Friday Fun with Grady

Grady and I went to see a traveling theater's production of Henry and Mudge on Friday. There were LOTS of school kids there. We were able to squeeze in on the fourth row since our group only consisted of two. A few first graders were sitting in front of us. One little girl turned around and asked me when the play was going to start. I picked up my phone from my purse to check the time and told her, "Oh, pretty soon now. It is supposed to start at 10:00 and it's three minutes until ten." 

She said, "Do you have games on your phone?"
I said, "Yes."
She said, "Can I play them?"
I said, "No, I don't think so."

I won't start a long tirade here, but I am amazed at our constant need for technology and entertainment, as young as six {and honestly, probably a lot younger!}. I think our phones and advancements in technology are a great thing and have great potential, but they are very swiftly becoming our idols, and taking the place of real relationships and responsibility. And that's all I'll say about that:).

We had a great time and enjoyed the play. After it was over, and we witnessed a small wreck coming out of the parking lot, {probably somebody texting while driving! I won't start on that either, but I see at least 5 people a day texting while driving.} we went out for lunch at Firestone. It was a fun morning with Grady and even better to be able to spend some one on one time with him. **I'm including myself on this phone stuff, not just pointing fingers. I want us all to make an effort to remember that there was a time when we did survive without having a phone and the internet available 24 hours a day:). **

In other Grady news, he is hard at work putting an end to his thumb sucking. We did this with Elle and it worked. So far it has been a success with Grady as well. We made a chart for the month of February. Each day he goes without sucking his thumb, he puts a sticker on that day. We keep a band-aid around his thumb so if he puts it in his mouth, he's reminded to get it out! Grady has gotten very interested in Star Wars lately, so his big reward at the end of the month is the Millennium Falcon he's had his eye on since Christmas. We borrowed the very first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) from a friend and watched it last night. This was sort of a "half-way point" reward. I can't describe the joy I feel every time I look at him and see him without his thumb in his mouth and his finger up his nose. Truly.

Colds

We were all a bit under the weather over the last week or so but thankfully seem to be coming out of the Kleenex fog. We had a box strategically placed in every room of the house because we literally could not go more than 5 or 10 minutes without blowing a nose. Fortunately, the kids are all good nose-blowers which, in my opinion, is a very important life skill to learn.

We laid low all last weekend and had a friend to graciously sub in our Sunday School class. Another friend showed up unexpectedly with dinner and that was a sweet blessing. Grady stayed out of school Tuesday but our colds weren't bad enough to shut the Salter Academy down. We press on even when we're sick around here:). Now, we're down to a few lingering coughs and the occasional nose blow, but again, we are thankful it was just an aggravating week of colds and nothing more.

On a totally different note, I wanted to post this link for any of you who might want to take an hour to be challenged in your faith and encouraged like crazy. I posted about them years ago, but two of our college friends' lost their 4 year old daughter unexpectedly one night, in July 2008. This is Hope talking about Alaina's death and how God saw her through that tragedy. We serve a mighty God!