First of all, thank you for all of the travel recommendations! I pooled your ideas together and came up with some things that will hopefully aid in our journey. I went to Target this morning and attempted to snatch up some goodies from their dollar aisle ... can I just say, running around with the three tots is a bit of a challenge. It was hilarious to see me literally throwing stickers, sketch pads, magnets and Slinkies into my cart while zooming through the aisles. Speed is key, in my opinion, and wow, we were fast today!
So. Thank you. I'll let y'all know how it goes.
Secondly.
Cub walked up to me today with my husband's broken helicopter and asked what happened to it. Before I proceed--does anyone else have a husband who owns a similar toy? The kind you see in the mall? Anyway. My husband is a gadget guy and hence, the helicopter. I've gone to friends' houses and laughed when I see a similar helicopter on the shelf ... there must be some kind of mini-helicopter movement afoot. Anyway. So, when Cub asked how it had been broken, I told him it had crashed and the blade fell off. He then sighed and muttered, "Well, I guess we need a new one."
I cocked my head and told him that no, we just needed to fix the old one.
And he looked at me kind of funny and asked, "Why don't we just get a new one?"
I saw a Pinterest picture the other day that showed an old man and a woman (probably a stock photo) and it wrote that their marriage had lasted so long because they were married in a time that when something was broken, you fixed it, you didn't throw it away. And as I looked in my son's blue eyes, I couldn't help but wonder if we've done a good job showing him that truth.
This day of technology is a tricky one because it is often true that when a phone, tablet, or computer breaks, it's usually only slightly more expensive to completely replace it with a nicer, newer model than to fix the broken older model. There isn't anything wrong with that, per se, if the device is something useful to you. But I'm realizing more that the speed of technology is causing most of us to embrace an "I need it now" mentality. My diapers.com orders come the day after I order them. I can transfer money into my bank account with my phone while sitting in the drive-thru at Starbucks. Netflix gives us instant movies and shows, and Pandora gives us whatever music we want based on the genre we like. Now, now, now.
And yet we kneel in front of our kids, gently grasp their shoulders, look in their eyes and tell them they need to be patient. To wait for the things they want.
It is blatantly contrary to the world we live in. The world of NOW. How do we stand firm when the culture of immediate satisfaction pushes against us?
It's something I struggle with. Teaching our children to wait. It means we have to show that we can wait ourselves, which, for me anyway, can be hard. "I want it NOW!" screams Veruca on Willy Wonka. I hear you, girlfriend.
But maybe it's as simple as fixing a broken helicopter...even if it's tempting to replace it. That when those opportunities arise, we should take them. Because really, easy-to-replace technology is one of the few things in life that's easy to replace. Friendships and relationships cannot be replaced. They have to be fixed in order to work. And what a weighty responsibility it is to show our kids how to do that.
My husband and I celebrated our seven year anniversary today. Every year I understand more how awesome it is to celebrate marriage.
Because it gets harder.
The kids take time. The job takes time. The balancing act of mother and wife gets tricky as the kids multiply and our time is compromised. It takes work, and by that, I mean it takes WORK. We really have to work at it to make it work. I love my husband more with each year, but it's because we work to make it happen and I love him all the more for it--it's really amazing. The best things in life, in one way or another, require constant work. Or, so to say, constant fixing.
I hope I can figure out how to show that to my kids.
Have a lovely day, friends.
