The Razor's Edge

LUKE: HIGH POTENTIAL WITH A HIGH PROBABILITY OF LAUGHTER


What is it with kids and razors? I think everyone I know has, at one time or another in their childhood, picked up a razor and cut themselves. Last night as I walked back and checked on all the kids before I went to bed I found my son, Elijah, asleep with bloody tissues all over his bed. He had used our tub for his bath and, as 9-year-old boys will sometimes do, got curious about Mommy's razor. He knows he is not supposed to touch it. He has been told it can cut him. He has even seen a cut on my leg and asked only to hear that I had cut myself with my razor while shaving. But last night he removed the safety cover, which isn't just a slide off cover, it's actually set up to where you have to press in on both ends for it to come off, something his little hands have grown big enough to do. And from there he cut his thumb. Not a bad cut. He shaved off a small layer of skin on the corner of his thumb, just enough to cause it to bleed. That combined with him being wet made way for lots of bloody tissue. As he slept I cleaned it up and bandaged it properly with a dab of triple antibiotic ointment to prevent it from getting infected.

As I went and laid down in my own bed I thought about him cutting himself and all the times I had warned him. We do a lot of talking about potential, probability and consequences here. Parents are always telling their kids things like, "Don't jump on the couch you could fall off and break your neck," "Don't climb up on that you could fall and get hurt," "Don't eat so much candy, you'll make yourself sick," "Don't play in the road, you'll get hit by a car." Then the kid will sneak behind your back and do these very things and when the warning doesn't happen they lose respect for what you are telling them. With my kids I tell them you are increasing the probability or the potential that you will get hurt. I explained to them that when I was little I was told not to climb the neighbor's tree as I could fall and get hurt or even die. When I snuck and climbed it and didn't get hurt I just knew my parents didn't know what they were talking about. About the fifth time I snuck up in that tree I reached up and grabbed a branch, as I always did in climbing, and went to pull myself up... but the branch was dying and broke off and down I went, landing flat on my back knocking the wind out of me. I laid there on the ground looking up, stunned fighting to breathe. I lifted my hand and looked at the branch that was still in it as my lungs finally allowed me to inflate them with air. There was a brief second during that time that I thought I was truly going to die. I didn't and nothing had gotten broken.

I told the kids that every time you jump on the couch you are not going to fall off... but eventually you will if you continue to do it. You are increasing the chances of it happening. The potential is there and the probability increases every time. And the worst thing about it is that you don't get a do over.

Julia has, twice now, over eaten to the point of leaving the table only to end up throwing up. It's been well over a year since she last did that.

Three of the youngest, Luke, Ajia and Samuel, still, from time to time, leave their cup on the edge of the table. Most nights it doesn't get spilled. At least 3 - 4 times each they have dumped it over. The consequence, because they know the potential and probability, is an early bedtime on top of having to clean it up themselves until Mommy is satisfied it is all cleaned up. They, too, have not done this in about 6 months.

Mathew fell off our bed once and never tried to get off by himself after that. It's a long way to the floor for a three-year-old.

I continue to leave my brief case leaned up against my desk where I have, twice now, whacked my toe into it leaving me in blinding pain. AND IT'S STILL THERE!!

So in our house the rule is you are not allowed to jump on the couch or from couch to couch, as our boys tend to want to do. If you do then you increase the chance of a couple of things. One, is that you will get caught and go to bed early. Two, is that you will finally hit that one time that you or someone else will get hurt because of it and you can't take it back.

This morning I reinforced with Elijah that he knew the potential was there for him to get hurt. He hoped the probability was not there and then found out that is was there and he got cut just like he had been warned. Now his finger is sore and it is going to sting when sweat gets into it tonight at his football practice. It may sting like that for the next few days. The consequences are his.

This got me thinking about God and us, as his children. God gave us the bible to guide us and warn us. He gave us the intelligence to see other dangers and warn each other. But how many times in our lives do we have all the information about the dangers of something and just ignore it and do it anyway. "Don't drink and drive." "Curve ahead 25mph." "Smoking is hazardous to your health." "No diving." "Speed limit 55." And those are just some of the "in your face" things. There are also the little things that we know we shouldn't do like overeat, use credit cards, gossip and so on.

Then I thought about when we are wounded and imagined God coming in while we were unaware and bandaging our wounds. Giving peace to our hearts. Lifting our spirits, our souls. Making it better so we could arise and move forward, hopefully aware, as I made sure my son was this morning, of where we went wrong so we can avoid doing it again. Recognizing the potential and probability and avoiding those things as to not suffer the consequences of that one time we can't take back.