Head-dibs

I think it was four, maybe five years ago we were visiting family in Tennessee. We out-of-towners were staying at a nice hotel in town. Our oldest son was in his grand-parents room so there were only six of us in our room. I remember suddenly waking up one night and realizing the bed of youngest daughter was empty. She would have been only five or six then. We found her down the hall, asleep behind a tree near the elevator. She had somehow in her sleep-walk managed to walk right by our bed, undo three locks and wander down the hall. I never heard a blamed thing. And every time we travel with the kids, my wife moves furniture in front of the hotel door. The latest turn is that my prodigal daughter has alienated her friends and has now ditched them as well. For some reason she has decided to leave her friends and, well, rest assured that we know where she is: physically, safe; spiritually, prayed for. What does a parent do but review everything, looking and asking, "where did I go w...

The morning started off worse than an old Beatles album. Yesterday, before I could wake up, fall out of bed and drag a comb across my head, I discovered that she'd already left home. There I was, minding my own business, sleeping, when I was instantly awake--just sat straight up . . . Awake. I thought that only happened in the movies. I looked at the clock, 5:20 a.m., went out to see if my daughter ever locked the back door (she was outside at midnight on her cell phone . . . "be right in, daddy!" she said). I was asleep even before I got in bed at quarter after midnight . . . Now, I was standing there looking at the unlocked back door. Oh well. She probably forgot. My three girls share a room right across from the bathroom . . . I looked on them on my way to "check the plumbing" and noticed my oldest daughter's comforter and pillows were gone, clothes strewn everywhere. Top bunk empty . . . No 'Lisa. I look in the lower bunk where two sisters lay sleepi...

"Fathers! Your children are immortal beings! The stamp of eternity is upon them! Everlasting ages are before them! They are like the rest of the human race--depraved, guilty, and condemned creatures; and consequently in danger of eternal misery! Yet they are, through the mercy of God, creatures capable of attaining to glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life. Looking upon them in this light, what should be your chief concern for them--and what should be your conduct towards them? Fathers! Your children are hastening to either eternal happiness--or eternal torment!The man who does not make the eternal welfare of his children, the supreme end of all his conduct towards them, may profess to believe as a Christian--but he certainly acts as an Atheist! Once more let it be stated, and stated with all possible emphasis--that the chief design of this work is to form the pious character of its readers, and to implant those virtues which shall live, and flourish, and dignify, and delight...

Last night the kids were watching cartoons and an old Popeye cartoon came on, I beleive the date of this one was 1938 ("Don't Spanks the Baby"). I was'nt paying full attention, but for some reason Sweet Pea got a spanking for breaking something Popeye had sent him to his room, crying. After the door was closed (and the crying continued) an angellic sailor appeared over his shoulder and in sweet voice said in his ear, "now look at what you did! You made that baby cry--you should be ashamed of yourself." As Popeye began to slide into depression, a horned figure appeared and said, "What? You did'nt do nothing wrong. You got's nothing to be ashamed of. He deserved it." My ten year old daughter (the other spinach-eater in this tale) looks up at me and says, "Is that right? Isn't that backward? I don't like what that angel said at all--he is really acting like a devil. I think he lied to Popeye." I had to snap out of whateveritw...