Only God

Sam really likes these educational books that I bought from one of those door-to-door salesmen that you are supposed to make leave. He loves to read through all of the science and history information. Last night, he was heading to bed early, so I told him we could read the entire thing. (LONG! BORING!) He chose the history one (Who lived in castles?). Towards the end, I read something about a native American tribe worshipping the sun god in a festival of some kind (you can see how much attention I pay to the details…).

"They're making fun of God," Sam said very matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"Well, they are making fun of God because of the sun god and our God says not to do that because there should be no other gods but our God," he said.

Whoa. That just blew my mind. That's not a scripture I've beaten into him, nor have we ever had a conversation about that. He just came up with it on his own. We've read the story about the children of God wandering in the desert, the calf, and those kind of things, but I had no idea he could piece it all together like that.

At the same time, I was thinking that I don't want him judging people that lived hundreds of years ago based upon our beliefs, right? So I said, "That's true. God wants us to only worship Him. These people didn't know about God though."

"Well, we do," he said. And that was that.

It is simultaneously thrilling and frightening that he is absorbing so much information and processing it like that. But it is good to know that reading all of those non-fiction books might be sinking in something for future use.

BMB: Piano: Why was that a good idea again?

Sam has started taking piano lessons. He's really pretty good. He always wants me to help him, which surprises me. I hated it when my mom tried to help me with my piano lessons. Sam's his own man, though, and he prefers me to sit with him while he practices.


This has brought about its own set of challenges. First, our schedule is crazy and so there is no consistent time to practice. Second, I really didn't think his 20 minutes at the piano would be MY 20 minutes at the piano. Finally, though Sam wants my help, he really hates it too.

So last night, we waited until too late to practice. It was right before bed, which I now know is not a good idea. He has this need to do everything perfectly. When he misses one note, it sends him completely over the edge. He gets all pouty, and at one point, he started to cry.

I was being the model parent, encouraging him to keep trying, telling him that it takes work, etc. But it resulted in trauma and melt down, and finally bedtime. Let's just say it wasn't my finest parenting moment. I was so frustrated that my model parenting was met with such poor results, which caused me to melt down and contribute to the drama.

So, as is often the case, I went to bed frustrated and discouraged with my role as parent. I prayed and read the Bible (I'm in Proverbs, which is great for learning about gaining and imparting wisdom), but was still feeling down. Just before I went to sleep, I remembered what I told Sam during his practice. He was complaining about how piano is so hard, and he just couldn't get it right. I said:

"You know, Sam, the best things in life are often hard to do. The fun things. That's why we practice, so that we can get better and do fun things, like read or play basketball or piano."

Later I said, "You don't need to be perfect. We practice so that we can keep getting better. Everyone makes mistakes!"

I dish out pretty good advice sometimes. If only I'd take it myself. Parenting is no different, really. It's great. It's one of the most important roles I'll ever play in life. But instead of reminding myself that I just need to keep getting better every day, I demand perfection. Of course, perfection being impossible, I'm constantly discouraged.

So, I'm trying a new tactic: giving myself permission to make mistakes. But when I make them, I need to learn from them and keep going, rather than banish myself to time-out until the end of time.

Playing Pirates

Those of you who regularly read our blog know that we like to pretend to be pirates. My bed is our ship, Sam's the captain, then Kate, then Maddie. I am a lowly shipmate.

He got a book for his birthday last year that has fun pirate activities. It's been sitting on the shelf for ages, but for some reason they found it last night. Sam had found instructions for creating our own pirate hat. Now, I want to say that the instructions were pretty lacking. But, we did our best. Sam did his own cutting and traced the second piece. Kate modeled her hat. That's about it. But here are the pics of their homemade pirate gear.

I'm including all four that I took because I think they are so funny. I know in one of them they are saying "Arrgh!" like pirates, but one looks like a booty shaking dance, so I have no idea what that was.

My curious Kate

Kate and I had a conversation at bedtime last night about my chin. She pointed to the dimple and said, "What's that mommy?" I said, "That's a dimple in my chin." She asked about it a couple more times and I said, "I got it from Papaw. He has a dimple in his chin too. It's one of the ways I look like Papaw." She said, "Nooooo. You don't look like Papaw. You're mommy!"

I thought the conversation was over, but then she pointed to one side of the dimple and said, "What's in there?" I laughed and said, "I'm not sure. Cartilage and stuff I guess."

Something’s actually getting through…

The kids and I have been praying for Baby Riley—a little guy in our church who was born with his esophagus separated from his stomach and who has been living at CMH for weeks now with more weeks and surgery to go. I've tried to include them in the process of praying for Riley and his mama, because I think they can relate to the idea of babies being sick and I think it involves them in the overall process of intercessory prayer. (Obviously, intercessory not being a word that I've used with the kids. J )

A couple of weeks ago (I know, I'm late), Sam was praying for baby Riley and he said, "… and help Baby Riley to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God." For those of you who don't know, that's the verse that I have prayed over Sam since he was born. It's from I Samuel 2:26, and describes young Samuel, who had been a gift to his mother Hannah that she returned to God's work, and the same passage is echoed in Luke 2:52 about Jesus, but adds the word "and man" to the end. So, I am guilty of praying either version, partially because I like that Jesus was favored by God AND by man.

But here, in the middle of our car ride to the babysitter, a very routine event, Sam used the exact wording of the verse that I pray for him. At the time, I couldn't even remember the last time I'd spoken those words aloud over Sam, but obviously, he's heard them. And to quote them word for word—not to win a sticker at Awana or because it was in a song—meant such a great deal to me. That seed has been planted in his heart that God plans for him to grow in wisdom and stature. We talked about it later that night and he said he thought it was really important for Riley to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God too.

I wrote Riley's mama and told her about the event. It must be a promise if it comes from God through a heart so pure and sweet as Sam's.

Wild Weekend Pictures

We had a really fun weekend. There was snow (finally!) and parties, and more of the six-part Star Wars movie marathon. Whew. We have some great pictures.

The first few are from a Parents as Teachers activity that we go to annually-- the ride-on toys at the skating rink thing. It's really fun and it's a good chance for the little ones to ride around during the winter. Kate wanted to take her new tricycle (she got it for Christmas). She was so tired, because she's fighting ear infections, but she rode for quite a while and got pretty good. I'm sure by summer she'll be chasing Sam consistently.

These next pictures are from playing in the snow on Saturday morning. The kids have been waiting all winter for enough snow to play in, and we finally got it. It was really cold, so we couldn't stay out too long. They both had hot chocolate when we came in, and Sam finally likes it semi-warm. Sam did go sledding in the afternoon with Daddy, but he came back with windburned cheeks!

Finally, we had our movie night. They took baths prior to the movie, so I thought it might be a good time to try putting foam curlers in Kate's hair. She asked for them a couple of weeks ago, but I was skeptical that she'd leave them in long enough to do anything. She slept in them great, and in fact was upset when some fell out overnight. She wanted me to put them back in! After the movie, Return of the Jedi, I took these pictures of my little jedi deep in battle. In the first they are fighting with light sabers (obviously) and in the last they are using the force on me.

And here's a picture Sam took of Kate on Sunday night. Her hair looked really cute!

And another star wars geek is born...

We've been watching the original Star Wars trilogy as a family. Yes, that's right, even Kate. Sam is loving it, and he's quite accurate at his Star Wars theme humming. He cracks me up because he knows parts of the movie because of the Lego Star Wars game he plays on the DS. He'll say, "Oh, in the game, Leia takes off her mask for this part." Crazy.

Last night we finished "Return of the Jedi." When I was putting him to bed, I asked him if he liked it. He said, "Yeah, but I kind of wish we'd have watched them 1-2-3-4-5-6 instead of, you know, 4-5-6 and then the others."

"Yeah, we all wish that, honey. But your dad thought you should have the same confusing experience the rest of us did."