Imitation is the Sweetest

My son has a cabbage patch doll that Luke's grandmother bought him. For a long time, "Xavier" as his butt tattoo names him, just sat around the closet unused. Nowadays, Quinn takes very good care of him. He kisses his head sweetly and is often putting little Xavier to bed. For a while now, Quinn has pretended that one of his diaper packs was Xavier's bed. It brought Quinn to tears when I had to tear that sucker open to get a fresh diaper for him:) Last night, Quinn and I went to Target to get more diapers and also to get a baby bed. Happily, the baby bed was only $10 (the diapers $20). Quinn immediately put a stuffed animal that he refers to as the baby pillow in the bed and then got a blanket to cover his baby. Then, he wanted me to lay down and go to bed. He instructed me to lay on the couch. Then, he came over to me and I thought he was going to give me a kiss on the lips. Instead, his hand gently caressed my forehead and he leaned over and gave me a kiss there. Then, he patted my shoulder and told me "night, night".

There are many things that I am going to screw up as a parent and the moment I hear condescension mixed with pedantic sarcasm out of his mouth, I'll know Quinn has been taking active notes, but in that dear moment last night, I knew that I was also modeling love and tenderness and that my son may pass that on. Did I tell you the other cool thing related to this? Luke and I got an anonymous note from one of our neighbors that said they had watched us from their upstairs window playing baseball and that we clapped and cheered equally for when Quinn hit the ball and when he tried his best. Pretty cool.

I used to say that the people I chose to be my friends, at their very core, would parent in a way that I respect. So, for example, if I had a new friend and I thought to myself, "Wow. I would not let me kids play with their kids" it created a sort of reality for me about my perception of this new friend. What are the essential things we model and teach others? How does that speak to our core selves? Intriguing questions. Curious to hear your thoughts on all this. What is the greatest thing your parents taught you- consciously or not?