Is this what I sound like to God?

Once again, I was asking Jaden to help with a silly little task that this 38 weeks pregnant momma didn't feel like getting up off the floor to do. I was restocking the diaper bag, and found a small piece of trash. "Jaden, would you throw this away for me?" He gets asked to do these sorts of things a lot these days, and I can understand that he really didn't feel like stopping playing again just to throw away a tiny piece of trash. He was obviously reluctant.

Caleb, on the other hand, perked right up - "I do it!" and grabbed the trash from the hand outstretched to Jaden. I figured "ok, great! Thanks for helping Caleb. Jaden will be relieved." Boy was I wrong. Jaden BURST into tears, insisting that he REALLY wanted to do the job that he had just been avoiding.

So I found him another piece of trash to throw away. Not good enough! He wanted the ORIGINAL piece of trash. He proceeded to violently remove the original piece from Caleb's hand (already en route to the trash can), and when I required him to then hand over both pieces to Caleb, he threw the trash can to the ground and threw himself at it with every intent to dig out that precious piece of trash.

So I carried him kicking and screaming away from the situation. I left him sobbing his poor little heart out on the couch, and waited for the storm to pass. For several minutes, with every fiber in his being, he mourned the situation. And over and over, I heard "I want Caleb's trash! I want Caleb's trash!"

I was laughing on the inside at how completely ludicrous he sounded. And then I thought how deeply I have mourned when God didn't give me something eternally inconsequential I wanted that he had given someone else...

Once again, I learn more from my tantrum throwing 2-yr old (and his brothers) than he will ever learn from me.