The Best Kind of Greeting

Nothing beats coming home, walking through the door and being excitedly greeted by delighted children. Sometimes I think the four and 2-year-old are in a competition for who can do this best.

The squeal of, “Daddy!” accompanied by a leg hug from my daughter is impossible to beat. But the 4-year-old’s unabashed enthusiasm and sprinting to hug me is really close. At some point he’s going to knock me over though. Maybe that’s why my daughter is holding my leg so tightly.

The older boys are somewhat less enthusiastic. Mostly they too are glad to see me, but it seems there is often an ulterior motive. A good bit of the time me being home means more than just me being home. “Can we go to X?” is a question heard often shortly after I close the door.

Dad being home means many possible things like: going to the pool or on a bike ride, going to the baseball card shop or playground, playing wiffle ball or a card game. All that’s fine and good but it’s not at the same pure level of the younger kids’ greetings.

However even the, “hi Dad, can we…?” greeting is better than no greeting. I remember years ago when I was working a job where I would get home after the kids (just two at the time) were in bed. Coming in to a silent home with no greeting and the kids in bed was the worst.

Actually, the worst was when I got home as the then 2-year-old was just going to bed and he asked if I was coming over tomorrow. I was so startled that think I just blurted out, “I live here!” But, in his defense, at that time I was often leaving for work before he was up in addition to getting home after he’d gone to bed so maybe he wasn’t so far off thinking I was just visiting.

That was an experience that changed how I thought about what being “successful” meant and led to a change in the type of job I wanted to have. If I could help it, I didn’t want to work in a job where I was gone so often the boys didn’t even have the possibility of greeting me. Turns out success can mean being able to be home for dinner and seeing your kids.

Thankfully that’s the case now. And while there are times where I receive unexpected greetings (the 4-year-old ran up to me and shouted, “I didn’t even bite my dentist!” with excessive pride as I walked through the door recently) even those are something to look forward to.

Especially since, in the not too distant future, the kids are going to be the ones coming back to the home from the wide, wide world. Here’s hoping my greeting to them will be as meaningful.