Love Me Tender...

I had sisters. I had daughters. Men have been, for the most part, an enigma to me. They still are in so many ways. My son, Levi, recently turned 3 years old. Based loosely on my causal observation, he has a few loves: sharp objects, blunt objects, fast cars, orange tractors, and a little girl... baby doll that is. Her name is "Baby". As I type, he is standing next to me feeding Baby a sippy cup, because "she's tirsty". I spent the last 15 minutes helping him hunt for Baby, as she had gone missing. He took her with us to the church to paint this morning, and he took her in the car home, but he lost her at some point after that. Where did we find her? On the seat of the orange tractor in the garage. He's tenderly caring for her at the moment. He's showing her a plastic frog he found in the toy box and explaining to her gently that this is her first frog and that frogs say, "ribbit".

A few days ago we happened to be at a friend's house, and, in his excitement over a sword toy, he accidentally left Baby behind. When we realized she was missing, we thought for awhile about where we had left Baby. When we realized where she probably was, I text messaged my friend to ask her if we had left Levi's baby at her house. She said, "Yes, but I assumed it was Violet's baby:)". "No," I replied, "she's Levi's Baby, and he's quite distraught." She responded, "Wow! He'll be a real catch someday. A tough guy with a tender side." What mother would disagree?

You might guess that this fascination with Baby began when Levi's baby sister, Violet, was born. Levi was not quite 2 when Violet was born. He was very nice to her, which is remarkable in itself, considering his treatment of nearly everyone and everything else in the house is usually significantly less than gentle. As you might notice, he has a great role model for how to treat a baby girl... his dad. Mark is tender-hearted toward his girl. Much like Levi is toward his girl.

A few days ago we went to retrieve Baby from my friend's house. My friend left her in a bag outside on their front porch for us. It was a chilly, rainy night. As I brought her back to the car, my husband (who was driving at the time) was smiling as he watched Levi's excitement at me bringing Baby toward the car. He immediately tore open the bag and hugged her tightly - patting her on the back as he said, "Aw, baby... you're so cold and scared." He looked at me, and whispered, "I have to just hold her a lil' while, 'cause she's bery cold." He spent the next 5-10 minute patting her softly on the back and whispering comfort into her ear.

At the left you can see Levi "wearing" Baby during one of our walks last summer. Daddy and Levi carried their babies for the whole walk.

I recognize that, like so very many things in childhood, Levi's preoccupation with Baby will not last forever, but it gives us great joy to watch him as he tenderly cares for her. If Baby were real, she would have quite the stories to tell, I'm sure. She has been there for all of Levi's significant life events over the past year or two. She sleeps in his arms every night. In the past few months as we have been dealing with many doctor appointments for Levi, Baby has been to every appointment too. Sometimes we take a little frog backpack with cars also, but Baby is a staple fixture in all of Levi's experiences. I think I'll be rather sad the day he decides that Baby is "not cool" or that he's outgrown her. She will be placed gently into his box of baby memorabilia - to be looked back on fondly someday.

When he had an MRI a few weeks ago, Baby was in tow. She sat up alertly and watched the process, but then fell immediately asleep as soon as she lay down next to him. (She has a funny way of doing that.) I have to admit I was a little embarrassed at her raggedy, dirty appearance. I said to the nurse, "Yes, Baby needs a bath. She's well-loved." Levi wasn't even slightly embarrassed of her, as he proudly showed her to all newcomers to his hospital room. As he was coming out of sedation, Baby was waiting for him, but unfortunately for her, she ended up wearing the evidence of his after-sedation nausea... twice. As I placed her gently in the washing machine the following day, I wondered if she would make it. Would she survive the washing? I waited anxiously for her return. Even on the gentle cycle, there are no guarantees with toys and washing machines. When she came out, her head was full of water and, when I squeezed it, it drained out, but her head was misshapen. Her head also rattled with some beads that were displaced from her bottom to her top during the washing. Levi didn't seem to notice. He was reunited with her quite happily as soon as she dried out.

Yesterday I was using a program on our new computer. It recognizes faces of people in the photo and places a box around the face and has a line underneath the box for me to type in the name of the person in the face box. This program fascinates me - how it can recognize a human face - for one thing. Furthermore, after the first time you've tagged someone in a photo, it asks in future photos, "Is this ___?" and fills in the blank with its best guess of who is in the photo. I found myself amused at how many times I would flip to another photo and see a tiny box around Baby's face with the words underneath, "Is this Baby?" I wouldn't have even recognized she was in most of the photos, but the computer did. Indeed, it's Baby. She was in so many photos that she now has her own file folder in our computer - photos of Baby.

I also have a son who is almost 14. He tends to think that Levi's fancy of Baby is a little "whimpy". I have wondered myself, having never had a son, if his love for a pink baby is odd... not that I'm worried about it. I find in the Word of God (Psalms 91:4, Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34, Luke 1:78) that God Himself longs to gather us "under his wing" and treat us most kindly. He desires to have compassion on and to "speak tenderly" to us. A heart of compassion and tenderness is not just a gift of woman. It is also a gift to us from God. Masculinity does not preclude gentleness. In fact, it would seem as though gentleness completes true masculinity. For some reason, there seems much more strength in the kindness of a man.

I remember, when I was a child, looking up at the men around me and gaging their size. Was each one a "big guy" or not? Big guys made me feel safe and secure. As I grew up, I was better able to gage the actual size of the men I had known as a child. It seems as though the ones I often thought were "big" were actually no larger than the others. It seems it was more something about their character that made them seem larger than their physical stature. I think in a world full of text messages, e-mail, and the internet - where it is easy to be selfish and to dehumanize others - compassion is a rare quality - especially for a man. I figure a little tenderness can give a guy an extra foot or so of stature... easily.

My husband is 6'4". I'm 5 1/2 feet tall. Levi is tall for his age. Given his genetics, I imagine that he'll end up being a pretty tall grown man. That being said, it's far more important to me that he continues to be tender-hearted toward others - especially those weaker or smaller than he. That way, he can grow up to be a "Big Guy".