Choices

I always think it would be so awesome if as adults we could react to things the way children do. Simple and extremely emotional.

I was driving down the street the other day and saw a family walking along the sidewalk. The youngest child was practically flailing her body as she walked along and it was so obvious she was upset and frustrated. It's so great, as if all emotions are expressed physically and out loud.

As a kid, if you get frustrated, you stomp as you walk and scream as you speak. If a baby wants something, he will wail. I'd love to be able to do that. I was at Circuit City yesterday getting very impatient while they looked in the stock room for close to 30 minutes for one of the items I purchased. I started to feel the child in me trying to come out. I was sort of pacing the floor as the minutes passed, thiking about how they had JUST sold me something they SAID they had in stock and now I'm spending my WHOLE night at Circuit City! I wanted to flail my body while I paced along the floor and mumble things like "uuugghhhhh! iiii wannnnnntttt itttttttttt.. What's TAKING SO LOOOONNNNG."

In the end they didn't have the item they sold me. I was forced to go pick it up at another Circuit City a few miles away. I was irritated and thought to myself "wouldn't it be great if I could react like a child and just start screaming, kicking and crying at them?" I wanted to.


Speaking of kids, and it's been said before, but they really do "say the darndest things."
There's a lot of simplistic and conventional wisdom that can come out of a child's mind and subsequently out of their mouth. They don't even know they're making so much sense by saying something so straight forward.

Kimberly has two little boys who are, by the way, the most precious mini-humans I think I've ever encountered. Like most parents, she obviously reinforces certain things in their lives related to manners and behavior. One of the things she often says to both Luka and Jonah is "make good choices" in order to remind them to do or not to do certain things. I don't have a specific example for you but I imagine if one of them was misbehaving or acting up Kimberly might remind them that "we make good choices." She told me the other day that Luka was in a particularly upset mood and when she said "Luka, remember, we make GOOD choices.." he simply looked at her and replied "Mommy, I don't WANT good choices!"

Just one example of how a 3 year old can say something that is so basic yet easily describes how we, as adults, feel at times. Often I want to kick my feet and have a physical reaction to my distress, like a child might do. Other times I want to just scream in public out of frustration. Some situations make us want to just fall asleep for a nap in the middle of the day. And, as related to Luka, we often just don't WANT good choices in the face of certain situations. When the mood permits, I think Luka is right.. sometimes it's okay to just not WANT good choices.

Last night I didn't want good choices. I went to Circuit City, whipped out my Visa, and bought a new flat-screen TV for my bedroom, some surround sound speakers and a wall mount for the new flat-screen. I had no business spending the money on any of this stuff. After, as I described, they searched the back room for half of what they sold me yet didn't actually have in stock, I wanted to kick and scream rather than drive to another Circuit City to pick the purchases up.

And as I pulled into Circuit City number 2 I felt a bit guilty for the slightly irresponsible and spontaneous purchases I had just made. I unnecessarily spent money I don't have at the moment and that seemed like a 'bad choice.' But then I thought about Luka. I eased my buyer's remorse and said to myself as I parked the car: "whatever, I don't want good choices right now."

M.db