Progress

Kids can be frustrating. This is true. But, today I was thinking about how sometimes it really is my choice to be frustrated. I guess I realized that I sometimes only notice all of the girls' behaviors that need to be corrected or refined and forget how much progress they really have made on the things we've been working on in the past.

Here's this morning's example: Abbie was driving me a bit crazy that she wouldn't sit still in her chair and keep her legs forward while she was eating, and I kept trying to remind and teach her how to sit still and eat nicely. During all of this though she was using such nice manners and, as we call them, only using 'asking words' instead of telling me what she wants. This has been something that I've been teaching for quite some time now- that it's not enough to say 'I want' and then just add a 'please', but to actually ask with a please. So, in the midst of a frazzled breakfast I feel blessed for realizing that she (and I) are making progress. Of course I'm always going to be teaching new things and refining bad habits, but we are both continually moving onward and upward. That is both a blessing in itself and a blessing just to realize it.