The Weekend Edition

This weekend I went to my first Hearts at Home conference. Friday night was "Mom's Night Out" - concert with Christy Nockels and comedy by Sally Boucke and Nicole Johnson. It was such a good night for me. Saturday was the conference and I attended some good seminars. Greg stayed home with the kids, but by Sunday morning he was finished. Sunday morning, as are most Sunday mornings, was kinda crappy. The devil always gets his stinky rotten foot into our Sundays. Greg was crabby and short. The kids dressed for "March Madness" at church, only to find out when we got there that they were dressed for the next week (basketball clothing) and that this week was pajama day. Jacob, Grace and I sped home so that they could change BACK into their pajamas to go to church. We had our discipleship class and that was fine. Then Greg left to go to work for a couple of hours. I went into the service, only to be pulled out after 10 or so minutes because Jadyn was hysterical in her class. The rest of the service as good (only I am so sad that I am going to miss the MARCH MADNESS concert on March 26 - EPIC Band rocks the house!) I called Greg and we were going to go out to lunch after church. We decided on Carlos O'Kelly's because according to the wjbc website they had kids eat free on Sundays (2 per adult meal). Well, what they really offer is $2.50 off one kid's meal per adult meal. NOT KIDS EATING FREE. Oh well. We ordered and ate (it was not very good), but not before the guy dressed as a leprechaun, passing out beaded necklaces, scared the living stuff out of Grant. I mean he was screaming bloody murder. I was trying to get him out of the highchair to console him, but he had his legs and feet wrapped around the bottom of the highchair, so that every time I tried to lift him out the entire chair would lift off the ground. I eventually got him out, only to have him behave like an infant monkey for the rest of the meal. Greg went back to work and the kids and I went to Michaels to get some journals for them. We are going to start pillow pen-paling. They write in their journal and stick it under my pillow, then I write back and stick it under their pillow, and so on and so on. (Thank you Hearts at Home conference) We came home, put Jadyn and Grant to bed, studied for a science test, then it was time for Jacob and I to go to the Mother-Son Fun Day. We played basketball, parachute, had relay races, raced scooters, and Jacob even made a mummy out of his mommy. It ended with a fun pizza dinner - Jacob's favorite! We had an awesome time - just hanging out together - and of course, beating all those other kids. If you know Jacob, you know he had to win (and know he won). He told me he didn't get a trophy. I told him I could fix that - I ran up to him and gave him a BIG KISS - only to get a mouthful of sweat! ICK!!!! We really worked up a good sweat - I had to crab walk - are you kidding me?

When I got home, the rest of the family had not eaten. Of course, the one in charge knew we would be gone for dinner and knew that this person was in charge. Needless to say, a small fight ensued. Something along the lines of Greg being tired of doing everything and me expecting that he should gladly step in and take over completely for the entire weekend. Both of us - completely wrong. Both of us acting our frustrations out incorrectly - most specifically...publically in front of the kids. Later in the evening Jacob came up to me with a piece of paper on which was written "Dad" and "Mom" at the top. Under each one were lines indicating "how many we had" - you know the lines where you have 4 down and 1 on the diagonal? The lines were for how many timeouts we each were getting from him for our behavior. How perfectly sad is that? Our poor behavior affected our child in a serious way. OK - secretly I was wishing for more "timeout" and would have gladly gone there right then. Instead, I went to Greg, who was in the shower, and had a little conference in the bathroom. We need to get our act together....BOTH of us.....and NOW.

Fast forward to bedtime. I have all the kids in the girl's bed and we are getting ready to do our devotions and Greg comes in and tells Grace that she HAS to get her room cleaned - now. She was none to happy, but I told her we would wait for her to do the devotions. As she finished cleaning, she got on the bed and was crying, saying that "this was a terrible night." I kept asking her why, but she wouldn't answer me. I was getting irritated - you know the way you can when your daughter is sassily making a totally untrue comment just to irritate you and you want to slap her upside the head? Instead of doing the above-mentioned, I asked her to come with me and we went to my bedroom, shut the door and sat directly across from each other. I asked her what was making her feel the way she was feeling. After some coaxing, she said that it wasn't fair that she had to clean the room because a lot of the stuff that was out was really Jadyn's. I told her that when she is to clean her room she needs to only be concerned about her stuff and that I will have Jadyn take care of her stuff. Then she went on to tell me that she was concerned because she was "getting slow." Her explanation when something like this:

I just don't know, Mom. I wonder if something is wrong with me. Like when you tell me to get dressed, and I put my socks on last because they are on the bottom, I just sit down and look over here and then look over there and don't do what I am supposed to do. And when Dad told me to clean my room, I just didn't want to so I went real slow, you know.

Holy cow. I asked her if I could pray with her. She said yes and at this point was sitting on my lap, facing me, legs folded so that her knees were by my hips and her feet were between my legs - get the picture? We were real close and she was snuggled up in me. Before I prayed, I held her face in my hands and told her how much I love her and that God loves her more than me, and that she is so very special and important to us. Then we prayed, asking God to help her not to be distracted but to keep her eyes focused on Him as the source of her strength. After praying she said to me:

Mom, you just made my whole night so good.

PRAISE THE LORD!!! If just doing something so simple (and something that felt SO right) works like this, I AM ALL IN!!! Instead of screaming at her and asking what the heck her problem was, I was able to take her away privately and let her talk to me - ALONE. She just opened up. That easy. Crazy. But I love it - and I love her desperately. Thank you again Hearts at Home!!!!!!

Girls are in bed. I have moved onto the boys. Grant is almost asleep and I am laying in bed with Jacob. He is just going over everything we did today at the Mother-Son Fun Day and talking about how much fun he had. Then he sticks his hand under his pillow and finds his journal. He asks if her can read it now. I say yes and he reads it. I think he liked what he read because he asked if he could get up now and write back to me. Woo-hoo....score another point for Hearts at Home.....my kid WANTS to get up and write! YES!!!! BTW - Jacob wanted me to write first and Grace wanted her to write first, so Grace's is under my pillow awaiting my write-back.