I know my kids — or at least I thought so until I had to fill out a form for their school.  I’ve written contracts for multi-million dollar projects and signed financial paperwork representing far more than I’m worth, but for-the-love-of-all-things-holy I struggled to fill out the bus form.  With head bowed and with great relief, I passed the forms over to my wife when she came home.  She pulled her special Forms Only pen out of her bag and with a flick of her wrist, assured the county that these children were indeed mine and that I would indeed take them back at 2:42 every day.

As I fixed dinner, I listened as she questioned the kids on their day.  My previous interview included questions like “Did you die? Did anyone else die? How much money do we owe?”   Sufficient, legally clearing and pragmatic, if I do say so myself.

My wife, on the other hand, engaged the kids’ hearts.  It was compelling to watch.  “What was your favorite part of the day?” “What are you looking forward to tomorrow?” "What’s the name of one new friend you met today?”  She met them where they were.  She entered their world and began to navigate with fluency.  She asked about Eva and the boy whose parents just divorced and the twins that look alike with different sounding names (or was it that they had similar names and looked different.  I don’t know.  I got dizzy trying to follow).  She navigated this world with fluency because she’d been there before.  She had mapped their internal and external worlds and knew the relationship between the two.  Her questioning was a reorientation for her: what had changed? Who had entered relational orbit with the kids? Who had left?  Who got booted out?

Mind you, she did this with four kids — at the same time.  And then she asked me about my day, but I was still dizzy from the interrogation.

She taught me several things that day.

• People matter and the people that matter to my people are people that should matter to me. (You may need to process that one again)

• Love is expressed in the details. Knowing the names of each kids’ relational orbit is an act of love.

• Pragmatism is the cost of entry, but not the show. The kids’ trust that there will be adequate amounts peanut butter and they hope that it will be their favorite kind (it’s the creamy kind, by the way). Paying for, processing and form-filling-out don’t build relationships.

• Reorientation into a familiar space is easier than navigating new space. She’s fluent because she’d been there before.

For the record, I still don’t know how she does it.  There aren’t any ‘tricks’, but there was intentionality.  And love.  Maybe that’s it — she loves deeply.