when the goin' gets tough.

This is a lesson from our two year old. He has been different in a lot of ways from our other two kids and has forced me to be creative with him. (hence the loaf of bread to himself and the orange to do with what he chooses. :))

Well, he has been saying "stupid" which is the "s word" at our house, among throwing tantrums, saying "I don't wanu" to about everything, etc. To try and smooth things over with him one day I tried something that shouldn't have been and epiphany.

I did what he loves. We played basketball. I am not kidding, we played for about an hour, with bouts of kicking the ball and playing catch and then basketball. I only enjoyed his company. What a delightful time we had. I think that was a huge deposit in his love bank. He apparently needed it.

What I learned from this is probably obvious. If we are having a rough time with our spouse, then we should probably take a step back and play. Think about something they love to do and express your desire to do it. Whatever it is. Make it your point to just enjoy them, especially if you don't enjoy their activity of choice. Enjoy your spouse and just play! There's the apple! Heck, make it your date night!

So this weekend if I wanted to make a deposit by doing something Zach loved, it would be watching college basketball while eating caramel popcorn. But then again, that isn't really playing, it's watching other people play. I guess after that I will beat him best out of three in ping pong. Then he'll want to play best out of five. :)