"It's okay to make a mistake"

A week or so ago Joel and I were studying for his geography test. He took a practice test and concluded that the Arctic Ocean was near Antartica because the two words sounded so similar. When I told him that despite his good reasoning the Arctic Ocean was near the North Pole he flipped out because he had made a mistake. I told him it was okay to make mistakes but he was inconsolable. I felt so bad. Finally I said a little prayer outloud asking Heavenly Father to help Joel know it was okay to make mistakes. After hearing that he started to calm down and was okay. Then a couple of days ago when I was making sugar cookies, I flipped out a little myself when all of the cats' heads kept falling off. "Mom," I hear from a little voice in the living room, "It's okay to make mistakes." Such a full circle moment, and I know he gets it. He doesn't have to be perfect.

Today when I got up Joel had three shirts on. I actually thought it was two and I asked him to take one off. When he did I noticed there were still two more. When I asked him why he put three shirts on he said, "Because yesterday was the 30th day of school and 30 is three tens." I love that boy.

"Pumpkin Mad!"

Cara and I were walking around our little block and she noticed a neighbor's jack-o-lanterns. She walked up to admire them and turned around and said, "Pumpkin happy!" in her joyful, baby voice. Then she looked at another one and said, "Pumpkin mad!" and put on her own little angry face. She continued with the happy jack-o-lantern, "Pumpkin smiling! Pumpkin laughing!" So so adorable!

We just delivered some sugar cookies to LDS neighbors that moved in more than a month ago. After the delivery Joel and Eli wanted to climb on top of the car. One of the many every day objects that in their minds is really a jungle gym. When Cara saw them of course she wanted to climb up too and was mad when I wouldn't let her. She walked further down the sidewalk in front of the neighbor's mini cooper, "I want up car!" she said pointing to the mini cooper. I guess she figured it was just her size.

We made the sugar cookies from Eli's recipe book that he got for his birthday. They were so good even tho we had to substitute half of the butter with shortening since we didn't have enough butter, and Joel and Eli were so cute making them. It always makes my heart warm to see Joel having a good time doing something like that. Because there were the years when it was torture for him to participate in anything like that because he only wanted to draw circles and look at letters and numbers.

Instead of continuously flouring the rolling pin (spaghetti sauce can :o) and the cookie dough the recipe said to just put the dough between a folded sheet of parchment baking paper (which miraculously we had) and roll on top of it. I loved it. It was so much easier and so much CLEANER. It's definitely the way I will always roll out sugar cookies, pie crust or whatever from now on.

Traffic Ticket Yikes!

Eli's preschool starts at 12:35 pm. Two days ago we left at 12:32. Trying to bust a move I sped up to hit the yellow light. It may have been red by the time I got there but I was going too fast to brake. As soon as I turned the corner I noticed flashing lights in my rear view mirror. Yikes! A cop is pulling me over. Ugh, the only other time I got a ticket was in 1996. (Notwithstanding I rear ended someone that same year.) Hee! Hee!

So the cop gave me a ticket and Eli says, "Mommy when Daddy runs red lights the police never catch him cause he goes super fast!"

Eli calls pinatas funatas which I think is so cute.

Joel had soccer after school today for the first time this season. When I asked him if he had fun, he said, "Super fun fun fun!" and he was so happy which made me feel wonderful and made the wrangling of Eli and Cara (especially Cara) throughout the hour of soccer so worth it!

Joel got off the bus a couple of days ago and said, "Mom, if you get an email from Mrs. Larson, just delete it, don't open it." In his little mind that issue was all cleared up. Of course I immediately went to check my email and there it was -- the email from Joel's teacher Mrs. Larson. It said Joel had misbehaved that day and that he ran away from her when she tried to talk to him about it. He also refused to take his behavior chart home.

When I confronted Joel about it, he was unhappy. He had a pretty big breakdown and I felt so bad for him. I know what teachers consider misbehavior feels just like having a good 'ole time to Joel and he doesn't understand why his behavior is inappropriate.

But since that day, he hasn't had any problems with school. Anyway mostly I thought it was hilarious that he just thought he could tell me to delete the email and that would be that. Especially from the boy whose teeth I have to pull to find out about anything that went on at school that day. Love that kid~