Parenting?!

I love my boys. I love watching them grow and develop. I love how they are night and day different but still best friends (which I hope will never change)! Kal is very smart, very thoughtful, and has a HUGE heart. So sweet. I teared up yesterday when after church I had the boys up in the high school room and the teens had left a ton of trash. He was picking up all of the little papers and throwing them away telling me "I just don't like to see this mess." So sweet! Last night at church they made "rainbows". Kamden's was just green. He loves green. The entire rainbow was, well, green. Kal's was a perfect ROY G. BIV! It had to be just right. Kamden is so fun-loving, care-free (maybe a little too much so) and FUNNY!!! Kal is our perfectionist.

The challenge has hit us that now we can really see their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, how do we encourage them without inflating them? How do we correct them without making them feel ashamed of their gifts? Kal needs to lighten up sometimes. He is so serious and, dare I say, prideful. It can come across as mean sometimes especially to his friends and he needs to be corrected but I do not want to discourage him from taking pride in what he knows or does (in a healthy way). Kamden needs to take some things more seriously, he needs to shake off the stubbornness and eat his dinner. He needs to listen and learn instead of being the clown in the back of the class...or in front of the class but I do not want to discourage him, he truly has a gift! That kid can bring a smile to ANYONE's face! I thought parenting was hard before, but now the challenge is a little scary.

I suppose this is the phase of life when I can look back and see why my parents may have made the decisions they made or handled things the way they did. Were they just as clueless as I am? I hope so. We all turned out okay, that gives me hope!