancakes and we saw Tadbit (Gardner’s beloved stuffed frog) and Chick-fil-a and it was REAL LOUD and then Tadbit and little Tadbit were in the back and we went to Chuck-E-Cheese and then…

This goes on for about 3 minutes, a recounting of every minute detail ever told in a Jeep story to my son, all in one stream of consciousness utterance.

Of course, I’m then prompted to spin another Jeep tale, introducing new characters (tonight, we developed his green glowing night light character into a full featured actor with a back story) and new elements. I believe tonight they visited a factory in Germany where they make gears.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because I love being a Dad. And I love finding new ways to stretch creativity. Kids learn a lot from you (nearly everything in their first few years) and I love to show him what fun can come with just stretching your imagination. I don’t ever want Gardner to say “oh, I’m not creative.” I want to nurture his and Rainey’s little minds and allow then to grow rather than allow them to stifle. It really is a discipline.

PS – I totally got linked on Tony’s blog today.