Mr. Mom

This last week I had a chance to spend a number of days with my nephew Nathan(5) and niece Jocelyn(3). My sister-in-law, Jamie, went into the hospital with heavy contractions but they stopped her labor because she is 2 weeks shy of term. She is ok and the baby seems to been fine as well but they kept her in the hospital for monitoring. My brother, Phil, is in the Navy and is deployed right now.

I had the kids. I stayed with them at their house in Maine and was their "Mr. Mom" for a while. I love them so much.

We went tubing.

We built a snowman with no mouth.

We made snow angels.

We had snowball fights.

We ate snow.

We ate grilled cheese.

We had some good laughs.

We read books.

We watched movies.

We wrestled.

We sang primary songs.

We had fires in the wood stove.

I blow dried and did Jocelyn's hair.

I had light saber fights with Nathan.

I heard a few cries.

I stopped a few tantrums.

I even got to use the look I have been perfecting for so many years. (You know the one, when you were little and were goofing off in church and your Dad looked down the bench and gave you the look that said “you had better shut up NOW! or there will be some serious whoopass coming your way”) One time I used it and then lost it and started laughing and had to turn around. Luckily I turned around in time, so it didn’t compromise my position or let them know I thought it was funny.

Nathan and I have this ritual where he asks me if I am married and when I say “no” he asks “why not?”. We go through this every time he sees me. It’s funny.

Being the single man that I am, I didn’t know anything about disciplining a 5 and 3 year old. I prayed and sought the Lords help sometimes from moment to moment to know how to handle these children. In one instance I cleaned Jocelyn’s room for her. It was destroyed and everything that she claims as hers, she had on her floor. I cleaned the room except for about 4 dolls. The dolls were literally sitting right in front of her toy box. I told her she had to pick her dolls up and put them in her toy box before she could leave her room. She said no, and refused to pick them up. I felt strongly I needed to hold true and not let her leave until it was done. She stayed in there for lunch and I felt I needed to take lunch to her. She ended up staying in there for over 5 hours. Then when she finally did it she said “Look I cleaned my room” as she put her hands out with her palms up to display her work.

I questioned myself…How often do I do this to the Lord? Refuse to obey and end up spending years learning what could have been done in a very short amount of time, and then on top of that, claim I did something that the Lord did, I just did this little thing and feel so proud of myself.

I have too many blogs in my head right now and will need to separate them. There will be more to come from my experiences this past week.