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We went to the airshow last weekend. It was a great day weather wise and the show was exciting.   The highlight for me, however was an exchange I had with my youngest son.

Because he anticipated the loud noise, my husband thought ahead to bring earplugs for each of us, which he distributed before we got out of the car. Once the Blue Angels were in full force Andrew and I both put ours on. These are the little foam chunk type of ear plugs. You basically squish them to stick them in your ear and they expand to block out loud noise. However, you can still hear a fair amount going on around you. Well, most people can, but my hearing is not that great to begin with.

A few minutes into the show however, Andrew began talking to me about what was going on around us. I told him I couldn’t hear him and he should wait. At that point, he pulled out one of his ear plugs and began to repeat what he said. It never occurred to him that taking out his ear plug, made neither his voice or my ears sharper. A little bit later he leaned in and said “if you want to talk to me, you don’t have to take your ear plugs out, I can still hear you.”

Have I mentioned before that Andrew is in fact gifted? He has a high IQ and is especially strong in math and science skills. Seriously he is. But he is also what I often refer to in a very loving tone as “a dumb little kid”. And as he continues to grow by leaps and bounds each day, it is that this child- like silliness that I will miss the most as he matures.

John Cabot Zinn is responsible for one of my favorite quotes which is, “Think of children as Zen masters in little bodies. They will teach you every lesson you need to learn in life”. It would be hard for me to pick out the millions of lessons my children teach me every day, which of them is the most important. (because I can certainly be a dumb adult). But the one I’m writing about today is of how it important it is to be able to laugh at myself. I’ve spent a life time trying to be smart enough, when in fact, one of the things I find so endearing about my child is the places where he is not yet “smart like the world”. It is an innocence so pure that it melts my heart. And it doesn’t feel too badly when I apply it to my own inadequacies as well.