Reminders

Nothing like receiving a disc in the mail of your recent family pictures to remind you how lucky you are.  Man, oh man...I sometimes struggle with being pulled in all directions and being the one responsible to keep everything in check and accounted for, but then I look at my beautiful family and remember what it is all for.  I have FOUR healthy, handsome, smart, GOOD boys.  I ran into Costco today.

(side story: woke up this morning to freezing temperatures.  Told the boys they had to wear winter coats today.  Went to pull said winter coats from closet only to find that Dylan's is missing.  Looked everywhere in the house and it is not here.  I assume he wore it to school last spring on a cold morning then left it at school cause it was warm in the afternoon.  Anywho - no coat.  30 degrees outside.  Had to go to Costco to check out their coats.)

When Porter and I were leaving Costco, I loaded our new coat into the 4Runner and put Porter in the backseat.  I noticed across the way there was a mom loading up her minivan and she had a boy maybe 3 years old with her.  She was taking awhile to get everything in (and I only noticed this cause there was a car waiting to take her spot).  As I was returning the cart she was wrangling the flailing boy into the backseat, yelling at him that keep it up and she'll spank him again.  So, obviously, she spanked the boy, then was throwing him in the car.  Couple things.  I have swatted my kids bums before.  Not enough to hurt them and just my light swat was enough to get them to know I am serious and they never repeated the behavior again.  This is like when they were two.  Am I a fan of that discipline?  No.  I don't feel it is very effective nor does it make me feel good to hit my child that I love so much.  So when this woman is doing that in a busy parking lot, it made me cringe a bit.  And then it made me think of my 3 older boys.  I have NEVER had to deal with them flipping out like that.  We've never had big tantrums at stores.  They are relatively well behaved.  I can go to the store, to a restaurant, and not worry that they'll flip out.  It isn't tolerated by us and they know it is not OK to behave that way.  I am lucky.

That little occurrence today reminded me that I have it pretty good.  I was able to go get a coat for my son so that he isn't cold at recess because I have a husband who works so hard everyday to provide money for me to do that.  Our needs are met.  A lot of our wants are met.  We have children.  That in itself is a blessing held very dear to my heart.  And to boot, they're children that are amazing.  Is there anything else that I need?  No.  I have so, so much.