Queen of Dreams Radio
This morning is Chance’s day off from school. Yes, that’s right. He’s homeschooled and he has Fridays off. Amazingly, he is able to get up nearly an hour and a half earlier today than he was for nearly two weeks of school. Hmmm. I guess he really is a regular kid!
He loves to build. He’ll probably end up being an engineer, creative genius entrepreneur or an attorney (the only thing he does better than build is negotiate – with us – for more, more, more – Chance, it’s time for bed. Give me five more minutes. Okay, but then it’s time for bed. How about 10? Aaaarrgh!)
This morning he showed me his character’s newest outfit in the imaginary building world called Roblox. His hat is a three-tier asymmetrical birthday cake that catches fire and makes the guy twist around. What 9 year old doesn’t want that?
Then he showed me the world he was playing in. Teapots that reach into the sky like a staircase from the middle of nowhere with a sky-blue backdrop that looks like you are hanging mid-air in the clouds. A giant sombrero that works like a trampoline. Wow. Amazing. I’d like to play, too.
Earlier, this morning, I asked Chance to dump the garbage from our master bathroom. He’s pretty compliant and said he would do it. I’m not a micromanager, so I don’t check right away…as long as it is done today, I’m happy.
I’m standing in our downstairs living room behind the couch watching Chance in this imaginary world when Nana walks through with bags of garbage – mini bags that apparently made for really small Barbie-sized bathroom garbage cans. I looked at Chance and said, “Boy, you came into this world blessed. You have so many angels all around you taking care of everything!”
He smiled, giggled and kept on playing.
Nana mumbled something about the bags are thin and flimsy, and she was up there anyway. Chance isn’t the only one she’s offers angelic support to. There’s a reason people call her my second wife. I’m not complaining – she made cornish hens, homemade mashed potatoes, kernel corn, green beans and turnovers for dinner last night. I did the dishes.
But then I thought about it. We all have this much support all around us, all of the time. The only difference for Chance is that he’s open to receive EVERYTHING. And, he’s not afraid to ask for more after he’s been given something (Can I have 10?) He pushes the receiving envelope. That’s why when we have ever taken him anywhere – at EVERY age – he’s ended up being given so much!
Once Mark took him to a fancy to-go restaurant. Remember those walk-up steak take outs where you could order a five-star steak and baked potato for $12 bucks? It was like fine dining for people who want to eat at home. Chance walked in and smiled, and as Mark tells the story, the people in the place – I believe it was called Steak Out – started giving him everything he said he ‘liked.’ He would say, “I like that rose.” They would give it to him. He would say, “I like that cup.” They would give it to him. “I like that pen.” Here you go!
Because we believe in giving and receiving and being a grateful receiver, we don’t say no. Many parents would admonish a child for asking for more – for receiving more. The person decided to give or offer him a gift. He said, “Yes!” We just look at the situation in awe. He not once asked to have anything! People would just give him things he liked.
When he grew a bit older, we would go to Chuck E. Cheese and his charmed life would show up there, too. Wherever he is, there he goes! He would be shy 40 tickets for what he really wanted, and we would redirect him over to the toys he could buy with the tickets he had available. He would say, “But I want that one.” Once, Mark let him have something that the employee said, “It’s fine, here, you can have it.”
That opened up a whole new conversation about how that is actually stealing. The employee doesn’t have the right to give away the company’s stuff outside of the agreement (tickets for toys). Chance learned how to stay in the boundaries and Mark and I learned we can pay for tickets, too. Still, I wondered about that as I have not seen an employee do that, and Chance certainly wasn’t throwing a fit. He was just asking.
Still, this is Chance’s charmed world and we are living in it!
But, what if you were as open to receive as Chance is? What if you said yes and thank you to everything life had to give you? What if you played and had fun, and watched the angels do a lot of the heavy lifting, dirty work (taking out the garbage)?
I bet your life would be charmed, too!
