I rolled over in bed and glanced at my phone.

7:12 a.m. Ughh. I felt awful.

I sat up, only to immediately collapse back on my wife’s side of the bed, vacant for the last hour. Anchored to her pillow by a throbbing headache and rising fever, I suddenly heard a faint pitter patter of tiny footsteps crescendo towards the bedroom.

Oh dear.

Just then, Novi smashed the double doors open and exclaimed, “Dad! Dad! I have to tell you something.”

My 5-year-old proceeded to outline how we “NEEDED” to write another “Pine and Boof” book. Last year, we riffed on Ross Baruch’s humorous tale, improvising our own trip taken by the bear and porcupine to a fancy mountain hotel. Novi drew the pictures and dictated to me the plot, which seemed suspiciously similar to a recent family cross-country ski trip to Devil’s Thumb Lodge. When we finished, we stapled the multi-colored stack of 4×6-inch folded construction paper pages together.

It reminded me of my own first book, which I wrote at a similar age, about a turkey who played football. Come to think of it, my hit single spurred a series (I’m pretty sure he went on to play baseball and basketball, too). Even as a toddler, I couldn’t control my compulsive nature, nor the internal pressure I put on myself to finish the whole collection, employing excessive alliteration throughout. I guess some things never change.

Buried in my covers, I listened to Novi outline her grand plan, holding back a cough to hear her sweet voice as I cherished my last few moments of rest. Though sincerely distracted by my physical discomfort and selfish desire to dwell — or rather, wallow in self-pity — on the fact that I was sick just a week before the Pikes Peak Ascent/Marathon, I couldn’t help but be overjoyed by my daughter’s inspired initiative. As I continue on this parenting journey, I’m constantly amazed by how many unexpectedly genetic traits mysteriously emerge in my offspring.

“Daddy, get up!” she yelled in an encouraging way, like a middle school cross-country coach urging their slowest athlete to the starting line for the first race of the season because, by golly, the reward at the finish will be worth it — you just wait and see.

“I’m sick,” I moaned, knowing full well I was as likely to get out of this whole book project as that poor, slow slap was of getting out of his 3K. … no matter my temperature.

“When I was sick yesterday,” she continued, her optimistic voice brightly piercing the airwaves with an enormous, empathetic intensity, “I got up and it helped me feel better. You have to get up! Just get up.”

After being sufficiently convinced by her argument that publishing another children’s book would get my mind off of my illness (and the impending consequence of missing the most critical training block for a race I already felt ill-prepared for), I finally pulled myself out of bed. Straining for my clothes, Novi continued to spill out more great ideas.

“You should wear your Novi and Ella socks,” she suggested, referencing a silly, brightly-colored customized pair of socks the women in my life gifted me on a prior birthday.

“Where are they?” I inquired, the request exponentially exaggerating my mind’s general fogginess.

“Oh, probably in your sock drawer,” she answered cheerfully. Novi bounced over to my middle drawer. How is that my daughter knows where my socks are? Remember what I said about genetic traits? Let’s just say that one is not from me. Eventually, I got dressed, dragged myself up the stairs, slammed a cup of coffee (out of my ‘Doubler’ cup, no less….just to remind myself of the other unavoidable task awaiting me on Sept. 19-20: 2 days, 39.52 miles and 15,630 feet of vert) and sat down at the table to work on our book.

When I was a kid, I often would get great ideas like this. I’d get all excited, get all the stuff out, make a huge mess and get to work. But once the reality of the project’s immense scale set in, I often somewhat sadly conceded a late-afternoon defeat.

For example, my brothers and I might wake up and decide we were going to make a movie — obviously a project anyone should be able to complete in a day. After filming 10 different scenes, arguing over a plot twist or two, and rolling over in laughter at some hilarious ad-libbed moment, we would quietly lose interest. Our rag tag film crew, no longer buoyed by the excitement of what could be, would disperse, worn out by the heaviness of follow through. Unspoken in our agreement of the project’s relative worth — wildly disproportionate to our collective editing capacity as 10-year olds — we’d individually return to other forms of play: a basement Lego stash or driveway basketball hoop.

As I got older, my stick-to-itiveness and stamina increased. More ideas came to fruition and completion. On this particular morning, I was curious to see whether Novi’s intensity would wane or not.

Even after the initial excitement of spreading all the paints across the table, imagining various characters in front of her mom, dad, sister and brother, and starting to put the dream down on paper, Novi persisted in the project. Throughout the morning (and even into the afternoon) she kept seeking me out.

“Dad,” she’d plea. “We need to finish our story.”

“We have to let the paint dry on those two pages,” I’d say, buying some time to wash the dishes or squeeze my paranasal sinuses together with the force of an angry grizzly bear.

She wouldn’t let it go, though. I was probably most proud of a singular moment, sometime during the doldrums of early afternoon — when the path of least resistance pulls most and the temptation to give up is strongest.

I noticed her at the table alone.

I was trying to fall asleep on the couch in the living room (I promise I normally don’t do this kind of thing, but keep in mind, I was sick!) when I looked over and saw her working as hard as ever. Novi’s body, shocking in its size — at least to me, since I’ll never forget the moment she was placed on my chest the moment after her birth — was crouched in a focused pose. Her head hovered over her book, her blond hair shielding the project as she scratched out some finishing touches on a page, silently struggling to get a character’s shirt just right.

My last blog was about the ‘art of the ambitious start.’ I wrote about the importance of unfinished projects, of dreaming up great ideas and taking action, even if the finished product never comes to fruition. School is starting, which means kids everywhere will begin various assignments, most arbitrarily constructed to meet some standard. But some will be genuine passion projects.

The type that you have to pull a kid away from instead of force them to.

Sadly, we parents have mostly robbed kids of those opportunities in this day and age.

I recently read a Denver Post series on the state of youth sports. In its fourth and final chapter, the author — who is also his 10-year-old son’s baseball coach (and apparently was his lacrosse and wrestling coach, too, starting at age 4) — painted a picture of his kid playing outside in the backyard. As he watched his son walk-through a make-believe World Series game, pantomiming his favorite players at-bat routines and rituals and celebrating an imaginary clutch play, the author tried to reconcile how he could somehow merge that type of innocent, individually-inspired, childlike sporting experience with the increasingly hyper-competitive, $40,000/year travel environment he felt pressured to have the youngster be a part of as well.

The argument goes something like this: If I want my kid to have a high school/college athletic experience, then I have to follow the current. I have to put my kid in organized activities — and make sure he’s on the best team, at the best club and with the best private coach — at 4 or 5 years old — no matter the cost. I have to shell out thousands, travel the country and endure irrational behavior from fans living vicariously through their children [or at the very least, living with zero moral compass by which they could theoretically set boundaries based on foundational priorities…. but I digress]. As he collected quotes for his series, the author admitted to hearing two ideas over and over from sources: “keeping up with the Joneses” and FOMO.

Apparently, individuals have no choice but to just follow society’s standards when it comes to youth sports. Parents have no agency in determining their priorities. They can’t control whether their kid will go to endless Tuesday-night practices and Saturday-morning tournaments or wander around the front yard, barefoot and shirtless, ball-and-glove in hand like, you know, a kid.

I wish I could have stood at the window next to this author and watched his son play, just so I could tell him how I myself, at 10 or 11, was right where his kid was. Then I could tell him what I did and how it worked out.

How my parents let me play.

How they followed their old-school, conservative convictions, despite the changing winds around them (and the voices they probably heard that I wasn’t even aware of).

How they rightly told me, ‘Pete Maravich made the NBA from his driveway. You can, too.’

How they didn’t take out a second mortgage so I could travel to Las Vegas for tournaments and log 100 games the summer before my senior year, like all the other top local prospects. And how I became the varsity team MVP anyway, BUT how that last thing might have cost me a DII basketball career (whoop-de-do….)

“See,” the author would probably say. “That’s the very thing I don’t want to have happen!”

No it’s not, I would assure him. The thing you really don’t want to have happen is that you lose your kid. The thing you don’t want to have happen is for your son to not know his ‘why.’

You don’t want him to get to his last game — even if it’s a win … even if it’s a win at the NCAA championships (and you parents got a picture of the team with the banner!) — and then come to realize, while it may have ‘felt good’ and maybe even helped his resume, he and all his teammates (and the banner) are just dust returning to dust.

What you want is for your kid to find the thing he loves and is best at (and it’s probably the same thing) and to realize that as he cultivates his abilities, the real end goal isn’t skill acquisition. It’s not even a scholarship, job, sponsorship, varsity letter or state title. It’s sanctification.

Ultimately, what you want is for your kid to realize his value stems from him being made in the image of God, not his on-base percentage. You want your kid to realize his identity isn’t based on the strokes, the strikes, the saves, or the swishes. You want him to realize when he sweats and strives for excellence, he’s not working for man, or an irate coach, or a scholarship. He’s working for the Lord. You want him to realize that it’s most satisfying to sculpt the best version of himself because he’s ultimately accountable to the God who gave him all those unique talents — 1, 5 or 10 — in the first place. You want your kid to realize that the whole point of this endeavor, as it will be with any endeavor he engages in from here on out — his job, his marriage and eventually, his own parenting — is to get more of Christ.

You want your kid to find all of that in their little game. …OR in their little book. …at least eventually. And you won’t get there on the AAU circuit. You won’t find that stop anywhere on the road to the Little League World Series. Trust me, even the most-expensive private coach won’t teach him that. But you might be able to. And it starts in this backyard. It starts at the kitchen table.

When I examine my own life’s narrative thread — from those turkey tales and unfinished films to published stories in the Vail Daily, from announcing pretend Beanie Baby NBA finals games to announcing actual World Cup races, from free throws in the driveway to training for Pikes Peak … I see now how my intrinsic motivation and internal thought life served as the life-giving heartbeat to every passion project. I also see how those elements cultivated a true, deep desire and discipline. And how those things opened the door for God to use each activity for the aforementioned ultimate purpose: to conform me to the image of his Son.

Those quiet, solitary moments — where I, just like Novi, strained over my own protagonist’s appearance — were some of the first times I felt the Holy Spirit speaking. Try again. You can do this. When my internal debate raged over whether I should go inside and watch cartoons or keep trying to master my left-hand dribble, I was actually communing with my Creator. This is where my character was formed. The silent conversation centered around my relationship to Him. I imagined one day, hopefully hearing, “Well done, good and faithful servant.“

My Biblically-based self-talk directed me to ‘enjoy the process’ in a God-honoring way, too. Eventually, I came to see all the things — from the mundane afternoon rainstorm run I didn’t even want to start to the long rehab roads to the halftime huddles to the occasional podium performances — as little glimpses of greater heavenly realities. And those continued observations, unlike my flexibility, vertical jump and pure speed, seem to age like fine wine. Far from the burnout that this Denver Post author’s young son will likely be up against, my competitive flame is hotter than ever. I can’t wait to see what’s around the next bend, even if it’s not an objective performance breakthrough.

So what I didn’t ride the pine of some middling DII college basketball team? … The “consequence” was I discovered and received something far greater: a worthwhile reason for straining and striving in the first place. And it all started with me being the kid lost in his own play world, needing to be found and dragged out of the fourth-quarter of Game 7 back to the dinner table. Needing to be interrupted from his intense upholding of a matchbox car city universe to finish his homework. Needing to be pulled away from trying to sharpen his free-throw accuracy to go to bed on time.

How do you stoke that kind of passion? Not, I would argue, by schlepping your 4-year-old off to an organized activity where he’s told what to do next. Those things can come, eventually, but I don’t think it’s where you start. Parents can’t force curiosity and conviction to create onto their kids. They can only create the space for it to emerge organically. The more you drop your kid off, the less time they have to explore, work, fail, succeed, play or imagine on their own.

Of course, those school assignments we were all ‘forced’ to do have value, too. In fact, they can be just as important as the ones we envision on our own. Some will get finished and hung up on the fridge. Others will be abandoned. A few of our original stories will end up in bookstores. Most will remain in those keepsake tubs our parents end up giving us when they retire and finally get around to cleaning the upstairs attic. All of them matter.

After all, at the end of the day, I think life is better when we get excited about something. Shouldn’t work — the kind God created us for — flow from that unique creative spirit he knit together before time began? I would imagine few things please God as much as when we demonstrate our image-bearing nature by imitating His pattern of creative work. Maybe that’s the thing I was actually most proud of as I witnessed Novi go to town on her second book.

“I told her, ‘Daddy is sick. He needs to sleep,’” my wife said to me when I made my initial arrival in the kitchen that morning. “She was like, ‘I have to tell Daddy something.’”

“Well,” I replied, struggling to stand up but beaming inside as I learned of my daughter’s conviction to create. “Great ideas have to be shared.”