One of Charlie’s favorite activities is playing with the portable DVD player and fiddling with all of the available buttons. He’s gotten adept and finding his favorite place on the video using fast forward and now days is really obsessed with rewinding the player and hitting the back button.
On some discs, hitting the back back button will take you to all the special features on the DVD. On other discs, you land on the FBI warning page and once you’re there, you’re stuck. No going backward, no going forward, just stuck there looking at the boring blue screen.
Charlie’s doesn’t seem to be able to get it through his head that these DVDs are this way. He joyfully hits that back button and then wails in despair when the blue screen appears. Twenty seconds later, we’re in the same place again. He just can’t understand why he can’t get to the bonus material.
Hubby and I are big fans of learning from experience and so we let him go ahead and get frustrated—sometimes many times over—before we intervene and change the disc to one that does his bidding. 
Recently we were in the car with my brother-in-law while the FBI screen meltdown was occurring a few more times than one would like. Out of nowhere, he chuckled.
“What?” I inquired feeling more than a little defensive about my kid’s atrocious behavior.
“Well, I was just wondering if there’s a metaphor in there somewhere. Is there any place in my life where I keep doing the same thing expecting a different result and then getting upset when it doesn’t work out?”
Good question, huh? So I’m asking myself the same thing: am I spinning my wheels somewhere? Wasting my time and energy on something that just doesn’t seem to be paying off?
What about you? Time for a change somewhere?
