My home is comprised of three generations. My daughter, from another mother, and her four sons, my grandsons share our home. It’s delightful, yet challenging to have four rowdy, active boys around. It’s also a huge blessing to be able to impart their lives by talking and applying this training. I often think, “Where would I be if I had learned this when I was 8, or 10, or 13 years old?”
I’d like to introduce you to these four amazing boys. The fraternal twins are Bryce and Bradley, in that order. Since fraternal twins are not from the same egg, but from two eggs that were fertilized and implanted, we often say that while in the womb they shared a tent, but they had their own sleeping bag. Bryce is the oldest by 5 minutes and the typical oldest child. He’s on the honor roll at school, is a bit more reserve and sometimes takes on more responsibility than one his age usually does. He’s allowed to explore these areas with guidance. He’s great at basketball and has a wall full of ribbons from competing in gymkhanas, which are western horseback riding events, such as barrel racing and poles.
Bradley is a creative and artist young man, a bit more social and outgoing than his twin. If there’s a bunch of kids around, he’s in the middle of it all, having fun and keeping the joy and excitement at a very high level. He excels in school because of a meticulous nature, he dots the i’s and crosses his t’s. It’s interesting to watch the closeness they share as well as the differences in their personalities.
Kyler is 15 months younger. Sometimes he wants to be “the third twin” and compete with his older brothers, and sometimes he slips away to be alone, in his own space. I’ve noticed that he’s quite a thinker as he looks at situations and figures them out. I love watching him when he goes into this mode, the gears in his head start grinding and spinning. I wonder what’s going on in there and wait for the results. They will be amazing, I promise you that.
Well, Jaylon arrived three years later and he’s the apple of everyone’s eye! What a charmer. He boogies around, plunks out tunes on the piano, and keeps our home hopping. He feels with every cell of his body and expresses his joys day in and day out. Whatever he does in life, it will be done with gusto, that’s for certain.
One day I wanted to offer them a challenge with something that I heard during an event I attended. What would they come up with? I know boys are usually hungry and up for a snack. So, we sat down at our kitchen table with some great big juicy red delicious apples, the ones that just drip with flavor in every bite. I decided to cut them in half. Not vertically, or lengthwise, from stem to bottom; but horizontally, crosswise, so that we could see the star pattern in the center. Each one had half of an apple and before they began eating I asked, “How many seeds are in your apple?”
As they were munching away, they dug through the middles discovering their seeds. The lefties, Bryce and Jaylon, shared one apple. The righties, Bradley and Kyler, shared the other. We determined that our apples had between 3 and 5 seeds. H-m-m-m, that’s interesting.
Then I asked the question that I had heard at the event, “How many apples are in a seed?”
The twins looked at me as if I had slipped off my rocker!
“There aren’t apples in a seed.”
“That’s a crazy question.”
I raised my hand, which is a gesture in our home to request silence. They all looked at me, quieted down and I repeated, “How many apples are in a seed? Let’s think about it without judging the question.”
Again, they all looked at me. Their eyebrows wrinkled up as they thought about my question. Kyler tilted his head sideways and I saw those ingenious gears go to work. Jaylon, too young to know it’s a crazy question, picked up one of his seed, stared at it, and wondered if there were apples inside. We’ve often discussed “you don’t know what you don’t know” so it seemed like they were willing to be open to figuring out or learning something new.
After a few minutes, Kyler spoke, “Nana, I think I might have an answer.”
“Okay, whatcha got?” I asked.
“Well,” he said slowly, “We don’t know. There could be a lot of apples in this seed.”
Now the twins were looking at both Kyler and I as if we were nuts, but they kept quiet. I had a grin from ear to ear, watching his cognition. He continued, “If we planted our seeds and one of them grew into a tree, it would have apples on it. Apples have seeds. And those seeds could grow into apples trees and they would have more apples. This could go on forever.” Then he said some magical words, “We just don’t know how many apples; there could be an infinite number of apples in just one seed.” WOW! My body was filled with chilly bumps.
Bryce got the cognition as Kyler talked about it, so did Bradley. Jaylon did too! So I explained the concept of depth of vision. Look beyond the obvious! Explore and discover the possibilities. Our conversation was quite lively as we grasped at all the possibilities. They each came up with their own example of the obvious and what could be beyond.
As life might throw apple cores at you, use depth of vision to imagine the possibilities.
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