March 26, 2015

That’s the day that I decided to open up a few windows to let in a nice cool spring breeze. I started with the windows in the kitchen and the dining room. It was a little stuffy in the house and the cool breeze immediately swept through and made things WAY more comfortable.

So I decided to go upstairs and open a few of the bedroom windows.

Jackson was watching me. He watched me open the window in his bedroom, his UPSTAIRS bedroom.

“Dad,” he asked, “can you take out that screen from my window, too?”

“No, son. If I remove the screen, there’s nothing there to keep you from falling out.”

Blank stare.

It was like you could actually see wheels turning in his little mind.

We came home the next day to find that he’d opened the window on his own. In fact, he left the window open all day — a day that included off and on rain, wind gusts, and temperatures that dipped down to the 30s.

The screen is still intact.

So far.

I’m picturing a moment in the not-so-distant future when I look out my kitchen window to see the bottoms of my son’s feet as he dangles from his bedroom window — the same child that locked me out of the house as a toddler; the child that we’ve found on top of the refrigerator; the child that as a two-year-old climbed his way to the top of our pantry.

When that moment occurs — when I can actually see the bottoms of his feet out my kitchen window — I can point back to March 26, 2015 as the day it all started.