This and That

We were on our way to church yesterday morning and Emily was reading her Bible. She was reading a daily devotion on faith. It was a pretty long passage and she read it aloud to Ethan and me. It talked about a little boy who was hurt and in a hospital and he didn't know if he would get better or not, but he did a silent prayer to God. And he had faith to believe that God would take care of him no matter what the results of his surgery would be. The story continued and talked about having faith and believing and trusting in God to always be by our side no matter what. Well, when Emily was finished reading the entire thing, I thought it was a very good time to continue with the discussion about faith in our own lives. I first wanted to ask and make sure that they truly understood what it meant to have faith and to trust in God. This was the discussion that then took place...

Me: Emily, do you understand what having faith is?

Emily: [said in her usual sarcastic way] Um, yeah! I had faith that I would FINALLY get finished with reading that page!

That was pretty much the end of our conversation because I was too busy laughing after that. I don't know what I'm going to do with that child of mine. I can't compete with her quick wit. I am often left speechless around her.

Later in the day, as we were doing our grocery shopping, my girl shocked me again when she found something that I didn't think that we'd have to deal with for quite a while. It was a teen celeb magazine. Oh, dear Lord. At SEVEN? She isn't even a "tween" yet? But there she was thumbing through the pages and reading about all of her favorite celebrity gossip. Her face was shoved in that magazine while I was going through the store and when she would get to a really good part, she would stop me and fill me in on it. And I have to be honest and say that it really only feels like yesterday when I was getting my own magazines like that and putting up pictures of Kirk Cameron and Duran Duran on my wall. Right now it isn't about the "boys" for Emily, but it is totally about her idols - Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and Miley Cyrus.

While in the book isle yesterday, Ethan picked up and started reading the book "Diary of a Wimpy Kid". He was literally sitting on the floor of Walmart and reading this book. This is HUGE! While Ethan is a pretty good reader, actually getting him interested in reading is a whole other issue. He was loving this book and read several pages just while sitting on the floor. What else could a mom do, but buy the book! He was reading it on the car ride home. He picked it up again this morning and read some more. I have to say that I am very excited about this! I am a huge reader. Emily is a huge reader. And I have tried really hard not to push Ethan until he was ready. This just thrills me to death. Ethan was also just introduced to Harry Potter the other day when the first movie came on TV and he is HOOKED! He was sucked right in to the whole thing and he got very excited when I told him that Harry Potter is actually a series of books. We may get a couple and read them together.

Our morning today started out just like every other day. The kids both got up early like usual so they could have time to play before school. They did everything they needed to do with lots of time to spare. The day was going well. We even managed to leave our house in plenty of time so we weren't rushing to get to school and the kids weren't going to be standing in the "late line" today. I pulled up in the car line to drop off my sweet and beautiful children. I rolled up to a stop and as my darlings were getting out we said our goodbyes - "I love you" and "have a good day". I watched them skip and run their way to the front door of the school while I was still waiting for the car line to move so I could drive off. And then it happened! Just before my two offspring were to walk through the doors, the little one starts to beat the crap out of the bigger one! I sat there in my car watching the scene for a moment and then I just shook my head and continued to roll forward with the rest of the car line. Well, it is a Monday!

Later today, I kind of described this exact moment to the kids to see what kind of reaction I would get from them. And honestly, I wanted to know why Emily was beating up her brother at school. I mean, the little meanie does it all the time at home, but she should control those impulses at school. And it's quite sad really because Ethan won't fight her back even though he could and he could win. But he would NEVER do anything to hurt her. So, when I explained this little scene to the kids and then explained about how I saw the little one beating up the bigger one, Emily just busted out laughing. And she said, "Oh yeah, I did." And then Ethan agreed, too. However, neither one could tell me WHY she was doing it. They both claim that they had forgotten. I had to talk to them about how they aren't allowed to beat each other up at school, and it especially isn't a smart thing to do right in front of the office again. [Sigh!]