kids’ imagination | The Life Well Lived

The mind is a mystery, and sometimes it is really scary. — The mind is a mystery, and sometimes, it is really scary.

Have you ever disagreed with someone and it seems as though all logic fails to convince them the errors of their ways? Unbelievably, I am not writing about a political issue even if the logic may be the same. As we deal with A’s stomach and her growing phobias, there are times we have to take a step back from our position of frustrated parents. I am sure I have frustrated many friends and teachers through the years when I have failed to grasp their reasoning, but I wonder if I am as untouched by the logic of the learned as my daughter has shown herself to be recently.

Dealing with an 8 year old who cannot eat in a restaurant because there is a fly is annoying. Having her reduced to huddling against me for safety from the fly or crying out in fear would be somewhat comical to watch from afar. We tried everything we could think of as we pointed out how big she was compared to the fly, how the horse she had just ridden was able to shake them off, and finally how little of her food the one fly was likely to eat. It did not matter as all of these arguments are adult logic. The dinner was a wash for her.

Then we went home and a fly followed us into the house. As A screamed not wanting to go to the bathroom where the fly went, we thought we would go insane. I promised to squash it if it came after her. I reminded her of the books about “Buzz” the fly. Still, teeth brushing had to happen at another sink, away from where she saw the fly.

It was just a fly!

At some point, we came to realize we were arguing the wrong way. We were using logic as an adult might to solve a problem. Her problem is deeper and more pervasive. We were proposing a gentle salve on an emotional wound deeper than we know. She cannot stop picking her hands, and suddenly she cannot eat hot dogs with ketchup on the bun. Those are just two of the many recent changes. Why? Who knows, but the phobia and sudden intense dislikes are difficult to resolve. I wish I knew what those emotions meant to her. It is like an emotional logic I just do not understand, and she does not have the vocabulary to express it.

What does one do when one’s own logic fails to sooth the results of a kid’s thought process?

“Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll be myself, in the end.” – Samuel Beckett in The Unnamable

"I'm not saying I am Wonder Woman. I'm just saying nobody has seen me and Wonder Woman in a room together." Well, I'll say it, "You are my Wonder(ful) Woman." — “I’m not saying I am Wonder Woman. I’m just saying nobody has seen me and Wonder Woman in a room together.”
Well, I’ll say it, “J,You are my Wonder(ful) Woman.”

If you need to be this close to the TV to see it, you just might be legally blind. K is, but if she is this close she enjoys watching races.

Recently, my daughter was made fun of at school and began to feel awkward having a water bottle with her in class. “Dad, when will I be able to stop drinking water during class? It’s bad enough I fart, but I feel them all looking at me when I drink.” The perils of second grade can be hell on emotional well being.

I told her to remember she is a miracle. She has lived through more than most of them ever will. She needs to remember she has lived through 4 or 5 (depending on how some exploration is counted) heart surgeries to deal with her pulmonary atresia, and she had a stroke. She has been sick enough to die multiple times. She has the scars to prove her courage and toughness. What’s more, she has bowels which aren’t moving food like they should. So she has a choice, either take the chance given to her by multiple miracles and drink the water or let the stupid things thought by 2nd graders rob her of the life she is lucky enough to live. I told her she is given a chance so many would love to have, but it’s her resilience which will make the rest of us look to her for inspiration. Then I had to explain “resilience.”

The irony is I ask her to be tougher than I am all the time. I tell her she and her siblings are my miracle, keeping me alive. We called the school to make sure the teacher is aware what is going on and how dangerous it would be for somebody with her heart condition to become dehydrated. We are debating as she enters a new school after our move next fall whether to schedule a class with her new school to explain disabilities and hers in particular.

It is hard to mention people’s lack of ability to see what others go through without pictures of K. Of course I find it hard to mention “not seeing” without pictures of her. There is hard to define justice in the joy I take from “looking” at her looking at the world around her. I wonder what and how much she sees. Then I marvel at the speed she chooses to live with reckless abandon.

"OK I see a change in the ground. I don't know how far, but lets jump." — “OK I see a change in the ground. I don’t know how far, but lets jump.”

On a somewhat related but funny vein, O’s class must have had somebody mention Nazis. He said he was thinking about them again when he heard about them in the Sound of Music. Then on Saturday morning, he said, “Dad, I think I know why they were called ‘Nazi.’ I think they could not see the goodness in different people.” I told him he can be very insightful at times, and I was glad for a morning of the thoughtful O (leaving out the “instead of the grumpy O who usually graces us in the morning”).

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Category Archives: kids’ imagination

When Logic Fails

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Our Family's Stories of Growing Up

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