Last night, Joel and I went to sleep before Jeremiah did. With quiet determination, our son declared that he would stay awake all night long. This morning I asked him if he stayed up all night. He said he had only been able to stay up half the night.
It’s 2 am. Jer’s still up. Again, he’s determined to stay awake. I asked him why. He says that someone has to stay up so they can wake up the rest of the family if there is a fire.
My five year old boy won’t sleep because he wants to warn us if there is any danger. He’s such a responsible little man.
Jeremiah worried, he thought our hotel room doesn’t have a smoke detector. I assured him that it does. He said he’s not good at hearing things when he’s sleeping. I said I’d carry him. He thinks he should sleep in my bed so it will be quicker.
Jeremiah has thought about this a lot. He gives me instructions about crawling on the floor, being careful about the stairs and leaving behind my laptop because it might slow me down.
Goodness he’s still talking about possible fire scenarios… I don’t know what started all of this. Thankfully he hasn’t noticed that this hotel room doesn’t have sprinklers like the last one did.
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Morning Update:
Jeremiah was worried about fire because he saw a yellow spot over South Carolina on the Weather Channel. He thought this meant a fire causing storm was in the forecast. He must have mixed up a few recent events. [Grass fires by grandma's house and tornadoes near Springfield.]
After trying to convince him that the yellow on the map did not mean fire, I suggested that we should pray that God will keep us safe.
That’s when the questions started again:
“If God wants to keep us safe, why does He send dangerous storms?”
“There are good storms and bad storms, Mom. Good rain and bad rain. WHY does God put bad things in the world? Why DOES he do that?… Maybe he wants the flowers to grow… but why make the bad storms?”“It rains on good people and bad people. Why doesn’t he just have the bad storms go to only the bad people? That’s what God should do.”
Questions, questions, questions. Our little ones are full of them. And sometimes I feel like I have very limited answers. Especially when I don’t completely get it either. We cry out to Father God, “Why!” a lot too. THankfully, He knows Why, and He can comfort us.
On another note, I know several little boys who have all been intrigued by fire when they were Jeremiah’s age. My cousin talked about firemen constantly, how hot fires were, how to put them out, all sorts of things.
I’m glad you found out why he was worried though and you can help calm his fears.
Comment by Hillery — March 28, 2006 @ 6:11 pm
Was Jeremiah at preschool the day the firemen came to talk? That was pretty early on….ever since then Lauren is always talking about fires and asking whether or not our house will burn down. We finally told her because it was brick it won’t- so we are safe. She seemed satisfied with that and hasn’t acted so scared since. I feel bad for lying, especially since she is freaked out whenever we go to spend the night somewhere in a non-brick house. I almost want to write a letter to the DLC saying maybe the Fire Safety/Firemen coming to visit talk to 4 yr olds is not a good idea. Because I didn’t meet a real fireman until kindergarten and all I remember is Stop, Drop, and Roll- and it wasn’t so scary at all……….
Comment by Letty — March 29, 2006 @ 1:18 am
Jer says he wasn’t at preschool when the fire fighter came. I think his concern came after seeing the Texas Panhandle fires, watching too much of the Weather Channel and thinking we don’t have a smoke detector.
Comment by Amy — March 29, 2006 @ 1:52 am