What matters most

Right now my husband is upstairs apologizing to his 9 yr old for hurting his feelings. He did not realize when his 9 yr old showed up to his 11 yr old teams' practice that his 9 yr old thought he was there to help the team out. Since his 9 yr old was bouncing a crazy ball all over the gym and never took his leather jacket off, and was being goofy, he didn't know that his 9 yr old was actually waiting. He was waiting to have his dad call him over to help out the team. We are human. Parents are human. We get caught up in other thoughts...winning, not getting embarrassed, doing what we think others expect us to do. And we forget, as my husband said, that the only thing that really should matter to us, or at least should matter most, is our own kids and what they think of us. Sometimes we have a lapse in judgement and we get too worried about doing what we think we want others to see us doing. But you know, every time I see a parent be goofy with their child, or take time to explain something to their child, or just generally show respect for and care for their child even when it would be easier or more socially acceptable to do something else, I am impressed by that parent, for taking the time out to care about their child's feelings more than they care about what others think. I am so glad that my children's father cares more about his kids' feelings than he does about being "right." I think there is no shame in admitting to your child that you lost sight of what mattered for a minute. Your child will likely be a more caring human to learn this lesson from their own parent. Also I don't want to forget: -I took Charlie and Ben to a big mall (St Louis Mills) today and they rode a train and carousel and other little rides. We had pizza, ice cream, a little candy. We saw Santa, and got antler hats. We played at the huge playground. The trip could only have been better if the mall had been without stores. So many temptations for them. But at least they could get excited about asking Santa for stuff. That mall is a superb winter outing. I bet we end up there a lot. Ben asked Santa for a Hex bug set and Charlie asked for candy. Also Ben said he was going to go home and ask Jack what he wanted for Christmas, so that he could go back to Santa and tell Santa for him.