Learning

Things I've Learned This Week

•  My kids are deathly afraid of bubble wrap. 
• Skyler really really needs a haircut.  See picture above.
• When Lily's fingers get frozen while eating an otter pop (or Flavor Ice... whatever you choose to call it) she will make me kiss her fingers until they start regaining feeling.  She will also scream "KISS!!!!" at the top of her lungs as if she's freaked out they'll fall off.  And don't judge me that I haven't given them otter pops until this week. 

Whoever said that it's "the terrible two's and the terrifying three's" was sooooo right.  I have seen a dramatic change in Lily since her third birthday, almost as if she knew that was her cue.  I feel like I'm fighting a magnet all the time.  For example, she's really OCD about having clean hands, but now when I ask her to go wash her hands after getting gooped up she'll pin herself down and won't move, even though she actually wants to wash her hands.  Or she'll barely hurt herself and cry about it until I fix it, and when I say, "All better!" she starts up a fake cry and makes up another injury.  "Ummm, seriously Lily?  You think your leg is broken?  I was sitting right next to you on the carpet.  I know your leg isn't broken."  Then she'll smile andd run off happily. 

One of the things that I'm finally giving in to is letting her learn things the hard way.  Yesterday she kept pointing to my perfume and saying that she wanted to play with it.  I said no but to her that meant that she needed to try again, just louder.  I said no again.  Then she started screaming and tugging on my clothes.  I knew what she would do with it but I let it happen anyway.  I gave it to her.  She had that look of neener neener neener!  It took her about 5 seconds to figure out how to take off the cap and she said "ooooooh!" when she figured out how to spray it.  The next thing I know she's sprayed it in her mouth.  Everything has suddenly changed and I'm not the evil villain anymore.  I'm the one who can reach the cups so she can gulp down a glass of water. 

Everything I thought I understood about life has flipped upside down since I became a parent.  When I was younger I thought that Primary was a place where children are taught the gospel.  Now that I've spent my entire marriage in Primary I think that it is a place that's actually meant to teach and remind the adults what it's like to be childlike.  Before I thought that parenthood was when you have kids and you do your best to teach them right and wrong.  Now I think that parenthood is a reminder of how we must appear to our Father in Heaven, that we shouldn't be impatient with our kids if He's not impatient with us.  But it's a struggle for me, a real struggle.  If I don't completely scar my kids for life (or let them permenantly smell like perfume they sprayed in their own mouths) I will think that I didn't do too badly.  I guess we'll see...