Just a Minute
Nov 30th 2006Ebenezer8 & Speedy
I fear I am warping my child’s sense of time. How many times a day do I answer him by saying, “Just a minute” or “in a minute”? Too many to count. Poor kid doesn’t know if a minute is really a minute or an hour. Unfortunately, sometimes when I answer “just a minute” I forget and that minute turns into a day or more. Oops.
Anyway, now Speedy has learned my trick. I’ll tell him to put something away and he’ll say, “in jus’ a minute”. I’m eating my own words. In more ways than one.
Sometimes my mouth reacts faster than my brain - those of you who know me IRL won’t find that surprising at all. There have been a few times lately where I have issued verbal warning and regretted it later. We were at Chick-fil-a (oooooh! my new favorite drink there is half lemonade and half sweet tea - yummy!) and he kept using his feet to push his high chair away from the table. I said, “Speedy, if you do that one more time you won’t get to play on the playground.” Of course, he did it and then I was stuck enforcing my consequence even though I really wanted him to be able to play. I know it is a very minor thing, but daddy-o and I had to do what we said we’d do. He didn’t cry but was very disappointed. Ugh. You should have seen his sweet little face. After that, he didn’t move his high chair again for the rest of the meal so I got him an ice cream cone. 
Anyway, it happened again last night. Were running late with dinner so last night it was eat and then bedtime routine and sleep. But he kept playing with his food and we’ve been trying desperately to break that habbit. So mouth got going before my brain could engage and told him if he put his whole hand in the casserole again he was going straight to bed. And he did. And he did. And he WAILED in his bed. I caved after 10 minutes of him screaming and sobbing, “I no break rules again”! I felt like I was torturing him. He had to stay in bed, but I did go back in and sing to him for a little while and he calmed right down.
All this has me thinking about God. How many times does His heart break as He watches us suffer the consequences of our own behavior? I feel like it is easier now than ever before for me to blindly follow His direction. Now, if only I could carve out a little more time to spend with Him so that I could get that direction……
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One Response to “Just a Minute”
Judy on 30 Nov 2006 at 3:04 pm #
you always have to make sure that you are willing to dole out the consequences when you verbalize them to those little ones. It kills me when I tell Travis, “if you don’t_____then you don’t get to ________.” The first few times, he’d do whatever it was anyway and I’d have to follow through. He gets it now. It does pay off in the long run!