Thoughts on a Saturday Morning

As I sit here typing I am serenaded by a flock of hungry songbirds clamouring for the seed in my bird feeder. They jostle and jockey for position and squabble and chirp. It's very entertaining. I love to watch them. There are often 20 or more birds at a time fluttering around my deck. The bird seed goes quickly. I must refill it every day. On the mornings when I am slow I step out onto the deck and wonder where my little friends are. It is quiet. Then I look up. The large cottonwood that hovers overhead is filled with birds, all silently watching me. I pour in the seed and then give my little whistle as I head back inside. Almost before I can return to the window overlooking the feeder the feeding frenzy begins. The fray lasts for a couple of hours at least. It keeps me, and my cat, very entertained.

My son, Andy, is a die-hard WOW player. It has been a source of worry and contention for a year now. Andy wants to play all the time. His parents would be happy if he never played again. There has been a lot of give and take in the compromises that allow Andy to play. For a while it simply involved keeping his grades up, and doing one thing with friends during the week. Then one day Joni came to me concerned. She had Andy do a push up and he struggled. He could barely do one pushup and he's supposedly in the prime of his physical life. I was also concerned. We struck a new deal. When Andy came to me to ask for playing time (yea parental controls, at least I can control how much he plays) I said "sure as soon as you do 100 pushups. I thought for sure he would not even attempt it, but he dropped to the floor and started doing them. The first few were very shaky and his form was terrible. He butt was high and he sure didn't lower himself very much. He kept trying to do them, and by the time he got to 30 I thought he would kill himself trying to get to 100. Finally I said he could stop at 30 if he also did 30 sit ups. He agreed. The situps were as ugly as the pushups, but he was doing them. The next day he could hardly move.
A new pattern was set.
Every day before play he would do 30 pushups and 30 situps. He gradually got better and better. When I could see that they were getting easier for him I would start to demand better form. He had to have a straight body. He had to touch his chin to the floor at least once. Currently he can pump out 20 straight pushups without stopping and then he will do 10 with his chin touching the floor. They are getting easier for him. I can see he is starting to take some pride in his physical accomplishments. He told me that one day in PE the losing team had to do 10 pushups. He ended up doing 50 pushups during class because his team kept losing. I asked him if he was glad he started doing pushups at home 3 weeks before. Yes, he was very glad.

I'll keep pushing him on the exercises, but today I had an epiphany.
The reason I want him to keep his grades up and do something with friends and to exercise is that I want him to be well-rounded. He needs to not neglect any one area of his life. There was one area that we had not been working on. Spiritual. So we added a requirement today. After his exercising he must read one chapter of scripture. He's studying the New Testament in Seminary, so I told him he could read that for his scripture time. He must read the chapters successively though. No skipping around looking for little chapters. He agreed. And he read his chapter this morning. That boy will do almost anything for a little WOW time.

My New Years Resolution:
Try a little harder to be a little better. President Hinckley used to say this often. Since he died this year I want my resolution to be in honor of him. I lost two of my favorite men this year. President Hinckley and my father. I know my dad would approve of this resolution too. The biggest thing I want to try a little harder to be a little better at, is keeping my big mouth shut. I've gotten myself into a little trouble this year saying things that I've later regretted. I was looking through my book shelf the other day for something to read and found a book I didn't even know I had. It's called "Me and My Big Mouth". I think it was written just for me. It is a scriptural approach to controlling your tongue. I'm reading it. I hope I can learn from it.

I've been trying to keep up my calendar journal. I hope to post a picture of December's here soon.

Cheers! and have a great weekend.