Monday, September 23, 2019

A testimony to my son

A very public meltdown during the Sacrament on Sunday revealed to the world that Sam's struggling a little bit right now with a lot of emotions. We've had a couple of rough weeks where Sam has been angry at a lot of things, and we're both feeling pretty exhausted by it. I'm exhausted at trying to be a good mom in the face of great temptation to smack my kid, and Sam's exhausted at always being in trouble, and feeling like he can never succeed. I think everyone else in the family is tired of having to take care of their own problems while Sam and I work on his. So, it's been rough on all of us.

Sam lost his temper again this morning, and after finally calming down, he cried and hugged me and said, "It doesn't matter how hard I try, I can't do things right. I don't have any choice." As I hugged him, I felt all of his despair. We sat in the rocking chair, and I told him a story. "Long, long ago, we lived in heaven with our Heavenly Father. He told us that we needed to go to earth to progress. And someone named Satan said, 'I will make it so everyone has to be good, and they can all come back to heaven.'" Sam didn't like that idea, because of all the people I know, Sam values his freedom to choose the most. "Then someone else named Jesus Christ stood up and said, 'I will pay the punishment for everyone's mistakes so that everyone can choose for themselves.'" Tears came to my eyes as I told Sam that I know life is hard, but Jesus Christ had given him a fabulous gift: the power to overcome ANY problem he had in life. I felt it as strong as anything I've ever felt before - we (every. single. one. of. us, even Sam) CAN overcome ANY problem we have. The moment I said it, I knew it was completely true.

Think of it: we have the power to choose for ourselves. No thing or person can make us be the way we don't want to be, because of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's just fabulously amazing to me today. I'm really grateful for that beautiful moment of clarity in the midst of a tough morning.

Choose good, all y'all. Even if it's hard.

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

More kid funnies

You know, learning a language requires going out on a limb a lot, and that means you make mistakes. And mistakes are sometimes funny. So I don't want my kids to think (when they grow up and found out that I wrote all this stuff about them) that I'm making fun of them. I'm just keeping a sense of humor about our life adventures! And I'll say, especially in praying, it's so easy to get in a rut and just say the same things over and over. So kudos to my kids for trying to say new things!

On Saturday, Sam was anticipating the start of school after the weekend and tried to sign, "Please bless the start of school." But he couldn't quite remember how start goes...so he did the best he remembered, and instead signed, "Please bless school to hurt."

__________

We were on the way home from that only-somewhat-painful first day of school drop-off when Martha saw a dog in a car and thought that was sort of cool. This blew my mind, because Martha has traditionally had about the same opinion of dogs as she does of spinach, bears or martians: they are definitely to be avoided. I asked, "Do you want to have a dog for our car, too?"

"No, we should get a dog for our yard, and then we can take it in the car when we want to. But not a dog, a puppy. Because a puppy is a baby dog. They're small."

(Mom is thinking, yeah right you'd like a puppy. They're really hyper and would scare you to DEATH.")

"Hey, Mom! I know how to sign baby dog! You sign baby, then dog!"

She was very proud of herself :)

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I read an alphabet book to Jane today. I said the letter, and signed it, too. She's getting pretty good at her letters, so when we got to "e" I said, "What letter is this?" She looked at my hand and triumphantly declared, "Jane!"

See, when we spell her name, J-A-N-E, she just sees the E at the end. So she thinks E is Jane.

How cool is that, she has a letter of the alphabet named after her!

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So, I did something I know I shouldn't do this week. I was talking to some friends, and they used a sign I didn't know, and I was sorta losing track of the conversation, and I was a little tired...so I just smiled and nodded a bit. Usually the conversation comes back to something I understand, and I can rejoin pretty quickly. But suddenly, one of the ladies turned to me and signed, "Do you like (the word I didn't know.)? Gah, I was caught! I'd been here nodding like I was totally following the conversation, and now I had to confess that I didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

It was sushi.

And, yes I like some sushi, but no, I'm not totally in love with it like some people are. Just in case you're wondering, like my friends probably still are, because it took so long for me to figure out what they were talking about that the conversation sorta broke down. :) But it's ok, we're in Primary together, so they have to talk to me again. Bwahaha :)