Brianna's 3am Prayer

After beginning, "please keep me safe from monsters, and bad guys, and ... um, ... pirates. And, um, .... Mom, what udder bad fings are in this world?"
I told her I thought she'd pretty much covered it. She wasn't satisfied, so I helped her pray for safety from anything that would scare or hurt her. She also asked for angels to watch over her. Afterward, she said she knew there were bad guys, because one of them had killed a policeman. This she picked up from a 30 second news sound byte on the radio a week or so ago.
Then, she was satisfied that there were angels in her room, watching over her, and she was able to go back to sleep.

Some random videos for your enjoyment.

Gymnastics Song

First of all, when I arrived to pick Brianna up from pre-school today, she was busy shooting baskets outside. Her teacher informed me that "She's Jimmer today."

(Jimmer Fredette)

So, on the way home, Brianna says to me, "Do you want to hear a song?"

"Sure!"

"It's a gymnastics song. It goes like this:
I want to be good at gymnastics!
I have to work very hard,
Like Jimmer.
I want to be good at soccer
oh Yeah!"

Her daddy will be so proud!

Should I Be Worried?

The first plans Ben ever shared about his future were these:

Cut down trees,
use them to build a house,
and a couch,
marry some woman who will work all day
while he lays around on the couch.

The next plans he shared were these:

Find a deserted island.
Become king (aka, DICTATOR)
Build up armies in case of attack.
Make lots of laws.

Then he decided to:

Become a movie director,
So he could boss people around
and yell at them.

And, his current plan?

Be a worker
at a store
like Albertson's.

A Rare Peek at the Elusive Ben

So, why don't I write about Ben much lately? Is he boring? No. Is he in Italy as a foreign exchange student? No. Is he less entertaining than Brianna? No. Is he almost nine, and likely to read anything I write about him? YES. I'm always afraid that I'll cross some line in his mind by sharing things that he does or says with all of you.

But, today I'll risk it with one quick story.

On Valentine's night, when he really should have been in bed, he came down to me with a Valentine in one hand and his scriptures in the other. The Valentine was a religious one from a girl in his class. On the front, it said, "God made us friends." And on the back it had the scripture 1 John 4:16.

"Can you help me look up this scripture, mom? I didn't really look through my Valentines before, just got all of the candy. But I just saw this one, and I want to read that verse."

"Sure, honey." So, together we looked up the verse. 1 John 4:16, "God is love".

"Huh. I didn't know that was in the scriptures," he said.

"Yep." I said.

Then, as he's headed back up the stairs, "I didn't know Ch***** (the girl who gave him the Valentine) was Mormon!"

"Oh, she's probably not. She's probably Christian, but not Mormon."

"Ya, I think you're right. Probably Christian, not Mormon, because it said 'God MADE us friends' and God doesn't MAKE us do stuff. He lets us choose."

My Point Exactly

Brianna: Everyone loves Valentine's, right?

Me: Well, no. Some people feel sad on Valentine's.

Brianna: Why?!

Me: Well, Valentine's Day is about feeling happy about love, and some people feel sad because they don't think anybody loves them. (Sensing an opportunity to teach a lesson.) But there is always somebody who loves us, right?

Brianna: Yes! Q****!


Brianna and Q! BFF

Have YOU been to China?

Out of the blue today in the car, Brianna says: China. ... I've been to China.

Me (who had just been forced to turn right out of a parking lot that I wanted to turn left out of): Hmm.

Brianna: Ya, I went to China when I was a baby with Jesus. Ben did too. We all held hands and walked to China.

More and more we are finding out about Brianna's history before birth, and some things that we should have been aware of after birth, such as her little walk to China. It's nice that she can open up about these things.

*******

Another time, Brianna was sitting on the couch looking at a book quietly, when I hear her murmur in frustration: I can't hear the words in my head!!

She thought that she should be able to read to herself; that by opening the book and sitting quietly, she would hear the words in her head. That's what it must look like to her when the rest of us are reading to ourselves. :)

the language of Prayer

Brianna, (during her prayer): "Thank Thee for shuh-cay-shun."

Me, (after her prayer): "Um, what's 'shuh-cay-shun'?"

Brianna: "You know, when you go away? I just said it in Spanish."

So, how do I ...

I guess I'm inept. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to change my font colors since blogger changed things around! Grrrr!
Anyone know how?

Wedding Photographer

I got to be the official wedding photographer at a wedding I attended this morning. Let me just say that weddings are a LOT of work! I feel sorta bad that I didn't take ANY video, but I hope they'll still be pleased with the results. Besides, you get what you pay for, and I did it for free.
They had quite a crowd. It was standing room only! So much love was in that room!

Now, don't judge the girl sitting on the floor too harshly. You don't know anything until you've walked a mile in her shoes, and can I just tell you that those are ballet TOE shoes. Ya, try walking a mile in those babies! You'd be sitting on the floor too, buster!

And the magical first kiss as husband and wife!

money, motivation, and mistakes

Aaaaah! So, I've been thinking that it's wrong to pay your children to obey their parents and to get along with each other. Plus, I'm listening to the book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink, and now I KNOW that it's counter-productive to PAY your children to obey their parents and to get along.
In fact, I've learned that paying your children to do anything suggests to them that the task is undesirable in some way, AND once they've been paid to do something, they are FAR more unlikely to ever do it again without pay.
I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm sufficiently worried about what damage I may have already done, and thoroughly confused about how to teach my kids to handle money, and about how you get paid for what you do, etc., without messing up their internal motivation for doing things.
Parenting is hard.