Since when is winning not enough?

Live:  Kids can be really tiring... Enough said. You know what I'm talking about.

It does, however, give you the opportunity to grow, or become a heartless, raging doo doo head.

It feel like, even though the kids are using their baby telepathy to communicate and give us a hard time just to let us know who's really the boss, my wife and I are, using it to help change us into the parents and people we more want to be...

That's right, parents are people.

You're always assessing what is working and what isn't working and tweaking the processes a little every day. In that process your changing yourself and your habits and eventually, your very nature.

I think that's why raising children seems like it goes by so quickly.

I remember my time in the missionary training center. When I was there I was learning all day, every day. And when you're learning that much all the time, the days, for me anyway, seemed to take forever. It wasn't just the learning though, it was the huge anticipation of what was coming next.

When my kids are growing, from the time they're born, you are always looking forward to the next thing. You look forward to when they'll first smile at you, or for them to roll over, or to sit up, or walk, or sleep through the night, or talk or go to school so they can leave you alone some, etc. until the day comes when they're leaving...

and then all you want is for time to stop and back up.

Be where you are and be when you are.

Love:  My girls are starting to play together. My oldest will talk to her sister and show her things she can do with the exersaucer and ask her how she's doing and what she's doing. She'll bring her toys to play with and try to share her strawberries. She'll tell her she loves her. Even in the middle of all the tiringness I talked about before, this stuff cuts through it all like katana through...well most things.


Make Music:  Today I did some composition with my Kindergarteners and 1st graders. I got some foam hearts and put notes on them. Each group got 12 hearts and had to make 3 rows of 4 hearts to perform for the class. They did really well. It took a little for them to figure out how they were going to decide where to put them, but when they did, it was rolling. Once a group was ready, they did their lines for the class.

I also did games with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. Every time I said "and whoever (insert action here) wins," some one in my class said "so what do we get?" Since when is winning not enough?

Just more tiring kids.