Scrambling around the kitchen this morning, I turn to see a cracked egg meandering it's way on my oven, and Alex screaming while dropping to the floor. All my children can pretty much make their own eggs in the morning. Alex decided to make his eggs without me paying attention. Time and time again, I have counseled him to crack the egg in the center of the pan to avoid a mess like this morning. My thoughts were full of excitement as I waited patiently for Alex to calm down before the teaching moment came. I watched him crouch on the floor yelling "why can't I have a better week!?!" This is has been a typical response to anything remotely difficult with Alex these past few months.

"Alex, you will need to clean the egg up" I said calmly.

In the most whiniest voice you can imagine he yells at me "how am I supposed to do that!?! I can never have a better week!"

He doesn't see me ripping off several paper towels and placing them next to the egg. I was really excited to see him clean up the egg. I hate cleaning up eggs! They like to ooze off any cleaning apparatus I threaten then with. Now I could watch Alex clean it up.

He grabbed a paper towel and with one nice swipe, egg jumps down the face of the oven and splashes on his foot. Another "why can't I have a better week?" wails from the seven-year old.

Standing there, I hand him another paper towel. He realizes I'm not arguing with him and he starts cleaning up the mess. He even gets a washcloth wet to clean up the remainders and the floor. 

We get him another egg and I watch him crack it carefully in the center of the pan! Yay! Hopefully his lesson was learned.

I hand him a piece of paper. "What is this," he asks.

"Open it" I say to him.

He opens it and turns it around. Written on the piece of paper is "A Better Week."

"Alex, I am giving you 'a better week.'"

He takes it up to his room. 

My challenge these past few months has been - Alex. I don't know what is going on with him. I ask him about his day, who he plays with, etc., and nothing seems out of the ordinary. I think school is not very fun for him either. He told me the other day "I'm smart because I went to college." I was a bit confused at this statement and said "oh, really."

"Yeah, mom. When I was a baby I went to BYU with dad and so I'm smarter than most kids my age." This could be true but he only attended a French class and some other class that I don't think is really helping him in First Grade. Trevor and I thought it was hilarious. He keeps mentioning it to us and we both smile. I like him to think he's smart, for whatever reason.

So when I listened to conference this last time, there were so many great ones that I related to parenting. This one quoted at the beginning of my blog is one of my favorites. It's a little daunting to grasp everything in it but I've taken my pen and red pencil to it and have underlined, highlighted, and circled throughout the entire talk. It also focuses on behavior and not connecting bad behavior to identity. So part of my day-long teaching moments with my children, I was able to teach them that if they do something wrong that it doesn't make them a bad person. I think they got it.

One of my favorite quotes is toward the end that says "He has shared with us His parenting manual - the scriptures." Many times when people talk to me about going to parenting classes or reading numberless parenting books, I wonder if those are really helping them parent and how. If we are promised that everything we need to know (parenting included) is in the scriptures, why aren't we studying the scriptures? 

I think I blabbed a lot. I just hope Alex can have a better week. I love him so much and want to see him happy.