January 7 – “Contemplating relational dynamics”

I had another chance to contemplate the dynamics of relationships the other day by watching the cousins play.  We got a call that Josiah was going to the doctor to get an ear checked out, so his two big brothers wanted to come over here for a visit rather than tag along.  Not a problem, especially since we were already having Cailyn over while her Dad went to work and her Mom took a test for school.  That's always been Chris' motto: The more the merrier, especially when it refers to grandkids.   It was the interactions that fascinated me once again.  Cailyn arrived first, and she is very much into stickers right now.  And Chris found a huge stash of stickers the other day, so guess who was resplendent with a coat of stickers?  Well, she put a few on Nathan before he left, and I think Chris and Mom may have received one apiece.  I'm still pulling stickers off blue jeans.   But then the boys arrived and everything changed.  Cailyn thinks Cousin Jachin pretty much hung the moon, so she swoons whenever he looks at her.  Of course that doesn't happen all that often, since he's six and she's two.  And he is – how shall I say this? – not very into stickers.  So her attempts to lay one on him were summarily rebuffed.  But that didn't seem to affect her infatuation.  It was like watching a teenage girl get excited about her pop singer heartthrob idol.    Now to his credit, Jachin can get very rough with Micah, but is incredibly gentle when he realizes Josiah or Cailyn are around.  At one point he got down on the floor across the room from Josiah and called out to him to "come see big brother."  Josiah was happy to oblige, and started his army crawl across the wood floor.  However, Micah also noticed the situation, so about midway between the two, he threw himself onto the floor and began his own, "Come to me, Josiah."  The littlest guy wasn't thrown by the sudden change of events.  He could no longer see Jachin, so he kept going headfirst into Micah.  Of course Jachin wasn't too happy with that, so he threw himself headfirst into Micah as well, from the other direction.  They arrived about the same time and ended up in a heap.  Thankfully, Jachin saw to it that Josiah was on top.  Unfortunately, he also saw to it that Micah was on bottom.   Micah and Jachin can get themselves into some hilarious situations with their wrestling matches as superheroes or pirates or Star Wars figures or – just as brothers.  Micah sometimes feels left out or trodden down (hey, Jachin is two years older, so most often he is, literally, on the bottom of the pile).  He has learned to take it for a long time and even to continue the role play in the situation, but there always comes a time when it is his time, and he has learned to lobby loudly for attention.  There's the middle child in him coming out.    Just before the Moms returned, I had somehow been pulled into the scenario as the evil villain or strange monster or something.  I was sitting in my office chair and had the boys crawling all over me.  Cailyn was watching for a long time, trying to decide if she wanted a piece of the action.  I could see it in her eyes, though.  I had seen that look in her Daddy's eyes way too many times when he was growing up.  She would be joining us.  It was just a matter of how and when.  Cailyn wanted to be right in the middle of everything.  Finally, she made her move.  No sound.  No out of control whoop and run.  No.  She had it figured out.  She made eye contact with good old DadDad, looked at him with those big brown eyes, and just pushed her way in.  What could I do?  I hastily adjusted the developing story line to explain why the monster-evil-super-villain now had a female interloper sitting on his lap.    Jonah 4:1-2 says, "But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, 'O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.'"   Father, I don't want my praise of you to come out of a bitter and angry heart.  Amen.