An interesting couple of anecdotes for you to emphasize the magnitude of grace present in the love of a son for this Dad.
After a week apart, there's nothing more amazing than checking in my family for my flight home, and hearing my son call "Dadddyyyyyy" across a busy airport terminal, and leaping into my arms to hug me around the neck and play with my beard as he tells me how much he's missed me. Brings tears of joy to my eyes to think about this precious bundle that loves me far more than I deserve (case in point coming up...)
At a birthday party in a park, my son finds a 5 foot almost completely straight branch on the ground and picks it up, overjoyed to have found such an amazing sword/poking tool. Concerned for the eyes of other children at the park, I start walking towards him as he pokes his friend Chloe in the chest and she exclaims "Owww!!". I ask him to be careful as I'm approaching him, and he stops poking and starts swinging it around like a 2 year old Jedi Knight. I reach him, and gently take away the stick (which was quite amazingly straight), take his hand and tell him that if we can't keep from poking people, we can't play with sticks. I now have a 4-5 foot stick that I'm trying to think of where to put that another kid won't just pick up and start swinging, and I do the only thing I can think of....using the hand that isn't holding my son, I hold the stick and step on it 5 times, breaking it into 10 inch sections that no one could ever enjoy. Judah sits down and slowly starts to sob big heaving sobs, after picking up the remains of his stick and holding them to his chest. Wow, I still feel horrible and it's days later. I'm thinking I'm too responsible for other people's kids eyeballs...
