I want you to do a little experiment. Grab each cheek with a hand and try pulling them away from your face. Next try the same exercise with your lips and then try each of your ears. How well did you do? I am sure you didn’t pull or stretch to hard. While you were pulling your lips did you happen to stick your fingernail into your gums and twist. I don’t suppose you did, but it was worth asking. Now you may be asking why I would have you do all those things to your face. If you don’t do it, your kids will.

In a past post I talked about the pains of parenting, although this may be painful, it can also make you laugh. When you hold your child up against you they are bound to start poking and picking. My glasses are the first item my kids target while holding them. It doesn’t matter how they have to twist their little bodies, my glasses are twisted from my face almost instantly. If  my glasses come of in a straight line there is no pain, but the typical trajectory is at an angle which means I get pinched. Of course my reaction draws out the giggle that makes everything seem alright.

Most of the time you can put the kids back down before to much damage is done, but there are times when you have no option but to take the facial abuse. All my kids took advantage of Sunday mornings in church. Your primary goal is to keep the little one relatively quiet. So you hold them and hope they just lay up against you and perhaps fall asleep. Inevitably they are ready to be cut loose and you need them to just stay in your arms for a few more minutes. Unexpectedly you find a little finger grabbing a lip, or an ear, even a cheek. The little poke turns into a fistful of your face and the fun begins. Both hands move into action and your face is contorted in a manner you didn’t think possible. It takes all the wits you have about you to not cry out in pain or bust out laughing and the little one knows it.

While they are tugging and twisting those parts of your face not meant for that, you realize their little fingernails need to be trimmed. Don’t be fooled, those tiny little fingernails have the word nails in them for a reason. A fingernail to the the inner lip or gum will bring any parent to their knees. If your lucky, you can perform a pass off and share the facial stretching love. Of course passing them of to my wife has a whole new set of hazards, what little kid isn’t fascinated by those shiny dangling things hanging from her ears. My wife has gotten very adept at removing all jewelry that can and will be used against her in a quick manner.

I imagine my face is much more flexible than those who don’t have a little one to exercise it for them. I am comforted to know I will probably avoid laugh lines for many more years than those who don’t get regular facial adjustments.

As a new parent you learn to adjust certain things about your life once you have kids. First it is simple things like understanding sleeping is not a right but a privilege granted by your cute little baby. Perhaps you suddenly realize while your spouse is away and it is just you and the baby that going to the bathroom suddenly causes a crisis as you don’t know what to do your little angel. Of course as they get older you realize they mimic you and so you must be careful about how you act. When they start to develop that coveted use of language, you find saying certain things around them may come back to haunt you. In an effort to protect their innocent little ears you put away those careless words and try as hard as you can to “keep it clean.”

There you have it, you have navigated those pitfalls you feared could mar your child’s development. Then one day you find yourself having a nice conversation with the little one who now can put words together into semi-coherent sentences and understands what you are saying. Suddenly fear creeps into their eyes and you realize you missed one simple thing, one concept so basic your over analytical brain couldn’t fathom the disastrous consequences. Our first son was two and I was putting him to bed. We had just put his pajamas on when the overhead light in his room went out. He grabbed hold of me and gave a little whimper. I reached over and turned on the lamp next to his bed and he relaxed.

Once I had him in his bed a finished a book he asked me what had happened. I told him there was nothing to worry about, light bulbs get old and they just burn out. Immediately his eyes filled with fear and he buried his head into my chest. After calming him down for a second time, I got him to remove his head from me. He sat on his bed looking up at the light bulb and he was physically shaking. I was at a loss, “what’s wrong, why do you look scared?” He took his eyes off the light long enough to look at me and say “don’t let the light catch me on fire.” There it was, the problem was as simple as the words I chose to describe to me was a simple concept. When my son heard me say the word burn he only new it to mean something was on fire. He had no way of knowing that a word could have multiple meanings.

I tried to explain to him the light was not on fire and I guess the sheer power of knowing everything, as a parent does in the eyes of a two year old, got him to go to sleep. He woke up twice during the night screaming, and each time I was able to sooth him back to sleep. For days after the incident my son would stare at lights and get a look of terror on his face. Then one day he asked why lights burn out. After a lengthy discussion about what that phrase means he finally relaxed and stopped staring at lights. He also stopped waking up in the middle of the night crying about the lights burning him.

You do your best as a parent, especially when you become one for the first time, and you try to protect your kids for as long as possible. It is funny of how what seems to adults the least likely of things to affect your kids can have some of the most profound effects. Besides becoming proficient in comforting your children you also learn to simplify your thinking. What may seem obvious to you may not be obvious to them, especially as they start out in their journey to learn the art of communicating. Look at it this way, as you have more kids it gets easier to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls. In the end you start to regain the feeling of being a good parent.

Six years latter my son still laughs at his misunderstanding and I laugh knowing he is going to be alright. Parenting is always an adventure, one I never want to end.