Practicing being a family
Kiki sat next to me on the couch, carefully shading her latest drawing with colored pencils. Gleek was just past her, curled up in the comfy chair that has somehow come to be called “the Daddy chair.” She had a friendship bracelet pinned to her knee and was carefully knotting row after row. Patch was on the floor in front of Gleek. He was coloring a maze which I had printed from the file of coloring pages on my computer. Link sat on the floor next to Patch, directly in front of me. He was playing with some lego figures, carefully constructing adventures in brick. Howard had been on the short couch, but had just left the room on an errand. In front of all of us was the television broadcast of General Conference (the twice-per-year conference put on by our church), piped to the television from my small laptop computer. The sound for conference was coming from a different computer behind us and was a few seconds ahead of the picture. This is what happens when you wait until five minutes prior to the start of broadcast to discover that the laptop won’t pipe sound to the speakers. So we got the two video streams as closely timed as we could and tried not to be distracted.
It was joyful to look around the room and see my children peacefully occupied while listening to the talks. There was a time when that scene would not have been possible. When making my children all remain in the same room and be quietly occupied for two hours was about as likely as a hummingbird surviving a Utah winter. But somehow we kept inching toward where scenes like the one this afternoon became possible. We worked on reverence at Church. Then we worked on praying together as a family. Then we worked on having a weekly family night. Bit by bit we practiced being the family we want to be, rather than giving up on the family that we were. Bit by bit Howard and I learn how to be better parents. Bit by bit the kids learn how to control themselves, to think of others, to appreciate their siblings. Bit by bit we all strive to make the family work. And it does. Because we all believe it is important.
It still isn’t perfect, because we are all imperfect. After conference was over, I sent all the kids outside to get some fresh air. They all grabbed their padded swords and began playing a live action version of Brawl. Within ten minutes there were siblings frustrated and yelling at each other, as is to be expected with such mismatched capabilities. But that too is part of building a family. We must know that we can be furiously mad at each other and that does not ruin the family. Because we calm down and forgive and let go. Because we talk it through when we can’t let go. Because we keep practicing this forgiveness thing until we get it right.
And today we got it right. We called them all inside for a dinner with all six of us sitting around the table. It was a special dinner with rolls and chicken and mashed potatoes. The kids love this meal. While plates were loaded I asked them all what they liked best about conference, and they all had good things to say. This made me glad, because it was my idea to make them all sit in front of the television for two sessions of two hours each. In all the years prior to today, we’d listened on the radio. This worked so much better. The visual component was really helpful even if having the picture and sound out of sync was a tad distracting. And so I think we’ve found a new piece to stitch into the pattern of our family. Bit by bit we add pieces and create something beautiful.