Ideal vs Reality

I was catching up on my Ensign reading this week and came upon a photo that stuck out at me: a family eating dinner together at a round table, everyone enjoying what they were eating, and everyone smiling and talking to each other.  It unfortunately just made me think about all the things we try hard to do with our family, but it just never turns out.  Here are the scenarios and the reality of them at our house.

Family prayer

Gathering the family is probably the hardest part of family prayer.  When one of the girls is actually holding still, the other is always deeply involved in some urgent project and making excuses, saying she'll be there in just a minute.  Then when she finally comes after much cajoling, the other one who has been waiting has had it and finds something else to do, and we start a cycle.  It's enough of a challenge just to get the girls to be quiet, let alone kneel down and fold their arms.  And you can be sure at least one is peeking during the prayer.  They always burst out after the "amen" to say what naughty thing the other one was doing during the prayer.  And we can wrestle Henrik for about 5 seconds during this time if we sing "My Hands Upon My Head" and he ends the song folding his arms.  Morning prayer goes better than bedtime, but we're still working on consistency with our morning routine.

Family scripture study

We've tried different ways to have scripture study with the kids.  We have always come back to doing it at night, but we tried mornings during breakfast, evenings during dinner, right after dinner, etc.  Lately scripture study includes two verses from the Book of Mormon--one read by Mierae, and one repeated by Jolie, with a very short background and quick summary of the lesson taught.  Both girls are usually looking at other books during this time, and Henrik is crawling all over us.  Sometimes we'll read a story out of "The Friend" or "The Ensign" and that seems to go over a little better.  We try to talk about what we're learning and give personal examples of teachings where we can.  But it's rare that we have a great gospel discussion.  We just aim for consistency with this one, and hopefully the opportunities to discuss and learn will happen on their own.

Family dinner

Besides the usual "Yuck; I hate that!" that we can get at dinnertime, another hard thing about dinner is that the kids have the hardest time staying in their seats.  Henrik now refuses to sit, and no buckle or tray can contain him.  He leans perilously back in his chair, scaring us each time he sways, and we have to keep a hold of him to make sure he won't fall back.  Mierae will take one bite and then leave and gallavant in the living room.  Jolie will sit and not eat at all.  We try to have meaningful conversation.  As long as we keep dinner out of it, we can try to bring up happy events of the day, talk about school, or discuss upcoming events to look forward to.  Sometimes we actually have great learning moments, but more often than not we're begging Jolie to eat one bite of something and nagging Mierae to come back, again, and sit down at the table.

Family Home Evening

I always smile when I think about Family Home Evening and remember Elder Bednar's conference talk when he talked about his own challenges with a young family.  ("He's breathing my air!"--We have never had that one, but Mierae frequently gets upset that Jolie "was looking" at her.)  The fight for us during FHE is who will conduct the songs--when (opening or closing) and how many.  They always get a long serving spoon from the kitchen to use as a baton and conduct from the music stand while raised up on a step stool.  They choose songs from the Children's Songbook, a big Reader's Digest Christmas collection, or whatever big book they find on the music shelf.  It's hard to get past the songs and have any kind of lesson or activity.  But we usually make it through.  Mierae made a little Family Home Evening chart and likes to tell everyone what their assignment is (she's kept everyone on the same assignment for weeks, hers being the activity, which usually has something to do with all of us drawing pictures). :)  We try to get out as a family as often as we can, and those times are special when we can be all together doing something fun.