He also has a fascination with weapons, fighting, killing, monsters, etc. He always wants to buy the ugliest, least human looking action figure and always begs me to buy him the t-shirt with skull and chain graphics. Ew. I have been assured numerous times by my husband, that this is NORMAL boy stuff. This is something quite foreign to me as I grew up the oldest of 3 girls. I remember being shocked in college at all the bodily function talk and jokes around the round cafeteria tables amongst the boys. Ew. Once again, I am so thankful to have a man doing this parenting job with me. He gets it!
I am also learning that Thomas is a kiddo that needs to be told yes. He is affected differently than Ella is with hearing "no". It deflates him. I have to be more creative in HOW I say no, and I have to re-think his requests. Sometimes I just say no out of habit and don't really even consider the "yes", because the request seems so trivial or unimportant to me. I think it is a common thing all parents do.
SO- here comes Halloween. Thomas thinks it is all SO COOL. The decorations all around town, all the creepy, spooky images. Ew. But he really digs it and kept asking when we were going to buy decorations. So, I got to thinking and began asking God to give me some insight. Was it possible to use ANY of the images associated with Halloween, to teach Thomas something about God?
A few weeks back, Thomas choose to buy the "Bane" (bad guy from Batman) figurine with his money. Ew. And disturbing. But I realized that Thomas has no idea who that guy is. To Thomas, it is just a "guy with a cool mask and awesome weapon". When I asked Thomas to tell me about his new guy he said, "He is a fighter for God. What does God fight for?" That led into a great conversation! So back to my Halloween dilemma How can I say yes to Thomas, and not compromise what we value? Witches, vampires, zombies, coffins--- not.so.much. There are also spiderwebs, skeletons and pumpkins. I began brainstorming and came up with a few ideas. I did lots of searches online for ideas, stories, activities (By the way, there is SO much out there!! No one has the excuse that they are not creative enough to teach their kids at home. All you have to be able to do is type in a theme and scroll through the results! There are amazingly creative people who are willing to share their ideas, craft instructions, stories and lesson outlines!)
We went out and bought skeletons at the Dollar Store yesterday. Thomas was thrilled and carried his skeleton around while we ran some other errands. At one store I saw another little boy noticing the skeleton in Thomas' hand. His eyes followed the plastic toy as he mouthed the word "coooooool." When we got home I told Thomas the story of Ezekiel's vision and how God brought broken, dry bones to life. Thomas thought that was "coooooooool". Then we listened to "Dem Bone" on You-Tube and learned the names of the bones in the body. I tried my best to explain the meaning of Ezekiel's vision as simply as possible. However, a vision, what it means and what in the world hope has to do with anything was not nearly as cool as bones coming to life to form a mighty army!
One day, Thomas will be in a desperate, dry emotional and/or spiritual place in his life. My prayer is that when that happens, he will remember the year I bought him skeletons at the Dollar Store. I hope he will think about Ezekiel's vision and the Valley of Dry Bones and cling the the truth that God alone can breathe life into hopeless situations.
1 comment:
I miss little T-man and his expressions!!!! So good to hear about his growth. You and Chad make me excited to be a parent. You taught ME so much about parenting and it is an awesome privilege. Love you guys!
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