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Browsing Tag: son

Children,Family,Parenting

Taking the Long View

posted on : September 3, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

One day several years ago I got a phone call from one of my son’s 5th grade teacher.  She was calling to talk with me about how my divorce was affecting my son and his school work.  “Divorce?” I said.  “I’m not getting a divorce.”  It seems my son had found a creative way to get out of trouble for not doing his homework by telling his teacher that his parents were getting a divorce and it was upsetting him so much that he was unable to do his homework.  After reassuring her that my husband and I were happily married I also reassured her that this son would be turning in his homework in the future.  This same son is also the one who made bombs in soda bottles which caught our field on fire, climbed out his bedroom window with a 3 story drop below to play on the roof and jumped down our laundry chute and broke the bottom out of it.  He found a way to climb up onto the school’s roof which was supposed to be impossible and then of course the principal wanted to know how he did it so she could prevent other kids from doing the same thing.  My son proudly showed her how he managed it which then promptly negated the effects of any punishment we did. He stuffed toilet paper in toilets to flood them and used a hatchet to chop at the support beams in our then unfinished basement.  He used a rope to tie bedroom door knobs together so his sisters could not leave their rooms and he took things apart just to see how they worked, usually with a hammer.  One time my husband found something broken and yelled our son’s name.  This son asked “Why did you assume it was me?”  And of course my husband said “because it usually is you!” My husband and I talk frequently about how surprised we are that this son of ours managed to live to adulthood.  He crashed several 4-wheelers, rode his motorcycle standing on the seat, and rode skateboards with his friends on their stomachs underground in the city’s storm drainage system.  Why on their stomachs?  Because the pipe was only 2 feet in diameter so they couldn’t sit or stand up.  We despaired over this son and couldn’t figure out why he went from one stupid/crazy/dangerous thing to the next.  He argued with us over everything, and I mean everything.  He once told me that anything I told him to do made him want to do just the opposite.  I often thought that if he had just put half of the energy into homework or something positive the results would have been amazing.  The reason why I’m telling you all of this?  This son who seemed to go from one crazy thing to the next and who I fretted and despaired over has turned out to be a great adult.  He’s married to a beautiful young woman and they have a little girl and he has a job he loves and really works hard at it.  He takes being a good husband and father seriously, and he thanks my husband and me frequently for helping him in his life.  If I had raising him to do all over again I would praise more often, trust a little more, take the long view a lot more and ignore most of the stupid stuff.  Sometimes in the thick of things it’s really easy to lose sight of the big picture, it’s really easy to think that now means forever.  This son who I fretted and worried over has grown up just fine.

Children,Faith

Salt Dough and Prayer

posted on : June 21, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

Several years ago when my son was in the fourth grade and studying Utah History, he announced to me, as he was getting ready for school, that he needed orange and brown salt doughs for school that morning to make a relief map, and he handed me the recipe.  Since he was my fifth child I was familiar with the project and fortunately the morning had been going smoothly so I had time to make the dough.  The problem was that I didn’t have brown or orange (or even red and yellow) food coloring.  I knew that I could mix cocoa powder into the dough to make brown but I was perplexed about what I could do to make orange salt dough and I frantically looked through my pantry to see if I could find something that would work. Nothing came to mind as I searched among my baking supplies.  I made the brown dough while still thinking about what I could do to come up with orange dough.  I decided to pray about the situation and I told Heavenly Father that I needed to make orange salt dough and didn’t have any orange food coloring and asked that if there was something I had that I could use to make the dough orange that He would inspire me to think of it.  As soon as I finished my prayer I thought of orange Kool-Aid and quickly looked in the container I had of Kool-Aid and found several packages of orange.  I gave a quick prayer of gratitude and about 10 minutes later had orange salt dough that smelled really good ready to go with the brown salt dough, which since it was chocolate, also smelled great.  Prayer is a wonderful gift we have that blesses us in many ways, in some simple ways and in some serious and complex.  Prayer to me is an indication of a Father’s love for His children, that He is concerned about even trivial things in our lives that we need help with.  That morning I felt His love as I made orange salt dough and as my son went to school with the best smelling salt dough in the school.

Faith,Family,Lessons Learned

More Than Enough

posted on : June 18, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I had a conversation with my son recently where he expressed regret at not having served a mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  He wondered about being a Young Men’s Leader and what he would tell the Young Men in his ward when they asked about his mission.  I told him that he may not be able to talk about a mission but that he would be able to testify about the healing and redeeming powers of the atonement and it’s ability to change lives, and that there would be young men who would need to hear those words. The experiences he’s had will help many people draw closer to Christ and will help them understand that no one has gone beyond the reach of our Savior.  Too often we look at what we have done or haven’t done and think we are not good enough.  That we lack in our offerings to others and to our Savior, that somehow we are less than those around us.  That is simply not true!  God takes us where we are and what we have to offer and makes them more than good enough, and then uses those things we have learned to bless the lives of others.  All we need to do is give Him our hearts and be willing to serve where and how He wants us to.  Through Jesus Christ we become more than enough.

Children

Love

posted on : November 10, 2017 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 4 Comments

When I was pregnant with my second daughter I wondered how I could ever love another child as much as I loved my first.  After she was born I quickly found out that my ability to love increased and it wasn’t an issue.  When I was pregnant with my third child I wondered how I could ever love a boy as much as I loved my girls, and of course he was born and I found out that I was worried for nothing.  I loved him just as much as my girls.  After that I quit worrying about it and never wondered again if I had the capacity to love another child coming into our home and lives.  In thinking about it I realized that love is like a lit candle that when I light another candle the first candle is not diminished at all in it’s flame and ability to give light, and the second candle’s flame is just as strong.  No matter how many candles I light the original and subsequent flames are not diminished and together the candles create even more light.