My first entry on joys and sorrows of parenting

All-

I've never posted anything on a blog before, but figure that the family blog would be a great place to start.

So two things that may be of interest. The first is that Kristi and I finally found a house in SLC and should be closing on it at the end of August--assuming inspections and appraisals work out ok. The house is about 1/4 mile north of the Quists on Melony Drive, just west of 2700 East on 4200 South. We're really excited about the house and hope you all can visit us often there.

Second, we had a mini-version of Ripley's "believe it or not" at our house today, and I thought you might find it humorous.

Background. On Saturday, after taking care of housekeeping and a few other odds and ends, we went to the outlet mall in Park City, had a late lunch at Granny’s Shakes in Heber, and then went to Provo to attend Mindy Jensen’s wedding reception and spend time with Gram Gram and Grandpa. We really enjoyed spending time with family, and got home rather late.

As a result, we didn’t have the energy to make the 9:30 am church meeting in Sandy, so we opted to attend sacrament meeting at 10:50 am in the ward which we will attend once we close on our home. (Meetings in that ward start at 9am, so we couldn't make Primary or Sunday School.) We got home around 1:00pm, had lunch, and then prepared to have Primary at home, combined with some Sunday discussion about the Gospel.

When I asked who wanted to be in charge of singing, Katie volunteered first, and so she received the assignment. Of course, then Abbie wanted to lead the singing first. She wouldn’t accept the role of sharing time leader, so in order to compromise we opted to have two singing times in Primary. Katie began to plan the music for her turn, but then Abbie did thing to bug her, and so Katie went upstairs to her room to do this. Abbie followed shortly, so within just a few minutes I had two whining, arguing girls in my room. I hate playing Solomon.

I first tried the serious talk about how we couldn’t be happy in our home if we had fighting, that they would be sisters forever and so might as well get along, etc. That speech wasn’t too effective—they kept blaming each other, etc. So next, I opted to diffuse the situation with what I hoped would be humor, a technique that had worked in the past.

So I said, “Why don’t you two just fight it out right here…since you don’t like each other, just fight it out. I put my fists in a boxing-position. So Abbie, who has never hit anyone with her fists like that, gets up and assumes the position and starts practing her swings. Katie—who hasn’t done any boxing either, just stands up and does nothing. “C’mon” I said—fully expecting that they would start laughing, or realize the stupidity of hitting each other and quit fighting—at least temporarily.

Then, all of a sudden, Katie takes both hands, rushes up to Abbie, and just decks her in the shoulders so Abbie goes into the air, falls backwards on her feet, and then lands on her bottom. Abbie bursts into tears, Katie starts laughing, and Kristi and I are caught in this mix of sorrow, surprise, and laughter. Sorrow and surprise because Abbie is crying and Katie just decked her, and laughter because we can’t believe Katie did this—and Abbie probably deserved it.

I give the sobbing Abbie a hug while asking Katie how she feels about hitting her sister. She smiles, laughs, and says something like “fine—you told me to do it.” (So now I feel really great--was I naive to think they wouldn't actually fight?) After calming Abbie down, they both leave the room, and Kristi and I bust up laughing in our room. Who knows, maybe Abbie will be a bit nicer to Katie, and vice versa, but who would have thought Katie would deck her sister.

If anyone has suggestions on to handle two personalities that are diametrically opposed, mixed in with a lot of estrogen, please have pity on me and clue me in.

And, have a great week! Austin