Family – Page 6 – sethlewis.ie

Books To Be Quarantined With

All of a sudden, we’ve got extra time on our hands. The children are home from school, lots of us are working from home, and we’ve got two weeks (at least) of cancelled events and nobody calling over for a cuppa. It’s a perfect time to pour that cuppa for yourself, sit down, and pour a few good books into your soul. Here’s some that my family and I have found enjoyable…

A Kiss In My Hand

“Daddy,
Put a kiss in my hand,
And while you’re away I can hold it
Up to my cheek
And be happy
Knowing that you really love me”

“Daddy,
Here’s a kiss in your hand,
And while you’re away you can hold it
Up to your cheek
And I’ll give you
My love from a long way away”

My daughter is seven, but her love is much bigger than her size would suggest. She said this (ok, I’ve paraphrased) before I left home for a week, and here I am sitting on the other side of an ocean with my hand on my face and no one knows why.

“Daddy, Can You Turn Off The Rain?”

My son was just a few years old, and he’d probably seen more rainy days than sunny ones in his short life. That’s what happens when you grow up in Ireland. I found him looking at his wet toys through the glass doors:

“Daddy, can you turn off the rain?”

It wasn’t a question, as much as a request. He wasn’t asking about whether I was capable of such a thing. He fully believed that I was. He just wanted to know if I would.

Ghosts In The Rubbish

I could see their faces, right there in the pile of rubbish at the dump. They were looking through the window of the broken playhouse, smiling pure joy at me – the joy of a child with a small space to go in and a world to look out at. I hadn’t expected them here, though. I was just doing a bit of spring cleaning, not ghost hunting. But even with rubbish all around it, that window was the frame of priceless memories painted in such vivid colour I could hear them laughing and calling “Daddy! Look at me!” through every one of its faded cracks.

Stolen Moments

A few years ago, when the children were smaller, time together just as a couple was a rare treasure, even harder to find than it is now. There were always little voices and little people, with their sound effects and observations about dinosaurs and bodily functions, effectively preventing any completed adult conversation (unless it had to do with snacks). Stealing time away from the children was no easy task. That’s why we were so excited to finally get the chance to have a lunch date. Continue reading Stolen Moments

The Nutritional Relational Value Of Food (Why Our Family Eats Together)

There’s hardly anything more common than eating. It takes time, money, and effort, but that doesn’t stop us from doing it multiple times a day. In fact, we shape our lives around our need for food: companies and schools build lunch breaks into the schedule, holidays are celebrated with feasts, friends meet at coffee shops, and lovers woo over candlelit dinners. Clearly, there’s more going on here than simply keeping our bodies functioning. And don’t forget the gym memberships and diet programmes designed to compensate for our meals – you might say our relationship with food is complicated. Whatever else you say about it, though, you have to admit that food is powerful. Beyond it’s nutritional value, it packs an extremely high relational value as well (although it often seems that the foods with the least nutritional value have the most relational value, like ice cream and chocolate and cheesecake and pretty much every other dessert).

Some Things Are Worth Doing Poorly

I have a greater appreciation for my mother, now that my children are learning piano. When I was a kid, it never crossed my mind that my mom might not thoroughly enjoy hearing the same simple songs played poorly over and over again. She made me practice, so she must want to hear it, right? I thought I was the only reluctant one, until my own children started playing those same simple songs, with the same mistakes, over and over again. It’s not always been very pleasant. And yet I really do like to hear it – not because of the repetitive wrong notes, but because of what they are leading to. Now that a few years have passed, the things my children play on the piano are much nicer to hear. If they keep at it, the things they’ll play in a few more years will be even better. It’s the only way forward. No one masters piano overnight. And what’s true for the instrument is also true for life:

If you want to do something well, the best way to start is by doing it poorly. Continue reading Some Things Are Worth Doing Poorly

My Grandfather’s Questions

My mother’s father was good at asking questions. I didn’t see him often since he lived far away, but when we did visit I knew at some point he would focus in on me specifically (I suppose he did that with everyone), and that’s when the questions would start. They began as standard fact-finding questions about what I was studying or doing in work, what I was reading or enjoying in my free time. In conversations with most people, this is where the questions stop. If the chat continues beyond them, it shifts to weather or sports or some other kind of neutral common ground – but talking to my grandfather was different. The normal questions were just the beginning.

Continue reading My Grandfather’s Questions

Malarial Mosquitos And The Power Of A Good Book

This post was co-written with my wife, Jessica

“Mommm!”
“Daaad!”

2am. One of us stumbles out of bed. Again.

“….yes?”

“I can’t sleep. I’m afraid.”

What if there are malarial mosquitos in the house? What if I have a heart attack because I ate too much butter? What if I get skin cancer from being outside today? I can’t stop thinking about the bad guy from the cartoon, or the child-snatching monster from the fairy tale, or…

Continue reading Malarial Mosquitos And The Power Of A Good Book