Motherhood

Here is a beautiful quote from Sister Hinckley:

"I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." 

This quote warms my hearts and lets me know that I am doing it right. My priorities are in the right place, I am focused on what is most important.

I had a fun afternoon with the girls today. Becca wanted to play a game, so she got one out of the game closet. It was a puzzle game, with a spinner and 26 cards - each one with a letter of the alphabet and a picture of the word. After getting the puzzle part put together Becca and I were trying to play the game, but Lydia wanted to be involved, but her way of being involved was to pull things apart and scatter things. Becca was getting frustrated and so I improvised and gathered all the letter cards and just started handing them to Becca one by one and asking her what the picture was. She liked doing this and I remembered I had a box full of picture flash cards. I got those out and she loved going through all the flashcards. I would show her the word and then she turned the card over to see the picture. Then I pulled out the cards that had just words and I would show her the words and she would repeat it. Then she started picking  out the letter 'o' on each word with that letter. She was having a great time and I think we did that for at least a half and hour. I had a fun time doing it with her. She turns 3 this week and I was amazed at her attention span.

We had a good family home evening tonight. Tom came home from school today and announced that he is staying home from school tomorrow. This is so not like Tom, he loves school and even when he was sick he wanted to go to school. I asked him what the problem was and he said some kids at recess were making fun of him. He was trying so hard not to cry when he was telling me this. Oh how this breaks a mothers heart. I took it in stride and talked with him, and held him.
Charlie has been having trouble with this too, so for family home evening we talked about loving others.  First we all took a turn to share what we are thankful for. We have a little footstool that each of the kids took a turn standing on to tell us their thankful list. Even little Lydia got up on the stool. It is so cute that even at the young age of one year (15 months) she sees what the other kids do and she does not want to get left out. She was mostly proud of herself that she was able to climb on the stool and stand there without falling off (because she did fall off on her first try). When it was Jeremy's turn he explained that he was glad for a loving family and how that influences us to be able to love others. He explained that sometimes other kids don't feel loved and they act that out by being mean to others. We talked about what we can do when others are mean than we did a little role playing. We sang "Jesus Said Love Everyone" multiple times until the boys could sing it by themself. I am really big on primary songs and helping my kids learn them - it might have something to do with me having that calling in four different wards, but mostly it's because I love the primary songs and think if our kids can have those songs in their hearts they will remember the messages when then need a little extra help.
The name calling seems to be the main issue both boys are having - which I think is probably a common issue for kids that age - I mean, even within our own home I hear name calling going on - I think it just hurts more coming from school kids, especially if others kids catch on and further reinforce the hurt. So we suggested to the boys that if someone calls them a name they could respond, "no, my name is...". We also suggested they could just ignore the remark and then Charlie suggested they could invite that kid to play a game with them. I hope something helps and that it doesn't become a problem that really does make my kids want to stay home from school. At bedtime Tom announced that he is staying home from school, so despite our lesson, he still doesn't want to face recess tomorrow. I'm waiting to see how he feels in the morning.