Urgency

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced cereal into Colin's diet. For those of you that aren't yet parents, allow me to educate you for just a moment. When I say "cereal" I don't mean Fruity Pebbles or Honey Bunches of Oats (or Cheerio's, which seems to be a popular little kid cereal choice). When a child is Colin's age - closing in on five months - cereal means a tasteless, pasty white mixture. It reminds me of the paper mache mix we used in elementary school to make maracas out of light bulbs...tastes pretty similar, too...don't ask how I know. Colin is at the point of his development where he gets two 1/3 servings of this each day. And daddy - me - is often called upon to make the delivery. What an adventure that is! Colin treats each bite as though it were the most amazing stuff on earth, and as if he's afraid each bite will be the last. Even before he has swallowed the previous bite, he is already grunting and whining for the next one. He has an unbridled sense of urgency that I have never before witnessed. "Daddy, I know I haven't swallowed yet, but if you don't get that next bite near my mouth for me to eat, I don't know what I'll do. I might just blow a gasket, even though I have no idea what a gasket is yet. So let's go Dad, step it up and get me that pasty white food stuff!" It's really a site to behold. And last night was an even greater adventure, as he was so excited, that both arms and both legs were flailing while his head swiveled from side to side. It was like target practice, and quite frankly, I'm not good at target practice. Thank God for bath time.

As I fed him last night, I started to think about my life. I have the tendency to live life with this same sense of urgency. I do a lot of sitting around, until push comes to shove, and then I shift life into urgent mode. I have often said that I work really well behind the 8-ball. The problem is that it doesn't work so well for those that have to deal with me. And it's not a great way to live. So many important things get pushed aside for the urgent things. Sometimes the urgent is the most important, but oftentimes it just seems that way due to its, well, urgency. The challenge for me, and for any of you like me, is to fill and focus our lives on the important so that stuff doesn't get pushed to the side in favor of the urgent. How to do that? I'm not sure, but one day, when I absolutely have to do it, when it is urgent, I hope to figure it out...