Plan of Attack

There are days when I seem to have everything under control.  The kids get up easily and go sweetly on their merry little ways on their buses.  I get a few things done on my list done before the younger ones greet the day, and I have everything lined up for the afternoon.  Then, there are the other 4 days of the week.

The older ones have a hard time getting up because they fell asleep late or awoke in the middle of the night.  Nyssa whines until five minutes before her bus gets here and Nathaniel whines and fights while he's put on the bus.  I'm exhausted because the kids fell asleep late or awoke in the middle of the night and one of the younger ones waken to the sound of the older ones whining.  Nothing gets done because by time I get whichever child was so rudely wakened by their sibling back to sleep, I'm exhausted and crawl back in bed.  Of course, that means that I have not taken the time in the morning to accomplish anything or get things set up for the rest of the day.

When I was a teacher, there was a saying they grilled into my head.  "Make sure you have a plan.  Because if you don't, the kids will."  How true that is!  And though their plan is to thwart your plan, they secretly want you to stand firm in your plan.  It gives them a sense of security.

Growing up, I used to listen to a story on some character building tapes my mom bought for us.  The story was called Tanny the Deer.  It was about a deer who had been wounded, so a family took her home to care for her.  They kept her in their back yard while she mended.  When she healed, even though she could easily jump the fence, she remained faithfully in that yard.

One day, the boy in the family who had adopted Tanny came outside to see an 8 point buck in the yard with Tanny.  They had seen him around before, but he actually jumped the fence to be with Tanny.  From that day on, he lived there, as well.  Time went on and they had a fawn.  Other fawns would come up to the fence to play with her and she acted like she wanted to leave.  One day, she did.  But she came back a couple days later with a bullet wound in her leg.  Her parents had already learned what she had to learn the hard way.  The fence was there to keep her safe.

We live in a fence.  This fence is the set of laws and moral codes by which we live.  So many people think the fence is there to ruin their fun, to keep them from living the good life.  But the fence which keeps us in is a security agent.  It protects us from the hunter in life that would seek to maim and destroy us, who would have us for lunch if he could.

I want to teach my children this lesson, so I have to be vigilant about keeping them busy and teaching them how to act in this world.  I need to have a plan of attack to help them learn how to cope and how to have that security, because they aren't the only ones who have a plan.  There are others out there who have a dastardly plan.  But through preparing them through the mundane things in life, like learning how to pick up after themselves and being polite, respectful, and obedient, I am also teaching them that the safest place to be is under that authority and under those rules of conduct that govern their protection from the enemy.