He redeems

Chaos built as I cut out the iron-on letters. Three names to spell and center on tote bags before ironing. I was trying to figure out which names we had enough letters for and trying to keep the little girl from chewing or peeling or losing the letters, and trying to keep the older boys from the same. My calm remonstrances turned sharp when the baby girl didn't listen, and frustration mounted past boiling as I despaired of the chaos and begrudged the project and muttered and moaned my angst.

I knew all along I was being ugly, but then my consciences grabbed me and held me up to myself and made me see that I owed my three a humble apology. I calmed down, I regained a perspective that put the project way down low on the priority ladder and patience and love for my kids, modeling Christ, back up at the top. And I told them I had been wrong to lose patience and apologized.

Their sweet response soothed like cool lotion. They were relieved at my admitting that my words and attitude were not right. As though understanding that shifted the world back into shape for them.

I don't like to acknowledge that my impatience and losing control shapes their world and how they respond to frustration, but I know it does. I beg forgiveness from my perfect Father and begin again.

Love covers a multitude of sins. I Peter 4:8

"Which color would you like?" I asked Christopher Robin, and braced myself for him to choose the pink one instead of the green or the blue. "I want the pretty blue one," he decided, and I smiled. Then braced myself for Peanut Butter to want the same. "And which one would you like?" I asked him. "I would like the pretty green one."

That was easier than I expected.

"What would you like me to put on yours?" I asked Peanut Butter. I suggested a couple of different forms of his name. He thought a minute. "I would like mine to say, 'Red Toad'," he decided. Ah. I might have known. Super Mario Brothers wii has been part of their lives since they gave it to My Hero for Christmas, and even before when they were playing the same game 15 minutes a day on their Nintendo DS's from Grandma. It sparks almost all of their imaginative play, and they often correct me when I call them by name, and ask me to refer to them as Red Toad or Blue Toad or Yellow Toad or Mario or Luigi. Christopher Robin wanted his to say Red Toad plus his real name, but we didn't have enough letters for that, and I talked him into choosing a different name from Peanut Butter's, so he chose Blue Toad. Then Peanut Butter decided he wanted "Yellow Toad", but we didn't have enough letters for that, either, so he settled on Luigi. Raindrop's, of course, was Princess Peach, her designated roll whenever they think to give her one.

They love their new bags.