Otuwel

two weeks ago, on our way home from church, isaac had this great, novel idea to go out for lunch! oh trust me, he doesn't just say, "can we go out for lunch?" he knows that enthusiasm is contagious, so in a very animated way he says, "yooou knooow, mamaaaa, since we don't get to go to a.j. pickermans anymore, i had the ideeeaaaa that we should go somewhere else for lunch!" that was our tradition every sunday after church, until they went out of business, much to our disappointment. we explained that we were out of money for the month, so we were going to just eat at home.

• "but what are we going to have?"
• "we don't have anything exciting to eat."
• "now i have nothing to look forward to."
• "we never go out to eat anymore."
• "can we have our computer time?"
• "when can we have our computer time?"
• "what is for dessert?"
• "i don't like peanut butter and jelly."
• "are you going to use the healthy peanut butter or the good peanut butter?"
• "remember i don't like the bread with things in it."
• "when are we going to go to build-a-bear?"
• "you said we were going to go to build-a-bear."

i tried to remain calm as my blood pressure kept rising. i kept looking over at jeremy wondering if he was as appalled as i was. was i really hearing this? could my child be spoiled and ungrateful? how did this happen?! jeremy wasn't getting as worked up as me, which made me even more frustrated. i didn't know what to say. i wasn't sure how to handle this situation other than to say the usual, " "you should be happy to have anything to eat." "you know, isaac, that there are children in this world, even here in waterloo, that don't know where their next meal will come from." where did we go so wrong that our child was terribly upset that he had to eat a meal in the comfort of his own home?! the one minute drive home from church seemed an eternity, as the ungrateful questions kept rolling out. when we pulled into the garage, i marched ahead of everyone into the house, went straight for the computer, and desperately started googling many different combinations of the following words: starving children, africa video appropriate for children, ungrateful, greedy, spoiled, world vision, those less fortunate, world hope, sponsor a child, overindulgence. see this is what happens! my emotions get the better of me and i forget about my responsibilities. thank goodness for jeremy, who calmly started making lunch. but then i got all worked up again wondering why he didn't think this was a bigger deal and at the same time feeling a bit ridiculous at my possible over-reaction. i started freaking out that i couldn't find an article to explain how i should talk about this with my child - it was pertinent that we discuss this BEFORE we ate and while it was relevant! this was a teachable moment of which to be taken advantage. jeremy calmly, but with raised eyebrows, told me to calm down. he is so darn CALM! he said, "staci, they are only six. relax." "relax?! you didn't see that four year-old on oprah who didn't want any gifts for his bday because he had everything he needed and instead wanted everyone coming to his birthday party to bring a gift for a needy child! we've lost two years!!!" i finally quit looking for an article and pulled up a starving-children-in-africa video. i called for the kids to come to the computer. "there. pull up your chairs and watch. after you watch this video, you will feel happy to have peanut butter and jelly for lunch." as soon as the minute long video started, i began bawling. for once, i hoped the kids saw me cry. they watched the monitor very intently, but said nothing when it was over and didn't even comment on my tears. so i pulled up another video and hit play. jeremy said, "staaaaci, staaaaci, staaaaci. that's enough. relax. they get the idea." once again realizing how ridiculous my behavior was, i felt a bit silly and told the kids they could go eat lunch. unfortunately, they didn't seem too worked up. they didn't have as many questions as i had hoped and by now, i was out of energy. jeremy said some pretty great things. he's a man of few, but very effective words. i wish i had that. anyway, the boys brainstormed ways to get food to these kids and phoebe just repeated everything: oliver wanted to involve a canon to shoot the food over to africa and isaac said we could just make some extra sandwiches. i mentioned that maybe we could sponsor a needy child and explained what that meant, including the fact that we'd have to find a way to pay for that child. they seemed to think it was a good idea, as long as they didn't have to sell toys they liked in the garage sale. jeremy pulled up world vision, an organization we'd heard good things about, and let the boys choose a child to sponsor. they chose otuwel - a ten year-old zambian boy likes to play soccer. the minute they saw that little boy's face, they ran to get paper to write him a letter. oliver's said, "i love you. we are going to give you some toys." isaac's said, "how are you? can you tell me what your favorite subject is?" this left me feeling a bit more hopeful that all isn't lost in the empathy department. there is a little more to this story. stay tuned - i'll save it for 'otuwel - part 2'.