moderation

i'm continually amazed at my son's natural tendency to moderate. as i've alluded in previous entries, moderation is not something i do very well. i'm not even sure it's something i can teach very well, as i struggle to examine & let go of my false beliefs. even if i can verbally instruct the boy on proper or appropriate behaviors, i inevitably show him the opposite, and the example i set is a much more powerful teacher. luckily for him, he seems to be blessed with some inherent wisdom.

even at my advanced age, i have a sugar problem. i have a 12-oz bag of peanut m&m's i bought yesterday, and they are over half gone - they will, no doubt, be completely gone by the end of the day. close to 1800 calories of chocolate & peanutty goodness in 24 hours. that can't be good for me. Lucas, by contrast, still has halloween candy left, and he didn't even score big because he was too busy running around meeting new kids to play with down in Savannah. i've bought him candy here and there since then, and much of that would still be on top of the refrigerator if daddy hadn't finished it off. at his birthday party, all the other kids crammed their cupcakes in their mouths as if they were starving refugees, but Lucas licked half the icing off & then put it down "to finish it later." i'm not sure he ever finished it.

the echoes of my own upbringing continue to spew forth at the dinner table. the myth that supper must be finished pervades. ever since he was little and struggling to gain weight at the prescribed "healthy rate," we have been forcing Lucas to eat more than he normally wants to. he still seems small for his age, but so was i for much of my youth. he certainly doesn't seem to suffer from any lethargy. he has had problems with constipation, as well, until very recently. so maybe he doesn't feel the need to fill himself up? i was always told that i needed to clean my plate. after all, there were starving children in Africa who would be incredibly grateful to eat the food i wasted. i believe i only once suggested to my parents that they should figure out a way to send that food to Africa, because i wasn't gonna eat it. Laura & i are both tired of hounding Lucas to eat, so perhaps if he thinks he's had enough, then maybe he has?

he does the same thing with Wii and the tv. if i'm not careful, i can blow an entire Saturday watching old movies & playing videogames for hours. just one more level... Lucas will play for a little while, then put the controller down & walk away. he will find something else to entertain himself. it seems like most of the time, the show or movie or game is just a catalyst for his imagination, and he will start playing some game with himself, the rules of which only he knows. all the while, my mind is screaming something unintelligible about sitting still and finishing what he started - as if he's somehow wasting the electrons zipping across the inside of the screen if he's not watching.

these ideas of "wasting" the food, the time, the toys, the electricity - are all stuff that i was programmed to believe. again i find the voice yelling in my mind is not my own. i lament about the food left uneaten, the half-cups of chocolate milk left around, lights left on. yet if i turn the four fingers back upon myself, i find i have a tendency towards wasting resources myself. nothing makes me happier than to fill the tank of my motorcycle and burn a big loop out in the sticks. i buy a $300 set of tires for no reason other than to use them up in a couple of days on the track. let's not even mention how much fuel and money that uses between getting there, riding circles for a day or two, then getting home. i'm also a huge waster of food, not so much in the respect that i leave food uneaten - no, not this guy. i swing the other way and buy a large bag of peanut m&m's to finish in a day. given the choice of buying a single donut for .59 or three for $1.59, i will always buy three. and i will usually eat all of them. i'm also an incredibly efficient waster of time.

i'm working very hard on making some changes in the way i relate to material stuff. i've always stated that i don't really have any attachment issues - which also bears looking at, because i'm probably on the wrong side of that center, in that "stuff" has no real value to me, so i don't take good care of it or i'll break it/crash it, but then feel the utter driving compulsion to replace it, whatever the cost. i sure have alot of toys, for somebody with no attachment issues...seems like i horde stuff, like i think i'm not getting enough, at some level.

i sure hope i get some of this figured out before Lucas really starts paying close attention. in the meantime, maybe i'll let his example of moderation instruct me.