A Couple of Things

Ella gave the lesson for Family Night last night. She taught us about being baptized by submersion by someone with the ironic priesthood for the commision of sins. It was almost as good as the Family Night last month when I asked everyone to tell what they remembered from their scripture reading that month and Ryan told us about Nephi talking about the genitals. Yes, that would be worth remembering. Way more interesting that the Gentiles I read about.

Maddy got bangs last month and I think they look cute. She wanted Taylor Swift bangs and that's totally what they looked like. She needed to get them trimmed so I just took her into a random hair place to quickly get it done thinking anyone can trim bangs, right? Well, obviously I don't think anyone can do it because I was pretty sure I would mess it up, but I thought any professional could handle it. I was wrong. They looked okay when they were still wet at the salon but now they are clearly uneven, too short and just cut weird. Lesson learned. I keep looking at her saying her bangs look weird and she keeps suggesting I just cut them off.

Hard Things

Ella goes to afternoon kindergarten, and because of budget cuts our district has no kindergarten busing this year, so I drive her to school everyday. The kindergarteners play outside on the playground until the teachers come out, then the kids line up against the school wall and the teachers lead them inside to their classrooms. The first few days Ella needed me to walk into her class with her and she cried when I left. After that she could walk into school without me but I had to wait with her on the playground until her teacher came out. It wasn't until right before Christmas break that she told me I could drop her off in the drop-off line, and she would get out and wait by herself, as long as I parked and watched until her teacher came out, and that is what we do now. Ella likes school and when she comes home she tells me all about what she did that day. She knows all her letters, numbers and sight words and has lots of friends she talks about. The funny thing is that, even now, every day she gets out of the van with tears in her eyes, trying hard not to cry. She doesn't like that transition from home to school. Just looking at her I can see how hard it is for her to do this everyday, but even though I have offered to wait with her on the playground like I used to, she tells me she wants to do it herself. One day we were sitting on the couch together and I tried to tell her how proud I was of her for being so brave. I told her being brave meant doing something even though it's hard. She told me I was making her cry and to stop talking.

Yesterday I went to the Worldwide Leadership Training broadcast and one small comment made by one of the participants stuck out to me - they said our children need to know they can do hard things. What an important lesson to learn. How many times have I missed an opportunity because I said that's too hard? I see people living below their potential because they're scared to do anything too hard. And I've lived long enough to realize that sometimes the hard things in life aren't a choice - sometimes they come through circumstances out of our control and our only choice is how we react.

So I've been thinking about how to teach my children they can do hard things so they can take advantage of all the opportunities that will come their way, they can live up to their potential and they'll be prepared for any hardships they encounter in the future. I don't know that I have a lot of answers yet about how I'm supposed to do that, but I think about Ella going to kindergarten everyday with tears in her eyes and I'm thankful for her example. Maybe she's the one who is teaching me.

What Makes The Cut

Wynn read through my blog yesterday. Apparently he hasn't read it in a year so it took awhile. Luckily I didn't write much last year or it would have taken much longer. He kept laughing and at the end he had two questions and a suggestion. He wanted to know if I was trying to be funny and if I have thoughts like this going through my head all the time, to which I had to reply in the affirmative. Then he said I really need to do more bragging on my blog because it sounds like there's always something wrong with the kids or we're being bad parents. What can I say? Some things feel like they need to be expressed more than others.

Case in point - yesterday Wynn did something super nice for me and I remember saying to him, "Now that's something nice I can put in the blog," but now I can't for the life of me remember what he did. I'm sure there's a good lesson to be learned from that.

Charity Fail

Another winter day around here. I'm trying to embrace my winter inertia more and try to enjoy the lack of motivation I feel in January and February. Maybe I'll be happier about it if I tell myself that doing nothing productive is the plan all along. Right now I'm supposed to be exercising, but Wynn is laying in bed watching t.v. on the laptop and, of course, I can't walk on the treadmill without watching something of my own on the laptop. But it's all okay. See- I'm embracing my winter laziness. And by March there just might be a little more of me to embrace.

Yesterday I stopped to get gas and a teenage girl came up to me and asked for some money to buy a gallon of gas because she was out of gas and had no money and she just needed enough gas to make it back to her mother's house. My first thought was to say no - I don't like being asked for money by anyone face to face. It seems kind of an invasion of my personal space, you know? Besides, she looked kind of like a punk kid so I was pretty sure she was just looking for drug money. My second thought was "What would Jesus do?" And honestly I didn't know. Should I not judge and lend her a hand or let her experience the consequences of running out of gas and looking like a punk? In the end I gave her some money because all my thinking was making for somewhat of an awkward pause, and I figured if I gave her some money she wouldn't have to rob someone else to get. So really, although I gave her money, I don't think I was really being charitable - unless you count being charitable towards her future victims. On the plus side, she was very polite and thanked me profusely.

If You Twist My Arm...

Tonight at dinner Maddy told us if for some reason she was forced to marry one of her brothers she would pick Carter and Ella said she would too. Carter said this was not a compliment.

Snow

It snowed here today, but too late in the morning for school to be called off. So, although the kids' bus never showed up, and they didn't get to school until 10:00a.m, it wasn't a snow day. I was disappointed about that because it was a perfect day to play in the snow. We got quite a few inches of wet, fluffy snow, just right for snowman making, and the temperature hovered just around freezing most of the day so it wasn't too cold to stay outside. Fortunately there was still plenty of snow when they got home from school and they spent a couple of hours outside playing.

My kids usually make at least one snowman every year, despite the fact we don't often have snow on the ground for long. I was thinking about that today because, although I had plenty of snow in my childhood winters, I don't remember making snowmen. I remember trying, but snowman snow must have been pretty rare. Not to mention the fact that it was so cold outside...

I've tried to describe winters in Canada to my children, but my powers of description must be lacking because they definitely have a romantic view about it. I've tried to explain air so cold it freezes the inside of your nose when you breathe and how even if it did snow you still had to go to school, but all they say is how lucky I was to have snow on the ground all winter long. Lucky? Maybe they misunderstand the definition of that word because I felt a lot of things about winter while I was growing up and not one of those feelings was "lucky."

And if you're wondering where Ryan was while the other kids were building their snowman, he was experimenting with bike riding in the snow. His verdict? It doesn't work, but his bike has awesome brakes. He also told me while he was riding his bike on the slick hill by our house a teenage boy came by driving too fast in a truck. Ryan said he had to get out of the way to avoid getting hit, but his excited thought during this near death experience was "One day soon that can be me driving dangerously down a hill in a snowstorm!" Heaven help me.

One, Two, Three, Four

Today:

1. Ella was sick. She threw up five times last night and slept on and off most of the day. We were buddies most of the night since she looked so sad I couldn't leave her to suffer alone and ended up holding her on the couch and sleeping with her in the guest room. I'm sure the queasy feeling in my stomach right now is completely unrelated.

2. Maddy was bored. It was a day off from school and I told her no one could come over because of point #1. I didn't feel too bad because she went to a birthday party Friday night and another one most of Saturday.

I talked/forced Maddy into singing in the choir the last few weeks in an attempt to give her a place to practice singing. I'm not sure if she's completely sold on it, but I enjoy it and I'm too chicken to go without taking her as my excuse.

3. Carter was content, which is pretty typical of Carter. He likes nothing more than to spend his free time playing on the computer. On Saturday I forced him to invite friends over. He begged me not to make him, but I wouldn't relent. Carter is my child with easily the most friends and also the one least inclined to do anything with them. Weird.

4. Ryan was busy. He had a scout camp out Friday night. Saturday morning a couple of his friends called him, which was a little unusual. He got home about noon and I told him about the messages and he told me his friends called because Ryan had invited them over for a party that afternoon. So an hour later we had five boys over having an airsoft battle in the backyard. It's fun to watch Ryan grow up and, so far, do a pretty good job navigating adolescence. If only we didn't have to do it three more times...