Spotlight on III

Not much gets said about III on the blog because I don't spend as much time with him (because he's in public school this year) and because he and I are 180 degrees apart in personality. I almost never understand what he is doing. It is a humbling thing to love a child to whom you have little ability to relate.

He has had a newsworthy week this week. First, he was invited to a birthday party last Sunday afternoon and the invitation specified that the boys could bring "water guns or air soft guns". Hubby said that "air soft guns" meant Nerf guns. So, I thought we were prepared. Well, Saturday evening I mentioned to III that he needed to gather his things to take to the party. He told me he didn't have any guns to take and so he didn't need to pack them. After some discussion, it turns out that what he needed was a sort of plastic pellet shooting gun. Thankfully, even though III's piggy bank was empty, Hubby's stepdad had sent Christmas money to the kids that we had set aside for them. So, III and Hubby headed off to Wal-mart to invest in a new gun, pellets, and a nice face shield. We were very thankful that we did it because he had a blast. We try very hard to teach our children that "stuff" doesn't make you happy and that you don't have to buy stuff to fit in with your real friends. But, I was glad that on something small like having the "right" gun to play with at the party, we had planned ahead and put the money aside. I figure that unless there's a spiritual reason to do without something, it won't hurt my kids to have toys that other kids have.

Of course, being III, he didn't bother to tell us that he had made 2 Fs and 1 D on tests last week. He mentioned that he had some redos. Redos are papers that he has to do over because he scores less than 80%. Here's his logic. They just started a new A.R. period and his points were low, so he hurried through all of his work so that he could read. ARGGGHHH! Now, he is grounded for 2 weeks. Did I mention that his birthday is next week? This is the second year in a row that he has managed to be grounded on his birthday. We decided to lift the grounding for the day of his birthday and the day of his birthday party and just to add 2 days to the grounding. Maybe this ruins the effect of the grounding or maybe it shows grace and love.

Then, to turn it around again, he came in third place in a speech competition in his class today. We are really proud of his speech. He wrote it himself on "Tom and Jerry". He practiced and Hubby said that he used good eye contact and voice inflection in his presentation. (I was still on bed rest and could not attend.) One of the ways that III and I don't see eye to eye is in preparation of things. As his parents, we are constantly trying to find the right balance for him with his spiritual side, his academic side, his emotional side, his social side, and his physical side. My method of preparing for a speech competition would involve memorizing the whole thing. And, as a matter of fact, the 2 girls who beat him did memorize theirs. But, III is content to have spent less effort, to have had more free time, and to come in third place. This is very difficult for me to comprehend, but I am proud of his accomplishment. It showed good work and it met his needs. He feels like he did a good job and is validated.

So, if you're ever at a loss for how to pray for our family, you can always pray for our ability to sync up my expectations with goals that III feels are reasonable.

The pic at the top is from a fishing trip that III and Hubby took during Spring Break.