Living. Together.

(Originally posted 1/28/2009)

I thought a quick game of friendly checkers before bed tonight would help. After all, we've hit a rough patch lately. Jackson and me that is. And tonight, the game was going really well. He was doing better than he's ever done before.

But in his eyes, getting better wasn't enough. He could only focus on the fact that, at one point during the game, he "could only move back and forth to one spot, Dad!"

Reminding him that the point of the game is to stay alive didn't help. In fact, that only added fuel to the fire. Because to him, staying alive is boring. There's more to the game than jumping back and forth between one spot. And that's when it hit me.

My son is just like me. To him, it's not enough to just stay alive.

Of course, that's something I knew about him. After all, I've had almost nine years with the kid. I'm pretty sure I know him by now. But the more I get to know him, the more I get to know myself. And maybe, just maybe, that's what is getting in the way of him and me lately. We've just been staying alive lately. So I think it's time that he and I start really living. Together.