honesty.

we've been having a hard time with being honest this week. it started with playing an arcade game he shouldn't be playing while we weren't looking over his shoulder; then we each got different stories about why he was out of bed in the middle of the night; and last night he admitted he had been reading past bedtime when he knew he was supposed to be getting to sleep. (which meant he finished the book we'd been reading without us... so sad!)

i don't think last night's issue would have bothered me as much except that he and i had talked about it earlier in the week, so he deliberately made a choice to do something he knew he shouldn't. sure, we all had those times when we snuck a book under our covers with a flashlight but at eight years old, i was still scared my parents would catch me and take away all my books forever!

we've also been talking more about adoption - what that means to us, what that means to him, and trying to help him process all the strong, confusing, conflicting feelings that go along with those conversations. i'm pretty sure the poor decisions are connected to those conversations.

will you still be my forever family if i disobey?
will you still be my forever family if i make poor choices?
will you still be my forever family if i lie?

it's amazing how exhausting it is to respond, not react, and take each small battle as an individual issue without lumping them all together into a Very Bad Week mentality. (it might help if work wasn't totally kicking both our butts this week, leaving us exhausted when we walk in the door, still with more work to do after J. goes to bed!)

so, i've re-introduced "how to talk so your kids will listen, and listen so your kids will talk" back to my nighstand. how's that for a little light reading?