Our Scheidt Family Way this week is “We love one another, treating others with kindness, gentleness and respect”. The best thing about rehearsing these values each morning is that when an opportunity arises to remember what’s good (usually when we’re being bad), these sayings come to mind. So when Tristan throws a toy car at Adon’s head in the bath and Adon retaliates by throwing one back, we can talk about our Scheidt Family Ways. The ‘Ways’ hold value in and of themselves that we see validated as we examine the meanings each morning through scripture. This is SO much more effective than mommy just constantly repeating the obligatory phrase, “Be nice!”. Plus, I swore I’d never be a nag.
I decided to expand the “kindness, gentleness, and respect” piece to our furry family member, Knox, after reading Charlotte Mason speak of children naturally being kind to animals, unless they were taught otherwise. Yikes… I realized Momma hasn’t been so nice to Knox for years! At some point I started having less compassion for his poop, puke, hair, and neediness after having children. This conviction led me to treating him with more respect this week and actually petting him some (haha). I was quite surprised to see how it only took about one day of doing this for my children to mimic my behavior! And then of course, the next poem in our Children’s Book of Virtues was titled, “Kindness to Animals”. Please forgive me, Knoxie.
Yesterday our friend Rae came over to play with the boys for a bit (while mom did some reading) and then fellowship with mom! She is loved by all.
Today the boys enjoyed playing outside all morning, which of course means the costume ottoman gets opened. Adon’s been engulfed in his new comic book Bible he was gifted from his Mina for Christmas, so he’s been drawing and acting out lots of stories from the Bible. Today he decided to be old man Abraham and sacrifice his son Isaac to prove his devotion. Luckily, he too found a ram caught in the bushes to sacrifice instead. 🙂
Since we didn’t get to go on the homeschooling community hike with our friends today, we decided to head over to our favorite donut place in between Micah’s naps!
And ended the day with mom sneaking in a little latte date with a dear friend, Beth.
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