On any given day you could walk into our home and eavesdrop on this conversation:
“Jon, please go get your jammies on.”
“Okay Daddy.”
Jon starts off for the bedroom but on the way he spies an ant crawling under the front doorway. “Look at this Daddy!” Before Daddy can rise from his chair Jon follows the ant with his eyes and finds Katie’s sparkly red dress-up shoes. He picks one up and inspects it.
Jon slips the shoe on the wrong foot and sees a hat he thought he had lost under the bench. He slaps it on his head and pretends to be one of the Disney Super Sleuths. “Look Daddy, I slapped my cap!”
“Jammies Jon,” Daddy gently reminds.
“Oh ya.” He makes his way around the corner and walks past the mirror. He stops to admire his sleuthing cap and spies a chocolate smear from his corner lip to his cheekbone. He gallops off toward the bathroom to wash his face.
Once there he remembers he needs to brush his teeth. He gets out his toothbrush and pops open the toothpaste tube and a cheery flavored bomb spurts out plopping in the sink. He takes his toothbrush and starts scrubbing the paste off the enamel.
This is where Daddy finds him. Not putting on his jammies, but hard at work scrubbing the sink with his toothbrush, hat askew, and his sister’s shoe on the wrong foot.
Nothing Jon did was wrong. Well maybe scrubbing the sink with his toothbrush was wrong. But Jon fell into the same snare many of us are trapped in: a lack of focus.
No one can do a million things well, but we can all do one or two things well. There are many good things that can steal our focus. The challenge is to discover the one thing God has called you to do and to that one well. Stay on task. Remain focused. Do it well.
I can so relate to this. Boys are notorious for losing focus, but so are we women, as you put it so well. We call it “multi-tasking” but more often than not it’s taking on too much and spreading ourselves too thin. As for your little Jon, don’t count on it getting better any time soon. It seems to get worse as they get older… At least our boy is no better at 6 than he was at 4 🙁 I just marvel at your husband’s patience!
Debbie! I’ve tried to contact you through your blog but it says it is no longer active. How was the writer’s conference? I’d love to chat about it.
You are bang on how we adults suffer fom the same problem but call it something else. Jon is better with gentle reminders, but I don’t forsee it changng anytime soon 🙂
I am very blessed to be married to a very patient man – patient with me and our kids!