Cutting the Grass

A little while ago, I wrote about the need we all have to reorganize our lives from time to time.  It seems so overwhelming, but it is just the way life works.  The grass grows wild, and we have to cut it to restore the order now and again.  Since then, I have been trying to take my own advice and tackle one thing at a time that will make life more manageable, rather than feeling like everything is growing out of control around me.  Here are some of our projects as of late:

Family Home Evening
This has always seemed like a daunting undertaking with a little one.  While his attention span is actually fairly good for a person of his size, trying to actually teach him anything important seemed difficult to do.  I really like the talk Elder Bednar gave about this: More Diligent & Concerned at Home.  He relates how ridiculous his family scripture study or prayer looked in his home when he had young children:

"As our sons were growing up, our family did what you have done and what you now do. We had regular family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. Now, I am sure what I am about to describe has never occurred in your home, but it did in ours.

Sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts such as “He’s touching me!” “Make him stop looking at me!” “Mom, he’s breathing my air!” Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking. And with active, rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected."

He goes on to state his point about being consistent: 

"Sister Bednar and I thought helping our sons understand the content of a particular lesson or a specific scripture was the ultimate outcome. But such a result does not occur each time we study or pray or learn together. The consistency of our intent and work was perhaps the greatest lesson—a lesson we did not fully appreciate at the time."

It's not always about the actual content we are attempting to teach out children, but the consistent example we set about what is important.  Maybe Hyram won't understand the lesson we teach about how Heavenly Father loves us, but he will start to learn that it is important to us that we spend time together as a family.  He will understand that the habit of praying is important to us, his parents.  Aren't these things just as valuable to teach as the stories we tell or the lessons we explicitly teach?  I have to remind myself that they are indeed.

So, in our efforts toward maintaining a symbolically trimmed lawn, we have started to hold legitimate Family Home Evenings with a short song and prayer, and a two minute lesson relating to the song.  Last week, Hyram learned to say "God" because "Heavenly Father" was apparently too long to attempt. :)  Baby steps, right?  This week, prayer is our topic on the agenda.  Wish us luck.

Planning
Weekly planning is a habit that we know is helpful, but which can be boring and draining.  Yet, when we take time to sit down and plan out our week, everything seems to fit into place much better.  We are doing pretty well so far.  I found this simple meal planner, which we are very excited to have our niece use for us! Hahaha!  Our niece will be a freshman this year at BYU-I, and she is going to come babysit one day each week while I am teaching piano lessons.  During that time, she will plan out our meals for the week and then do all of the shopping for those meals for us!  I believe this is my best effort at delegation yet.  Little successes, right?