The house is empty and quiet. For the moment it is just me and Max the Wonderdog in blissful peace and tranquility. We've earned it. We're going to enjoy it.
Once a year the nieces and nephew trek down to spend about a week with us sans their mommies. The kids spend the day in the pool, we try to do some sort of special project (this year we made hula hoops) and in the evening they attend Kid Fest at our church (SRCC's version of Vacation Bible School). Everyone looks forward to this mini-vacation. At least in the beginning.
The ages of said relatives range from 5 (the nephew) to 11. Two of the three are ADHD and only one has medicine which was just begun this week. This year the mommies came down early which meant I had FIVE extra people in my house instead of three. No wonder the husband kept leaving early for work.
I love my family. No, really, I do. In small doses. Like, microscopically small doses. Nanoseconds here and there. As long as they are quiet. Which is seldom. What am I saying?!? They're never quiet.
On the way home, the middle niece talked nonstop for two and a half hours, even while she was being carsick and throwing up.
On the first day of Kid Fest, the nephew decided to interrupt the skit to give the main performer a high five and a pep talk. Twice.
On the morning of the third day with us, Nephew rode his bicycle down our admittedly steep driveway. Unfortunately, he badly misjudged the angle of decent and amount of speed and took a face plant at the bottom of said driveway. I'm betting by the sound of his screams, the entire neighborhood assumed I was beating him.
Every time the kids got into the pool, Max decided they were drowning and kept jumping in to try and save them. For a dog who is actually afraid of the water and can barely swim himself, it was not really as cute as it sounds.
When Cinderella decided the younger ones needed to learn to swim for real, the whining and crying began and my nerves went haywire (as we say down south). They yelled at her, she yelled at them, they tattled, I yelled at everybody, you get the picture. Then the mommies arrived. And the whining and crying began for real. (The husband told me to get a grip.)
Everyone tells me that my children are always nice and polite and oh, so sweet. I look at them like they've got two heads or something and say, "My children? Are you sure you haven't confused them with, say, some alien doppleganger from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius?" Then I look at the child in question and say, "Who are you and what have you done with...?" Everyone laughs politely, assuming that I'm joking. (I'm not.) My children were pure hellions at home. Not always but enough to make me decide that if Cinderella had been the firstborn instead of the last, she would have been an only child. The question that always gets asked is why do children act so horrible at home and so good around other people?
I think the answer has to do with security and limits. We set limits for our children and disciplined them when they crossed those lines. Children need those limits. They need boundaries set so that they know that they are safe and when children feel safe, they feel loved. Then, within those limits, actions were acceptable or at least negotiable. So, at least in our house, the kids could let off steam, knowing that we would still love them even if we had to discipline them.
It's such an incredible picture of God's love. There are acceptable and not acceptable behaviors that we engage in as human beings. When we sin, there are consequences. Sometimes these are natural consequences, sometimes God must discipline us. Either way, He never ever stops loving us and within that love we are free to do and be so much more than what we were without Him. And I'll take that over peace and quiet any day.
Things we collected this year
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