My 5 year old son has the hardest time going to sleep. He usually will get up out of bed at least once to test me.
Tonight it was twice. Exhausted and frustrated, I could feel my patience waning.
“Daddy!”
“COLTON, GO TO BED,” I barked.
“But daddy, I need you.”
And just like that, I melted. There was something about those words that pierced me. “I need you.”
There will come a day sooner than I’d like where he will say those words to me for the last time. Sons do not need their fathers forever, after all.
So, I walked into his room, I got on one knee and I told him how special it was to me that he needs me to put him to sleep every night. I told him he won’t need me like that anymore when he’s a grown man and so it makes tonight special. I feel like he understood. He was fully in the moment with me.
Then I rubbed his back and his head for a few minutes, kissed him, and said goodnight.
He was asleep 5 minutes later.
I realized that in that moment I could have easily lost my temper and scolded him for refusing to go to bed (something I’m guilty of doing before) — and I would have missed out on this absolutely priceless moment with my young son who is growing by the day. And for what?
The older I get, the more I realize how important the seemingly insignificant decisions we make all day every day really are. They compound just like an investment and over years, you could miss out on an unfathomable amount of value in the most priceless asset: time.
Going to try to remember this night.