The Darndest Things: Not as Inspiring as Originally Anticipated

I thought I was profound and inspiring.

For five whole seconds.

We had finished our x-rays before the two oldest children get their palate expanders {dental orthopedics…they have issues}. One–I will not name names–but one of them was complaining about how the x-ray tech tugged on the cheeks and skin. “It hurt!” Said child was being a grump about it.

We recently completed two knight books in a row, and I thought this perfect fodder for a conversation. “Vencels can do hard things,” I said, quoting a friend of mine. “Remember in our knight books, where the knights learned to ignore pain and hunger and heat and cold and go into battle anyhow…and win?? Well, we can learn to do that, too, by facing hard things and ignoring how hard they are.”

Oh, yes, I was confident that though I could not see them, four sets of cheeks were burning with the flame of motivation.

And then the four-year-old piped up: “Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Who was hungry? Because I’m hungry.”