The Search for 'Inner Petes'

My children are diehard animal lovers.  Toys, games, clothing, books, and movies are ALL enjoyed 10 times more if they feature animals.  In fact, since my kids first found out that we need to move this year, I have gotten a thousand requests for us to buy a farm.

Back in February, we finally rented the film “Kung Fu Panda 2.”  My kids absolutely LOVED the first movie with all its fun animal characters, so they were dying to watch the sequel.  Throughout the movie, they laughed happily and got extremely excited during each and every action sequence.  Overall, they had an awesome time!

After it was over, I asked my son (6) and daughter (almost 5) what they had thought of “Kung Fu Panda 2.”  My son immediately exclaimed, “It was so cool!”

My daughter piped in, “I’m gonna love pandas forever and ever now!”

Any more discussion had to wait, however, because they were so stoked from the film that they ran off to play 'pandas' upstairs.

About a week later, my little ones were still pretending they were pandas off on kung fu adventures.  They were racing through the house trying to defeat the “bad guys,” darting all around me as I was cleaning our living room.

Then suddenly, I felt a tap on my back.  I turned around and there was my son looking up at me with a puzzled look on his face.  He chewed on his lower lip for a second and then asked me, “Mommy, what is inner petes?  I need to know.   ALL pandas need to find it!”

I chuckled and then explained to both of them that Po was searching for inner peace, NOT ‘inner petes.’  I told them that we all have to accept who are and  have to learn to forgive and move on from the bad things that have happened.  I thought for a second I had gotten through to them, but then my son smiled and shouted, “Let’s go find inner petes!”

As I watched my son and daughter run off on another little adventure, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps we all could use a little ‘inner petes!’