ColoradoBennett

I'm learning everyday. Today I learned that I have an anger demon on my shoulder doing it's best to block empathetic thoughts/words/actions. I was reading a book to Sierra and Kaia while they were playing nearby. I think they must have been spinning each other around and Kaia fell on me. I instantly got mad and I saw the look of fear in her eyes. A tiny voice said to notice the look on her face and react with kindness. But that voice was overpowered by my self-righteous indignation. It didn't even hurt me, but I laid into her about being more careful and blah blah blah. I stopped reading and starting working on my sewing project. Sierra and Kaia picked up where they left off in their imaginative play. I eavesdropped and realized that my over reaction was entering into how they communicated with one another. After a while I apologized for what I said. They both looked at me blankly and said "ok". Then I noticed them saying sorry more often while they played. It didn't work perfectly, I still have had to break up several fights, but I know it makes a difference when I apologize when I react without empathy.
I try to remember this quote by Sister Lant often: "If we want our children to come to Christ so that they might see His face, it is important that we seek to see it as well. We have to know the way in order to show it to them. We must put our own lives in order so that the children can look to us and follow. We might ask: 'What do my children see when they look at my face? Do they see the image of the Savior in my countenance because of how I live my life?'".
Do my kids see me trying to shoot fire out of my eyes at them because they barely hurt me, or do they see eyes full of love and empathy? I'm learning that the latter is the best choice.

I'm also learning that reading chapter books out loud to my children is helping them in so many ways. We finished the "Fablehaven" series and now we are on to "The Candy Shop War", both by Brandon Mull. They pull the stories we are reading into their lives in fun and creative ways. Tristan's Preschool started a word wall and I created one for Sierra and Kaia too. I try to get them to write at least one sentence a night using words from the word wall. I think between me reading to them and having them find a love of writing, we should be able to get them up to grade level reading.

{This is a picture taken in September of Tristan's Preschool class. They are all such cute, fun kids!}

I took Sierra & Ruby to the Dr. this morning and learned the word "peripatetic". I'm embarrassed to say that I learned that word while reading an article about Taylor Swift. I don't like country music and I've heard that Taylor sings country. I've bet I've heard some of her songs, I just don't know. I'm really behind the times. It was an interesting article about how she says healthy with her peripatetic lifestyle (per·i·pa·tet·ic/ˌperipəˈtetik/Adjective: Traveling from place to place, esp. working or based in various places for relatively short periods). She runs for an hour each day while listening to new releases from various musicians and she only allows herself one Starbucks something-or-other per day. Does she get stress fractures or plantar fasciitis from all that running? The interview didn't say.

Adam has been living a very peripatetic lifestyle this past month. He's been to TX, WA, UT and he leaves for AZ on Monday. I guess he found out last week that he will be working 6 to 8 weeks straight in Dec & Jan. He didn't want to tell me because it would bum me out. I overheard him telling Ellynn on the phone. I am bummed out. He promises he will be home for Christmas, he just doesn't know how long. I know I've been blessed that with all his traveling, big troublesome stuff only happens when he is home. One weekend Kaia fell out of a tree house and was acting very hurt and the night before Tristan came into our room in the wee hours and threw up. Both kids turned out to be fine, but I'm so glad I had Adam's help. Then this week our car started making funny noises and he was able to take it into the shop (I have really, really bad experiences with car repair places. Once when I was in college my car was in the shop for over three weeks. They kept telling me all this crap and it wasn't until my dad went into the shop to give them a hard time that anything got done. The last time I took our Jetta into the dealership the guy tried to tell me I needed new tires. Adam was so mad. Our tires only have 20,000 miles on them and are just fine. He tried to teach me all this car jargon to use the next time the dealership tries to take advantage of me because I'm a clueless girl. But I've already forgotten what he said).

So Sierra has a double ear infection and Adam has had flu-like symptoms for days. We will not be going up to my parent's log house like planned. Adam went to the store and picked up all we need for our very first solo Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm excited.

And lastly, I'm learning that races never order enough small shirts. I ran the Brighton Turkey Trot 5K last Saturday and this is what I walked away with:

An XL shirt. I tried to shrink it, but that was dumb b/c it is 100% polyester. So my grandpa has a new work out shirt. But the metal, oh the metal I'm very proud of. Even though I don't deserve it. I came in fourth in my age group so I stuck around to see if I could get one of these precious metals. They had a table with hundreds of 'em. Turns out it was the longest awards ceremony ever. They broke it into tiny age groups, starting with nine and under. Not only did they award the top three runners in every group, but also the top three walkers! Plus they had a raffle going on in between each metal. After about an hour, they called out my age group and the third place girl was a no show. I snuck up to the award table and told the girl I'd come in 4th and could I please have 3rd place's metal? At first she said no b/c they were going to mail it, but then she asked someone higher up on the totem pole and they said "sure". Hehe, so even though I came in four minutes and 23 seconds later than the first place girl in my age group (she ran a 20:20), I still got a metal! I'm a cheater...but a dreamer that one day I'll be that fast.