Fighting Through It

Two things have recently been a pretty big frustration for me.

First, the job I do at church. I voluntarily teach the Sunday school class for 4 year olds (Charlotte's class). I have eight of them and that's only half the 4 year olds that attend our congregation. I started in January and have been struggling with it ever since. Last year I taught the 6 year old class and it was wonderful. I loved that group of kids and their abilities and though I did miss out on adult time, it truly felt like I was doing something important and that what I was doing was actually getting through to the kids. This group is so different and each week I stress over getting enough material ready that their attention spans will be able to cope with and then invariably it never works out as I had wanted. Honestly sometimes I look at these kids and think, is there anything going on in that little brain of yours right now? which is not at all the feeling I want to be having while doing service at church.

Second, my kids' attitudes. Charlotte and Greg are fighting lately. And picking on each other. And fighting me. One of them starts and the other one is more than eager to jump right into the ring. And also I've had to start telling them to do things three, four, or five times before they will even move their little bodies to get the job done. All of this amounts to me not really wanting to spend time with them. Me not wanting to spend time with them leads me to feel guilty because I really do feel like they are awesome people.

That is why I wanted to record Sunday and Monday. I cleaned the upstairs Saturday in preparation for Charlotte's birthday party this coming Saturday and in preparation for having it clean when I go into labor. While cleaning I listened to the latest general conference messages from the leaders of my church. This is something that I normally don't do. There were a few pearls of wisdom I got from that. First and foremost in my mind was that I really should just try to spend more time with my kids doing things that they want to do. I spend all day, every day with my kids, but seldom do I remember to sit down and let them have control over what we're going to do. I also learned that when I honestly try my very best to discern the best use of my time when trying to serve then I will be met with more success. I think I was trying to over-prepare for my lessons.

So Sunday rolled around and I prayed for help. And I can honestly say that I 100% received it. Dan was at work all day so that meant that I would be on my own with the kids. Usually that means a very busy, stressful day. I don't know how to really pinpoint anything that was different. I don't think it was because of me that our day was so relaxed. I had plenty of time for everyone and everything before church. Then my lesson, though much simpler than intended and heavily influenced by playing games, went really smoothly and I think the kids might remember the general topic.

That night, instead of a fancy Sunday dinner my kids and I sat on the floor together and ate hard cooked eggs, cheese, crackers, carrots, peanut butter bananas, and hot dogs for a goodie plate. Our picnic dinner was simple and enjoyable because there was nothing that my kids don't like. I was even gratified with each child eating an entire carrot.

Then this morning, after Charlotte's dentist appointment, I let the kids decide what we were going to do. We looked through the toy aisles at Target, and had lunch at Panera (OK, so maybe I did veto McDonald's but there was no way I was going to eat there today), and then came home and played all our board games. There were still plenty of minor battles between the two of them and with me, but putting out those fires didn't seem to exhaust or anger me.

In short these past two days have been great. Now let's just hope we can keep this ball rolling.