The Proverbial Apple

The other day, I was sitting in our red chair in the living room, Jack comes be-bopping along and plops down in the brown chair that sits in the corner of the room. He’s sitting there mumbling to himself mostly or talking to himself while he plays. At this point, I have become pretty accustomed to tuning him out. When he started to call my name over and over again, I reluctantly pulled myself away from the television to engage my son.

He was sitting with his head lying on the arm of the chair. One eye covered up. Saying, “Daddy, I am a Cyclops. Did you know Cyclops only have one eye?”

I laughed really hard and told him that I did know that but appreciated him refreshing my memory. He later grabbed the DVD case for Monsters Inc. and pointed out that, “The little green guy is a Cyclops too; ‘cause he only has one eye too; but the big blue guy has two eyes, so he isn’t a Cyclops.”

After this, I realized that the saying of “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” is more accurate than I first believed. It was several years ago when Bethany and I were engaged that we traveled to Columbus to visit Christiana a great friend and college roommate of Bethany while she attended Cedarville. We stayed at Christiana’s apartment and slept on the living room floor. It was getting late at night and quickly approaching the hour that my old college roommate accurately described as, “Getting sleep drunk.” We were giddy and just talking silliness.

Bethany started to speak in a monotone voice saying, “I’m a robot. I am talking like a robot. I am a robot.” Over and over again she would say this. In retaliation, I started to say, “I am a Cyclops,” because I, just like my son, had one eye covered.

Both memories will be special for many years to come and now are inevitably linked in my brain. I hope that through the next several years, I will have more, “Aha,” moments with my kids and realize that indeed, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.