Gotta hand it to Tyler for taking first in several of his events and getting a county time in freestyle. I'm impressed not only because he has half a heart, but because of his drive. He wants to go fast so bad that it outweighs his physical limitations.
Heidi and I watch House, MD, on netflix. One of the cases was about an immunocompromised child who felt her parents were overprotective in keeping her indoors. She just wanted to live a "normal" life even if it meant failing sooner.
Several physicians recommended we terminate Tyler's pregnancy, and since we didn't, any time we have with him is gravy. Therefore, we want him to have a happy and fulfilled life since no one knows when their card is gonna get pulled. He has surpassed our expectations in many ways. He's doing well in school, too.
We talked in church yesterday about sowing what you reap. Dieter Uchtdorf wrote
a funny article about it and we discussed it in elders quorum. People were making comments about how they worked out and strengthened their bodies in order to run faster and longer or make their bicycling goals. I wanted to raise my hand and talk about genealogy and that it is, truly, watching the results of seeds grow. Heidi's doing her genealogy on her dad's side, who kept good records all the way back to 1610. I bet they never imagined what their posterity would be doing 400 years later, but here we are, writing a blog as our family history.
But my unspoken comment was that if we cultivate our relationships with our kids, they will develop into competent individuals. Heidi and I have different perspectives on the level of parental involvement, and she seems to think that I think the kids will just magically develop on their own without input from me.
That's not my philosophy. Mine is that I give them expectations and guidelines. If they do their chores, they get iphone time. If they don't, then they have time-outs in their rooms. Once they know what is expected, and that there are consequences, they usually follow through. I haven't gotten upset with them in the last week or so because I'm trying to change my attitude about parenting.
I'm reading this book called Time and Money. It's about how to save for the future and enjoy the journey and stuff. Kinda like my book, only not as good. I even emailed the author to ask his perspective on using the Buick Riviera as an example of a poor investment decision but he never wrote back. Weak. Anyway, he thinks it's a bad idea to let your kids see you mopping the floor and instead thinks you should get a maid. I can see his perspective but I disagree with it. I want my kids to learn to work. Dad paid me to keep up the yard at his office and I took a lot of pride in my work. I pruned, mowed, edged, sprayed for weeds, swept, and all that. The office was beautiful. I didn't get paid much but I learned how to evaluate my work and achieve goals.
Another thing this book discusses is not doing things you don't want to do. Last night I made a batch of laundry soap while talking on the phone to Steve. Making soap isn't all that enjoyable but it was good talking to Steve. This morning, I woke up early and hung out the wash to dry. Laundry isn't one of my favorite things to do, but none of my vehicles needs any work right now, so there wasn't much else for me to do. So I didn't disenjoy my time. Besides, I feel good that I'm conserving energy and resources.
I fixed Heidi's phone. Truly, the iphone 4 is quite a bit more laborious to fix a cracked front glass. I had to take the whole thing apart, including the logic board, battery, sound bar, and even the frame. But it now works. I recommend people use ifixit.com, rather than youtube, because with the former, they measure the screws and color code them. There are 1.2 mm, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.5, 3, 4.8, and 6 mm screws. Not many people can differentiate between 0.1 mm. But I deal with mm's all day, so I was glad for those measurement guidelines.
Okay, that's all.
