Monday, October 24, 2016

be grateful for you kids, as they are

Humble brag; my kids are smart.  They are precocious.  The challenge that comes with this is to teach them to work hard because a lot of things are easy for them.  And because it's fun to be "superior" it's easy to forget that being good at things is not the same as being good, and definitely does not make you better than other people. 

I have some acquaintances whose little girls are also precocious.  They've mentioned on several occasions that they "Almost wish" their high strung girls were dumb.  It was funny-ish, in the way that you later regret laughing along, the first time.  But since they've mentioned it to me more than once, it becomes part of their shtick. 

Thanks to my habit of reading the Hax advice column, I know that I don't have any place to bring this up to them.  If they ask for advice on how I have managed my early reader, late emotional intelligence, super star, I guess I have a chance to say something.  But mostly I think I'd say, blah blah blah.  I don't know!  I often recognize myself as the major problem in my relationship with that child.  She is adorable and helpful and willing.  She feeds off my stress, sadly.

I got to go have the children's pictures taken recently by a professional photographer in the woods!  I love good pictures.  This same photographer took the amazing halloween photo 2 years ago.  It's a gem!  The children were promised a chocolate if they smiled and didn't pout for the pictures.  They all got one, except the baby. 

B has been obsessed with the computer lately.  He knows how to turn them on and get to the games.  It's been intense catching him on the computer 10 times a day.  I've tried to just always stay in that room.  I've been pretty successful at inviting him to come read a book with me.  Hurray he'd rather read a book with me.  But he also needs to learn boundaries.  So tonight we made a "computer" chart that has yellow paper dots that move off the "computer" when I catch him on there at the wrong time.  I really hope he can learn to control himself.

I've been reading "The Marshmallow Test" and it's great!  Hurray for Popular Science.  This book has a lot of good advice for training myself and the children to have greater ability to delay gratification for later rewards. 

I gave a lesson on Sunday about Patience.  I learned that yet another major idea has missed me my whole life.  Patience is not just waiting.  It is waiting without anxiety, complaining, fear and all that junk that makes it harder to wait, and doesn't accomplish anything.  So that's a rather amazing revelation for me.  To be patient with the kids, I have a lot of work to do. 

Yesterday night I noticed that G's hearing aid was missing.  The 2.5K loaner hearing aid that he got just before the hurricane 2 weeks ago.  Missing.  "You won't have any birthdays if we have to pay for that."  "No computer time until it is found."  I declared. 

G responded by praying fervently and muttering about being a bad scout.  Late into the night he was crying that God hadn't answered his prayers.  I turned on the light to tell him that God answers prayers and that it was wrong to blame this on God.  This morning G was reading and when I told him to keep looking he said "I already prayed and God didn't answer!"  Ohhhhh.  So we had more discussion about works, and "after all you can do..."

I kept looking and looking.  I eventually did find it and I'm not sure I'm not the one that stashed it away in a safe place.  G was never wearing it because it had a strange earmold that gave a lot of feedback, and since it wasn't waterproof, it was a huge liability.  So knowing he never wore it, I may have put it in this little jar and put it up on the shelf in the travel bag for his CI stuff.  I feel bad for making him so stressed out about it.  I wish we'd never borrowed it. 

Each of my children are amazing and incandescent.  I feel so blessed to be their mother.  I can't believe how good P is to me and how incredible it is that we have this beautiful life and these wonderful children.

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