A lesson by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet

Last Thursday, Sarah went to her Ladies’ Bible Study and left me in charge of our three oldest kids (mwahahahahaha---eeek!!) Ahem, anyway. She had very kindly started dinner and all that was left for me to do was make the rice stuff. Since it was a nice day, Carlos and Jeremiah played outside with the occasional checking in with me to see how everything was going. Mainly, it was Carlos since he is very much a people person and doesn’t like playing outside by himself – even though Jeremiah was out there with him. But I digress.

So I’m stirring the rice and adding the mixture when Carlos sticks his head in the door to “check in.” He wrinkles up his nose and asks “What’s that smell? It doesn’t smell good. I think we should throw the rice away!” Okay, lesson time.

I attempt to explain that just because something smells bad doesn’t mean you should throw it away. “Sometimes, something may smell good and taste awful and sometimes something may smell awful and taste good. We’ll just have to wait and find out.” Carlos didn’t seem too thrilled with the idea and after a little more complaining and some instructing on my part, he went outside to enjoy the fresh air.

Fast forward a few minutes. Dinner is ready and dished up. We’ve thanked God for the food and are now digging in. Carlos is eyeing his “stinky” rice suspiciously and finally puts some in his mouth. The expression on his face when he tasted it was quite funny. He was expecting the “not good smelling rice” to be “not good tasting rice.” But much to his surprise, Carlos found the rice to be quite tasty! He immediately exclaimed, “Wow, Papa! You were right! It does taste good. All that whining was for nothing!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Carlos gets an A+ in this lesson.

Slow going

This video reminds me about an important part of being a parent. You need patience - and LOTS of it. Imagine being a driver waiting for this guy to cross the road. I can imagine myself sitting thinking, "Come on! Can't you go faster?!? It's just a small road!" So maybe I rev my engine a little bit, hoping that will speed him up.

Now imagine that sloth is your child. "Yeah, I can see that" you might be thinking. Stay with me here. How many times do we try to teach them something only to have to repeat ourselves 5 minutes later? Or we think, "Boy, that was silly! You should know better than that!" (a phrase I'm trying hard to cut out of my vocabulary) We want them to hurry up and learn everything so we don't have to teach them over and over and over. But they are learning, albeit verrrrrryyyy slowly. Our job is to be patient with them.

And not to beep our horns and run them over in the road.

So the next time you're driving through the jungle and come across a sloth crossing the road, remember - parenting takes patience, just like it's going to take a lot of patience while you wait for fuzzy to cross the road.

So why DID the sloth cross the road? Who knows, by the time he got there, everyone forgot the reason.

I'm in Trouble

So I get a phone call from Carlos (my 6-year old!) a few a minutes ago and it goes something like this:

Me: Hi Carlos
Carlos (my 6-year old!): Hi Papi. Can I write a letter to my friend? Mommy says I have to ask you.
Me: What's your friend's name?
Carlos (my 6-year old!): Um, I can't remember her name. Maybe I can call Davey (his buddy, at whose birthday party Carlos met his "friend").
Me: What do you want to say in your letter?
Carlos (my 6-year old!): Um, "Hi how are you? This is Carlos. I like you lots. Do you want to come and play?" Something like that.

I really didn't want to have to deal with this for at least another, oh, 10 years at least. But then again, Carlos is always talking about who he wants to marry when he grows up. I should have seen this coming.

Fight for kisses!

Fathers, no more shall we be relegated to leftover smooches! No more should our wives fear the stubble! Let's take back what is ours! Let's Fight for Kisses!! Boo-yah!!