Dear littlest one,

As I rushed you off to bed last night, wanting to secure you safe inside your covers as quickly as possible, so I could get to my chores and have a little bit of time to myself, I paused in the doorway and glanced back at you. I told you in so many words how important it was for you to stay in bed, so I could have uninterrupted time doing what was important to me.

This morning at the breakfast table, I was adamant that you sit still in your chair and not move around while you ate; to stop knocking the chair into the wall lest the paint began to scrape off.

Today on the trail, as we hiked, I was angry at you for not coming when I asked as if we were on some tight timetable, and we had to keep moving instead of letting you take your time climbing the clay slopes, enjoying yourself in your little world.

When we got to the bank machine, I was angry when you grabbed too many deposit envelopes and then when we got home, I was angry that you did not remove your shoes quickly enough, and dry, easy to clean clay was getting all over the laminate floor.

How often do I do this to you, littlest one?

And yet I look back at the challenges of yesterday. The issues that were brought so suddenly to my attention, as if I was entirely oblivious that there were any perceived issues of behavior, judged from the throne of those perhaps not as worthy to judge as others.

How hard I worked to intervene with the most ludicrous of proposals from a system designed to put a gag over your spirit, and dampen the raw enthusiasm of a little boy, living in a world where everything was new and still exciting. Nothing else was important to me, little one, then to jump to your defense and protect your growing mind from becoming subject to a force that wants to suppress it.

Yet my performance since then acts contrary to the initiative I was so obsessively in pursuit of.

Some nights, when you have difficulty sleeping, you come into my room and lay down beside me. I often wake up and see your face in the night, eyes closed, peaceful sleep, and your breathing throws little sweet breaths toward my face and I am in awe that I am lucky enough to have you as my little boy.

You are just a boy.

Indifferent to all those that judge you, that speak about you behind your back or in front of you, discussing this method, or that solution, as if you were a problem that needed to be solved!

Yet you never judge us.

You play your little games by yourself in your corner and talk continuously as if there were a party of friends surrounding you. You anxiously enter the school hallways, knowing you will not please everyone that day and you find your desk near the front of the class, next to the teacher.

You smile all day and when I greet you after school, you run to me, as if it were the first time you’d seen me in weeks.

How I love to catch you, and hold you for that brief moment and you make me feel like I’m the  most important person in the world. Which to you I am.

In the car you sing to yourself, which irritates your older brother to no end.

When we get home, you wander in the front yard, it seems around in circles talking to yourself forever until we finally make our way into the house, and then once in you kick off your shoes and begin your hunt for exciting new things to pick up and get into; you find mop handles and blankets to drape over you to play knights, or you build forts with every possible blanket and towel in the house, pulling chairs out of there natural habitats and turning tables upside down.

Sometimes you just want to tell me about your day, or about the next cool holiday coming up and I catch myself not listening; I am texting or phoning someone, or cooking or cleaning, when I could put all that away for a short time and listen; just listen.

How shameful we all are, for our behavior, little one.

Tonight when I tuck you in, and see your little head sunk into the pillow and your hand curled around the stuffed puppy you’ve had way to long, I will not rush to exit your room. I will kneel beside your bed, fold my hands and pray a quiet prayer for you, because this is my mandate as your father and your guardian. Assigned not only to protect you, but to love and to understand you, not in the same way I would judge someone of my stature,  but of a father to a little boy of six.

I want to know your world little one, and with that I will be a better father to you and can then begin to know how best to treat you, to nurture you, and to educate you.

Love your Daddy, always.