What a great way to spend some time.

With an active four-year-old boy always wanting to “go, go, go”, it becomes necessary to find ways to harness and refocus his energy.

Never is this more obvious than when we are “waiting” somewhere. Whether it’s waiting for a table at a restaurant, waiting in a checkout line or waiting in traffic, it’s important to keep him busy without letting him bounce around all over the place like Tigger from Winnie The Pooh!

So, we started revisiting some of the games we used to play when WE were kids. Games like “I Spy”.

It started shortly after my wife and I were married. One day, as I was backing out of the driveway, I saw her standing on the porch. She mouthed the words, “I love you.” Without really thinking about it, I lifted up two fingers as if to indicate, “I love you too (2).” The hand signal stuck.

After that, we would periodically hold up the two fingers to simply say, “I love you.” Whether we secretly flashed each other the sign while sitting next to each other at church or while we were standing in line at the grocery store or when one of us was headed for work, the simple signal became a show of love and adoration between us.

Then, on vacation a couple of years ago, the signal took on a new meaning.

When our boy Jacob was six months old, I learned the greatest lesson of loving and forgiving that I guess I’ve ever learned.

I went into Jacob’s room where he was playing quietly with some toys in his crib.

As Paula gathered up some things to take with us, I reached into the crib and said, “Come to daddy.”

He looked up at me with a great big grin on his face and stretched out his arms toward me.

I picked him up and held him over my head as we usually played together.

I didn’t realize that Paula had turned the ceiling fan back on. And when I pulled Jacob up over my head, his head went right into those moving fan blades.