S.I.M.O.

Teaching middle and high school students helped this aging coffee-drinker stay "hip with the times," but now that I rarely watch tv, mostly play with trains or trucks, and don't have a twitter account, I'm starting to lose my edge. When my younger step-sister labeled my oldest son's social disease FOMO, I thought she was speaking another language, but now I see that the "Fear Of Missing Out" syndrome has been created for the social media generation and also applies to my silly Silas. As observed by all, Silas Smith HATES to miss out on anything. He has begun to have serious panic attacks whenever he thinks SIMO (Silas is missing out) on anything! We are talking a simple diaper change, a trip to the grocery store, or a date with dad. SIMO like all social syndromes occurs when we want to be a part of everything, we don't want good times to occur without our presence. We see pictures (for others it's on social media) or hear stories (again on social media--Silas isn't on social media but you get the point) of wonderful times that excluded us. We dread the idea that insiders know something that we don't know! What is at the root of this problem? An over-inflated idea of self mixed with an irrational and unrealistic idea of others. Instead of enjoying the present moment, my sweet Silas is always wondering what is coming next. He has a rare male gift of listening to stories told in another room in order to make sure he's in on any jokes or possible preparedness for future disasters while still maintaining his individual playtime. We have tried to calmly explain that he cannot be a part of everything, nor can he know everything to which he responded appropriately, "WHY Can't I?!" Ah Ha.. there in lies the real teachable moment: "Because baby boy, you are NOT God."

Most recipients of FOMO have their identity in who they know or what they do, rather than in their creator. My prayer is that my attention-craving, experience-driven four year-old would one day realize that by trying to be everywhere all the time actually makes you miss out significantly on where you actually are. If you are always wondering and wishing you were somewhere else, you can't possibly enjoy any aspect of where you are purposely placed in the present moment. Silas also maintains a gift in his dilemma: he has a beautiful awareness of everything occurring around him. This will serve him well when he seeks to serve others. He is very in-tune with other people's emotions, which many men struggle to understand. However, letting go of watching everything will give him an inner peace to trust that God is in charge of keeping everyone under his watchful and loving eyes. I hope that if you suffer from FOMO, you'll see that not only are your fears self-inflicted, but contradictory because you are missing everything if you think you are missing anything. Enjoy where God has placed you and let go of trying to be everywhere all the time.

For those of you who simply want to know how little Levi is doing, let me just say, that boy seems to have the opposite issue of his big brother. Levi has the gift of living each moment to the fullest. He was blissfully unaware of what was happening on surgery day (two days ago) until they asked me to put the hospital gown on him. That's when he knew EXACTLY what was about to happen. Thankfully a little "relaxing medicine" had him open to anything. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your prayers. The surgery went very smoothly (minus the angry-hornet coming off anesthesia with no food, no nap, and wires all over him). The ENT doctor said Levi's ears were beyond "filled with gunk." He was surprised he could hear anything at all, so we are hopeful that speech and balance will improve now. Also, Levi's adenoids and tonsils were very swollen, but for some reason they don't take tonsils out of little ones because the risk of bleeding is major, so for now, Levi has barely any adenoids like his mama. Levi continued to improve quickly after surgery, and actually seemed to be more driven to eat in order to replenish those lost calories from his pre-op fast.

Please pray that he continues to improve, as well as learns to speak. Since I understand him pretty well already, he seems to lazily use his gestures and mono-syllabic sounds instead of real talking. We hope his weight continues to increase so that when we see our GI doc and nutritionist next month, they'll be a little more excited that we don't use his G-tube anymore.

Before surgery we were able to escape the norm, turn off our phones, and enjoy our anniversary with our boys up at my parents' lake house. No FOMO happened as we all enjoyed the sweet moments together.