Obedience

 For some reason, my darling angels have minds of their own.  Aris and Kian have both had very strong personalities since in utero.  Zane was mostly placid his first year of life, but has since demonstrated a very strong and vocal will.  Parenting such strong-willed, spirited and intelligent children sometimes feels like a losing battle.  Unfortunately, I can't even say that I try my best.  There are days when I do a great job of mothering, but there are other days when I'm tired, sick, frustrated, depressed or otherwise at the end of my rope.  On those days I either give up or get upset.  Neither of those option influence my children well.

 About a month ago, we attended our new LifeGroup for the first time.  Afterwards, one of the women commented on how well behaved my children were.  I was slightly shocked, because all though they were on mostly good behaviour, they weren't perfect.  But for four weeks running, they've done very very well.  Last week the same lady complimented me on my parenting.  I'm not sure what I'm managing to do right, but it's encouraging!

 Kian seems to be even more spirited than his sister, which is saying something.  Thankfully he's my third and I have a lot more confidence and knowledge as well as practice in child-rearing.  I stress a lot less over him than I did the others.  For months we worked with him in an attempt to get him to use his nice asking words and to follow commands, especially while walking.  Recently, he's been walking more and today he walked to and from the school both trips.  I was so proud of him!  But while we were walking, I noticed how well he stops at his boundaries, holds my hand while crossing the street, and didn't jump in the puddles with his shoes on.  It was so encouraging!  What was even more encouraging was that he kept asking me if he could do things with his polite words!  It was such a joy to here " May I  yook at puddle?  May I wok over here?"  Finally our hard work is paying off!   He's also learning empathy.  This comes in handy when we're trying to get him to apologize for being mean to someone.  This happens often.  But Kian is learning to apologize even when it's scary or his feelings were hurt too.  I am so thankful for the personal growth we've seen in him and in the rest of our children.  It's encouraging!