Ever since Branson turned 8 back in May we’ve wanted to take him out for a birthday dinner in order to have the “big talk” with him. Earlier this year I read a book by Linda and Richard Eyre (LDS writers who have 9 children of their own) and in it they suggested that the appropriate age to talk to kids was 8 when the child still trusts and listens to their parents and are impressionable. And because it opens up the conversation for when they DO start hearing about it at school. Unfortunately time completely escaped from us though with Adam being out of town to India, family reunions, after school parties, camping trips, and a busy babysitter, so we weren’t able to have the talk right away.
Finally this last week we were able to fit our big date with Branson into our schedule and make it happen. Mum and Smurf kindly agreed to take the little kids for us up at their house and then we took Branson to the restaurant of his choice – that of McDonalds – where he ordered nuggets, fries, and a shake! We wanted a quiet place to eat our food though so we opted to go and take it to a park. Branson chose the park that we pass all the time on the way to Elkridge. It ended up being the perfect place because we were the only people there – so it was a great place to talk in private.
Adam and I again used the book from Linda and Richard Eyre to create the dialogue for our big talk, and then we also read another book with cartoon pictures to help explain things a bit better. Branson seemed to take it all in very well (but was sure wide eyed at certain parts). We presented it all to him though as the most amazing awesome thing in the world and by the end he really could see how it was! Adam and I both thought it went really good and Bransons reaction was just to give us both really big hugs and tell us he loved us. We were glad he’d taken it so well! After our talk we took advantage of the playground and had fun just playing around. Below are some pics from our evening together.
Adam and Brans loved this numbers puzzle where you had to put all the numbers in order. It was more difficult than it looked!
Crazy boy!
We sure do love our Branson and hope to instill in him a feeling of openness, trust, and love where he can always come to us to talk about anything. We feel so blessed to have these little ones in our stewardship and to be able to teach them these very important things about life.