Isaac's Logic

I know this is 2 in one day but my kids are so smart.  I can't believe the depth of their minds.  Tonight after being asked 3 times to go read Isaac got a swat to the butt.  This was pretty traumatic for him since it almost never happens, but after several weeks of blatant disregarding of direction it was deserved. 

When I went into talk to him about the decision he made and the consequence to follow he was looking at a picture he had drawn at church.  He explained it all to me earlier in the day.  The picture is of Nephi in his armor and a sword, blocking arrows in war. 

He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "I wish I had looked at my picture before I made that choice." 

"Why?"

"Because I want to be like Nephi.  In my picture he is fighting with his armor on, blocking the arrows that want to hurt him.  It is like he is using his sword to protect him from things that tempt him.  And even when he is done fighting he has to be careful about when he takes off his armor because something might sneak up on him and kill him when he is not even looking."

"So what do you think you should have done?"

"I should have used my sword and followed directions.... (long pause) but I do have to say... it was Emma's idea."

Well at least he understands the concept of the Armor of God.  But I wish he wasn't so willing to throw his sister under the bus.

HUH?!?

So Shawn and I finally started Spanish a couple of weeks ago.  This would be the reason for my lack of blogging, I come home exhausted from trying to translate things I don't understand all day long.  I have decided after completing 18 credit hours on how to teach students that don't speak English, that teachers should be subjected to a week of this training and their tolerance and understanding for that child's frustration would greatly increase.  I do hope that the teachers that will be teaching my children in Paraguay will have a similar understanding.

In order to sum up how my week(s) have gone I'll share my embarrassing story with you.  We had to describe the country we are going in Spanish.  So I shared the capital, the weather and even what our housing SHOULD be like.  I told the class that my family and I would be going and we were very excited.  Now, I didn't know that word for excited to so I decided to google translate it.  It offered many words to choose from but I chose the one that sound the most like excited because I thought it would be easier to remember.  Well when I shared my paragraph with the class my teacher began to laugh.  She quickly explained that the word I used for excited was a sexual reference and might not be nice to use in a public setting.  YES, this is my life! 

On other fronts, we also tackled parent/teacher conference this week.  All I have to say after getting Isaac's report card is that the teachers here have it easy, compared to what CA teacher have to fill out.  Of course my kids are super smart with all A's (or exceeding expectation's in Isaac's case).

I would like to end my little note today mentioning that life is short!  This has really come to the forefront of my thoughts over the last few months.  Recently a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, another friend has a very ill child and most recently a brother in our ward laid down to take a nap and didn't get up.  He was 2 years younger than I am.  I hope to be a better wife and mother, and that as I make decisions in my life that the course I choose to take will be one that will improve the life and welfare of my family.

Have a wonderful week!