Learning to Listen

About a month ago, I was at the county pool with our homeschool group. William's best friend was in attendance and I stood, while chatting with other moms, watching the two of them dive into the pool over and over.In the way only moms (and a few dads) can do, I watched while my mind was in a parallel universe.

The boy, "A", came up to me. "Did I make a big splash?" he asked when he could get a word in edge-wise.

"Oh, yes," I assured him. "You made a tremendous splash."

By the third time he asked me this after diving, I realized that he let out a large sigh as he headed back to the diving board. He was trying not to make a large splash, just like the good Olympic divers he had just watched on TV. Not really listening, I was not giving him the message he was hoping to hear. I was prepared for the next one, and praised the dive for having almost no splash at all. He was satisfied, and the boys moved on to going down the slide.

One of these days, I'll learn to listen.