As a parent, I'm constantly thinking of ways I can teach my children. I want to teach them about God, how to treat girls, the importance of being obedient, how to play sports, and good manners-with boys, this one is key especially with little sounds that escape from little boys. Today, I am reminded of one of the many things that I have learned from them. Kids are so black and white. They know what they like, where they want to go, what they want to do and who they want to be with. However, kids have to adapt all of their wants to the adults in their life. They may want to eat at McDonald's and McDonald's only, but we go to Red Lobster instead. As an adult, I'm sure if such a high percentage of my opinions were trumped by someone else, I think I would go crazy. When decisions are concerned, kids rarely get their way. Do they always deal with that in the right way...no. But they do learn quickly how to be submissive and how to compromise. These are lessons I need to learn desperately.
A couple of months ago, Landon taught me something so valuable. We were up at the church and we had been in the office for a long time. They boys were playing nicely and had kept Daddy busy folding paper airplanes. The time had finally come when Shawn and I were ready to go. We had gathered our things and were footsteps from the door when I looked down at Landon and his shoeless feet. He was so busy playing with his plane that he forgot to put his shoes on. I got frustrated and sternly told him to quickly go find his shoes and get them on his feet. One thing you have to know about me is when I'm ready to go...I'm ready to go now. Any delay is very annoying to me. I waited for what seemed like 5 minutes, but was probably actually only like 15 seconds. I stormed off to find out what the hold up was and saw Landon and his paper airplane "flying" extremely slowly through the office doing a "air search" for his shoes. He was doing what I asked him to do, but he was having a good time doing it. He was so lost in his imagination that he just couldn't stop.
When I get asked to do something I don't really want to do, I rarely have a good time doing it. Children are being asked all the time to do things they don't want to do, but they are still able to have fun doing it. How? Landon taught me that day, to just slow down. I get ruffled over silly things that I could actually enjoy.
I just need to slow down. I just need to slow down. I j u s t n e e d t o s l o w d o w n !
