mom learned her lesson

For the first time in a long time Jonah and I watched a cartoon together on the computer. We haven't had our TV set up since Jonah was about four or five months old, so he has only watched TV a handful of times in his life. Maybe three times total? I've shown him cartoons on a couple of occasions before when he was sick with a fever and I wanted to slow him down. But at the time he was just about a year old and his reaction was more of a non-reaction. He just sat there mesmerized. This time, we watched a Czech cartoon about a little mole. I grew up on this stuff. First, we watched Krtek a zelená hvězda or Mole and the Green Star.



When the mole cried, I got a little emotional. The film tugged at my heartstrings, okay? Hey, I grew up watching this stuff, so I got a little teary-eyed. I hid my half a dozen tears from Jonah, who looked worried about the crying mole. Nevertheless, he asked to watch the cartoon again. The second time he knew what was coming when and predicted when the birds would enter the scene and when the bunny would... This time around, though, he got so worked up when the mole cried, that he began to cry a terribly sad and loud cry. He could't stop. I was horrified that I might have traumatized him. But stupid enough to let him watch another mole cartoon the next day:



This one was even more emotionally trying for Jonah. When the mole squeezed into the glass bottle and floated around in the see, Jonah was very concerned about him. Then, when the little boy appeared and shot an arrow aimed at the mole's rocket ship in the end, Jonah started bawling uncontrollably.

He empathizes so much these days that he couldn't handle any thought of danger or injury bestowed upon our hero, the mole.

I took a long time to calm him down. Finally, I resolved to not show him cartoons for a long time to come, even if they are created with little children in mind. He is so sensitive now and he takes the cartoons seriously. Lesson learned.