Around the time Elly was born, Ed and I realized that Ethan was raising his voice whenever he spoke to us quite a bit. We would tell him something quite calmly and he would respond with a loud voice edging on anger. It didn’t take us long to realize why he was doing this. Quite simply it’s because we do this to him. Why? Well, he never seems to be listening to us. So, we raise our voice in hopes that volume will compensate for the fact that his attention is elsewhere. In essence, we’ve had to change our ways so he will change his.
It is true that I wonder multiple times a day if Ethan hears two words I say. I feel like a broken record as I repeat his name hundreds of times a day just to get him to look at me and respond. However, I am learning that just because he seems to be focused on something else does not mean he isn’t listening.
For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I was reminding Emry that God “never slumbers of sleeps”. I didn’t even know Ethan, who was bouncing around on the couch, was listening to the conversation until he piped up, “But Jesus sleeps.” I opened my mouth to correct him when he elaborated, “He fell asleep in the boat in the storm.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
A week later I took him with me to my parents’ guest room to feed Elly when we were visiting because he needed to take a break from playing with his cousins and calm down a bit. Some of our old toddler toys are in a bin in that room and he proceeded to raid them as I fed Elly. He found my sister Grace’s old Speak ‘n Spin and started pulling the lever to hear the nursery rhymes. Since the voice box is a little unclear after nearly 30 years, I repeated each one after the recording played so he understood it. One of the rhymes was, “Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and doesn’t know where to find them.”
Ethan replied, “Jesus can find the lost sheep.”
I had to laugh, but I was also inwardly rejoicing that he remembered that story and really does listen!
At least, sometimes…
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