Love Dare--Days 3 and 4

I wanted to post this yesterday, but Blogger and time got away from me!!

Day 3, if you will remember--buy something for your son that will tell him that you were thinking of him.

Well, you have to realize that my son buys most everything he wants for himself. I had no idea what to buy him. And since, he had my car, I really had no way to go and buy him something!!

I was walking past his bedroom, saw the mess of his laundry laying on the floor. He hadn't had time to take care of this!

So, instead of buying him something, I changed the sheets on his bed and washed, dried and folded all of his laundry. He came home from work to a nice, fresh bed and piles of neatly folded laundry just waiting to be put away.

His comment: That was so nice of you to do this for me. I know you had other things that you wanted and needed to do today. Thank you.

On to Day 4 which I thought would be relatively simple:

Today's Dare

Contact your son sometime during the business of the day. Have no agenda other than asking how he or she is doing and if there is anything you could do for them.

I have already posted this on Chelle's blog, and copied it directly from there rather than retyping everything:

I called my son from work knowing that he hadn't gone to work yet yesterday. This was during my lunch at work.



Conversation (him knowing it is me from his caller ID):

Son: Yeah?? (wariness in his
voice)



Me: Hi! How's your day going so
far?



Son: Why?



Me: Just because I wanted to
touch base with you and see
how your day is going.



Son: Oh, okay.



Me: Well, how is your day going?
Anything interesting happen
today?



Son: No--I'm just going to get
ready for work.



Me: Okay. You be sure and have
a wonderful day at work and
I'll talk to you when we're
both home again.



Son: Do you need something?



Me: No, just wanted to talk a
little before your day began.



Son: You don't need anything?



Me: No, I don't need anything.



Son: (with s sense of
exasperation in his voice)
Okay, if you're sure you
don't need anything, then
I'm going to go.



Me: Alright. I'll talk to you
later. I love you!!



Son: I love you, too. Are you
really sure you don't need
anything? Do you need some-
thing from the store? Do
you need me to do something-
go to the bank, change the
kitty litter? What do you
need? Why did you really
call?



Me: I just called to tell you to
have a wonderful day and
that I love you.



Son: Okay, if you're sure. I'm
going to go. I love you,
too. Bye.

Now, the above conversation took s matter of minutes. But, after this conversation, which I was really listening to (how many times do we really not listen to what the other person is saying?), I realized that the majority of times when I do call my son out of blue, it IS because I NEED something!!


I need him to go to the store for me, I need him to go to the bank, and, yes, change the kitty litter!!



His wariness in the phone call made this all perfectly clear to me! He didn't realize that I could call him just to talk with him, just to say hello--I always call when I need him to do something for me.



And, this made me stop and think. How would I feel if every time someone called me, it was because they only needed something--not because they truly cared about me, wanted to see how I was, just to say "Hi, how are you? I was thinking about you today and I thought I would call you."



I know this is not part of today's dare, but I'm going to call him again today and just touch base with him.



This young man NEEDS to know that I care for him because of who he is and not because of what he can do for me.



What I thought was going to be a relatively simple dare changed into a real eye-opener for me! Hopefully, I can also open his eyes!



And so, we move on to Day 5:

Today's Dare

Ask your son to tell you three things that cause him or her to be uncomfortable or irritated with you. You must do so without attacking them or justifying your behavior. This is from their perspective only.

OUCH!! This sounds like this might hurt a little bit!!

I'll let you know tomorrow how this dare goes.

But, I'll be back later today when I come home from work because the mailman dropped off something yesterday that I've been waiting for--waiting for quite some time!


I didn't have time to take pictures yesterday, so I'll share them with you later today!


K--that's all for a while!



Beth