Expensive Bananas

Last night, I had the opportunity to be cheered up and delighted by my son. After waking up with a horrid sore throat and achy bones yesterday, I rested all day long, watching Vanity Fair and The Darjeeling Ltd. and I took a 4 hour nap. When Ethan got home from a fun weekend with his Dad, I was ready to see him, but kind of down that we weren't going to the Super Bowl party with our friends and that we were stranded at home alone because I felt like poo and my parents went to watch the game with their Small Group.

But, Ethan made the whole night better by helping me make his dinner, stirring my coffee for me, and then when we sat down he gave me the best compliment he could come up with.

"Mom," he said, peeling his banana, spreading peanut butter on the top and taking a big bite. "You look like a banana because you're straight and bananas are straight."

"Oh really?" I asked. "So I'm yellow too?"

"No, just straight like a banana."

I love that the humor and creativity of my son can always make me laugh. He is such an encourager and challenges me to be one daily. I have never met a more friendly 4-year-old and since I have a tendency to be socially awkward with people, he stretches me when he talks with the random person in the store and asks them to come over to our house. I think that's how life is supposed to be. Inviting the poor, inviting the unknown into our homes as a chance to love them. Of course, the person never takes him seriously and they don't follow us home. Yet, I am so much more hesitant than my son, who knows no fear of people, to open up and serve in that encouraging way.

So, as I was sitting there last night with him, I thought of the future, something I'm not completely sure of as of yet. (Yet, after hearing about a guy whose life was completely rocked by a trip to Turkey, though he's more alive now than he has EVER been, I am encouraged). But last night, I was not encouraged and thought of trying to survive financially and what kind of place we will live in if I go to graduate school or if I don't. I wonder where we'll live if I don't go to grad. school and the questions go on. They are limitless. I wonder how Ethan will feel if we're poor. Ethan seems to have a mind-reading ability and right at that moment he shattered all fears.

"Mmmmm....expensive," Ethan said.

I laughed and said, "What? You're licking peanut butter off a knife."

"The taste of peanut butter is expensive mom. Yummmmmm."

What can I fear when my son feels the cheapest staple at the grocery store tastes like money? His inclination to prefer a fold-over in a blanket (which is peanutbutter on half a piece of bread, "folded-over," and then wrapped in a paper-towel, the blanket) for every meal throws out my idea that one day he will scorn the fact that peanut butter may be our only choice for that day.