Twice a year, the members of our church get the great privilege of watching (or if you are super duper lucky, attending) General Conference. It's 2 full days of listening to our Prophet, apostles, and other leaders give us wise and loving guidance. It's one of my favorite things to do. In our family we like to play games like 'if you hear the word "tithing" you get to pick a candy out of the "tithing" bucket... if you hear the word "scriptures" you get to pick a candy out of the "scripture" bucket.... basically, you score as much candy as you would at Halloween. That's my kind of game. Also- we are teaching our kids to take notes. If they don't understand what's going on- then they can draw a picture or at the very least, draw a picture of the guy's tie who's speaking..... just little things to try and get them to quietly pay attention during the 8 hours they get to sit still.
Chip and I also take notes. I like to doodle on mine. I have always been a doodler. You should look at some of my Jr. High papers.
Back to the story......
So on Sunday morning a Sister Rosemary M. Wixom, who is our Primary General President (over all the kids in the church) gave a lovely talk called 'The Words we Speak'- How we speak to our children and the words we use can encourage and uplift them and strengthen their faith. There was one part of her talk that I felt drawn to. She said " The answer to our prayer of how to meet our children’s needs may be to more often technologically disconnect. Precious moments of opportunity to interact and converse with our children dissolve when we are occupied with distractions. Why not choose a time each day to disconnect from technology and reconnect with each other? Simply turn everything off. When you do this, your home may seem quiet at first; you may even feel at a loss as to what to do or say. Then, as you give full attention to your children, a conversation will begin, and you can enjoy listening to each other."
One would think that someone was brilliant as I am would actually do as I am told.... and considering that I felt a strong prompting by the Holy Ghost while she was saying it, I should probably assume it was directed toward myself.........
but I'm not that brilliant.
So the next evening, I was looking over my pretty doodles on my conference notepad..... and then set it down and picked up my Ipad to probably do Facebook or something equally as delightful.... Miles and Dexter were trying to get my attention. Over and over and over they were hitting my legs, fussing, and whining. They were fed. They had a drink. They had a fresh diaper. Considering the fact that they were so whiny most of the day... and so naughty... and frankly getting on my last nerve, I chose to ignore them to get a moment of sanity for myself.
I placed my conference notes down on the end table, turned on an obnoxious cartoon, got out a bucket of blocks for the boys, and walked into the kitchen to have some one-on-one FB time. You know, because apparently that talk really sank in.
Not 5 minutes later the boys were laughing hysterically. At our house, this is never a good thing. It means mischief is afoot.
I carefully peaked in the living room hoping that they would, I don't know.... just be making funny faces at each other, or telling each other 'knock-knock' jokes...... but of course they weren't. Instead of a good joke- they were using my beautifully doodled on conference notes to make confetti. It was EVERYWHERE. 8 hours of carefully taken notes .... shredded.
Advice given at General Conference- 1
Breezi who doesn't listen to the Spirit- 0
Someday I will learn to listen to guidance given.
Maybe.
In my defense- I would spend more time with my children at night if they weren't so exhausting all day long.... hahaha. Somehow, I don't think my logic works very well.
