for memory's sake (jeremy moment/seth moment)

jeremy's sunday school teacher came up to me and said, "you have an intuitive thinker amongst you." i said, "I do?" then she related the following story:

a couple of weeks before she was giving a lesson and asked the question "if you were in charge of a child and you had to play outside with him, but located on the left side of the yard was a dangerously busy street, and located on the right side of the yard there was a dangerous deep lake, what would you do?" she said that most of the kids said, "i'd take them in the house." jeremy said, "i'd get a bucket and fill it with water so that he could still play outside, and in the water, without being in danger."

jeremy is such a good boy. sometimes he is too smart for his own good. but he certainly is an intuitive thinker and i was glad to have someone else point it out so i could take a moment to appreciate it.



seth's favorite show used to be "mickey mouse clubhouse" on disney channel. this was good for me because it gave me 15-30 minutes that i could do dishes, clean up quickly, or get ready for the day. one morning when he (at about 18 mo) was watching it, i was in on the computer, and he began sobbing. i went into the tv room to him and picked him up and comforted him, not knowing what was wrong, but seeing that the show was nearly over, i assumed he was sad it was ending. a few weeks later the same episode was on, only this time i was in the kitchen, kind of watching it. (to set the background, mickey and his friends are watching a puppy for a friend. they are loving the puppy, playing with the puppy, forgetting to give pluto positive attention. this makes pluto feel bad, and he walks out of the room with a sad face.) i see this and seth starts sobbing again. like a cry that he doesn't do very often at all. i felt so bad that he felt so sad about this, but wasn't sure that this was why he was crying. he was still only about 19 months and he seemed too young to understand it. well, another episode came on a few weeks later, similar to this, but less dramatic, where mickey tells pluto he can't play with him, and pluto gets a sad face. when seth saw this he made a really big frowny face, with furrowed brows, and got upset. but then mickey decides he'll just play with him, and pluto gets happy. seth recognized this and was happy. problem resolved right in front of his eyes. so the other episode came on several weeks ago (seth 21 mo.) and this time i was holding him in my lap. i recognized about 1/2 way through that this was the episode that upset him. as the part came that pluto got sad, sure enough, seth began sobbing AGAIN. i couldn't believe it. but i quickly comforted him and told him to watch, and on the show they resolve the problem with pluto being sad and they apologize to him for hurting his feelings. all the while i'm talking seth through what they're talking about and he turns to me and say's "happy". i think he finally saw that it wasn't a sad show, but a happy one.

so today, this same episode came on. i was getting ready for the day and watched him closely as he watched it. his face didn't change the whole time, but he watched it more intently than he has been recently watching mickey. i went and held him when i knew the sad part was coming and talked him through the whole thing. his face never showed emotion, either good or bad, but he was very intent on watching it through to the end. i reinforced that pluto was happy and that everything was ok, but i decided today that i won't let him watch that episode again.

just when you think these little babies can't think for themselves, they do something like this, over the course of months, and you realize that they're a lot smarter, and have a much better memory than we give them credit for. they are so very observant, soaking up even the smallest of things. knowing this makes me a little more nervous as a mother, wondering what kind of damage i'm doing to my kids.

we have been blessed with these sweet little spirits, sweet children from our heavenly father. i hope i can be more mindful from whence they came, and try even harder to be the kind of mother they need me to be, with heavenly father's help, of course.