Through A Window

Last night, while Tyler was eating dinner, he saw the SL Recycling Truck drive up the dead-end street across from us and turn around. He got all excited, stopped eating and stared from his high-chair out the front window to watch the guys collect the recycling bins. Immediately after they left, a smaller dump-truck that our landscaping-neighbor owns, pulled into his house, and Tyler got even more excited, pointing to it saying "shucks". When the driver got out and walked in to his house Tyler said "bye-bye" and waved to no-one in particular.

Then he looked up at me, signing and saying, "more?". At that point something changed in me and I can't fully explain it. The innocence of this little boy, depending on his Daddy to make something more happen for him, just hit me like a ton of bricks, in a good way. I realized even more how much he needs me to be a good Daddy and it was kind of rewarding to see him think that I could magically control the universe to make things happen for him. Cuz' that's exactly what I wish I could do.

Later, I thought about the analogy of how Tyler is depending on us so much, and it made me think of a book I got from my Aunt & Uncle about why a son needs a dad. Trust me, if at that moment, I could've done anything to make more trucks appear, I'd have done it. I was this close to putting him the car and parking at Church, rolling the windows down and letting him watch the traffic on Pontiac Trail in hopes of seeing more trucks. That feeling of doing anything for him was so strong. Cuz it's so true. I'd take a bullet for him with no hesitation whatsoever. That's the God's honest truth.

But I didn't have to do any of that, because Tyler signed to me that he was done with dinner, so I let him out of his chair and he went to the front window, and immediately said "car." I walked over and saw our neighbor, Jim, pulling in his driveway. A few seconds later another car appeared. Most people on our street don't pay attention to the dead-end signs, so it's an every-day thing to see cars make u-turns in front of our driveway. Tyler got excited to see this new car do just that.

While this is happening our landscaping neighbor came back out to talk to another neighbor in the middle of the dead-end street, with their respective dogs running around them. Tyler enjoyed that, doing the sign for the "doggies".

We can see one street over, from the dead-end, and Tyler saw the recycling truck again, followed by a blue truck that could've been a garbage truck.

It was a very exciting 15-20 minutes out our front window, and Tyler loved every second of it.

And for me, in those 20 minutes, I was able to stop the world and put things in perspective again. It's not always easy to do in The World Of Today, but it was a wonderful feeling, and the love I felt for him at that moment was so strong, I'd not have been surprised if it manifested itself into a physical shape.

I guess Tyler was looking out at the world through one window, and I was looking inward through another, and somewhere in the middle, something special happened.

I love you, buddy.