Day One Twenty Four

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The whole issue of secrets is on my mind. We had a fascinating parent night last week with Lukes teachers and the topic of keeping kids safe in the outside world came up. One idea I found intriguing was having no secrets. What one might call a secret, you can call a surprise. “Lets make a surprise cake for Dad’s birthday…it will be our surprise”.

But actual secrets are not to be encouraged because they might ultimately be hiding something that needs to be expressed. Secrets can breed complicated behavior and don’t necessarily have a healthy outcome. This notion come from the truth that when someone abuses a child, the abuser almost always asks the child to keep it a “secret”.

But, that was not what I wanted to write about, what I find interesting is this, what is in that secret little mind of my kids?

I mentioned Lily tossing her beloved stuffed toys into the seemingly barren scape of our side yard the other day and today I turned the corner of the house and Luke was using the hose to wet down Lily’s Giraffe, (Jeez, Giraffe has had a hard week for sure). I caught Luke off guard and as I said “What are you doing?” (not in a harsh tone, I was honestly interested), his reaction was straight out of a Warner Brothers Cartoon, all in one motion he looked up, threw giraffe quickly to the side and said

“Nothing”

I asked again,

“Nothing”

It looked like you were watering Giraffe “No, I wasn’t”

I didn’t make anything more of it, but it reminded me of a great book called,

Where Did you go? Out. What did you do? Nothing by Robert Paul Smith. It is a book that successfully captures the internal meanderings of a small boy, and perhaps shares a little bit of those secrets therein.

So, my thought was this. I fully embrace having no secrets in my household, I love that trust and honor that it implies, surprise are fine by me. As the same time I want to take this moment to celebrate Luke and Lily Cline’s secret world, the world in their heads, a world I will never know first hand, but one that I have a cherished and great seat for as it plays out.

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