Teaching opportunities

Like most parents, I find such joy in "teaching opportunities" with my children. The times where you feel what you are explaining to them will shape them as a person. Those "wow, I am a parent" moments. With Lexi, those times have been abundant. She is curious and extremely verbal- so questions come daily. However with Robbie , those moments are more rare. The other night I had one of those moments. I was putting Robbie to bed.( Usually either Rob or I lay with him and put something on the TV that we think he will find boring. He usually has had melatonin and falls asleep. ) On this night he was tired and I didn't feel he needed melatonin. We were laying in him room watching Extreme Weight Loss. The person featured was missing an arm. I missed the beginning of the program, but it looked as if he had been born that way. Robbie said "no hand, where's hand?" that progressed to "No arm. Look boo boo." While these words may not seem like much - especially for the average 7 year old, they were amazing to me. I explained that some people only have 1 arm or leg. People can be different. This boy does not hurt, he simply has 1 arm. We continued to talk about the boy and people in general. A real conversation!!! Robbie was engaged, asking appropriate questions, and listening intently to my response. I turned the TV off and he fell asleep. A beautiful night. ( Even if he did wake up at 3am).