Parenting

Ok, I know its been a while since I posted. I was going to post sooner, but I had asked a friend to help me do a make over on my blog and teach me how to put pictures on it, but I never got over to her house for the help. And the post I want to write about needs pictures. So hopefully, I will get that done soon. But until then, I just have to talk about parenting. It seems things in our family go pretty normal, nothing too exciting to write about, then I get several things at once.

First, Christopher went to Duct Tape this Monday thru Wednesday. Its a mission trip for the younger kids in Amarillo. They stay at other people's homes and help out in some way. This year they "walked like Jesus" around a neighborhood and visited older people, they took smaller kids to the park, sang, and they also went to the Faith City Ministries where they met "cool" homeless people (that's Christopher's exact words) and talked to them. It was apparently one of those life changing things for Christopher. I had a hard time leaving him Monday morning because Chris is very shy and doesn't have a whole lot of friends yet at Southwest. When we got there, we looked for people he knew, and there wasn't any there yet. It broke my heart to leave him alone, but I knew in my heart he would be fine. Its just hard. Later that evening, one of my good friends found out how he was doing. Of course he was doing great and having a good time with his new friends. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Christopher and I had a discussion about God. I learned that he was afraid of God, like He was a horrible being that was out to hurt you in some way. Now he knows better after this trip. He has told me several times that he had a good time, is glad that he went, and he feels different. And he has acted different. He is trying to get along with his sister, and is quick to respond when I ask him to do something. Not even a grip when I ask him to go to bed. I love to see God working in my kids life. I am so proud of Christopher. I call him my Crispy Critter.

One of the funny things that has happened this week was with Hanna. I spent half of the day registering my kids for school on Thursday and Derek was the last one. We had to go to the councilor to get one of his classes changed. We were on the way out of the building when I said to Derek I hope he gets that class changed or he could be in for a bumpy ride and Derek said yeah, that would suck butt. Then Hanna yells loudly, "That sucks butt". How do you punish your child when you are laughing so hard. Of course later I had to have that talk with Derek about not talking that way in front of his siblings. And tell Hanna not to say that again.

Parenting is very hard. I tell Sean alot, that I don't want to be the parent any more. There are just times you aren't sure what is the right way to handle things. I wish we were given a book at the very beginning that had all the answers in it. If your child does this, this is what you do and it would work. As your children get older, it just gets harder. Why can't I just put my 16 year old in the corner for a few minutes and then things are better. I know I made mistakes when I was younger, we all did, but when its actually your own child, you just wonder why do they have to make these same mistakes, why don't they just listen. It drives me crazy. I am sure my parents thought the same thing. How can you love someone so much, yet they can drive you so crazy.