Didn't your Mom teach you?

Another humbling moment last night. As the kids went to church choir and AWANA, I had a chance to spy in on their classrooms and see how they were doing when not under my supervision. Hmmmm.

It was get your new T-shirt night at AWANA since the order had been delayed and there was a long line at the T-shirt table. As soon as some got dressed they went on to class, but I needed to stay behind and help a younger one who accidentally picked up an adult medium shirt instead of a youth medium. A helpful sister threw the correct T-shirt over the stall where the younger child was changing....and it landed in the toilet. After some mass hysteria, we collected ourselves, put other clothes back on and made it to class.

It was my day to be a parent helper and I quietly crept into the back of choir. There in the front row was one of my kids goofing off with another boy he had met. The teacher was not pleased. He wasn't the only one, as I can testify since I was helping boys in the back of the room focus on the task of learning a new song instead of wrestling one another on the carpet.

Tired teacher then took a few questions. My child's hand shot up with great enthusiasm. When she called on him, he said in broken English...."How long singing? I hate singing!"

This was offensive to the choir director who firmly said, "That was NOT a very nice thing to say. DIDN'T YOUR MAMA TEACH YOU THAT IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE THEN DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL?"

My face grew hot. She didn't know who I was, or that he belonged to me. I wanted to scream .... "He's adopted!!! This is REALLY boring if you can't understand the words. We're trying!"

I thought back over the day. This morning he was very tired and had a hard time getting out of bed. He quickly pulled some wrinkly clothes on over his head before we had to head out the door. When we arrived, I noticed what looked like a piece of Reece's chocolate cereal stuck to his shirt and began to scratch it off with my fingernail. "Mom," he said, "that from my nose".

I almost puked. I had been scratching a large booger off with my fingernail with no way to wash before we went inside. Sigh.

No, we did not have the lesson about kind words and having a filter. We were too busy learning not to wipe our noses on our shirts. We were fishing t-shirts out of the toilet. We were making sandwiches again for dinner.

But, I have faith that booger scratching counts as kindness to God, and we'll work on respect next week.

Meanwhile, another child blew us out of the water with her amazing ability to memorize. She memorized twenty scriptures the first week of AWANA. It has nothing to do with my parenting or teaching skills. It just comes easy for her. She practiced on her own and was applauded by her class.

So, I am trying to delight when things go well, and trying not to take things so personally when they do not.

I was comforted when wild child's AWANA teacher said that she didn't even notice that he was learning English and didn't know that he was adopted. He really has come so far. If I could just step back and gain perspective.... We are making progress.

Creating a model of an insect...head, thorax, abdomen, six legs, and antenna