Explaining a Cemetery

Did you ever watch a movie and just watch it? No explaining, no thinking, no brain waves firing? Yep, we used to do that too. Watch a movie, just to watch.

These days when we watch with the boys, the movie does not end when the credits roll. You do not passively sit and watch any part of the movie, every corner of that screen is analyzed, every piece of the background action is absorbed.

It really makes it hard to pick a show that will work for entertainment as most lead to a lot of stress for the boys and stress for the parents. I think the pause and rewind button on our remote is worn out.

School was dismissed early due to weather today and mid afternoon I decided we needed a little noise relief and put in a movie. We actually made it a good distance into it before I had to stop and explain something. I think we restarted the movie after a half hour talk. The question.....what is that place? It was Arlington National Cemetery. The boys know what a cemetery is, what grave markers are. They had not seen a military funeral or the very obvious military markers of Arlington.

Lucas and Eli asked why they were all the same, where it was at, who was buried there, if we knew anyone buried there, does everyone in a war go there, do they put the flag in the grave, how many markers are there in the cemetery and so many other things that I can't even remember. The thing that amazes me is that the view of Arlington was way in the background, not a major feature of the show.

Can you imagine watching a show and pulling that much detail from the picture. No wonder videos are so overwhelming to them. Next time you sit down to watch tv or a movie try this experiment, don't look at the foreground of the picture, look way in the back. Try it for 5 minutes. It will give you great insight into the mind of someone who is processing every piece of data they can lay their minds to. And for those of you who meet up with Lucas and Eli on a daily basis.....just because they may not see what's in front of them, they may be seeing what is out of your vision.