His House Flooded

This morning, my 4yo noticed a table top plastic doll house that I had stored in the laundry room. So, he quickly informed me what he desired his morning playtime to include... the playhouse.

Mondays are Co Op days and very busy so I promised I would pull it down once we returned from my weekly volunteer duty at the Co Op. That promise allowed him to be very content. He didn't mentioned it again until after we had returned home. This in itself is major maturity in contentment for my 4yo. He usually will whine or ask repeatedly hoping for instant satisfaction.

So, as promised I retrieved the doll house and he played with it until naptime. Later on that evening during cleanup he asked if he could take a bath with the doll house. Remembering that I had last seen the tub still with toys and wash towel never put away my first thought was NO.

But my curiosity had me and I had to ask him, "Why do you want to take a bath with the doll house?" In the most matter of fact, boyish explorative voice he replied, "I want to have the house flood". To which I exclaimed, "Wow, you're going to make the house flood... How cool", "Yes, you may bathe with the doll house". By now I wanted to see the house flood too.

My 4yo seems to always be looking for ways to explain and study for himself things he sees on the news, reads in books or simply just imagines with his own creativity. Seeing things through the eyes of a 4yo is amazing.

Rock, Paper, Scissor

I thought we could manage with sharing one tube of toothpaste until payday which by my calculations would help out with the budget...(Wow, it saved $4.50 for Tom's Natural Toothpaste). So this morning while I was dashing into my kids bathroom to use the only tube of toothpaste in house I was able to witness a ritual my 13yo and 7yo had been doing for some time now and I was pleasantly surprised and proud of them.

I had known for awhile now that I had not heard any fussing between the two of them for weeks about who got to the bathroom first. I never knew the reason but accepted the calm mornings as I held my breath. It was a welcomed change to the usual morning madness.

Well, this morning on my way out of their bathroom both of them reach the door at the same time but instead of the usual pushing or whining out, "I got here first", I heard my 13yo say with eyes still waking up, "Paper, Rock, Scissors". Then, without another word said my 7yo, her too with eyes still waking up, in unision with the 13yo began to form their hands to either Paper, Rock, Scissors.

My daughter won and so my son said two out of three. They proceeded to shake their hands to Paper, Rock, Scissors for two more rounds. My daughter won two out of three and quietly entered into the bathroom and closed the door. No other words were spoken. My son went back to his room to snooze until she came out.

I think I woke up the reminder of the sleeping eyes in the house as I told them how proud I was of them of how they had worked out the morning bathroom problem. They both looked at me with expressions that said every bit of, "Mom, we got it under control".

I thank God for both of their maturity in their roles of big brother, little sister as well as learning how to resolve conflict. It is truly a step to contentment and peace.

I would also love to think that the scriptures that I have written, and illustrated for the 4yo, have been hidden in their hearts.

Proverbs 15

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Can I help you lint?

If there ever was a time that you knew exactly what you wanted to do as well as knowing what the affect of your actions would produce it was definitely expressed by my 4 year old. Everyone in our household has a specific chore on specific days. This particular day was not my youngest child's day to "lint" but he wanted to. "Mama, can I help you lint?", he asked. In which I replied, "Help me do what?", I asked. "Lint, Mama", he said again eagerly and somewhat confused that I didn't know what he meant. His last attempt to explain it to me made it perfectly clear. "You know when you get the towel and put that stuff on it and wipe the furniture". Oh, yes. He wanted to dust!

It struck me as funny and quirky that the very thing he wanted to do was actually expressed or requested by him as the thing he wanted to get rid of. He wanted to "lint". All my visions saw him whipping a dusting towel around depositing more harm than good with his "linting" technique.

That then made me think of our attempts, yours and mine, to fix a problem or "straighten someone out" all to our dismay that we did not accomplish what we set out to do. I can think of one time to illustrate what I'm saying.

It was in Ms. Meyers' first grade class that we had just completed the reading of a story and now had to be creative and draw a picture of what the story was about. Well, no one at my table felt very creative and I, being the helper that I am, began to draw picture after picture of cows and other animals. I believe it may have been 5 of so pictures. Just as my younger son, I to was too eager to provide help.

What I didn't realize was that my help really would not help my classmates in the long run. We were attempting to comprehend oral stories and following directions.
My "helping", as with my son's "linting", could never be effective.

Is there a cloud of lint floating around you in all your attempts to help a situation?