'please,give me a choice'

Bathing my children one evening, my son decided to start splashing water all over the floor and me. I asked him to stop and he just carried on splashing (harder) so again I asked him to stop and each time the tone in my voice was sounding more and more irritated. He was perceptive to this and although I know how to set limits, for some unknown reason I did not set them this time. Jared finally said to me "Mom, give me a choice then." I stopped in my tracks and said "Jared, if you choose to carry on splashing, then you choose not to watch tv after your bath, which do you choose?" He immediatly replied with "Finally, now I can stop splashing." I was impressed that my son can now tell me with his words that he is aware that he needs limits and that he also reminds me to set them,COOL!!!!

Addition: After my post I realized that I had missed something... On giving jared choices, he now also lets me know whether the choice is big enough. Remember Dr.Landreth telling of little choices for little people and big choices for big people. Well as Jared grows he tells me if the choice is appropriate. WOW! I just want to tell you that you have made parenting so enjoyable, even the discipline, and I now know the true meaning of dicipline through the heart!

Do you wanna know a secret?

Secrets...

Many people have them burried deep down in themselves. Some are light and gentle, others are burdensome and heavy. Some secrets have to be kept and we honor the secret bearer, with some we struggle hard to let them rise to the light.

I stumbled over this beautiful site, where people are allowed to reveal their secrets. It touches me again and again to see the metamorphosis of darkness into light....

Do you wanna know a secret?

I hear love

One Bright Idea... brought to you by Judi Richardson

I Hear Love

At one point I can remember telling others, in a rather resentful way, that my father only spoke to me of sports. I wanted him to tell me he loved me, to tell me he was proud of me.

Instead, he taught me to recite the names and cities of all the baseball teams in both leagues by the time I was five years old. He took me to see baseball, hockey, football, marathons, tennis and track meets. We watched professional, college, high school and Little League sports. He taught me of batting averages, ground rule doubles and how to keep score. He read me the sports page every morning at breakfast. I learned a great deal about sports because I loved and wanted to please my father.

What I recognize today is that my father was, all that time, speaking to me of his love. He loved sports, particularly baseball. It was the very stuff of his dreams. In sharing sports with me, he was sharing with me what he loved most, in the best way he knew how. I've learned to listen for my Dad's love in retrospect. It's so clear to me now.

I can choose to hear love in the sigh of the wind, in the songs of the birds, in the laughter of children, in the roar of the airplane taking off, and in the melody of my favorite music. Once I remembered that all I needed to do was listen for the love, I could hear it everywhere I went.

Can you hear the love today?

I invite you to hear love in anyway you can imagine. You may just hear its murmurs.