How to Answer a Simple Question..

Tonight it was Reagan's job to unload the dishwasher. After several minutes of laughter and screwing around, I call down to her and ask, "Are you almost done?" She replies, "I don't know, I think you would say...probably not" Gotta love the well thought out answers!!

How to get what you want when you are 8.

Today I have been listening a little closer to the conversations my children have with each other. I'd have to say that a good percentage of them are one negotiation after another. "if you go downstairs with me, I'll go with you next time." "If you go get that toy, I'll go get something for you" "If you give me a bite of that I will give you two SMALL bites of mine." Now is it negotiation or is it manipulation?? Whatever it is it works great!! The person who brings it up almost always gets what they want and the other person almost always forgets to cash in on the future deal!! I need to re-learn this skill..."I'll wax the car next week if you'll clean the toilets today!" LOL Maybe I should say...oh wait, if I try to use it on the girls their minds are still quite sharp as they remind me of things I "promised" two months ago. I think they know I am one step this side of medication and they can tell me things and I can't remember if I said it or not. Oh..they are good! In hindsight I am not sure when we lose this ability or if it just becomes more subtle as we get older, but for now I think I will keep a secret tally of who gets what based on the deals being made. I am pretty sure there is an underdog here in our family who may need a little help remembering!! It's just too fun messing with them!!

How does that happen??

Today I have been thinking about the invisible jobs people have. For an example, in my home one can go to the cupboard at any given moment and there are clean glasses to drink from. They can typically go to their drawers and find clean clothes. How does this happen? Some where in this house there are people who do invisible jobs. The toys that got picked up by a thoughtful child, the garbage cans that get brought up to the house, a spill that is wiped up, or a towel that gets put over the tub. How often do we thank the people in our lives that do the invisible jobs? Today let's make it a point to say thank you to at least one person who thinks what they do is invisible!!

How Do You Pray?

Yesterday I was trying to make some cards and Ryan decided he wanted to come over and pray with me. So he takes one hand and babbles some words followed by an emphatic, "AMEN!" I let go and pick something up and he says, "pray?" so we do it again, and again and again. Then he grabs both of my hands so I know our "prayers" are getting serious now and my sweet son begins..."Jesus...cheese...stICK (he really punches the last part of the word)...Milk...Juice...Becca...shoes...crocks...AMEN" I think he used every word he could say really well. It was so darn cute. So I told him to go pray with daddy in the other room. So he jumps off his chair, bashes his face on the table and gets a bloody lip...prayer time has officially ended. Glad I got to go to the meeting! I just love that my son already loves to talk to Jesus!!

What is a "Sloppy God?"

Ever play "Catch Phrase?" Well it's one of those games that is timed and you have to get your team to say a particular word without saying any part of the word they are trying to guess. Anyway, we were playing this and Reagan was on my team. The word we had was "sloppy joe" Reagan has never heard of or had a sloppy joe so I had to go about getting her to say the words a different way. We started with the word "sloppy" OK if your homework is not neat, mommy says it's too ___ to turn in...Reagan yells, "sloppy" Well score this is going to be easy!! So we move on to "joe" OK...What is Jesus' dad's name...Mary and..but before we could get that she says, "God"..."Sloppy God" LOL umm...no but at least she knows who Jesus' real "dad" is. I'm sure even God got a chuckle out of that one!!

How Do You Define Courage?

A few years ago we defined courage as "Doing It Scared." Reagan gets the most practice at this. Since she is the oldest and is paving the way, her courageous acts often make things easier for her sister and brother who watch her every move. One experience in particular brings this concept out best and I want to share it with you. Reagan is on the Hampden Aquatic Club Swim Team and she is learning all the proper strokes and everything. She really has come a long way.
A few weeks ago the team had time trials and they used the diving end of the pool. As she jumped in, she quickly realized that she was not going to touch the bottom and wasn't entirely sure she was going to make it to the top and this made her start to cry. However, instead of getting out she "did it scared" and finished her lap. I was so proud of her and I know that I learned something watching her finish even though she was scared to death! She amazed even further when she got back in the pool a second time to do her back stroke. She doesn't realize just how amazing she is. This thing she accomplished makes me know that whatever I tackle in life, even if I am scared, I just have to keep going. When she was done, she was telling me about what was going on down by the pool. I told her she need not fear next time because all of the people by the side of the pool are watching to make sure she doesn't drown. Isn't that so true in our lives? When we feel like our circumstances might cause us to drown, all we need to do is look around at the family and friends that surround us and know that all we must do is keep swimming! Upon her next lesson she asked me what she should do if she had to jump in that end of the pool again, and I told her to jump right in again and again until she not afraid any more. Today she is not afraid. It is one more time that courage developed character and it is a lesson that will go so far beyond swimming for her and for me.

What Do You Say To Keep Yourself Out Of Trouble?

Rebecca yells.." MOOOMMMEEE" in her most whiny voice and so I know a tattle is sure to follow. Reagan knows her opportunity is short so after she hears my tired, "what?" she yells..."Rebecca is paying back evil for evil!" Now to us this is funny because we are always talking about how the Bible says not to repay evil for evil. More than once a day I am encouraging one or the other to just walk away or do something nice or for heaven sake just don't do anything at all!!! It's nice to hear that they have the lesson, perhaps application just needs a little tweaking!!

Where is Your Treasure?

My son is not a treasure hunter, but one who apparently stores his treasures. Now the child has never seen an Indiana Jones movie so I am not sure how he knew to "bury" it in "sand" but nonetheless he did. Here is my young "Indy."
Seeing his moment while I was cooking dinner and daddy was upstairs, he went into the cupboard. Now it is a running joke at my house that the cabinets are NOT locked because I keep telling Ron this is a phase and he's almost through it. Now in my defense, he hasn't gone in the cupboards in a couple of months. ANYWAY, he took out a container of bread crumbs. Not the one with a few in the bottom, but the full one I just opened. He takes it into the sitting room, opens his secret vault (aka the heat vent) and pours it in!
Every last crumb. It's as if the container never housed bread crumbs, it was so clean! I come around the corner to check on him, a little late as you can see, and here he is digging in his new "idea."
Of course I grab my camera because I knew you'd want to see. I call Ron and ask him to get the vacuum because I am busy "cooking." In goes the vacuum, out comes several cups of bread crumbs, a small cup and a shoe.
That shoe is too small so I guess it is a keepsake now. Ryan was quite proud of himself until we started to excavate his treasure..then he got mad. Hopefully he'll discover it is better to hunt treasure, than to bury it!!