kids

Several of my friends from college are about to have their first kiddos. Trey and I have been attending a Sunday School class on childrearing based off the book Loving Obedience in the hopes of one day having our first (and second and third and fourth and, heck, maybe fifth and sixth!).

So I have been thinking about childrearing a bit more than usual. And just now I was thinking about public displays of nastiness, as I know must happen. I am going to have a huge struggle learning to discipline my kids for reasons other than my embarrassment. I don't want to teach them that "you can't do that because it embarrasses Mommy." I want them to learn to honor God, not make Mommy feel good about herself (because that will ultimately end in failure, and I don't want to set my kids up for that kind of failure). How does one do that when one is in a public place and Child #3 is making a spectacle of himself? I hope that I am able to sacrifice my own comfort and "reputation" to do what is best for my child's growth in grace (ha! you can tell that I haven't had to deal with kids much, can't you? I know I am very idealistic, but my God is a powerful, awesome, and gracious God; and He sanctifies me!). Does it mean you drop everything and deal with the issue? Does it mean you remove yourself and child (and possibly all the other kids, too), leaving your errand or meal or whatever unfinished, to deal with the issue?

Maybe further classes in Sunday school will deal with stuff like this. So far, we have been learning about feeding love-hunger in kids, and learning to identify and verbally appreciate things our kids do right (rather than just pointing out what they do wrong). Trey and I have been practicing on each other for the meantime. It really is wonderful to learn to notice what is good rather than dwelling so much on the things that are bad. There is so much good out there in the middle of the wickedness (because! God is a powerful, awesome, and gracious God; and He blesses us!).

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about at work today.

sick

Trey was sick all week, and I've been sick all weekend.

We don't know what we have, but it's our first "married" illness. Despite being miserable, we've been silly enough to enjoy the experience---on some level. Unfortunately for Trey, it took this experience for us to both learn that I can become emotionally unstable during times of high fever. We both made it through my explosions of tears relatively unscathed, though. Trey is a good nurse for his wifey.

Today my fever is lower, and I'm hoping it will be all gone by the end of the day so I can go to work tomorrow. It's the first time I've had a real fever in years.

That's all.