Showing some Love

Bath time with more than one child can often get a little crazy. Imagine trying to shower and dress 10 boys ages 3 to 8 at one time- by yourself. I like to think of it as organized chaos. To add to the chaos, each boy has his own very strong likes and dislikes in the showering process, what kind of underwear they think are cool, whether or not I'm "allowed" to use soap, shampoo, etc. It didn't take me too many weeks of this to figure out that if I don't have tear-free kids shampoo, about half of the boys would refuse shampoo with violent tears oddly enough. We were preventing tears with tears. So now I've made it a mission to make sure that every week these boys have kids shampoo and kids toothpaste.

One of my boys after bath time came through the bathroom and caught me putting one more day's worth of shampoo for 10 boys from the regular bottle you buy in the store into a small bottle that we leave within their reach. If you leave the big bottle down there, one boy is for sure to knock it over on accident or pour the whole thing out for his pleasure. So this boy said, "why are you doing that? Why are you pouring just a little into that bottle?" I told him very directly that to me it's very very important that they have tear free shampoo everyday and that they bathe everyday just like it's important to me that they have "non-spicy" toothpaste. But if the whole bottle is down there, someone might waste it and then they won't have kids shampoo anymore. He said, "Love is when someone takes care of you. That's God's love." I was floored. I stopped my mopping of the soaking wet bathroom and looked at him and said, "Do you know that God is trying to demonstrate his love for you by sending people to take care of you? That's why I'm here. God sent me here to love you. That's why your full-time care-giver is here. That's why Sammy loves you (his favorite B2B intern). God sent your mom to love you (can't leave the biological mom out). I told him again for the 100th time that day that I love him very much. But I asked him Sammy's favorite question, "But do you remember who loves you more than all of us?" And he replied without hesitation, "The Lord." We then went on to dialogue as I mopped that God will never leave him alone and that there will always be someone to take care of him. This particular child has severe fear issues. He's always afraid that one of his brothers will leave him or that his mom will never come back. But we're both learning, this child is learning that God isn't going to go anywhere.

It was a beautiful end to a chaotic daily event.