Sunday, September 9, 2007

Mellow men, Brotherly Love and peanuts

The other day Ted brought home a huge box filled with packing peanuts. He threw it in the entry as he headed out the door to work and yelled, "I thought the kids would have fun with this!" He was right-and they left the mess to prove it (and I left the mess for Ted to clean up-I thought he'd want to see how much fun they had:) Instead of flipping out about how to remove all the crushed peanuts from the carpet, as I would have done, he devised a nifty little contraption with the vacuum cleaner (so they wouldn't jam it) and sucked them all up. My Mom, who witnessed the whole scene, just laughed because had I walked in the door to that mess-oh my! But Ted just "solved the problem" which is the number two rule in her classroom. I learn a little lesson from my mellow man with the Apple juice container duck taped to the vacuum cleaner as he stooped through the house sucking up Styrofoam peanuts.

Story #2- Half way through the kids glorious peanut fight I heard this huge crash down the stairs and James screaming "It's Adam!! He's holding scissors!" You could hear the fear in his voice. It surprised me because James is usually so mellow about everything-hence mellow men. The scissors had jammed the top of Adams mouth-there was blood everywhere. James was devastated! I haven't seen him cry in a long time. He kept asking if his lip was going to be swollen. He literally came over and put his head on top of Adam and sobbed. As I sat there with my crying boys I had one of those moments where I realized how blessed I am to have James. I heard so much about "setting the tone" while I was growing up. James is doing a million times better then I did as the oldest. He truly sets a mellow, compassionate tone for his younger siblings. I can't believe he turns eight in just a few weeks. I am so proud of all that he is. Thank you James- for being brave enough to blaze the trail for your younger siblings. You have done it with courage and wisdom beyond your years. I know that you will continue to set a good example to them and lead them in paths of righteousness!






The peanut gallery.




Watching Saturday morning cartoons.