Saturday, August 26, 2006

It's a sideways - down - day

You know how I have the saying at the top of my blog about how life is filled with ups and downs but most of the time I'm going sideways? Well today is a sideways- maybe even a little down day.
Not for me, but for Halle.
You see, Arianna is gone today and Mark and Nick had to run some errands this morning so it left me and Halle. Well she wasn't happy that she got left behind to do cleaning with mom. That started the whole episode. Then for some reason beyond my understanding, she decided it should be a toy day ( which in her mind means she gets a new toy) I don't know where this came from except that Arianna is having a special day with her cousin. Anyway- Halle totally had a melt down! She was just besides herself in her despair over her terrible, unfair life. I tried to calm her down and reason with her but I got nowhere. Apparently, the tubs filled with toys are only Nick and Arianna's and she has NOTHING! I even morphed into my parents for a short while and before I knew it I was speeling off the whole- "there are children in this world that have nothing and you should be thankful for what you have" speech. This got nowhere either. Finally I left her in her pathetic little world of nothingness and went upstairs to continue my cleaning. For a good 10 minutes I heard her continue in her self pity downstairs not able to understand a word she was saying because she was so beside herself. She finally came upstairs and we hugged and talked a little more and she is going about her day. Someday she will realize that that world of nothing is so close to what her life would have entailed in the orphanage in Russia. God has blessed her life so much (and ours) by bringing her into this country of overabundance! We are going to have to continue working on having a grateful heart- because it really bothers me when we take all our blessings so for granted.
I will make 1 excuse for her!! She did get to bed terribly late last night- since Arianna was gone I let her stay up late and play with Nick. Aparently, that wasn't such a good idea since she still woke up at 7:30 and obviously didn't get enough sleep!
I think it might actually be a nap day for her today!

If anyone has any creative good ideas that have worked to teach kids to be grateful I'd love to hear some!

2 comments:

Blackeyedsue said...

I don't have any ideas for you, but I wanted to tell you thank you for your kind words over at my place. It means so much to me.

Laura said...

Oh! Poor little Halle - it breaks my heart to hear that while you lavish toys on the other two, you have refused to buy even one toy for the little biscuit! No wonder she was so sad when we saw her. Sorry though, I don't have any ideas either - sometimes I know that I take everything for granted too. We are defintely very, very blessed to have the lives we have.