Last week was my Spring Break. On one of those days, my wife had some work she needed to do outside the house and asked me, “Could you take care of Joelle?” My reply was, “You mean by myself?” She just gave me the “Of course” look. Hey, it’s Spring Break why not have some daddy-daughter time? Truthfully I was a little nervous not knowing what to expect. The night before, my wife was kind enough to write out the schedule on the board hanging on our refrigerator so I’d know exactly what to do. She knows if she just tells me, I’ll either forget or only be half-listening in the first place while she’s telling me what to do.
The day arrived when I was scheduled to take care of our daughter by myself. I remembered the advice of many to not call it “babysitting,” so I got that thought out of my head. My wife told me, “Okay honey I’m heading out. I’ll call you when I’m on my way home. Just stick to the schedule and you’ll be fine.” My reply was, “Okay.” After she closed the door I immediately checked the schedule she wrote down (It was the first time I looked at it). Joelle already had her breakfast so the next thing on the item was:
10:15 nap – approximately 45 minutes to an hour
It was only 9:15 so what in the world do I do for a whole hour? Wait! There were more notes my wife left me. It read, “You can let her play with her toys in the family room. She’ll do that for about 45 minutes.” I said to myself, “45 minutes! That’s almost an hour! Perfect!” So I took Joelle to the family room and let her play with her toys just like the note told me to do. To my amazement, Joelle kept herself entertained for about 45 minutes as I was reading. How does my wife know these things? As 10:15 approached, I started cleaning up the toys and began to rock her to sleep. When she finally nodded off I looked at the clock and it was . . . wait for it . . . 10:15! How does my wife know these things? I placed her in her crib knowing I had about an hour to catch up on all the important updates in Laker Nation. It was coming up on an hour so I checked the next thing on the list:
11:15 lunch – feed the baby, VERY IMPORTANT!!!
The all caps text immediately caught my eye. I guess feeding the baby is important so I didn’t want to screw this up. My wife already had a bowl of some powered looking stuff with some other liquidity thing I was supposed to mix in, I guess. As you can tell, I didn’t bother reading the labels to find out what contents were in the food. I just did what I was told.
I mixed the stuff in the bowl as my wife instructed then I went to wake up Joelle who looked ready to eat. I sat her down and sat next to her. She knew it was lunch time and was excited to get some grub. I gently spoon fed Joelle while occasionally wiping her face from the mess. Then there was a moment (or a few moments) when I gazed into her eyes and thought about the story of Joseph in Genesis 41:51-52 when Joseph had his two sons:
Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.” The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
This, of course, was several years after Joseph’s brothers plotted to kill him and sold him into slavery instead where he was falsely accused of sleeping with the boss’ wife, thrown in jail for his trouble, forgotten about for a couple years and then forced to interpret Pharaoh’s dream accurately or be executed (If you read Pharaoh’s dream you’ll know it’s like someone dropping acid at a Jimi Hendrix concert. The best dream interpreters of that day were confused.).
My point being, even though Joseph suffered many troubles and knew the Lord was with him during those difficult times, it wasn’t until he had his kids when he began to forget about those troubling times, “God has made me forget all my hardship . . .” Not only did he forget his hardship but Joseph saw how blessed he was, “For God has made me fruitful . . .” That’s what I felt when I was feeding my daughter and looking into her eyes. All of the trouble I got myself into, the hardship in my own house growing up, the failed relationships and unmet expectations, were all forgotten and I realized how extremely blessed I was at that moment. It doesn’t matter what I’ve been through, it only matters that I’m here now with a future I never thought I would have. Maybe one day Joelle will realize how much she means to me and understand why I do everything in my power to scare all of the would-be boyfriends away.
Okay, enough of the mushy stuff. There’s the rest of the day to get through so let’s get to it. After I finished feeding Joelle lunch, I noticed there was nothing else on the list to do. I thought my wife had forgotten to write the rest of it or something but I quickly figured out I was on my own. Well, if I was going to be on my own, I figured I would go rogue and take Joelle to the supermarket to buy junk food for daddy. I strapped her into the stroller and walked to the supermarket. She was completely content the whole time, just people-watching like she was sitting at the airport waiting for her flight. When we got to the supermarket, I noticed all the ladies smiling at my baby girl with the “Oh, she’s soooooooooo cute” look on their faces. I leaned over to Joelle and quietly told her, “Where were you when I was single?” She just smiled back as though she knew she was cute.
As we were walking back home with the booty of junk food, I kept appreciating the beautiful weather we have here in L.A. It was great to be outside with my daughter enjoying the world together. When we got back home, I quickly hid all of the junk food from my wife so she didn’t scold me and continued to play with Joelle. We read some books and played out in the backyard with Buddy (our dog) until mom finally got home.
The whole time went by in a blink of an eye. I lost track of time and didn’t even know how late it was. The entire time, Joelle didn’t cry once and was a perfect little child. She’s not always like this. But it felt like she knew dad was on his own today and she was going to give me a break. I hope she still feels like this when she’s a teenager.
