The Good Samaritan

I read the illustrated Bible with you, Cruz, most nights.  Last night we read teh story of the Good Samaritan.  I am not a biblical scholar, but basically it's a story of a man who is found injured in the road.   Jesus asks his followers who acts as the mans neighbor in the context of "Love thy Neighbor".

*for the record, if you got a score of 1-10 on being a Christian, I would be a 5.5 and trying to improve, but I am trying to give my kids a head start on being better than me.  In no way am I trying to preach here, but I guess I do try to preach to my kids assuming that I know more than they do for the moment, even though they can understand 100 times more than I can. My 5.5 assumes that half the world doesn't know Jesus at all, therefore giving me .5 better than average.  That alone probably proves the point that I don't know enough to be worthy.

I read to you about the preacher passing the man, then the healer passing the man, and finally the random dude who is not deamed worthy coming upon the man and giving him help.  He takes him to the inn, shelters and bathes him, and pays the innkeeper to keep him safe.

Then out of nowhere, you  tell me that if you ever found your friend Liam in the dirt you would, "walk to my house and get a bicycle... but I don't know how to ride one so I would walk all the way to the farm and get a horse Then I would take the horse to Liam and help him get on it and take him to the hospital and God would see it and be happy."

Wow, what an amazing understanding for a little kid.  Bonus cute points for realizing that you don't know how to ride a bicycle, and for converting to a horse (by the way, you aren't really familiar with horses either, but I like the effort.)

Then we prayed about being good people and helping others.  Then you cried.  It was an amazing thing because you cried because you realized you were not a good boy at school, and didn't help others.  You promised to apologize to Ms. Dana the next day and do better.

You didn't do better the next day, but I still appreciate the thought.  It's amazing the way you grasped the story, applied it, and at least intended to be better because of it.  You are only 4 so I don't expect too much, but I am so proud of the little man you are threatening to be.  What a dude.

You are a leader.

It just about crushed me the other day when i found out that Cruz had been in trouble for talking too much during class, distracting others, and leading other kids into doing the same. Not becuse I thought it was a terrible thing, but because I knew where the blame was going.  I never had a teacher-parent interaction that didn't include that.  I never had a report card that didn't indicate that.  Worst of all, your mother never had that on her report card.

Dad is to blame.  I like attention. In fact, I love it.  I lovc being at the center of the story, the attagonist, and the star.  Life is boring when you are entertaining yourself.  I will warn you now that if you don't learn to control it, it will be a part of your life forever.  I am 33 now, and every time we get around a group of people your mother accuses me of it.  So here are my thoughts.

1. Learn to control it- You don't need to be the star of every show.  People grow tired of it, and can resent it.
2. Respect your teachers-  They need you to not be an asshole, becuase if you are, then everyone will be. Some of your teachers will be great people that just want a little help, or at least not a hinderence.  Take your current teacher, Ms. Dana, for example.  She is in charge of 20 4 years olds.  When you are a punk, it means others will follow you making her job harder.  She is a great young lady.  I wish her the best, and by that I mean not having to deal with 20 4 year olds.  She does it with grace, but man, that has to be awful.
3. To thine self be true-  I think that is Shakespeare... but your mom is the English teacher.  Look, I want to tell you that you need to tone it down, fall in line, and get with the program.  My problem is that I never did.  I still don't.  I don't feel bad about it at all.  I like to be at the center of the story, and I like to have eyes on me.  It's just about the best feeling in the world to me to have a crowd in the palm of my hand.  It's part of what makes me succesful and it's part of what I love about being me.
*side note- people hate phrase like "what I love about being me".  I think that is because they have never let themselves be happy with who they are.  I like me.  I think I am pretty awesome in fact.  Is that arrogant, self centered, or proud?  Probably.  I don't care.  I would take "liking me" over "self loathing any day."

Long story short... try to find the happy middle between being a clown and loving a crowd.  You are going to offend some people along the way, and you are going to have some good times.  I can't bring myself to tell you to try to be a wallflower.  Some lights are meant to shine.  I hope you figure out when they should sooner than I have.  It will suit you well.

Here we go again...

It's been a long time since I fired up the old blog.  You have grown!  You are now a little dude.

It's been about two years since I have posted to this blog and man, have things changed!  You are now brother!  This little girl has infected every part of our life and made things better, cooler, and way more hectic than things were in the past. 

So at this point I would love to announce that the blog name is lessonsformykids, by that is taken so you are going to have to deal with it.  At the same time, I can no longer post this just to my little dude, Cruz.  Now it's going out to Cruz and Mila!  What  a trip.  Mila, sorry but you will have to check out your mom's blog to see how the first year of your life went.  Here's a synopsis, you slept, cried, pooped, stood, and crawled.

What follows is a list of lessons I want to teach you kids.  I hope this helps.