Last night we had a crying girl and a crazy girl and my patience wore thin. Caroline is sick at the moment and, hence, is sad much of the time. So Christine was holding the crying Caroline while I was helping the laughing Lizzy through eating, dessert, shower, and bedtime prep. Lizzy actually did pretty well with most of that--she's getting much better at showering and dressing without help, though she still needs reminding that she should not be standing around in her birthday suit. But with her silliness and distractability, the process gets a bit drawn out, and all the while there was crying in the background and the clock was ticking and it was becoming apparent that our family home evening would be taking place past bedtime.
Then it was Caroline's feeding time, so I held her (standing, trying to keep her happy) while Christine fed her. In the meantime, Lizzy came running past toward the bathroom declaring urgently, "I feel like I need to go potty!" The bathroom door shut and there were various sounds, punctuated by periods of silence: a flush, some clanking, a loud crash.
Lizzy in the bathroom is quite the adventure. Somehow there are more distractions there. She climbs on the toilet and the bathtub and the diaper genie, plays in the towels, dances and makes faces in front of the mirror, and opens drawers and cupboards.
I wasn't sure what the crash was, but it sounded suspiciously like the diaper genie, which Lizzy has been clearly instructed to not play with. The crash was followed by a long time of little or no sound. Obviously the urgent call of nature had been accompanied by plenty of goofing off time in the bathroom, which always annoys me. But I was stuck holding Caroline, standing next to Christine by the kitchen sink while we poured food into Caroline's tube, so I couldn't very well correct what was going on. So I called down the hall to ask what was going on.
No response.
I called again.
Nothing
"Have you gone to the bathroom yet?"
Finally an answer: "Not yet!" (Then what was that first flush sound about? Who knows.) Soon there's another flush and the door opens and Lizzy skips merrily out of the bathroom and down the hall. But my frustration has already risen, so I begin questioning about the crash. It's been long enough now that apparently she has forgotten what it was. I say it sounded like the diaper genie and ask if that's what it was.
"It might have been," she responds pleasantly. This cheerfulness in the face of disciplinary investigation does not help my mood.
"Were you standing on the diaper genie?"
"I think so." And then she gets a combined lecture from both Christine and me about how the diaper genie is dirty and not a thing to play with.
When we're done feeding Caroline, I investigate the bathroom and call Lizzy to clean it up. There are towels on the floor and a headband stuck in a cupboard handle. Not as bad as it could have been. When Lizzy arrives in the bathroom, she remembers what the crash was. It wasn't the diaper genie. It was Caroline's bath chair, which had tumbled over in the tub while Lizzy was walking along the edge of the tub--apparently attempting a balance beam routine. Silly girl.
I instruct her--somewhat sternly--in the appropriate way to hang a towel (folding it neatly) and watch as she does it. She does pretty well and I tell her so. As she finishes, however, she holds on the towel bar and leans back, putting all her weight on the bar. Hanging on the bar is another no-no about which I have frequently instructed her. (And every time I do, I remember my parents giving similar instruction in my youth.) I angrily threaten consequences if she hangs on the bar again.
Finally we start Family Home Evening, but Caroline is sad, so I soon leave the room and hold her in her room until she falls asleep. I return just in time for the closing prayer, which we do as a kneeling family prayer. After the prayer, Lizzy gives her bedtime hugs. As a rambunctious 7-year-old, Lizzy gives sometimes crazy hugs at bedtime. Sometimes they are tackle hugs, in which she backs up and runs at you, trying to take you down with all her might. Other times they are hanger hugs, where she drapes herself around your neck and lifts her feet off the ground. These can sometimes be fun, but we've been trying to discourage the hanger hugs, since our backs have not been doing so well lately (due, we think, to Caroline's increasing size).
But as Lizzy hugs me, she does a hanger hug, for which I reprimand her. Then she prepares to hug Grandma, who is staying with us for a few days. As she takes several steps backwards, I realize this is going to be a tackle hug, and I stick out my arm to stop the running approach. "Gentle hug!" Christine and I both cry. So Lizzy stops running and walks up to Grandma and hugs her. Then in the middle of her hug, she lifts her feet of the ground and Grandma doubles over under Lizzy's weight.
Argh! I am so tempted to swat her little hind end! Instead I revoke her bedtime story privilege and off she goes cheerfully with Christine for bedtime singing and praying. But I am not cheerful. I'm stewing. I'm frustrated. I'm angry. I want to have more words with my daughter, but realize that would probably not be constructive, and Christine is in a better frame of mind for dealing with bedtime.
So instead I retreat to my room and decide to do some gospel study. As I pray and start to read, though, I'm still upset, and I realize this study is going to go nowhere. How can one learn about things of God when filled with anger and frustration and resentment? How can the Holy Ghost inspire a heart that is fostering negative emotion?
After a few minutes I enter Lizzy's room--still somewhat frustrated, but also repentant. I sit on her bed and we talk about why I got angry. I explain--calmly, though firmly--what was wrong about some of her actions this evening and why she cannot hang on the towel rack or her grandmother or the cupboard doors (she broke a cupboard door off its hinges last week after absent mindedly hanging on it yet again--despite repeated instruction not to). The conversation goes well, and Lizzy appears to understand the problems caused by her actions and shows signs of remorse. She also, however, expresses that she doesn't mean to do some of these things, and I think she's right. Many of these things she does absent mindedly and somewhat innocently. And she's cheerful all the while. I really don't think she's being wilfully disobedient. Just rambunctious and exuberant and energetic and forgetful--and even loving (in the case of the hugs). But I express the need to try harder and I tell her that there will be consequences if she does these things again (although I can never think of good consequences; I'll need to be thinking of some so I'm prepared).
After that explanation, I tell her the other reason I came into her room: I'm sorry for getting angry. Even when she does something wrong, I should not get angry. I tell her I love her, I ask her to forgive me, and we share a nice hug. And then she asks if I'll leave so she can continue reading her book. :)
I return to my study, which is now more effective. And later in the evening as Christine and I study together, we read these paragraphs from an article in the Ensign magazine by Elder Dallin H. Oaks (of the Quorum of the Twelve) and his wife, Kristen Oaks. Very fitting to my circumstance not long before:
In modern revelation we have a promise that if our eye be single to the glory of God, which includes personal worthiness, our “whole [body] shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in [us]; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things” (D&C 88:67).
We can verify this eternal principle by immediate personal experience. Recall a time when you were resentful, contentious, or quarrelsome. Could you study effectively? Did you receive any enlightenment during that period?
Sin and anger darken the mind. They produce a condition opposite to the light and truth that characterize intelligence, which is the glory of God (see D&C 93:36). Repentance, which can cleanse us from sin through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is therefore an essential step along the path of learning for all who seek light and truth through the teaching power of the Holy Ghost.
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