Hannah's Song

This is not Hannah's first song, it's her second (although it's a little chorus, actually). I adore it, but then maybe I'm just a proud mama. See what you think. I just corrected her spelling, but everything else is as she wrote it. Together we're working on the music (because she asked me to help her).

You're the One of us, Your blessing is true

But when I see Your face

And feel Your warm embrace

I know there is none like You

I know there is none like You.

I don't know, folks, but I think this is pretty good for a 7-year-old. I'm especially glad she wrote it about Jesus. And it sure is precious to me.

Better Than Ice Cream

Before church tonight, Seth asked me if I thought anyone would get the Holy Ghost. I told him that I sure hoped so, but that if he wanted it, he could get the Holy Ghost himself.

"No," he said, "I'm too little."

"You're not too little Seth," I replied back.

His dad joined in the conversation at this point. "How old do you think you need to be to get the Holy Ghost, Seth?" he asks.

"Oh, about 15," he answers earnestly.

His dad made a statement that I think, in its own way, is profound. Dave has a special way of bringing a subject down to a kids' level of understanding and is much better at it than I am.

"Can you imagine waiting to try ice cream until you were 15, Seth?" he asks.

"No," was Seth's obvious answer.

"Well, the Holy Ghost is so much better than ice cream, Seth. Believe me, you want it as soon as you possibly can, and you don't have to wait until you are 15," was his wise reply.

Seth had no more questions. I'm hopeful that it made him think.

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One more quick story about my son.

He was a total goober in church tonight, which is very shocking I know. The problem was that I decided not to sit at the back. The kids are old enough now that they should not misbehave and cause too much distraction, and I wanted to sit closer to my oldest niece so that we could corroborate what song to pick for altar call, since I was in charge of it tonight.

Seth was very delighted with this prospect because it meant, as I was soon to see, that he had a much bigger audience to entertain. He so exasperated me that at one point I turned around to one of my nieces sitting behind me and said that I was going to kill him, sit him on my lap so that I could gently talk to him about behaviour tonight and beg him not to do that in the future discipline him at home.

The triple toppers for me came when he: a) refused to come to me when I motioned for him to; b) COVERED HIS EARS again so I couldn't talk to him quietly (although he didn't hit me in the face this time, which he needs to thank his lucky stars and GOD for); and c) stuck his little index finger up at me in a sassy motion to quieten me.

He came home, and after his proper ration of bread and water a bedtime snack, he went to bed without a story. He laid there for at least two hours before he went to sleep because he wasn't tired, so justice was served.

If only he could remember what his dad told him was better than ice cream.

Ten Years

I can't believe that I'm actually posting a picture with ME in it. But, ten years deserves something special and I guess I have to accept the way I really look. So, 641 extra pounds, 377 more wrinkles, 97 new gray hair AND...............

TWO UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME KIDS LATER.......

I'm still alive and half sane. I can't say that we haven't had some major ups and downs, but I cannot imagine life without my "other half" (or is it more 1/4 to 3/4: him and I? - if you know what I mean).

SO: Here's to the next TEN, darling..............................cuz you know at our age, we have to take time in smaller increments, after all.

First Day Of School

My son started kindergarten today. At home. He finally accepted the fact that he was starting yesterday after initially protesting mildly.

I have expected all along that teaching him would be entirely different than his sister for many different reasons. Because of this, I was geared up to be tried severely today.

I ended up having a wonderful first day teaching. I expected to have to change what I was doing every five minutes or so because of his attention span. He ended up cooperating with me for an hour and a half and accomplished some language/phonics as well as doing incredibly well in math. It was plain to see today that math will come much easier at this point, which is typical for boys. He actually didn't want to stop, he was that excited. I bragged him up to daddy, and he was very proud to show him his accomplishments when he came home from work.

My girl, on the other hand, exceeded my expectations as well, but for an entirely different reason. Feeling quite seasoned in dealing with her temperament and knowing her strengths, I felt confident we would have a great first day. I was very wrong. It's funny now to look back and see how backward I was with the expectations of my children.

Unfortunately, Hannah is cursed with a very similar personality trait as her mother. I have always been lazy with working on things that do not come naturally for me. I was the first one in my family to show an interest in playing the piano and taught myself some very basic piano. However, my natural ability only took me so far, so when that ability ended and hard work and practice has to be utilized, my growth as a piano player stopped. I was the same way in school. I managed to graduate with my average in the 70's without applying myself much at all. I never learned study habits and passed by whatever knowledge I happened to memorize. This is my Hannah's personality, unfortunately.

She is so very bright in almost everything, and what she isn't as bright in she is still by no means "stupid", just not quite as bright as her other subjects. She was flying along today through her school, aceing everything as usual. Then she hit a roadblock.

Her handwriting.

She does not find it easy, but is not willing to take small steps to improve. I wanted her to write letters and small words over and over; she wanted to write whole sentences because she was impatient about one little teeny word. As a result she was frustrated when she struggled with writing the sentence neatly and staying in the lines. Her meltdown came when I told her to go back to the beginning and start writing one-letter-at-a-time.

Let's just say that by the end of the morning, she did not finish school. She ended up throwing a fit like I haven't seen her throw in years and I had to make her stay in her room until she settled herself down. That took about two hours. TWO WHOLE HOURS. She kept coming out of her room to talk about it, but was still so out of control and unable to be reasononed with that I had to send her back in.

I sat at the kitchen table, head in my hands, praying while she was carrying on in her room. It's tough as a parent to see replays of actions you knew you performed as a child (and sometimes even as an adult) being carried forth in your children. I felt like someone was playing a home movie of me carrying on when I was a kid.

On a positive note, however, after the storm settled and she finished school, she told me she wanted to type. She called me in a while later to show me the song she wrote. Perhaps I'll post it another time (it's on her computer in her room, where she's sleeping), but was I ever proud of her. It was a cute kid's song about a mouse and a cat (she told me she used those words because they were easy to rhyme with) and I thought it was actually pretty good.

I will always, always treasure the first song she ever wrote.

In any event, it's been quite a day and I sure hope tomorrow is not a repeat.

Except, of course, in the case of my son.

Gentle Wallop

This is a story about my son.

I am truly blessed and thankful that God gave him to me.

But he's a rascal sometimes, and that's a fact.

We were in Calgary this past weekend staying with friends of ours and attending special church services. We had a grand time and it became apparent during the last service Sunday night that my son was having a grand time as well.

It started when I leaned over to whisper in his ear to strongly suggest that he change his behaviour (although if the truth be told, I cannot remember exactly what the particular infraction was at that time). He anticipated this move of mine and decided to cover his ears so I could not whisper anything to him at all. When I attempted to remove his hands, he decided it was time to SMACK MY FACE.

I was shocked. This is not a regular practice of his, and because of this it stunned me momentarily. I know there are any number of things I should have done, but because he has not done this before and I was still in shock, all that I did was let him know that he was NEVER, under any circumstances, to smack my face again.

Within a short time, I had to turn around to again whisper in his ear asking him to stop his misbehaviour. Again, he covered his ears. Again, I removed his hands from his ears. And, again.....you guessed it. He smacked my face. Not hard, but definitely in defiance. I told him that when we got back to our friends that he better say his prayers was getting a spanking. Now please folks, don't send me your "do not spank" comments because I will always believe that there are times when it is necessary, like when your children are defying you. I believe this because although the Lord will deal with us gently way more often than not, we do get the occasional "spanking" from Him as well when we're being brats. That's a fact.

Church ended on a very high note, and although I did not forget about my promise to spank my son, neither was I mad about the incident either. Apparently it was weighing heavily on my son's mind though, as I soon found out on our way back to our friends' house.

"Mom, would you please not spank me and give me a second chance?" he asked.

"I did give you a second chance, Seth," I replied.

"But mom, would you please give me a second chance?" he asked again. I guess he must have meant a second second chance. His dad spoke up then and reiterated what I had already said.

"But mom, if you spank me, I might be mad," he warned me. Since I was not moved, he tried a different tactic.

"Mom, will you please spank me gently?" he asked.

"Well," I said, "that depends. If you willingly come to me and I don't have to fight you, maybe I will," I replied. As you can imagine, five-year-olds can be pretty tough and I have had a hard time turning his wiry little body around at times so I can spank his bottom.

He brooded about this for a while, and then informed me that he would "cooperate".

By this time, his dad and I were highly amused. Any parent with any sense of humour at all would have been. I took no pleasure in the thought of spanking my son, but firmly believe that it was necessary for this type of nasty, defiant behaviour, and if it was necessary then it was better that it was without rancor from both parties.

We all went quietly downstairs. I sat down on the bed and waited to see what would happen. To my surprise, my son came up to me and very willingly leaned over and stuck out his derriere to receive his just recompense. He was so compliant, in fact, that I almost could not spank him. But, just as I said I would, I quite gently spanked him twice on his bum. He looked up at me, surprised, and said,

"That didn't hurt at all." His dad and I could not look at each other for a while. Then we tried to use his obedience to teach him a lesson.

As much as I don't like spanking my son, it does seem to have more effect than any other method I have found so far, and I have tried many things. When the evening ends good and your son loves you and you feel blessed of God for this wonderful lad He's given you, then I believe it's worked like it was meant to work.

Just like the times when I've hated God's "spanking" - I am His child after all - but eventually realized how much I deserved it and loved God even more as a result.

And just as my Seffie loves me.

Exhausted

It's been a tiring week and I'm plum worn out. I started back driving school bus on a new route which, in the long run, will be wonderful. It's very close to my house and is about one-half to one-third of my last year's route, for the same pay.

However, I am facing new challenges. I'm adjusting to driving a bigger bus and having over 100 kids ride my bus (I have to make two laps around my neighbourhood). Many of these kids are immigrants, and a few do not speak any English. They live in a huge apartment complex across the street from my house, along with about 90 percent of the kids I drive.

And all of them, including the kids that rode the bus last year, BELIEVE THE SEATS ARE TRAMPOLINES AND THE AISLES ARE THERE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF RUNNING LAPS IN.

Evidently, the wonderful gentleman who drove this route for many, many years wanted the children to have fun. He basically closed his eyes and ears and let them do pretty much anything (except eat - maybe because he didn't like cleaning up messes??). Most of them have no clue how to behave on a bus. And the older, seasoned kids confirmed that "Bob didn't make us do that" on a few occasions.

I now have my work cut out for me. For the sake of my job (I believe anyway) and their safety, THEY WILL LEARN. Or die trying.

Today I brought along a huge tubful of suckers and used bribery positive reinforcement. It actually broke my heart slightly when I had to let some of the kids off the bus without their sucker because they didn't remember to obey the rules. But I had no choice and encouraged them that next time I was quite sure they would remember.

Tell me, whatever am I going to do when my suckers run out? Since I haven't yet made my first million, I need to come up with other ways to encourage obedience.

I think I'm up for the challenge. It's been a whole four days, after all.

Tim Hawkins - The Government Can

This is hilarious and is true of government in general (although especially true of the current American Administration............. just had to get that in!)