daddyville

Why my 3 yr. old daughter asks the same question over and over and over just to get the same answer over and over and over is beyond me (Not really 'beyond me', it's probably phonetics training or something, but c'mon!?). Daddy feels like a 'repeater' device. Daddy IS a repeater device. :)
Added to this is that our daughter is a very verbal child to start with. I have never talked so much in all my adult life as I do now,...maybe combined. Also, there aren't answers for every question she asks. "Because" can quickly become The Answer to a variety of these 'mysteries'. It's pretty funny what you wind up sounding like when you listen to yourself. Thank God for on-line encyclopedias for the actual ones. The rest, well....you just summon your patience and wing it.
After answering the same question 4 or 5 times with the response still being, "Huh?", I resort to, "I don't know; you tell me". That seems to work pretty well for taking her out of the question mode and into the thinking mode. Many times she'll say, "I don't know". So then, I'll repeat the answer again and she'll say, "Yeah" and then repeat it back to me. Then I say, "That's Right"! On other occasions she'll just keep asking, so I'll retort, "I don't know, it's a mystery to me too". Session ended.
"Whew!"....

As Shayla's Dad, I wanted to post a Big Thank You to all of Shayla's friends and family who were able to make it out to her Birthday Get Together yesterday. It was great to see you all there and I know that Shayla was happy to see all of you. Thank you to those of you who sent remembrances even though you were unable to attend personally; your thoughts and tokens of love were sweet and we thank you. Shayla, her mom and I all had a great time. To those of you who could, thank you so much for coming and joining us in celebrating our daughter's third birthday.
With Warm Hearts,
Sean and Christina

          You know to have a family is to have Gold; It's true riches for sure. Hard times puts this truth in proper perspective. It's the places you can go and the people upon which you can rely in tough times that gives your soul it's salt of survival. These folk need not be blood relatives to be called Family, and many times as we know, they are not. We must treat our families well however, blood and otherwise, for we are nourished by them and through them. They are our lifeline, just like Spirit, Food and Water. To forget this truth is to isolate oneself from the greater good of Family and Community and to suffer loneliness at your own hand, self inflicted and self created.

            I remember when I traveled a little through Latin America years ago this edict was driven home through my exposure to this Family based culture. The third question I was always asked upon first meeting a native Latin person was, "Do you have a Family?" At that time I did not have an immediate family and so I would reply with, "no, not at this time" knowing what they meant: a wife and kids. Immediately they would sincerely lament, "Ooh,...I'm so sorry", and they meant this from the bottom of their hearts; you could see it in them, and no sooner would I get to know them they would tell me all about their families and if they had them, out would pop the pictures. I can distinctly remember one man in particular asking me,"Don't you feel poor without a family of your own", he said, in his best English? I said, "Well, I haven't thought of it like that". Then, I saw the Joy in him totally Light him up as he told me about his wife and children and that moment has always stuck with me. The spiritual health, stability and joy that these people derived from a way of life rooted in a strong tradition of family was overwhelmingly aparent in their day to day living. Their life was and is hard by Western accounts causing the human spirit to dig deep, sweeping aside the chaff to discover what is truly important and meaningful. The importance of this discovery when life is difficult and the resultant purity and happiness that it has imbued into their culture made a deep impression on me. This, combined with their reverent spirituality gave them a solidity that I haven't seen since, not as a society at any rate. The first question that they would ask me was, "What is your name"? The second question was, "Where do you come from"? That tells you a little of the implied importance of that next question that would unfailingly follow, "Tiene esposa? Hijos? Hijas(Do you have a wife? Children?)? I was asked these same questions, in this order, over and over throughout my travels.

            These people knew that Family was Gold. Was it a coincedence that they possesed a kind of austere happiness and peace? I don't really think so. You know, as I walked around in these farming villages high in this Volcanic region known as The Guatemalan Highlands I would continually hear these people singing as they went about their daily work and chores--Everyday! They are farmers who work the land and who, for example, still to this day make their own clothes and grow their own food. They are a happy people: hard workers and deeply spiritual.  They are really poor by material standards, yet so rich by others. They are rich where it counts: in Spirit and in Family. These are the tings they hold as Sacred.......and Rightly So.

             It's easy to lose perspective of the Sacred Gold in a society filled with distractions of every sort. Take away those distractions and life becomes remarkably simple and the sacred sublimely clear like stars in the firmament.

I am glad to see that the forecast for this weekend has shifted a bit. We had planned on having a little B-Day Party in the Park for Shayla for a couple of hours Sun. afternoon, but earlier this week it didn't look like outside was going to be the place to be, but it looks like that is changing. :) Yay!