An Attitude of Gratitude

As you may have guessed, the blogger app is having difficulties again. I've started several blogs and not finished them over the past few months because the pictures will not upload from my phone.  So, apologies! 

At any rate, tonight I just had to make time to sit down at the computer and type this up.  We have been doing a "grateful box" at dinner time for probably about a year now.  We don't do it every night, but at least a few nights a week, we go around the table and say what we are thankful for, while eating dinner.  I keep slips of cardstock in a blue box with the phrase "gratitude turns what you have into enough" on the top.  This is a small part of a big effort aligned with our attempt to raise grateful kids, which is probably the hardest part of parenting for us.  There are a ton of ways we, and many of the people we love, live near and are friends with, unintentionally make this even harder.  As we raise kids who want very little, need nothing and know nothing other than abundance.  

So, to the story.  First of all, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Jacob has never started his thankfulness with anything other than "Scoopy trucks" or "T-Rexes," and I log this each day.  The only thing I leave off the written list that they say is "poop" or other poop-related items (always listed by Nicholas).  

So, tonight... June 25th for the record books: 

Mom:  So boys, what are we thankful for today? 

Oh wait, rewind, you need a little context here.  This dinner comes after I get home late (6pm) and Mike is out of town.  The kids literally act like maniacs while Jess tries to tell me about their day.  Someone gets a spank, two kids get time outs, the freezer is opened no less than five times, the pantry no less than two.  Dogs are jumping on me, boys are howling.  It's chaos.  Within 15 minutes of being home, I get dinner on the table and Nicholas instantly refuses to eat because it's disgusting.  Finally, all boys are at the table (only one sitting but who's counting).  Back to the story:

Mom:  So boys, what are we thankful for today? 

Jacob: Daddy coming home and T-Rexes!  

Lukas: Jacob's birthday party being so successful. 

Jacob: My birthday!

Lukas: Mommy going solo. 

Jacob: My birthday!

Nick: God. 

Lukas: He's the reason we're here. And we have an earth to stand on.  Did God literally create everything?  Even before sharks and dinosaurs. Because sharks were created before dinosaurs.  What was?  It was just nothing.  Nobody existed.  The word nobody didn't even exist. It must have been a lot of work to come up with all the words.  

Nick: He was in a tomb for five years and then he bonked his head on a rock. 

Jacob: Jesus pooped on my head. 

The rest of the conversation was about poop, so I discontinued my documentation.  

But this story brought a hearty smile to my face.  It gave me pause and admiration for these tiny humans, who I believe, in the long run, I'm going to be pretty proud to have raised. 

Hope this story serves as a blessing to you, as it did me.  
Love and Hugs!