How We Obey

There are two reasons why I am sharing this picture:

1.  I thought my grandpa looked pretty cute wearing Elijah's cowboy hat.

2.  I've been wanting to share "How We Obey" and I happened to notice while looking through these birthday party pictures, that it was included on this one.

(My mom was so nice to let us have her pictures of the party, as taking pictures with my cell phone just ain't cuttin' it.  It seems a cruel irony indeed that as much as I love taking pictures of my eight beautiful children, a {functional}camera just isn't in the budget. *sigh*

ANYway...

back to

How We Obey.

See that little sign right by my grandpa's head?

The one that's to the right of both the world map and United States map that are pinned to the wall? (Yes, we homeschool.)

The one that is just down and to the right of our alphabet chart? (Yes, we homeschool.)

Yeah, that's the one.

It's entitled 

How We Obey

and underneath it are these words

quickly
cheerfully
completely

That's how it happens

every. single. time.

here at our house.

Guffaw!  Ha! Chuckle. Snort. Snort.

*Ahem.*

Ahh...Not quite.

That is our goal,

it is not our reality.

I've been working on this as of late, though,

one element at a time

even though I've had that sign up for about four years.

It seems I had gotten a bit lax in these areas,

and, whaddya know--there's been a few more kids in those four years who

are learning to obey quickly, cheerfully, and completely!

I realized I was allowing WAAAAY too much,

"Yeah, Mom.!  In a minute...I'm just gonna ________ first."

In that blank may be inserted any one (or more) of the following:

put away my shoes

finish my coloring

finish my game

do one more race with my car

ride my bike around one more time

get a drink

use the bathroom

tell so-and-so something

etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum...

Minutes would pass and I, assuming they had done what was asked of them,

would be moving along to the next thing.

"Insert Child's Name--you need to do such-and-such now."

"But Mom, you told me to do __________."

"And you haven't done it???" I'd ask incredulously.

"No," they'd answer.  "I needed to ___________ first."

Arghhhhhhh.

Such frustration,

for all of us.

It has just been this past week that I've decided to really crack down on the
"just-a-minutes".

Mom (or Dad) need to be quickly obeyed.

As a friend once shared
"To delay is to disobey."

I've seen a difference--

I had to quit letting them disobey me with all their delaying.

It has meant enforcing some consequences that I'd ordinarily

not push through on.

I knew I needed to do this

or we'd all lose what's left of our minds.

Next up?

Cheerfully.