Awakenings

I have reflected recently on things my children teach me. There are lots of lessons in multi-tasking, patience, overcoming my own emotional response, not taking their comments personally as well as playing more, laughing more, getting outside more, discovering old and new loves. There are three realizations that have felt bigger, the kind of mind altering thoughts that have changed my worldview. When Asher was first born, I remember going home with him in the crazy haze of just-having-a-baby-how-to-do-this-hormonal-uproar and being reduced to a sobbing blob thinking about how much I loved him. I was overwhelmed by love, and cried (in Alexa-type fashion) for all the little babies without mommas, for God's sacrifice for us, and for God's love for us.

It's no secret that Asher loves cartoons. He loves them like an addict - asking everyday if he can watch them, going into another world when he does watch them and having withdrawals when they are turned off. This later symptom is quite interesting to me. Not only is Asher upset by cartoons not being on, but he seems to have a hard time handling real life emotions because he's been able to tune reality. All of a sudden, he has to deal with being sad, happy and playing. It's also no secret that I hate television. Secretly, I have a big "Kill Your Television" bumper sticker across my forehead, and my experiences with Asher have deepened this dislike. Life is to precious to not only deprive ourselves of the time we spend in front of the television but also the learning and practicing to emotionally handle life. (My confession is that I also have quite the addiction to HGTV, Food Network and Sex in the City - horrors! Television is worse than french fries - the way it just sucks me in with great promises of feeling good).

The last realization has been revealed as Asher talks more and more, shares his opinions and thoughts. Often, when Asher is in the throws of threeness, I am reminded of an adolescent with his emotional swings, irrational behavior and absolutely unrealistic idea of how some things work. We will have discussions in which he flatly denies reality. Yesterday, he desperately wanted a doughnut but would not eat something slightly healthier, tatter tots, before having a doughnut. He explained that tatter tots don't have vitamins but doughnuts do. On top. At some point in the next year or so, I expect he will have an awakening to a new level of reality. And the awakenings will continue - new and new levels of understanding the internal and external world as he matures and also as he experiences the good and bad things in life.

I was in on a conversation with some adolescents on Thursday about ethical dilemmas. One of the young men in the group said that adults keep telling him about the future consequences of his actions, and how he didn't believe the adults. Why do adults believe that he asked? That we'll be hurt by the consequences of our actions? An adult answered because adults have seen friends hurt by consequences. I was struck by both sides of this conversation - what adolescents believe about the world and themselves and about what how our minds are changed as we get older. So many awakenings we experience, from a very young age until the end of life.