There are moments here when this momma heart sighs with contentment. Moments when you know despite the ways you have messed up ... by the grace of God something is getting through to your children. God has given me many opportunities to see this being played out lately.
Our kids being like any other normal child from 2 -10 years of age have this problem with dilly dallying their way through getting dressed, brushing their teeth, showering, or any other day to day activity. Now just times that by 15 and you have a typical day here. Getting them ready for anything seems to take FOREVER. They will be sent to their room to do something and finally reappear 30 minutes later. It makes for craziness as you wait on them for breakfast or need to get them off to class...not to mention what they were getting into as they did the things they shouldn't be doing instead of what they should be doing. I long ago learned two tricks to raising children. 1. They love competing and racing one another. 2. They LOVE candy. So last week sometime I started doing competitions between the girls and boys. The first one to get dressed, make their beds, clean up their room, and be sitting at the table won. Meaning if all the boys made it to the table first and were sitting quietly they each got a piece of candy. It took them awhile to catch on. The big boys would hurry through getting ready and would be sitting down but the little ones would be nowhere to be found. As the days went on the bigger ones learned to help the little ones. They learned that cheering had no place in this game or they would be disqualified for failing the sitting quietly part. The girls managed to win the first couple of days but once the boys found a routine of who did what and who help whom the girls had no chance. The girls haven't won a day since. A couple of days ago the boys had won yet again and were sitting proudly with their candy in hand. As I walked back into the kitchen to put the candy away I stopped dead in my tracks as I watched the boys each bite their candy in half and then stand up and give the other half to one of the girls. I found tears prickling my eyes as Brayan explained that the girls hadn't won in awhile and so had watched the boys get candy day after day....so they shared. Whew...talk about a proud momma. By no doing of my own they seem to be shaping into beautiful young people. Don't get me wrong they still do all the rotten kid type stuff but I'll definitely take the bad with the good that I'm seeing!
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