Parenting 101

There is so much more to parenting than I ever expected. I mean this in a very literal way. Do you have any idea how many school projects I have been involved with in the past two weeks?

Truly, one has not been fully initiated into motherhood until you have built a miniature Powhatan longhouse by bending twigs and tying bark onto said bent twigs with twine. This you do not do alone, but with the able help of an 8 year old, who, when you suggested the glue gun, reminded you gently, "But Mom, you forgot! The Powhatans didn't know about hot glue!" Silly me. What was I thinking?

Then there was the AP English Macbeth newspaper project, which Chris did all the work for, but needed some Mom assistance since it was 2 am and he was having trouble importing an image of Lady Macbeth onto a picture of a bottle of "OUT #$@%@*! SPOT REMOVER" for an advertisement he created for one of the pages.

Amy had to decorate a turkey in some disguise, so that it might deceive the farmer into not turning it into Thanksgiving dinner. Amy thought the turkey would choose to dress up as a Mexican Hat Dancer. Of course. If I were a turkey, that is the first disguise that would come to my mind. So we made a sombrero, and maracas, and mustache, and boy, that was one safe turkey.

Heidi was easy--she just had to write a creative story with the prompt, "You start walking to go down in the basement. Just as you turn the knob, you hear something on the other side of the door..." After many tears, and rejecting any suggestions from every member of the family on multiple occasions, and more tears, she ended up writing a hilarious story about a psychotic hamster. Without any help, because I just make her cry and I never have good ideas. Yeah for the preteen years.

Jeffrey. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey. About 10 pm one night he says, "Oh yeah, Mom. Do we have any posterboard? I am supposed to do this family tree thing for French for tomorrow. Do you know what that is, like, she said it would be good if we had pictures of our ancestors and stuff." Oh la la!

It was all worth it though. Everyone got A's. Homeschoolers just don't know what they are missing!
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Humor is essential to every parent's sanity. Here are a few stories that will make you laugh!

I have been very stressed out about my Primary calling lately. I am the 1st counselor in a new Presidency, which shouldn't be a big deal since I have been in primary for like 19 years. But, for a number of reasons, this has been a painful experience. As many of you know who have worked in Primary leadership, one of many Sunday pressures is teachers who don't show up, which has been happening in our ward all too frequently. That is the background.

So, last Sunday we were sitting in church and Amy whispers, "Mom, I don't see the bishop! Where is he?"

I replied, "Bishop Frary is sick today. He isn't here."

"Well," said Amy, "I sure hope he got himself a substitute!"


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OK. Another church story. Somehow (and I have no idea how it was possible)we were early to church a few weeks ago. We were sitting on the bench talking irreverently during the prelude music like everyone else. Holly mentioned that her reading teacher Ms. Grover had asked what church we went to, but Holly couldn't remember. Jeffrey was trying to prompt her a little and said, "Do you know if you are a Methodist, or a Catholic,...or maybe... a Mormon?"

Holly looked at Jeffrey like he was clearly stupid and said, "No---I'm a MAMMAL!"
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We have been trying to memorize some scriptures at night as a family after we have prayer. Yes, it is true. This wholesome activity was prompted by the fact that Holly recently had her Bishop interview for getting baptized. Holly told us when she came out of the Bishop's office that it went pretty well except she couldn't remember who baptized Jesus. "Who did?" she asked. I started singing the "Jesus came to John the Baptist..." song to remind her. She said she wished she had thought of the song, because the Bishop had suggested that we look it up when we read our scriptures with the family. " I told him that wouldn't help me, " she said, shrugging her shoulders, " because our family never does that!" Thank you, Holly.

So, like I said, we are making a greater effort to read scriptures. (We actually do try--we did finally finish reading the Book of Mormon as a family when President Hinckley asked us all to, only it took us two years instead of one!)

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One of our first attempts at memorizing scriptures was met with a dubious measure of success. The scripture was Amos 3:7 " Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."

We decided to learn this scripture as a family one, since the kids had already heard it before in primary and it was pretty easy. We went over and over and over it until everyone had it down. About a week later, Gordon asked, does anyone remember our scripture we learned last week?

Amy piped up, " I do! Shirley Temple will do nothing but tell secrets about prophets of God!"

It is always enlightening to realize what goes in and what you think goes in are not the same thing! At least we still have two more years before the next baptism interview! I actually thought it was kind of cool that she knew who Shirley Temple was--we can thank Heidi for that. She has the whole movie collection!
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To further the notion that we teach our children spiritual lessons through movies, Amy's Primary teacher, who is also a good friend of mine, told me recently that their lesson that day had been about obedience. To Sister Davidson's surprise, Amy's hand shot up right away in class when she asked them, "Does anyone know what it means to be obedient?"

"I do!" Amy exclaimed, "It means you do something right away, even if you don't want to!"

Sister Davidson was so impressed by Amy's answer that she said, "That is right, Amy! How did you know that?"

She said Amy just beamed, and proudly announced, "I learned that from Ella Enchanted!"
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As you should all know by now, we are all ridiculously big fans here of the play and music from the broadway musical Wicked, which I think everyone has seen now except like one of you (Sam you have to see it!). Anyway, never fear, read on--I shall not divulge any secrets--this story has to do with music on the soundtrack only!

So, Amy had a fever, and I was driving her to the doctor. She had been asleep all day, and I had carried her to the car, still asleep. I got in and started driving, and as often is the case, I had the Wicked CD in the stereo cranked to top volume. Elphaba began belting out "Defying Gravity"
as we pulled down the driveway, and I immediately turned down the volume, not wanting to wake up my poor, sick Amy.

A tiny little voice spoke up, "No Mom! Turn it back up! That is great music to hear when you are feeling sick!"

What have we done? Keep in mind that Amy was Elphaba for Halloween. We are such good parents.
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This last one comes from our cute little friend from church, Travis, who is one day younger than Holly and has been in love with her since they were babies. This kid bought Holly a package of "My Little Pony "underwear when they were 3, because he told his mom that Holly needed to get potty trained before they could get married! Apparently, he told his mom a few days ago that he just loved singing Christmas carols this time of year because it seemed like so many of them were about "that beautiful little Holly Thelin."

It kind of puts a whole new perspective on "Deck the halls with boughs of Holly..." doesn't it?
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Thanks for reading! Hope these brought you a few smiles!