#2 -- Learn to talk to birds

Now, please notice that I said talk to birds, but not necessarily understand what was being said. I had a memory come to mind this morning while I was still in my bed. My wife had given me our youngest to watch over whilst she drank her first bottle of the day. The memory was of another morning that I spent in Phoenix, which is where I grew up. On normal days during the school year, I would be up at o'dark-thirty to go to early-morning seminary before heading off to another day of high school. On this particular morning (like many others, I'm frequently ashamed to admit) I had slept in and missed my carpool ride to the church. After getting ready for the day I went out to the kitchen to see what had happened for breakfast, but found the kitchen empty. And so, without anything better to do, I stepped out into the backyard for who knows what reason. (What reasons do teenagers have for anything? None, it sometimes seems.) I sat down on the bench of our picnic table, and hadn't been there long before a small bird flew up and landed on the fence between our yard and the golf course. It seemed no different from many of the other birds that I had seen before and proceeded to start whistling, most likely trying to find company (a guess on my part). For some reason still not at all clear to me, I decided to whistle back at the bird, trying to duplicate it's chirps and trills as best I could. Time passed quickly while the two of us sat and "talked" to each other. Truly, I don't know what I said to that poor, lonely bird, but it seemed to enjoy the company and stayed on the fence clear up until the time I decided to go back into the house, nearly a half-hour later. (Recently, I have wondered if in fact that bird had been a wood-pecker and that I had unwittingly invited it to stay at my house for vacation. My father has been complaining as of late about a very tenacious variety of this brand of nuisance and is doing his best to get rid of it. If this is the case, I apologize father.)

I think that the reason this memory came to the forefront of my thoughts was because of the gurgling and gooing of my daughter after her bottle. We were laying there for something like 15 minutes while my wife was getting ready. I burbled and gaga'd right back at her the entire time. And even though I had no idea what I was saying, I hope that the important part got across: that I love her. As I love all three of my kids. Being a father is nothing like being a teenager. But, I like to think that taking the time to love your kids is something important that all fathers need to do. True, most times we don't know what we're really saying to them (or rather, what they're hearing) when we try our best to converse, but I really think that it's the time that matters, and not necessarily what we're saying. Its kind of like talking to the birds.