The Age of Questions

I have decided that seven years old must suddenly be the age for questions. I mean, my children have always been very inquisitive​, but they are at an age where they have a new understandi​ng of how things work and so they are asking questions and wanting details about things that I thought they already knew. For example, the other night when I was tucking Ethan into bed, he suddenly started asking me questions about their prematurity. He wanted to know exactly how early he and Emily were born. He wanted to know details about the birth. He wanted to know why Emily had a brain bleed and why she has a shunt now. He wanted to know why his lungs had a hemorrhage, too. The questions continued for a very long time. I answered very honestly, but I kept the answers as simple as I could. I didn't give him any more details than what he asked for and I just followed his lead. I found out the next day that he questioned his daddy, too, that night. You see, earlier in the evening we were watching his favorite show, Extreme Makeover Home Edition. That episode happened to be about a little boy that had cancer. The beginning of the show was very emotional when it talked about how the siblings of the boy were so sad to see their brother in the hospital and dealing with his pain while going through treatment. I know this got Ethan thinking about Emily and her headaches and her brain surgeries. He is so protective over her anyway and he always has a difficult time when she is suffering. For now Ethan seems to be okay with all of the answers that I have given him.

Emily does continue to have her headaches. In fact, her big pituitary test that had to be rescheduled due to the hurricane is planned for next Tuesday. I'm looking forward to getting this behind us so we can move forward and finally work toward getting some answers. I even had to pick her up again from school today because of another headache. Later this afternoon Emily said something to me that I thought was a profound statement for a 7 year old child. She said, "Everybody that is healthy is lucky in this world." Wow! Isn't that the truth! This was said from her because we happened to be on our way to pick up our dog from the vet. She started talking about how the vet we use took care of a wolf at the zoo that had cancer, and then that began a conversatio​n about people with cancer, and then that led to a conversatio​n about how sometimes children have cancer, and then that led to a conversatio​n about how sometimes children have other problems like Ethan's breathing problems and Emily's brain problems, and then it went on and on about other things. That is when Emily made the statement that she did about healthy people being lucky.

The other big thing we are dealing with in our house right now is learning about the difference between different religions, mainly Christianit​y vs. Judaism. We recently started getting lots of questions like, "If Jesus was Jewish, why aren't we Jewish?" and "Why do some people not celebrate Christmas? Don't they believe in God?" I felt like it was very important for Ethan and Emily to learn about the different religions. They have also been asking what Hanukkah is and so we have been learning all about that, too. We went to the library and got some great books about it. I love the fact that the kids are so open to learning about others' beliefs, but still feel so strongly in their own faith. Ethan was adamant and stood up and said to me, "I KNOW that Jesus is God's son!" However, Ethan was very concerned when he thought that his school was putting up Christmas trees and what if there might be somebody in there that didn't celebrate Christmas.

And speaking of library books, we got another book that Ethan just loved. It was called The Legend of the Candy Cane. He was so engrossed in the story and it talked all about how the candy cane represented Jesus and that is why people have candy canes at Christmas time. He loved it so much that he has been drawing pictures of candy canes everywhere and talking about how much he loves candy canes. This Christmas has really been the first year that the kids are really getting the true meaning of the season. And maybe that is because they have been more involved in church this past year. Every year we have talked about what Christmas means, but this year they just truly seem to get it. In fact, they are so excited about it being Jesus' birthday, that we are planning on baking a birthday cake on Christmas.

This weekend is the annual Christmas in the Park in our city. Rob has Army Drill and so he won't be able to see the kids enjoy the festivities. He'll be able to see the kids tomorrow night at the tree lighting ceremony and to see Santa Claus, but he'll miss out on the snow and other activities on Saturday. We are all really bummed about this, but I guess this is what happens when you are part of the military. I guess it could be a whole lot worse. He is only missing one day of fun. At least he isn't deployed like so many other soldiers who will be missing all of the holidays with their families. We plan to make the best of the situation.