Monday, February 8, 2010

Making Important Choices

Making choices is an important part of everyone's life.  You are faced with choices every day and the decisions you make shape your life.  Yes, some decisions are not as important at others.  Choosing between a hamburger and pizza is not going to be a life altering decision most days.  Choosing between a hamburger and a salad over the course of 30 years might make a difference though.

From the time we are children we start making decisions. Eventually they lead to choosing friends, choosing activities, choosing colleges, choosing a major, choosing a job, and so on.  One day you will choose a home and a spouse.

Braden is already making choices.  Each day he chooses what toys to play with.  He chooses what he wants to eat much of the time.  He decides which ball to slam dunk or which thing in the house to bash with his baseball bat.

Sometimes we take him to Wal Mart and let him choose a toy.  We usually do this when we have to return a toy that he already has, which is quite often.  After executing the return we let Braden pick out a new toy with his money.  This weekend we took Braden on such a trip.  All of the toys in Wal Mart were available to him. He could have anything he wanted.  We were allowing total freedom of choice for the wee man.

This is what he picked.  He wore it through the store for the rest of our shopping trip.


As you can see he also likes to wear it when he is eating chocolate.


I guess this is a lesson for us as parents.  We can do our best to prepare Braden for the choices he has to make in life.  We can guide him, teach him, and encourage him, but even after all that we will never know for sure what choices he will make.

12 comments:

WeaselMomma said...

I love the hat! I think Braden made a great choice.

Brandy@YDK said...

I think he made a great choice.

Katherine said...

Oh, but it's so cute!

This is a great post, btw.

Brian Miller said...

ha. that is a choice you can walk away from...one of these days you will have to help him make a lot tougher ones...

Unknown said...

thats the best toy! At any given point you will find Shae with something on, a tutu, a cowboy hat, a pirate eye patch. It's a great way to let them express themselves!

Unknown said...

Braden reminds me of a young Jack Palance.

seashore subjects said...

He chose well. That hat is great!

Jack Steiner said...

All we can do as parents is try to give the kids the tools/skills to make good choices.

After that we hold our breath and pray. At least I do, I pray that he is a smarter than I was. Oy, I gave my parents such grief.

SAHD PDX said...

That is fine looking hat partner and a great choice. It's funny how some of these funny and mundane choices are teaching him to be his own person and are the building blocks to man he is going to be. Well done.

Anonymous said...

Life is full of choices and we can only help our children make the best ones they can. No matter what it should make for an interesting journey. I definitely couldn't pull off a hat like that though.

Tom said...

He's got it goin' on. "When you're faced with a tough choice, always go for the cowboy hat."

SurprisedMom said...

Children will always surprise you with some of the choices they make. I love the hat Braden chose. I wonder if they have it in my size :)