Dean Update & Apologies to Angels

This is where I'm at--
I got the call about Dean.
It came.
He's good.
He is more than good.
He's left the hospital
and (fingers crossed) I'll get to see him
tomorrow, maybe.
At any rate,
I will get to talk to him later.
Whew.
Whew.
(Exhaling my held breath.)

If you've been holding good thoughts or prayers for us--
thank you. thank you. thank you.

Man.

Ok so I haveta share what else is going on in Momza's House this week:

Basically, while I was at BYU's Womens Conference last week,
I heard a wonderful talk about communicating with our sons and daughters,
as well as another talk about the journey of marriage.
One of the speakers,
whose name I cannot recall because I didn't write it down,
quoted Jeffery R. Holland:
"Words are sacred"---
from a talk he gave in April 2007
entitled,
"Tongues of Angels".

For some reason,
I hadn't heard this before.
Or maybe I did,
but don't remember it.
Whatever--
I heard it and decided  to claim it for myself
and my family.

I don't know about you,
but our family can definitely do better
with the tone and words we use with one another.
And while I could easily point a finger at each of the 3 teens
in this house,
I have to own my part too.
When I get tired, especially,
patience is in low supply
while curtness is easy-access.

Because of the powerful way this hit me,
I knew it would be a wise thing for me
to share with my family...
so my thinker started thinking
of ways to introduce the topic
and the practice of being better in our use of
words.

I got home Saturday night from Utah,
n' when me and Mr W had a quiet moment,
I shared my experience with him--
could we also share it with the kids? I asked.
He gave it a "go"
and we decided we'd use it as a
Sunday night Devotional.

Well in Sunday School,
that talk by President Holland was shared
and again,
just confirmed to me that this is important.

Sunday night rolled around--
we called all the yahoos into the family room
for Devotional.
Mr W pulled up the talk on the iPad
and after introducing it a bit,
I told the kids we're going to take turns reading
it outloud.
You'd have thought I was asking them
to pull weeds
in July...
their excitement was that high.

Determined to make this work,
I told the yahoos
that this wasn't about their language,
it was about mine.
I need help remembering that angels are writing my words down,
and I don't want a heavenly being
having to write ugly words at all
that might come out of my (sometimes) thoughtless, frustrated
mouth.

It worked.
Dad started reading,
then passed the iPad to me,
and then onto Daisie,
Bee, and finally Joseph.

It looks alot calmer in black and white
than it was...
even as the kids were reading
they were critical with missed-pronounced words,
reading too slow or too fast...
it was not a smooth process.

But we got through it.
Finally.
There were a few times when I'd stop the reader and ask
"could you read that bit again? I liked that part."
The reader either did or did not mind...
but read it again.

After finishing the talk,
I asked the kids to share what it is
that they really need to hear
from us at home.

Daisie suggested we write our thoughts down
instead of saying them outloud first.
Whatever works, I answered.
So we passed a pad of paper around
and wrote what we need to hear more at home:
ME: "Thank you, Mom."
DAD: "Thank you. I appreciate you."
DARA: " You can do it!"
Joseph: "I appreciate what you do."
BEE: "I love you."

At first,
it was suggested that those little words
wouldn't make a difference.
I offered up that, whatever means were needed--
drawing a picture,
or writing a Post-It or alot of Post-Its--
"Words Are Sacred"
"Angels Are Listening"
--whatever might help us to remember
our new habit we wanted to create--
that it be done.

We even "practiced" the kind words with each other:
"I love you, Bee!"
"You can do it, Day!"
"Thank you Mom and Dad!"

And that was Sunday night.

Monday night,
as crazy a day as it was,
we cued up Elder Holland's talk
on the TV
and watched it together.
Discussed it for a short few minutes,
had family prayer and that was that.

Tuesday was a crazy day in our home,
due to the situation with Dean's needs--
and yesterday wasn't much better.
But I made a conscious decision
for dinner time,
that instead of eating in the kitchen
we'd actually "set" the dining table
so a real conversation could happen.
Sometimes,
it is a little thing that helps me get where
I need to be--
changing things up even a little,
seems to help.

So we sat down for dinner
chicken- fettucine(flat noodles)- alfredo(white sauce)- florentine(spinach);
and even before we could get to the prayer
unkind, impatient words flew about the table--
I calmly said,
"Hey. I've gone to the trouble of making a nice dinner tonight
because I love you guys and I do not want to hear ugly words
at this table."
The Bee added, "Yeah, angels are writing them down, guys. So shut up."
"I mean--sorry, Angels--be nice!"
So we went around the table with our *3 Questions:
I asked Joseph to go first,
"What was the best part of your day?"
Without hesitation he answered,
"Sexual education."
"Yeah? Do you have any questions for us?" I asked.
"Nope." then he sang a small lyric from an unfamiliar tune
to which both girls busted up laughing
and in unison, joined in--
I was clueless.
The only lyric I got was
"its just around the corner..."
and much more laughter from the kids.
"OK", I said. "I give up--what's that about?"
Dara and Bee both exclaimed that it was from the
Sex Ed movie series that the school shows.
Oooo...kay.  Weird--my kids have memorized the song
from the sex ed class movie.
It took months of practice to get their times table down,
but after seeing a movie once, they've got the song down.
"What's the song have to do with it?" I asked, oh-so-ignorantly.

"It's about cleaning your gentiles!" Joseph busts out, laughing.

Gentiles? oh my gosh. no.
Mr W cracks a grin and shakes his head.

"Why aren't we filming this, Mom?" Dara asks.

I shrug my shoulders in defeat.

"Well the angels are already writing it down!" Bee reminds us.

"Sorry, Angels!" offers Dara, heavenward.

Oh heavens. I'm sorry too.

*3 Questions:
1-what was the best part of your day
2-Share something you learned
3- Something you did for someone else