Our Family Vocabulary: The Double Pour
Your words shape your world, your values, who you are, how you love.
Every relationship that truly reaches you develops it’s own lexicon that characterizes it, impacts your story, hems you into it, and sets it apart from all the others in the word.
Moment by moment and laugh by laugh, we are creating our own household vocabulary because we want the legacy we leave as a family to be definable and worth talking about.
Less than six months into being a family of three, our word game is strong. Please let me introduce you to… The Double Pour. (If you didn’t read that with heroic background music and a dangerous tone at least 3 octaves lower than your regular tone, please go back and try again. It’s important.)
Necessary background information: Lifa is scared of water. I mean, SCARED SCARED.
When he was 2, he would scream the kind of scream that puts people on the 5 o’clock news. Sheer panic would shatter the hearts and eardrums of me and all the neighbors that came rushing over every time I would bathe him in 2 inches of water.
We’ve tried swim lessons.
Chris has surprised him with a few perfectly timed cannonballs.
We’ve made games with every kick, bubble, and strategy you could think of, but that deeply entrenched fear is like kryptonite on our super-kid.
Then, we told him he could no longer use a washcloth to wash his hair and face. He is 8, and it’s time for actual, flowing water. (Side note: One time I took him to get a haircut and was totally embarrassed when piles of sand came out on the clippers.)
Hair and face-washing showers became breakdowns; bath times became long, painful, stressful events dreaded by everyone. And the thing is, Lifa loves the idea of water. He wants to love it; he wants to own it; he wants to be in it. But when it comes near his face... Stress City.
Cue: The Double Pour
My handsome super-husband is committed to helping Lifa become the courageous warrior God designed him to be… even when warrior training looks like both guys putting on swim trunks and Chris getting in the scream shower with Lifa.
One evening, during the bath time saga, Chris went in with a new strategy. I watched him head to the bathroom armed with a plastic cup, patience and a purpose. I was cooking dinner and realized it sounded different in there. Suddenly, both of my guys marched out looking like champions – Lifa was extra clean, and both of them were exuding manliness, chanting and grunting about, “THE DOUBLE POUR!”
"Yeah, Mom, that’s right: THE DOUBLE POUR." RAWWWWWRRRRRR. Muslce flex. Man pose. Back to goofy kid smile.
THE DOUBLE POUR:
proper noun. ultimate challenge. victory banner.
- super innovative, super high-tech cleansing system that involves filling your plastic cup and dumping it over your head two times in a row without stopping to maximize shampoo removal and minimize panic.
- The way to make you feel like you just won the entire world in a bathtub.
Overnight, Lifa went from dreading bath time to talking about it on the way to school every morning, asking us to time him, and then stick around to watch him hold his nose and go under the water for at least 5 seconds.
(Real time update: I just got called into the bathroom while writing this so he could defy the double pour by pouring TWELVE cups of water over his head in a row and chanting, “I LIKE IT,” as water ran down his face. If it wasn’t so weird, I would have videoed it.)
All it took was naming it. It’s not that you can’t overcome your greatest fear, but you have to stop letting fear be your greatest fear.
Without a name, it’s just a lurky, murky, knock-the-legs-out-from-under-you shadow. You name the enemy. You look it in the eye. And then you take it on. Lifa has yet to conquer the swimming pool, and then one day the ocean. But he's casting out his fears: pour by pour.
Chris named Lifa’s greatest challenge, and suddenly that larger than life fear was an enticing, empowering invitation for victory from a loving father.
Your Father wants the very best for you. He has already poured Himself over every shadow and fear in your world – whether your world fits in a bathtub or an ocean.
He took the cup, and then He put it in your hand. He is standing beside you cheering you on to your ultimate victory:
Today is the day for your Double Pour. We are a Double Pour kind of family.