Don't Embarrass me!

I ran into a friend of mine after church this morning. She is awesome. Just for fun, as a last day of school trick on her kids she drove them to school in her robe and a towel on her head. I LOVE this. My mom used to drive us to school on Halloween and the last day of school too I think with a gorilla mask on. At that time, I was of course terribly embarrassed. But now that I am a mom, I really see the useful tool this is. There are sooo many things we have to teach our children. How to get along with others, how to share with others, how to study for a test, how to have confidence, how to laugh at themselves and so much more... We also have to teach our kids about dealing with embarrassment. Embarrassment happens. When I was in college I was walking through the computer lab when my boot buckles got hooked together and I went straight down like a tree in the forest. Terribly embarrassing. But you know, I grew up with a dad who used to wear a swim cap in the neighborhood pool and swim around yelling, "I'm Julie Certa's dad!" His sole purpose was to embarrass me. After that, my falling in the computer lab was nothing. We as parents need to be willing to embarrass ourselves to teach our children that getting embarrassed doesn't kill you. They can survive a little embarrassment, and in learning this they will become willing to try new things, and risk embarrassing situations to learn something new, or have a good time, or just let go a little of being made fun of, and be themselves. So, I tease my kids a little. I kiss and hug them in public. I wear around any art or stickers my little kids give me throughout the day, and if this embarrasses my older kids, well, good. I may just get my husband to wear a swim cap around the pool this summer...for the good of the kids ; ) also I don't want to forget: -Charlie keeps saying "knock, knock" we say "who's there" and he just stares at us smiling. Then eventually he says, "knock ,knock" again. We go on like this forever. -My husband and I are celebrating our 12th anniversary tonight with dinner and a night away in a hotel. Grandma and Grandpa have the kids. Kids are THRILLED to be going there. They love this. And I love this. Grandma and Grandpa are going to be very tired when we pick up the kids Saturday evening.