Sprite and Toes

Carson, my squirrely middle child, who still runs every where he goes (he's almost 6), is the kid that says anything that comes to his mind. To him, everything makes sense.
Today, I gave the boys some Sprite with their dinner. This never happens (not dinner, the Sprite), as we RARELY give our kids sugar (in that form at least). Whenever the boys get anything carbonated, they respond as if they have just found out that there will be a movie that combines Transformers, Ninja Turtles, Bakugan, and ice cream. (And it will be rated G, so they can actually see it.)
Anyway, Carson polishes off his Sprite, and says, "Wow! When I was finishing my Sprite, my little toe started hurting. But then, I stopped drinking, and it went away!"
Ang and I just started at him blankly for a second, my mind racing, trying feverishly to somehow connect those oh-so-distant dots. But, oh, not so. There were no connections (for my primitive mind, anway) to be made. So I just said, "Alright!"
Here's the point. I love the way Carson connects things, even when there seems to be no rational connection, and we could all learn something from him. So many times, we pray and ask God for something, He answers, and we never connect the answer back to the prayer. If we did make the connections, wouldn't we pray more often, and more fervently? If we just took the time to stop and realize all that God answers, even down to things as simple as protection and wisdom, our relationship with God would be different. We'd depend on Him more, we'd look to Him more, and we show that by our actions.
So, the next time Carson says something so completely off the wall, I'm going to remember what he taught me today. But I'll still probably just say, "Alright!"

Super Speller

My oldest son, Cameron, just made it to the all-school spelling bee at his school. He's in 4th grade, and so he would be competing against 4th and 5th graders in front of a full cafeteria of every 4th and 5th grader at his school, plus teachers and a ton of parents. Pretty nerve-wracking for an otherwise pretty shy kid.

The night before, during our prayer time, he said, "Dad, I don't think I want to do this. And I definitely don't want to win, because then everyone will be looking at me." I feel like God gave me an opportunity to talk to Him about complete dependence on God. I almost talked to him about visualizing everyone in their underwear, but thought that was a little creepy for a 4th grader. I said, "Buddy, just take some deep breaths, and just before your name is called, pray and ask Jesus to give you the strength to get up there and do your best. It's just you and the word-giver up there. Ignore everyone else."

Ang and I went up to the school the next day to watch him, and I just have to say, whomever asked the word-reader lady to be the word-reader lady should be taken out back to the woodshed. Her thick Georgia-sticks accent totally made several kids miss. Words like ACORN and WILLING were pronounced AKERN and WILLIN. Cameron got up on his turn and nailed "nightmare" or NAHTMAYER, as word-reader lady said. He made it until there were only about 10 kids left and misspelled THORNY, THORNEY. Tricky little buggar of a word...

Anyway, I'm really proud of him. He does so much really good. He's super smart and creative and kind and tender-hearted, and most people say he's just like his dad. :) He's a great kid, and I'm proud to be his dad.

Sliding

This afternoon, Angie was out with a friend, so I was playing Dad.  I was being responsible, sitting on the couch with the boys watching Clone Wars with them.  Engaged in their lives.  Not really.  I was actually just in the room looking at old Young Continentals pictures on Facebook.  

Avery (almost 2) walks in the room saying "Peese, Peese" and pointing out of the room.  So, I pull myself away from the very important surfing I was doing, and follow her to the coat closet.  She continues to "Peese" me until I lift her up to see what she's talking about.  She's looking for her coat.  To go outside.  It's like 39 degrees.  And she has a leopard print top and orange pants on (comfy nap pants).  So we add her brown jacket to the ensemble and head outside.

She heads straight for their playground, and, more specifically, the slide.  She first tries to climb UP the slide, which doesn't work.  She's not big/coordinated enough to climb the steps to the slide platform, so I lift her up to the top of the slide.  She's a daredevil, and promptly shoots down the slide, laughing hysterically.  As you can guess, she pops right up and wants another turn.  I comply. 359 more times, at least.  It's not getting old for her, but getting very cold for her (but not for me, of course.  I'm tough.).

I finally give her the "one more time" shpeal, and put her on the slide. She comes down, and apparently forgot that we were going inside.  So I grab her up and head toward the house, with her going ballistic all over me.  So I let her down, thinking she'd forget about the slide and play on the porch while I drummed up some cereal for dinner.  She didn't forget about it, and instead, she stared at me through the glass door.  Every time I took a step toward her, she'd hightail it toward the slide.  I finally got her inside by enticing her with the wafting smell of Honeycomb. 

This whole ordeal got me thinking.  Do we treat God like this?  We love it when He is pouring blessings on us, and we keep saying "More!  More!"  But then, when He allows something in our lives that we don't especially like, we throw a fit.  Then, we just "stare" at Him, waiting for Him to "relent" and bless us again, when really, He just wants us to follow Him.  Not where we want Him to take us, or where will be most fun for us, but wherever.

The kids are successfully in bed, albeit crying because they were still hungry (I don't know why).  I can't wait for the next slide time, and I hope she's still little enough for me to have to lift her up there.