Character

I've been feeling very opinionated lately, so I thought it best for me to avoid public postings where I'd be likely to rant and offend people with my opinions about their offensive opinions.  I think I've accumulated enough self-restraint for the moment, though, to resume posting... as much as the little people in my house allow, at least. And as long as my house doesn't decide to randomly turn back into a waterpark with water dripping, spurting, jetting, pouring, and flowing like a waterfall out of all kinds of places that have no business dripping, spurting, jetting, or pouring water with no warning whatsoever.  I did get a new sink and kitchen faucet out of it all, though, so that was pretty exciting.   If you don't think a new sink and faucet are exciting, it's possible you don't have children... or love to be in your kitchen... or consider Home Depot and Lowes to be two of your favorite stores on the planet.  Or maybe, and more likely, you haven't spent the last six years looking at and despising a 7-year-old scratched and stained beyond repair, used-to-be-white sink.   Throwing that thing out was easily among the happiest moments of home improvement I've experienced here.  It would have been even more exciting if we had removed it from our new house-- the one with three giant bedrooms (gotta have a place to stack the ten kids, all dormitory style.  I mean, nine.  Well, the nine minus four. But maybe plus one.  But maybe not.  We're still seeing.), a huge backyard all full of beautiful, organic produce (including fruit and nut trees), chickens, and goats-- but still with plenty of room for alllll those babies to run around and play, a pink dogwood tree in the front, and a giant kitchen that is perfect, all except for the sink.  I would have liked that more.  But since I'm still waiting on that house to magically appear (though I wouldn't mind a bit if the nasty white sink was removed and replaced before we find it), I'll take what I can get and be thrilled to get rid of the nasty white sink from our one-bedroom apartment first.

Anyone want to buy a giant one bedroom apartment that is nasty-white-sink-less?  Anyone???

So beside my opinions about other people's opinions, I've been thinking a lot about words lately.  I'm very, very careful and particular about my choice of words in speech and writing, and am not one to toss words/phrases/sentences/sentiments about all willy nilly.  I say what I mean, and I mean what I say (yes, I still intensely dislike clichés, but sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...uhh, I mean, say)-- unless I've offended you, and then I probably didn't mean what you thought I meant. Because I wouldn't mean it that way.  I'm not mean like that.  

Yikes.

Anyway... I've noticed what a difference using specific words and phrases makes when it comes to my kids.  You'll get two completely different results, for example, if you say "How about we try doing that a little differently?" versus "You're doing that wrong."  Or, "Don't do that!  What are you thinking!  Stop that right now!" (because you and I both know they hear "Don't blah blah blah blah" *tuning out now*) in comparison with "Hang on a minute, let's stop and think about what's going on."

 It's not just about reengaging the brain, it's about doing it with a positive point of view.  The difference in my kids, at least, when I make sure to use positive words and say things constructively, rather than accusingly, is night and day. Black and white.  (Let's just accept right now I'm going to cliché it up in here, up in here.  Who's apparently in the mood to be a giant, sassy hypocrite tonight?  This girl!)  So because I try to be very careful about what I say and how I say it, and my brain is incredibly narcissistic and subconsciously assumes that everyone else thinks the same way I do (don't worry, yours probably does too), I automatically assume that when someone says something to me, they've carefully thought about their words and chosen them because they mean them and they think those are the best words to get their point across and goal accomplished (because we always have a goal with our words and actions, whether we're conscious of it or not).

I've been given a plethora of opportunities lately to learn that not everyone is as obsessive/careful/particular about their word usage as I am.  It hasn't been pretty.  Just ask my husband.  Or don't, since I'm pretty sure he's quite done talking about/listening to that topic for a while.  Or forever.  Poor man.

Along those lines though, and as part of an attempt to train my children to be aware of their words so they aren't as likely to be thoughtlessly hurtful, and to think positively no matter what, when Aidan asked me a month or so ago how my day was going (his favorite question to ask, so you'll ask him in return, and he can respond dramatically), I decided to respond with a smile and tell him it had been "character building." (Honestly, it had been horrible.)  He asked what that meant, and we got to have a nice conversation about when things don't go well or the way we want them to, if we make the right decisions and keep a good attitude no matter what, it builds character-- it makes you a better, stronger person.  If you build character, then even the worst day isn't a loss-- it's actually a great day and a great gain... physical things can always be lost or taken away, but your character is yours to keep forever.  No one can take it from you.  They're kind of important, those character building days.  Apparently I have a lot of "building" that needs to be done, because I've been having lots of those kinds of days lately.

Today wasn't an exhaustive character building day though.  Not for me, at least. The day went pretty well, all things considered ("all things" being a growth spurting nearly-4-year-old who has gone full-on boy and comes up with no end of fecal-focused knock-knock jokes that send him and his sister into unending hysterics, a 2 year old cutting multiple molars and not sleeping at night, and a 3 month old who seems to be contemplating doing some teething himself. Plus the whole one-bedroom-apartment-with-no-yard-and-lots-of-smokers-everywhere thing.  Yeah, I'm a little hung up on that apartment part right now, can you tell?).
When Aidan ambled into the kitchen this evening, scanning every countertop for anything he could munch on with each step (because that's what he does now that he can see over them and reach just about anything on them) while I was in the middle of getting dinner ready, I knew his daily "Hey Mama, how has your day been?" inquiry was coming.

He looked up at me with his big, warm chocolatey brown eyes, scratched the back of his head just like his daddy does when he walks into a room and is about to start a conversation with me, and asked, as if he hadn't been here with me all day,

"Hey Mama, how has your day been?"

"It was a good day, baby.  How was yours?"

*Heavy, dramatic sigh, with his head down and cocked slightly to the side,* "Mama, it was character building."

Seriously, the hardest part of parenting is keeping a straight face.

A month ago.  We had that conversation over a month ago!  I did my best not to giggle or smile (because this is serious business, this daily conversation we have, and he was serious about it's character-building-ness), and I enjoyed the opportunity to hear all about the character building experiences of his day as if I hadn't present for them all, discuss what worked and what didn't in different situations he found himself in with his little sister (she's always "just doing stuff" to him, you know), and how he might try to do things next time.  It was great.  And it was a great reminder that kids are little mirrors/parrots/memory banks of alllllll that you say and do.  Even stuff from a month ago.

It's nice to know he listens, though, and that things are capable of sticking somewhere in there between his ears.  Just not things like, "Don't bounce off the couch." Or, "Dirty clothes belong in the laundry basket." Or, "We do not draw buttcracks on our magnadoodles during services." (Or any other time for that matter. And we say "bottom", thank you very much!).  And, most frequently over the past three months, "No, your baby brother doesn't actually want to eat your nose, stop putting it in his mouth."

"It was character building."  Oh, child.

This is why I love what I do.