Teacher or Contractor

There hasn't been too much happen at our house this week. There have been a couple things worth celebrating though. Eric (10) got to lead the TaeKwonDo class during stretching for the first 10 minutes of class last night. He has been taking lessons with little brother and with Dad too since October. The class consists of 20-30 people in all age ranges. There's teens, moms and dads, grandparents and a few kids. Eric is usually one of the younger ones in attendence (his brother wins that award). He had a little help from a senior ranking class member, but it was quite the experience. Normally, only blackbelts lead stretching. He was very excited and proud of his accomplishment. The rest of the class and the Master Teacher applauded his efforts. Our little teacher!

We are currently undergoing some construction work in our basement. Watching the progress each day/week has been fun. Next week the dry wall goes up and some carpet may get installed in another area of the house. This process has brought out a side of Joel (7) that we hadn't noticed before. He is very willing to help "build stuff" and wants to help the workers hammer, or dig, or paint etc . . . Joel and Eric were doing "scientific sound tests" to see if they could hear the difference between the room with insulation up and the rest of the basement. This is all very official business, you see! They take it quite seriously. Perhaps Joel has found his calling!

We are thankful for good health this week in our house and are looking forward to a nice weekend. March is almost here, so we all hope that means that the snow will not return.

Old Fashioned Ways

This morning while making breakfast for my two boys and myself, my 7-year old pleaded for my attention. I knew this was something serious or seriously important to him. I stopped buttering the toast and looked up at him to see what he was so dramatic about.

First let me describe the setting. Joel, the 7-year old, is in our 3-season room just off of the kitchen. He is sitting on the floor in front of the television. This, by the way, is a normal morning occurrence on school days. The weather today is quite cold here in Iowa. The three-season room is very cold in the winter so we have a space heater for just these occasions.

Joel normally sits or stands quite close to the heater to warm himself while playing video games. When he called for my attention, and I finally looked up from my breakfast preparing, he was smiling so big . . . the kind of smile a kid makes when he is doing something he believes to be truely clever! Joel wanted me to watch him as he stepped away from the heater and rubbed his little hands together as quick as he could. He exclaimed, "Look, Mom! Am I warming my hands the old fashioned way?

I smiled as I watched for a minute. You could see the pride on his face that he felt for accomplishing this genius task! It reminded me how much boys love to do things on their own and realize new abilities. I love having kids! And I love my boys! What new things will we discover next time? What new adventures are waiting for them in their lifetimes?

My prayer for them is that they allow God to mold them into great men who will do GREAT BIG things for God! And my prayer for myself is that I will gain the wisdom from God to know the difference between lessons they need to learn from God and tragedies I need to intervene in.

President's Day

A funny thing about politics . . . political views can be contagious. They are in our family! My seven-year-old son was somewhat disappointed today because he wasn't excited to celebrate our current president. His question was, "Why do they make people celebrate a president who has only been in Washington for a few weeks and most of that time he's been traveling in Illinois?" My thoughts I kept to myself, but couldn't help smiling over the irony from my 7-year old!

What's in your outlook?

Today was very anticipated. I had built up the day and looked forward to some quality time with my husband. We had spent some special time with our kids last night and planned a date with each other for today.
It was not all roses and sweetness though. The day began with bad news and it was hard to feel joy about the anticipated events of the day. I knew I could better my day with a change in my outlook. If I chose to focus on the unexpected (and unwanted) negative circumstances, my day would remain dissapointing, giving no matter to the planned events. It was a challenge to face the unwanted circumstances, but necessary. And it was absolutely necessary to face them with the right attitude. This proved even more challenging. It was not a joyous time getting through the rough part of the day.

Now, with hindsight, the day was great. I might be tempted to believe that the day was ruined by the unwanted circumstances and bad news. It might be easy to focus on the negative news and feel that all good was erased by the bad. A second look at the day changes my mind.

Was breakfast ruined? No. The cinnamon rolls I made were great, everyone was glad to have a special treat. The kids had a fun play date planned...and that went great. I got to have dinner out with my husband. We ended the day with some good conversation and laughs. All in all, the bad news didn't get the best of us.

While the bad news was something we feared, something we did not want to happen/hear, and something that brought us grief--it did not ruin our day, or lives, or family, or future.

It's all in the outlook.
Hope you had a great Valentine's Day.

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