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Awwww….my gorgeous little nephew.?? Don’t you just love those HUGE HUGE eyes?

You know me and feet pictures…can’t help myself.?? You’ll find I took several.?? It’s an addiction.?? 🙂

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I have been trying my best lately to find “teachable moments” with the boys.?? It hasn’t been going well. Usually they just look at me like they have no idea what I am saying.

Let’s see…it started??earlier in the day when Tanner told me Ty was playing a computer game with Rabbit and the Tortoise. Ahhhh…nice teaching moment…an allagory.

“Tanner do you know that story?”

“Ya”

“Remember that the rabbit was so sure he was going to win the race that he got very prideful about it and decided to do what?”

“Go to sleep”

“Yep and then the turtle ended up winning”

“Uh huh”

Primed and ready. All is set to launch into a brief discussion of how pride comes before a fall and/or how persistence can pay off, and/or how one should’t quit just because odds aren’t in their favor (Note to Kristi – none of this applies to us!) ….I was waffling on which I would choose. While I was making up my mind, I realized that Tanner was quite uninterested in the story and only wanted to discuss how one could win at the computer game. The teaching moment would have to wait. It was losing it’s relevance by the minute.

This evening Ty was telling me I was beautiful and how much he loved me (all Ty’s usual affirmations) and I said “I love YOU so much. Do you want me to tell you a story? It has sad stuff in it but all the happy parts are about you!”. He said yes. I launched into a 4 year old version of my grief over infertility and loosing children and how he was in Amanda’s tummy and how God chose us to be a family…how he was born early, how I loved him in the hospital…on and on I went. I noticed that all the while he kept saying “uh huh…uh huh…uh huh..” Finally it dawned on me that his “uh huh” was simply an appeasement because in reality he was watching that really dumb wipeout show out of the corner of his eye with Daddy and Tanner. It was impossible to deny once he was laughing hysterically at all the wrong parts in my story. I finished it rather abruptly and he moved to the couch with Dad for a better look at the TV. Okay – strike two for the day.

The day wasn’t over though – I still had time. When Tanner commented on the Wipeout show with “Hey mommy! That lady just quit!” – I knew I had just scored another opportunity.

“Tanner what do you think of her quitting?”

“She shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” -??now I am getting excited because I have got him right where I want him.

“Because now we don’t get to see her fall and that’s funny.”

I just stared at Jim with a dumbstuck look. This just isn’t working for me today. Jim laughed.

I hope my love is so big and my grace so wide that the teachable moments in this house are lived out instead of simply being “taught” because apparently no one is really listening. 🙂 Good grief.

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