Parenting Technique Etc.

There are three kinds of parents The kind that can't stand to hear their baby cry/scream out of sympathy, the kind who can't stand to hear it out of annoyance and the kind who don't hear it, or at least don't let it affect them too much either way.

I'm a little of each, but Greg is almost always the second one. He doesn't like it. He likes to be far away from it. But when you're driving in a car with the child, it's hard to get away.

This weekend when we were driving to Łódż to visit his parents, Aaron did really well. Almost the whole 5 hour drive (with no stops). But he whined a little. And at some point the whining turned into crying. And after about a minute of that Greg shouted, "Aaron! No no! All done crying!" Shouting in a car is a little different than shouting in a house or outside. Sort of like a baby crying in a car is different than in a house or outside. As soon as Greg's short but loud shout was done, the crying stopped. And didn't return for rest of the drive (about an hour).

As we were pulling into the parking lot below his parent's apartment building I said, "I know any amount of crying seems to go on forever, but Aaron actually did really well and only complained for maybe 10 minutes total on the whole drive!" To which Greg replied, "Yeah, because I screamed at him." To which I replied, "Yes, because you believe in anger management." About which we laughed and made lots of clever comments then Greg started coming up with other situations in which to use this philosophy: "Someone does something wrong at work: (in a pretend scream) 'YOU IDIOT! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!" and when someone asks what's the matter I tell them it's my new management technique: Anger Management. I works for my kids!" Greg is a very impressive manager, but I can't wait to see how they like his new style!

Also, while we were driving there we got snow! And it stuck!! And I love it.

Also, every evening when we are visiting Greg's parents and we say family prayer together Greg's father chooses one of us to pray. Usually he chooses Evie or David, but occasionally it's me or Greg. One evening he called on me. I started it out in English on accident and had to backtrack (reminding me of the days I sometimes started my (silent) personal prayers: We are daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves us--Whoops! And the one time when I was a kid and started our family prayer: I pledge allegiance to the---whoops! I think those are good indications your prayers might be a bit rote.)

Greg's parents live in an itty bitty apartment. Tiny. 38 square meters, if that means anything to you. And in a building of maybe 75 apartments surrounded by many other buildings full of apartments in the second largest city in Poland. Squished. Which made it all the stranger when, during my prayer I thanked God for Greg's parent's farm. They don't have a farm. They've never had a farm. They don't even want a farm, I don't think. His dad laughed. During the prayer. So I opened one eye and gave Greg the word "hospitality?" and he gave me a very different word than the one I'd said. Whoops! But then I fixed it so now we all know that I'm really not thankful for their farm so much as for their kindness in having us in their home.

And I didn't find out what I'd actually said until after the prayer when Greg told me what gospodarstwo means (which I actually knew but forgot). If you speak Polish, hopefully you can see the connection between that and gospodarz, which can mean "host" so I was thinking in terms of their "hosting" us. Apparently you can't say that. And I even know the right word for hospitality, but forgot again! Sheesh! I can't even get my own kids names right half the time, please don't ask me to speak a foreign language!