Keynote Message Noted

Yesterday, as part of the statewide PTA convention I attended, Dr. Brent Top was the keynote speaker. He is a professor of church history and doctrine at BYU. He has also written several books and conducted many studies that focus on family life and family influence.

He spoke to several hundred people yesterday on the topic of helping our children acheive their highest potential. And since that is my goal in my real life too, I thought what he had to say was valuable.

He began by telling us the story of Michelangelo. He was once asked about the masterpiece carvings he created. Someone had asked him how he does that. He basically told them that he sees the finsihed piece within the stone and he just removes the unwanted parts.

He gave four suggestions we can try to help our children from a "rough cut" into becoming their own "masterpiece".

First, create a learning environment. He gave the example of seeds. Even if you plant them in the richest soil with all the amenities a lush garden could need, until the soil is warmed to its optimal temperature the seeds simply won't grow. Love acts as a root-starter and along with warmth and love, children need safety and acceptance and respect.

Then, they need guidance in developing a moral compass. Kids have a strong innate sense of right and wrong. But all around them the societal model contains priority shifts, justification, and motivation to do whatever it takes. He emphasized that morality is not religion. Morality cannot be relative. He also told us that parents need to be parents, not buddies to their kids. And as we are consistent with discipline and punishments, respect can grow. Kids, especially the teens in his study, want boundaries from their parents.

Third, we must help instill a sense of empathy and compassion for others. While we should value academic achievement or athletic prowess, we should also value empathy. Without that characteristic our children cannot reach their full potential. He told of a study he did with people who had near-death experiences. That idea that your life flashes before your eyes seems to be universal, but the things that are recalled are more the feelings that your actions affected in others. So how we treat other people really counts.

Fourth, we must teach our kids to render service to others. This is empathy and compassion in action. As parents knowingly or unknowingly foster their children's idea that it is all about them, and eventually that becomes very restricive and ultimately self-destructive. Dr. Top mentioned some thing that really struck me here. He said, "Those who have true joy look out of the windows in their souls rather than into mirrors." The more we focus on others, the more we gain. He taught the Principle of Indirection--like a boomerang. We put effort into one area and the benefits come from another direction.

Helping children achieve their potential requires effort. Modeling the behavior we want our children to follow requires determination and purpose from us.

I appreciated this more this week, as we had a blow out with The Girl earlier this week. Her big AP test was Friday and I am sure she was feeling stress about wanting to do well. But we have told her from the start that we didn't expect her to score a perfect "5" but a passing "3" would be just great.

However, one girl in her class continually makes everything they do a competition. She wants to rub her percieved superiority in the other kids' noses--even to the point of telling the teacher he is wrong in a very disrespectful way in front of the class. The Girl doesn't care to deal with this girl like that. But this classmate, in my opinion, is at the core, jealous of The Girl for her acceptance and well-roundedness. And she proceeds to become more and more confrontational when The Girl is getting what this classmate really wants.

This classmate is all focus and intensity--she really has limited social skills with kids her own age. And consequently few friends really want to hang out with her--can you blame them? But I know that The Girl is biting her tongue more often than not. I have told her she needs to be kind to this classmate, but needn't try to be her best friend. But it eats her up when she sees the inconsistancy theis classmate displays between prefessin her perfection and treating people around her so badly.

As the test approached this week, The Girl's anxiety peaked too and she acted out disobediently, and got grounded. My job as a parent, according to Dr.Top is to help her develop and achieve her potential. But, boy, that is a hard job.

PTA Convention and Bonus Video

This weekend is the annual State PTA Convention. I spent the majority of the day yesterday helping with registration. How can you break a sweat explaining about delegate cards and voting procedures? Oh, that is kind of a rhetorical questions, isn't it? I guess it was inevitable that I break a sweat about that.

In honor of this being my (most-likely) last convention I have to attend, and the root of my true calling and profession, I grabbed a video from a Facebook posting from a long-ago and dear friend. I loved it. I hope you do too.

Mommy Rhapsody from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend!

When One Bloom Opens Another Closes?!

Well,here is the beginning of our family garden. The strawberries are along the left, and the watermelon is right hand side front. Then there are four peppers in front of the eight tomatoes. It has been three days now. So far so good.

On the other hand, this is now my front flower bed. Yesterday morning it had been filled with gorgeous tulips in bright, springtime colors.



As I was making dinner yesterday 6 year old neighbor girl rang the doorbell. When I opened the door, she spit out "My brother picked all your flowers. Sorry."

I am sure I gasped when I saw my once full flowerbed. I was so bummed out.

Now her brother is 4, and like all boys is curious and has some boundary issues. The Boy did the same thing here once upon a time. But this neighbor girl has a tendency to blame everyone else when she is in trouble, so I wonder if she wasn't at least an accomplice. My hunch tells me she may have orchestrated the bloom heist and then knew the brother would get blamed.

The saddest part is that they picked the tulips with only 3 inches of stem, so they couldn't even be salvaged as an arrangement indoors.

Their mom came over when she saw me out looking at my molested flower bed. She was obviously embarrassed. What do you say? She was mortified. I tried to tell the mom that I understand they are kids, but still. I wanted the kids to really understand that this was not OK.

When The Boy tried this same trick--badgered by The Girl or not, I still don't know for sure--he got a spanking. He never picked the neighbor's flowers again. I know that this will not be the fate of the neighbor kids.

This past week or so the weather has been back to the yucky, almost March rain-snow mix and was taking its toll on my psyche. I am so ready for warmth and sunshine and spring and summer. Some days when I would leave or come back to the house, that blast of bright color was enough to keep me going another day.

Now it looks like the mid March bloom pattern our there, only the Columbine is bushier and the Allium Giganteum is coming to the blooming stage. Let's hope those survive the kids.

I know they are only kids, but it still irritates me. Am I out of line? What ever happened to respecting other people's property? I remember distinctly being taught not to even walk on people's lawns...that is what the driveway or sidewalk is for. Isn't that this same principle?

At least the garden is safe. It is inside the fenced-in back yard. Though this resembles the white trash holy land, the garden is safe enough and tucked out of the sight and fingers of the neighbor kids.

Whiplash!

It is still raining today, so no garden photo yet. I promise to remember...eventually.

Sunday was Mother's Day and typically not my favorite day of the year. In fact, I usually hate the entire day. But this year was pleasantly tolerable. In fact, not to startle anyone, but I think I even liked it.

I got up and the kids were getting themselves ready for church. Genius Golfer got up and we were all on time, though having taken separate vehicles that wasn't a potential problem this year.

The kids were kind to each other, and everyone got along. The lessons in church were fine and the speakers in Sacrament meeting spoke about motherhood and honoring women in realistic terms, FINALLY! I left the meeting feeling like although I wasn't perfect, I could keep plugging away and so long as I do my best, that is just fine. Oh, and there wasn't a note of Love at Home to be heard! Hallelujah! I hate that song.

I had a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a rare love letter from GG and another homemade gift and card with tender heart-felt comments from The Girl waiting for me when we got home.

We had dinner with GG's family at Grandmama's place. It was delicious and GG did most of the clean up afterwards. The men grilled the streaks and took care of all the food too. So nice.

Now, fast forward to this morning.

Last night the kids were goofing around until almost 10. Past my bedtime, when I was that exhausted. GG just laughed at me for being irritated with the kids for staying up late. He is a late night kind of guy and they like to stay up with him. But I have to deal with the aftermath in the morning, not him.

This morning, my alarm didn't go off--apparently an operator error. The Girl woke me up by opening my bedroom door allowing the hallway light and her room's light to shine in on my face. That occurred just about two minutes before I needed to have her in the car to be taken to her early morning class at the high school. So I had barked at her for standing in the doorway with the light shining in--prior to looking at the clock and seeing the time. And the lateness.

So she didn't speak to me beyond the responsive minimalistic grunt. I don't know if it meant in the affirmative or negative. I don't think she cared to tell me anyway. She was just being polite. Well, sort of.

I still haven't gotten into the shower to really wake up and I have a list of things to do today that may or may not get done. And it is raining. Again.

If it weren't Mother's Day residual, I'd wonder if there was an element of bi-polar disorder going on here today. It isn't the first time I have wondered that.

5x7 Gardening

Maybe you have heard of the Square Foot Gardening trend going around. It is a great idea for people with little to no ground space to garden in. It is mostly a verticle garden, by the careful selection of appropriate plants, the ground space required is small but the bounty is still great.

Well, last night--after a family home evening lesson reviewing the story of the Little Red Hen--I got The Boy and The Girl and Genius Golfer to help me put in my 12 strawberry plants, 8 tomatoes, 4 bell peppers and 2 watermelons. All within about a 5 foot by 7 foot space at the south end of our house. They also trenched and buried a soaker hose for me to water the roots of everything.

Today it is rainy so the photo doesn't look too promising, so I will share the set up once the sun comes back out.

At least I can check the "gardening" line off my to do list. I am hopeful to get enough tomatoes to can them again this year. And the kids are hoping the watermelon produces enough to eat all summer. They are not, however, anxious for stuffed bell peppers for dinner, but I am!

70 Years Ago

At the moment, I am reading Anne Frank Remembered. It is the memoir written by Miep Gies, one of the handful of non-Jews who cared for and protected the Frank family and the others that hid in the annex where Anne wrote her diary. It is a heart-rending, but uplifting remembrance of a woman who loved her friends and literally risked her life to keep them safe.

I don't recall reading much about World War II, especially prior to Pearl Harbor, that wasn't written with an American point of view. Reading Miep's book, I can only imagine just how terrifying living in Europe was at the time. She watched the rise of Hitler's Nazi Germany and the invasions of Austria, Poland, and eventually her adopted home of Holland.

Seventy years ago today, The German army invaded Holland. It is 70 years past, and yet the lessons haven't been learned. It is 70 years ago, and the scars have not healed. It's been 70 years and there are still open wounds.

The idea that time can heal the hurts, doesn't fit this story. Reading her testimony of what she experienced makes me want to believe that the human race is better than I had once thought. And that in a pinch, we'd want to help each other--like Miep and her husband did--particularly in the face of tyranny and oppression like that faced by the European Jews in the 1940s.

We can hope that in 70 more years her voice and courage will still be as strong an example as they are today. What an amazing woman of courage and strength.

Video Sunday

Oh, here is the sappy and sweet--but true, nonetheless--video appropriate for Mother's Day.

Video Sunday

I looked for something sappy and sweet to share in honor of Mother's Day today, but then reality kicked in. Luckily, I heard some wonderful, real-to-life messages in church about showing love and being grateful for our own moms and to keep trying to do the best we can as mothers ourselves. It is refreshing to come home from church on Mother's Day and not want to curl up under a rock and give up.

Mrs. Hughes is a refreshing and irreverent. But then, so am I. Happy Mother's Day to all my friends!