fruits of the spirit

Love Patience Kindness Gentleness Joy Peace Goodness Faith and Self-Control

Even though there are 9 we seem to work on patience kindness and self-control most :-)

But tonight Braden demonstrated something that should be but is not on this list....


Bedtime can either be super easy or WW3. I have yet to learn how to tell which it is going to be until I am smack dab in the middle of it. When its easy its easy and I take it for granted... but when its not LOOK OUT!

So I have been trying to cultivate some techniques (stockpile some tricks for my bag) for when bedtime goes south. One of my tactics is taking toys up when Braden argues with me.... it goes something like this "Let's go pick out some jammies." "NO!" "Let us hurry so we can have time for a story... go get your jammies" "NO!" " Braden, every night we go to sleep, and every night we get our jammies on. You can demonstrate self control or you can argue and throw a fit. But if you argue with me and throw a fit you will lose a privilege. I can take up your truck and your llama - you make the choice."

Tonight he choose well and everything was going along great until he got into bed. "Give me your truck and I will put it on your dresser." "NO! I want to play with my truck in bed." "That is a privilege for nap time only, please give me the truck" and so on and so forth. He eventually and with out a fuss gave up the truck which included the little guys who drive it. We said prayers and sang our good-night song. I closed the door and started to put Tristan down. Not even a minute later I hear Braden calling "momma... momma come here" I thought - oh no he is going to start arguing with me over the truck. I opened his door and asked "what is it?" he held out his hand to me and said "here the peoples for the truck" apparently we hadn't gotten them all in the first go around. I almost started crying as I kissed his head and thanked him for his wonderful demonstration of honesty...which now in the Stewart house is the 10th fruit!