Little Sir is a healthy seven-year-old and so I hear the near-cliche fairly often, “I wish I had his energy.”
For me, it’s not Little Sir’s energy I envy.
I want his generosity. We went to dinner with family and he brought a hot wheel car for each of the kids to play with. I didn’t know until he started pulling them from his jean pockets. It was such a small gesture that wasn’t small. It was generous and sweet and plain ol’ lovely. I took him to see a rose garden and before I said anything he told me we shouldn’t pick any of the flowers because then other people wouldn’t get to see them and the bees wouldn’t have them to gather pollen.
I want his sense of adventure. I know I’m the one that came up with this move to Texas idea (I give God some credit), but LIttle Sir has taken to it like a duck to water. He announced the other day: “When do we leave? I am ready to start our adventure!” I think I used the word adventure, but he has embraced it.
I’ve asked him about the hard parts (leaving friends, family, change in his visiting schedule with dad, new house, new school, etc) and he has nodded thoughtfully, “yes, but I’m excited for the ADVENTURE!”
I want his confidence in the good of the world. Austin expects good. He expects kids at the park want to play with him, He expects adults to be friendly. He expects swimming weather. He expects the menu to include root beer and hamburgers.
So it’s not his energy I want. I think I have the energy, I just channel it differently. What he uses to leap from the furniture or swing across the monkey bars, I use to adult. And adulting for me does not include furniture leaping.
But what I do long for is the simple and profoundly important ways Austin approaches the world, its people, and life with thoughtful generosity, an adventurous spirit, and hopeful expectation.