A Road Less Travelled

I came up the stairs today, and there at the top was Margary, wearing an inside out purple fleece pullover and Cat in the Hat pajamas, and very unhappy about something. With my superior grown-up deduction skills I very quickly realized what the problem was. Margary desperately wanted to zip the zipper on her fleece, but seeing as how it was inside out, she couldn’t find the zipper pull, and this was making her miserable.

She didn’t want me to reach inside and zip the zipper, of course. That would ruin everything. She had to do it herself. So I explained that her fleece was inside out, and I could fix everything by turning it right side out so she could zip the zipper. (For the record, no, I didn’t expect this to work with a two-year old, but I knew if I just tried to take her pullover without saying anything she’d get really mad.) Margary just gave me an irritated grunt and pointed at her zipper. Yeah. That’s the whole problem right there. Pesky zipper won’t work right.

So I got her to let me fix the pullover, and offered to zip it for her, and she gave me this pleased stubborn look as she shook her head and did it all by herself.

And so life continued. But once again the toddler reminded me of me:

“Father, please help me with this, I can’t do this on my own… What? That over there? That doesn’t even make sense, and it has nothing to do with this problem I’m dealing with. This, right here. See? I’m asking for Your help just like I’m supposed to, so why does it seem like you’re not listening?”

Yeah.