Growing

     It has happened, my baby is growing.  Normally I yearn for my kids to leave the infant stage and move onto babyhood.  I get excited about the toddler stage and downright giddy about the different kid stages, but this time it is different.  As I watched her trying to figure out how to get her big sisters shoe on yesterday afternoon, part of me just wanted to rewind the clock and start over.  Don't get me wrong I still think that babies are way more fun and easier than infants, I just feel that things are moving too fast.  I'm not sure I'm ready for this part of life to be over.  Ready or not though, here it comes.
I feel this way to with the oldest too.  With the change in the mission age he could now be out serving a mission for the church in just 4 years.  If that isn't enough to give a mom a panic attack nothing is.      

On the babies blessing day.  She was so tiny and frail.

      Some days I couldn't be prouder of the man he is becoming.  Other days I want to lock him in his room, and pray that when I come and check on him in four years he will have miraculously grown into a wonderful human being on his own.  Like it or not my kids are growing.  With each day their personalities and abilities change, grow and develop.  Most of the time this is a fun, entertaining, and joyful process. Sometimes it can be painful, scary and embarrassing; but everyday it is happening.  The challenge for me, my biggest challenge, is to just let go and let it happen, remembering to have joy in the journey.  Someday they will be gone and all we will have are our memories of this time, and I want those to be things we want to talk about.

At Sea World this summer. What a difference 9 months makes!

The right motivation

Do you ever have one of those Sundays that you just can't get your kids out of church fast enough? Where they just have way too much energy and you don't quite know what to do with it? Well, that was me today.  As my youngest son was trying to talk his older brothers into forming a congo line with him so they could congo down the hall and out of the building I knew he had sat still long enough.  I sent him directly outside via the back doors and told him to meet us at the car.  When I got to the car and saw him dancing on the hood, I knew there was no way he would successfully make the drive home.  It became a walking day. I sent Tom home with the baby and some of the other kids, and he and I and 2 started the walk home. (I love living close enough to church that walking is a viable alternative to spending any amount of time cooped up in a car with a child who has way to much energy.)
We didn't get very far, only across the street in fact, when he stoped walking and started pointing at the temple visitor center.  I asked him what he wanted, (I try to encourage the use of verbal communication with my 8-year-old.)  He said he wanted to go inside and look around. All I could do was stare at him incredulously.  This was the child that I had to stop from forming a congo line out of church, and the one who had to walk home because he was dancing on the car hood, and now he wanted to go inside a quiet reverent place? I reminded him that he had to be under control, quiet and reverent in the visitor center.  Then I told him I wasn't sure he was up to it. His wordless response was to straighten himself up, fold his arms and walk quietly to the door.
For the next 30 minuets he was a changed boy, quiet, respectful, eager to learn and attentive.  I guess all it took was the right motivation, and as I watched him I was so grateful for the opportunity to live where we do so that that motivation is so close.  Our family living situation isn't always easy, but I truly believe that the Lord gave us the opportunity to choose our hard and most of the time I think the hard is worth it.

Here he is next to one of his favorite displays.

 I left the visitor center with a much better outlook than I had before I went in.  I love my kids and think they are awesome, but sometimes I lose sight of their potential and who they really are.  They aren't just my crazy, energetic kids. They are children of God, and he loves them even more than I do.