Echoes have been on my mind quite a bit lately for so many reasons. First, my kids are both obsessed with echoes. As soon as they figure out that their voice echoes, they will continuously do it and smile…until I acknowledge their talent of echoing or give a good old fashion mama look to stop. The place that it drives me the craziest is the foyer of our church. Of course, as you can imagine, it draws quite a bit of attention. Echoes have also just driven me nuts lately because my LaLa and Little Bit are little echoes in and of themselves! If I say or do something, you can just about guarantee that one of them will repeat it or mimic it. And, they also echo one another….constantly.
Periodically, we have movie night. We make it a really big deal! We make popcorn, eat dinner on blankets in the living room…in our jammies…and settle in for a movie. It’s one of our loved traditions. Tonight, it was Kung Fu Panda. My daughter gets very excited about movie night. After school today, we went to pick up our movie night supplies. We went in Kroger (they have dollar movies) to choose our movie. My kiddos were touching the touch screen just as I would make some progress on the machine. Frustrated, I put Little Bit down and tried to block her in with my legs spread cowboy style while she and LaLa pointed at pictures and letters on the machine. (I’m sure it all looked quite entertaining.) Well, I was just about finished, and LaLa yells “PeeeeeePeeeeeee” ! “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEmergencY!” Now, I know that it rarely an actual emergency with LaLa, and I was almost done with this machine so I told LaLa just to hold it for a few more seconds. Please know that there were people waiting behind us too.
As soon as you tell a three year old to “hold” it, they literally grab themselves and HOLD it! I’ve explained that this is not necessary, and obviously, she took none of it to heart! I tried to ignore it as she continuously grabbed herself chanting “peeee peeee, peeeee peeeee, peeeee peeee.” Next thing I know, Little Bit grabs herself (like her big sister) and starts doing the same pee dance yelling “EEEEEE EEEE, EEEEE, EEEEE”. I even had to stop for a moment because this was new for my one year old and quite funny….for a second. You could tell the people that had kids from the people that didn’t. I had looks from what is wrong with your kids to pure pity to genuine amusement! Finally, I scanned my card, grabbed our movies, and my little echoes and we all ran for the potty. One simple task turned out to be quite an ordeal, but we survived and accomplished our mission!
My kids have picked up on this concept of echoing quite innocently, but if you think about it, we do this as adults quite often unintentionally. We tend to “echo” who we spend our time around. If they are positive and uplifting, then, usually, we are too. If they have positive habits, then we will more than likely pick up on those same habits. We are almost unconsciously “inspired”…by others, but the same thing can be said for the opposite spectrum of that. Negative behaviors tend to echo negative associations. If you think about it, we have all been on that “negative” side. How many times have we mamas been in a bad mood or stressed and it becomes contagious? It creates an echo effect!
A Chinese Proverb says, “A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles”. If you replace “word” with “deed” or “attitude” or “mood” or any of the such, the same truth is still evident. I have to be even extra cautious lately because I could become “echoed” at any moment. What about all the times that I am echoed and don’t even realize it? Could it be the time I gossiped? Could it be the time I lost my patience with my kids, my husband, or the cell phone lady that didn’t know what she was doing? Could it be the time that I missed an opportunity to say I love you or thank you? I usually don’t even realize who my echo touches.
Mama Drama Rule #17: In everything you say and in everything you do, imagine you are being echoed loudly by your loved ones….would you be saying and doing the same things? If not, watch out for that echo. Its reach is farther than you may think.
No comments:
Post a Comment