I Want to Talk About it and Polar Bears

Lately when I put John down to bed and start singing him a song he will say, "wait, wait... I want to talk about it." Then I will ask what he wants to talk about. It is different every time. One night he was concerned that there were monsters that were going to say "roar" to him. So we talked about how we only let nice monsters into the house. He wasn't buying it. So then I changed to a no monster policy and that didn't convince him either. He would tell me a concern and I would come up with an answer and he wouldn't believe it. After time though he consented to going to sleep.

Tonight his concern was that the darkness was going to make him fall out of bed and bonk his head. So we talked about it.

He will also say, "I want to talk about something." So I ask him what he wants to talk about. Nine times out of ten he will say skunks. So we talk about how they are black and white and really what he wants to talk about is how they spray stinky stuff. So we spend a lot of time on that particular aspect of skunks.

This fall has been cold. By cold I mean 40s and 50s. A normal fall here would be 60s and 70s. Every time we go outside I ask John if he wants his jacket (really just a hoodie sweatshirt) and he says "no I am a polar bear." So he goes without it. One of the times he went without a jacket we were going to the grocery store. We got to the refrigerated section and my little polar bear turned back into a lizard that suns on a rock. He couldn't take the refrigerated section and wanted out of there as soon as possible.

One time I took the kids for a walk while it was 52 degrees outside. They were dying! It was then that I realized I have raised two Texas kids. They do best at 55+ and sunny.

Preschool Thanksgiving Feast

I went to Emma's preschool Thanksgiving Feast. It was cute. They sang some songs and had a feast that included deli turkey meat rolled up, corn, corn bread, blueberries, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies and ranch dip, and little pumpkin pie tartlets. Emma ate her food at her pace and like usual was the last one eating. In her defense, she got her food later but this is a common occurrence that she is the last one eating. Her teacher commented on it to me and said that Emma moves at her own pace and there isn't anything anyone can do to hurry her up. It was relieving to know that it wasn't just me that was experiencing that. That is just who Emma is - she moves at her own pace. Her teacher also said that she was very bright and always knew the answer to the questions about the Calendar.

Camping

We tried to camp in our backyard. This was a trial run for family camping. We had a 75% success rate. John was kicked out of the tent after about an hour because he kept trying to walk around in the tent. So I took him in the house to sleep. I confess, I wasn't sad.

Emma didn't like her jammie bottoms so she kept taking them off and some how she managed to wind up out of her sleeping bag on a number of occasions so she woke up cold a few times in the night. Overall though, it was successful for Aaron and Emma in the tent. I count my experience successful because I got to sleep in my bed. Poor John kept talking about how he was kicked out of the tent the next morning. Another time.... when he is older....

Reading

Emma loves reading. There are times that she won't come down out of her room in the morning because she is reading. I have had to drag her down for breakfast at 9am and she is normally up before 7am. I have also had her stay up in her room for an extra hour after quiet time because she is reading. Today we went to the Children's Museum and she wanted to read books for a good portion of the time.

If Emma is reading a book, John gets excited and snuggles up to her and listens. He doesn't quiet understand how reading works. One time he took a book to a little boy his age and asked his friend to read it to him.

Our life now depends on the library and having a constantly revolving set of books in our house. Having a fresh set of books helps avoid grumpiness here. Emma likes Cocoa and Kate, Fancy Nancy, Henry and Mudge, Annie and Snowball, Wacky Wednesday, and any book with a character named Emma in it.

John likes Leonardo the Terrible Monster and Easy Street as well as Thomas books and construction, farming, and fire truck themed books.

Santa Snacks

Emma was reading a Christmas book and there was a picture of a plate of cookies left out for Santa. Emma asked about it so I told her that people leave a plate of cookies out for Santa to eat for a snack. She asked if Santa only ate cookies. I told her no and asked her if she wanted to leave something else for Santa. She smiled and said, "pizza!"

I told Aaron about the conversation and he responded, "I think that is a great idea! Santa loves pizza!" Who knows, maybe we will be eating pizza for Christmas Eve dinner and leave some leftovers for Santa.

Incentive

Aaron was trying to motivate John to eat his chili dinner.

Aaron: John you need to at least eat the beans. John, do you want to toot? Beans help you toot!

John wasn't sold.

Beans and Bishopric

Your dad was called as the second counselor in the bishopric this weekend and set apart as a High Priest. He has been daunted by the responsibility of it all. On Sunday night we talked about the ways that we have seen the Lord prepare us in the last little bit for our family to be able to serve in this way.

One way is dried beans. For a while now I have had the thought that I need something like pea gravel to bring to church for John to "dig" with using his little yellow construction trucks during sacrament meeting. He likes to pull out the almonds and pecans and dig with those but those make a mess. A couple of Sundays ago I decided to look in the pantry to see if I had anything that would work like pea gravel (I didn't have time to find and wash rocks before church). Lentils... too small. Rice... still too small. Dried beans! So I put some in a bag and brought them to church. John was elated when he saw what he could do!! He was relatively quiet and beyond happy the entire sacrament meeting. He still let out some truck engine noises and some beeps to indicate the truck was backing up. I was so proud of myself! After church he ran up to me wanting to dig with beans. I told him he could only do it during sacrament meeting. He wanted those beans so bad that he asked to just hold the bag of beans.

This week as soon as we got to church (and we were early), John leaped for the diaper bag looking for the beans. I told him we needed to go for a walk to get wiggles out before church. He was not happy about it! He had to be carried out of the chapel to get him to go on a walk. Again, when it was time to play with beans the kid was so happy and quiet!

After Aaron's call to the bishopric, it dawned on me that the beans idea was in fact divine inspiration. I now had a way to help John be reverent during church now that Aaron would be sitting on the stand. I felt foolish for assuming that it was my great idea. I was humbled that Heavenly Father was blessing me with help for the seemingly little things. Wrestling John during sacrament meeting can be exhausting, so this was really a big blessing. I feel Heavenly Father gave this bit of help to me in advance of Aaron's call so I wouldn't panic at the thought of being left alone with the kids.

Another way that Heavenly Father has prepared our family is by prompting me to be more selective about the shows that I watch. I have been feeling this prompting for a while but managed to rationalize my way out of listening to it. I came to a breaking point and finally humbled myself enough to decide to listen. It has made a huge difference in our family. I feel like I have more time to think about my various responsibilities with family and my calling and what needs to be done. There is a better spirit in our home. Aaron commented on the fact that he hadn't realized how destructive our choices in tv had been.

This next blessing probably wouldn't have happened without removing of tv. A friend had been sick in the night, had a little baby with an ear infection and a little boy (who is John's age) who had been couped up in the house and needed to get out. So she asked if I could take her older son for the morning. Normally I am a germophob and bringing in a kid who has puking going on in the house wouldn't be my first choice. However, for this friend to ask this meant that she would have to be in a world of hurt because she doesn't ask for help. So I knew that she needed relief. The kids played amazingly well together. Afterwards I was a little worried we would get a stomach bug and end up puking. Aunt Mary was supposed to come on the weekend and if we were puking, she wouldn't be able to come.

While I was doing dishes I thought about a comment that a lady made in Sunday school the past Sunday. She said that fasting is a way for us to be like Christ because we assume a burden to lift and help another. I thought about how that principle applied to my situation. The opportunity to assume a potential burden for my friend to alleviate some pain for her. I thought about how Christ didn't count the cost of his sacrifice and how I shouldn't either. I was filled with feelings of gratitude at the opportunity to help out someone and for all the times that others had assumed a burden to help me. I no longer worried about if we got sick and Aunt Mary couldn't come - if it happened, it was still a blessing to help someone out. I thought about the blessing of being able to learn that lesson and how it wouldn't have happened had I been watching tv. It was a powerful lesson about service and sacrificing for others that I needed prior to this time when Aaron will have more responsibilities outside of our home.

As I reflected back on the experiences we have been having, I wanted to write them down so that you kids could know about them. It is humbling to see that Heavenly Father has a plan for our family and is moving forward with that plan - putting things into place to prepare us for the things that he would like us to do.