The son of Belladonna Took
Tonight we took the better part of the evening to listen to chapter one of The Hobbit. It was a tale that my wife and I enjoyed reading with our families as kids and we thought it would be fun to start reading this particular tale. We were pretty much bad parents during the holiday season: letting video games and TV rule the entertainment time – giving us more liberty to talk with family or play card around the dinner table undisturbed.
Parental lapses like this lead to “mushy brains” as we like to call them. The kids begin to find no joy in anything other than instant visual stimulation and we have to start forcing them to do things we know they enjoy (playing outside, Legos, drawing, etc.). Like a horrible cramp in your leg, the mushy brain needs to be stretched back out so it can heal and be used again.
Too smart for our own good
While chapter one was lost on our 3 yr. old (we’re under little delusion that he will actually hear or understand much of what is going on) the older two asked good questions throughout and when harder words came across I was amazed that Emma already knew the meaning of most. Yes, my brilliant 7 yr. old daughter knows can explain what unobtrusive means and use it within a sentence [Dad beams with unabashed pride].
Since we started a bit late and chapter one goes on for quite some time the kids were quite tuckered by night’s end. Owen faded off and Emma started to “turn into a pumpkin” as we call it. Bedtime wasn’t as blissful as it could have been with sleepy children bemoaning the fact that yes, pajamas still need to be put on and teeth need to get brushed. In the midst of the melee Sara dialoged that the house was currently sanity free and she’d have to go somewhere else to find some. She went downstairs to get the slumbering Owen and when she returned she discovered Emma in her room sobbing. When Sara asked her what was the matter she shared through sleepy tears:
“Mom, if you have to go somewhere else to find sanity that means we’re all crazy.”
We were altogether humbled, proud and amused that our little girl could find the correlation between the absence of sanity and the presence of craziness. Sara assured her that we did not believe her to be insane and actually were quite proud of our smart little girl.
