I think it is high time that we discuss a most difficult topic. While I am hesitant to discuss the topic at all, I believe that there are a lot of people in the same place that Mary and I are. To that end today we are going to discuss parental abuse by toddlers.
The thing that no one ever tells you when you become pregnant with your first child is that in a matter of months that child will turn against you physically. Within less than a year not only will your personal space greatly diminish but the amount of bruises, internal bleeding, and exclamations of pain will drastically increase. Prior to Henry's arrival I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the last time I had gotten a headbutt to the nose, as of now I could tell you it was yesterday. And tomorrow I will be able to tell you it was yesterday. And last week I would have been able to tell you it was yesterday. And next week I will be able to tell you it was yesterday. Do you see a pattern?
Not only are there numerous headbutts to the nose but there are also bites to the fingers, kicks to the stomach and back, and the occasional punch to various body parts. In addition there are scratches to nearly every part of your body as well as tugs on all kinds of unmentionable parts. The long and the short of it is, if you have a child sooner or later you will be their personal punching bag/kick-boxing dummy/scratching post.
There are three reasons that I have come to about why children become just short of demons.
The first two reasons stem from their naivety.
The first being that they don't know the movements they make. Very young children are rather spastic, their arms and legs and heads just fly around like one of those whirly helicopters or that helicoptery seed. One second there head is calmly sitting on the top of their neck and the next it has been flung to the side or straight back, and if you have unfortunately chosen to place your body parts in the random airspace of said flying head you will get hit, sometimes extremely hard, and nearly always causing extreme pain.
The second reason that toddlers are so dangerous is because they don't know that these movements cause pain. You see when a child flings their head or shoots out their legs when they are laying in bed next too you it doesn't dawn on them that their movements may be causing other people an undue amount of hardship. Nor do they understand the amount of pain that a hand full of daggers, I mean long fingernails, can cause to the person that they decide to playfully [or not] rake their cute little hands on.
Now these two reasons are logical and if you realize that they are true it makes it very difficult to hold the ridiculous amount of daily pain against your toddler. But then sooner or later you come to the possibility that there is indeed a third reason that toddlers cause you physical pain.
They are just plain SADISTIC.
You may not want to hear it, to some degree it pains me to say it, mainly because my forehead is still aching from the last time Henry raked it with his fingernails/daggers. You might be shaking your head right now, saying internally, or perhaps out loud, "Henry wouldn't do that, he is so cute and innocent." Or perhaps you don't know my son, so instead you are inserting your own child's name, or perhaps a niece or nephew, or a neighbor kid, whatever the case you thought/said it.
Not to long ago I would have been in complete agreement, but then I started to notice something. Many times when Henry causes pain he seems to be somewhat sympathetic, but there are other times when Henry will kick or punch or bite and he will break out a wicked grin or a maniacal laugh. And it is in those moments when I see sadism behind his beautiful brown eyes.
A couple months ago I was sitting in a worship service during the National Association of the Church of God Convention, and the man who was preaching was talking about our sin. He came toward the end of his sermon and brought up children, and he said that while we don't like to admit it little babies are just really cute sinners. I laughed a lot at the comment, but there is a great amount of truth in it.
May this be a warning to those of you who have not had children yet and to those of you with newborns. Enjoy the time you have, but be warned there is coming a day when your cute little baby will become an abusive monster.
Peace and Love,
Pastor K
p.s. It is my current plan that each Monday during Lent I will share something a little more lighthearted. I may completely forget this plan by next Monday, but we'll see.
p.s.s. You might have realized that today (Monday) would actually be the 6th day of Lent, but since there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday I will occasionally be taking days off. Partly this is due to the fact that I was busy working on my Sermon on Saturday and didn't get a chance to write a blog for Sunday. In addition I didn't get a chance to sit at my computer on Sunday until later than I had hoped, so I only got one blog written as opposed to two.
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