I'm losing the power

If I'm being honest, I have to admit that I'm also in the middle of a power struggle with my six year old, Sage.  It's not over whether she should eat her veggies or clean her room or wear socks with her super stinky brown slip on shoes.  It’s over which of us will teach the lesson at our weekly Family Home Evening.  

Last week I made a batch of cinnamon rolls, which were timed to be hot right at family home evening time, so we could deliver them to some specific neighbors following our lesson (by me) on service.

Sage had other plans.  She gerrymandered her name onto the "lesson" spot on our Family Home Evening chart, announced that we were having a lesson on "camping" and procured a hand drawn page with pictures of camping activities, and a page of a campfire.  (Mark had just planned and carried out a Fathers and Sons campout the week before.)  To avoid what we knew was an inevitable argument, and in light of her extensive preparation (darn that girl), we decided to humor her and hear out the ever-so-spiritual lesson on camping.
 

Interestingly enough, the lesson sounded a lot like our family had been drafted into first grade.  “First we’re going to split into two groups,” Sage announced authoritatively, “and then we’ll rotate through the stations and learn about camping.”  (Insert private eye roll between Mark and me.)  “The first station will be Fishing, and the next one will be sleeping in a tent, and the next one will be the campfire, and the last one will be watching the camping part of the movie ‘The Parent Trap’.”  (Insert more eye rolls, and Mark shutting down the movie watching part and me complaining (in a teenage-like fashion) that my cinnamon rolls were going to get cold.)

But, bless his heart, Mark convinced me to let Sage run her show.  So I tried not to grumble as we pushed the couches together and brought out a queen-size quilt to make a “tent.”  

 And then I had to try not to laugh when we all had to pretend to go fishing.   

And I surprised myself by procuring a stick for us to use to roast invisible marshmallows over our paper fire.   

And, thankfully, Sage was willing to swap out “The Parent Trap” for taste testing and delivering my hot cinnamon rolls. 

And then I got a chance to consider my own message about service more carefully.  As nice as it is to take baked goods to neighbors, isn’t it more important for me to serve the people I live with?   (And, seriously, what makes kids happier than a fort built out of couches?)  If this resolution to serve my family better means I need to bite my tongue while Sage teaches us to cast for fish amongst the strewn about couch cushions, I guess I can do it.   

Especially for the reward of happy faces like this. 

I've got the power

I’m in the middle of a power struggle.  With a four year old.  Which actually happens more than you might think.  Unless you’ve had a four year old—then you know about the need for need for choosing your battles.  

Is this one worth fighting?  I need some input from an impartial observer who doesn’t react emotionally to being challenged by a four year old four (or forty) times a day.

Last week I bought a Disney Princess wet wipe container for our bathroom with the special lid that pops up and allows one wipe at a time to be removed that, in theory, eliminates the need for all the wet wipes to dry out each time a person under 28 opens the container and leaves it open.

Fortunately, Eliza (one of the worst offenders of the dry wipes problem) loves my taste in wet wipe containers and is enthralled by the little flip top.

Unfortunately, Eliza decided that the container would make a perfect treasure box for herself.  “It doesn’t even smell like wet wipes inside!” she announced after she emptied it of wipes and loaded it with "treasures."

Fortunately, I know by now that wet wipes can be rehydrated after they are left out of their container.

Unfortunately, I have to assume the role of detective just to find the MIA wet wipes that are suffering from what’s becoming quite the drought.  At first Eliza merely deposited the wipes near the scene of the crime, on the bathroom counter.  Since the initial scolding that ensued, she’s been known to leave them on her bedroom floor, and once she even disposed of the evidence in the trash can.  Which, unfortunately, requires sanitization as well as hydration. 

It's not news to me that Eliza is a hoarder.  A while back I made a batch of homemade pretzels that I left to cool while Mark and I were watching a movie.  (The girls had eaten theirs earlier.)  Eliza, who had already been tucked into bed, snuck out and collected most of the pretzels (in a towel I save for mopping the floor) and hid them under her pillow.  It was only by accident that I discovered them, when I came in to see why she was still awake, and found her arched unnaturally (and unrepentantly) over her pillow.

Is it worth the fight to reclaim the Princess box for its rightful duty, and out of the principle of “Mom's The Boss”?  Or should I suck it up and fork out another $2.50 to replace the Princess box with a thoroughly unexciting non-princessy-or-other-kid-icon wet wipe box?  Now that I know better, I’d pay an extra buck for a blank container.

Fringe benefits

You might think that there are not a lot of good things about having two surgeries on both feet in two months.

Sausage-shaped toes, for one. 

But surgeries come with fringe benefits, I’ve learned.

Like lots of [working] visits from family

And someone else gets to teach your 6-year-old to ride without training wheels

And even the kids get in the spirit of service

And you get to [have to] give yourself permission to ignore the weeds in the garden and just enjoy the harvest, which is collected daily by willing kids who are almost as excited about daily bean growth as you are

And you get help on your zoo trip [which you HAD to take because you already bought 12 packages of butter to get free admission at the zoo and it expires after August]

And there’s lots of time to sit back and delight in the delightful things, instead of missing them while you multi-task