My challenge this week

I started this blog post with this paragraph 5 days ago, must have gotten busy and didn't finish.

:-)

I believe there is a balance in parenthood in what to have your children do for themselves and what you should do for them. I pretty much have it down for Micah. I know what he is capable of and what I need to do for him. But everyday I challenge him to do things by himself and I am amazed at what he can do. Victoria is in a whole other ball field, playing a completely different game. Things that I think she should be doing by herself, she simply can't, doesn't know how, or is simply not able to do. However, she is very easy to take care of, and spoil. She is courteous, so bringing her a drink when she should be doing it herself, is hard not to do. I believe that one of our most important roles as parents is to prepare our children to be self-sufficient.

Today:

Last week everyone had a unexpected week off, including Matt. First we got dumped on with snow, and then an ice storm came. Over 300,000 people lost power last week. I was praying every second for the power to stay on, so that Victoria would have her computer. Thankfully, we did not loose power, however on Friday we lost our cable/internet. And I finally realized that Victoria is addicted to the internet. I know that the word addicted is overused in this day in age. But she had a complete meltdown. To her, loosing the internet meant, she would never sleep again, because part of her nightly routine is to watch certain videos on the internet. It was a very sad time for us. She wanted to be alone, so I told her I would check on her every 5 minutes. I suggest other things to do and she said it's not that simple for her to feel better. However, 10 minutes later she came out and asked to go the bookstore. I was happy, I would have taken her anywhere she wanted to go. So we went to the bookstore, the books uplifted her mood, and when we got home the cable was back on.

We tried to go to late service the last couple of weeks and it was not for us. So Sunday we decided to go to early service. Victoria wakes up at 7 for school anyways, so it really wasn't any different. Matt was the hardest to get out of bed. So I put on my drill sergeant hat and got everyone out of the house by 7:41, church starts 8:00 and it's 20 minutes away. We got there just in time. Victoria was very good in church, so was Micah. Well, Micah is usually good in church if we go to early service.

Victoria went back to school today after being off for a week, and she still is not a fan of middle school. She misses her school in Alaska, because they play games and she gets to get on the internet. So Matt and I are talking about some reward system for her, so that she tries her best at school. However, she does like gym, which is the last hour of the day. She really likes it when they do bowling.

A little about Micah Bear:

Micah is a Michigan Baby. He loved being outside in the cold and snow. Every time we came in he was screaming. Even when the snow was up to his knees. Every night he stops at Victoria's room to say good night. He says, "Bye." And she laughs and smiles.