3/15/09

Listen up…

I don’t want to share every moment of our lives, and I'll usually stick to the stories I’m directly associated with, but this story might give you a better idea of my situation.

I was talking to Mama Bear on Friday and she was relaying a funny conversation she had with a few colleagues at work earlier that day.

One of Mama Bear’s friends at work was saying that her younger child is pushing the limits. He or she (I don’t remember what sex the kid is) won’t listen the first few times she says something. Another one of her friends, someone who often comes over to our house and is a good friend of our family, says she has the same problems.

Mama Bear’s one friend then asked her if she had the same problems. Mama Bear said, “No. Our kids are really good. They listen to me every time I ask them something.”

Mama Bear’s close friend agreed, remembering a story of when she was over the last time. “They do listen to you,” she said. “Last time I was over, you only had to ask them once to put the coloring books away. But (Papa Bear) had asked them 10 times before that and they kept telling him to hold on.”

Why is it that I have such a problem getting them to listen to me the first time? That’s rhetorical.

Now I am exaggerating a little bit. The kids do listen to me (sometimes) and they are really good kids. I love them to death. They all know how to have fun and I love that. If I didn’t love them so much and love being a dad as much as I do, I wouldn’t be sharing these stories with you.

Mama Bear has an amazing way to get the kids to listen. She focuses on the positives and the kids really respond to that. She’s smart, fun and witty. I am a better parent because of her.

She does go to bed too early, but if she didn’t I wouldn’t have time to write these (so let’s thank her for that).

Now you’re catching me at a serious moment (listen carefully because these moments don’t and won’t happen too often). These stories are often just meant to be entertaining for you, focusing on my faults and making fun of that.

I only think it’s fair that I seriously tell you that I wouldn’t be able to laugh at myself so much if it wasn’t for Mama Bear. She is the rock and keeps the order and that if it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be crying more than laughing.

THE WEEKEND THAT WAS…
My father-in-law and I worked on the bathroom again on Saturday. This time we were filling in the holes we made with dirt and cement. If you forgot the problems I had a few weekends with the kids, laugh about it again here: http://papabearmemoirs.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-needs-ditch-diggers-too.html

For a brief recap on this weeked, exchange “please get out of the hole,” with “please get out of the cement,” and you get the idea. Actually, the kids were out most of the time with mom and nana. They came back with a Wii.

We hooked up the Wii on Sunday. I was initially concerned that I was going to have to put a time limit on them, which I’ll have to do anyway, but I think Mama Bear is going to also have to put a time limit on me.

We played baseball, bowling, golf and tennis. In baseball, I took Junior Bear deep, twice. Peanut Bear was talking mad smack during bowling and golf. Junior Bear was beating the competitive Peanut Bear with regularity in tennis and she was getting so mad that he started to let her win and was being so encouraging to her. At one point he was telling her, “That was a really good shot.” That would’ve been true if the ball wasn’t going into the stands. Cookie Bear, well, she was busy with her blocks and babies and wasn’t too interested. Good for her.


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