Wednesday, June 17, 2009

That's What Makes the World go Round

That's What Makes the World go Round
From "The Sword in the Stone"
Composed by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

Left and right
Like day and night
That's what makes the world go round
In and out
Thin and stout
That's what makes the world go round

For every up there is a down
For every square there is a round
For every high there is a low
For every to there is a fro
To and fro
Stop and go
That's what makes the world go round

In one of my college classes we talked about interactions between parents and children. The basic premise of the discussion was that for every negative interaction you have with a
child, you would need a certain number of positive interactions to balance out the impact of the negative. The professor made the point that negative interactions are so powerful that it takes multiple positive interactions to compensate. I thought I would apply this concept to my day today.

A trip to Walmart with six kids.

Now for the balance:

Skye is my little mother. She will sit next to Nathan and wait for him to wake up. Then she will pick him up and love him. I love her caring heart.
I love my new shoes! They are so comfortable and I couldn't resist the orange.
Baby Nathan always tips the scale on the happiness side.
This rose just bloomed in my back yard.
Katie's hair always makes me smile. I love her curls!


PS In all fairness to my children, you must know that they were remarkably well behaved at Walmart. It is just the sheer effort of moving six bodies through the store that causes my brain to shut down. Moving them through Stuff Mart is torture because there are so many things that I need to say no about (no, we can't ride the horse, no we can't get that toy, no, you can't go play on the handheld games in the electronic department, no, we are not buying baby food for Nathan, no, you can't ride in the cart, no you don't need a new toothbrush, etc).

3 comments:

  1. I was going to say that you must have really needed something to make a trip to WM with the crew! But, then, I realized that life is life and trips to the store are inevitable.

    I love your balance. Curly hair makes me smile, too. I was telling Alan yesterday how to do Caroline's hair (in case I was busy elsewhere). Just get it wet and fluff it up. It will dry curly. Love that!

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  2. And I have a hard time with 2...(one of which doesn't make any requests)

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  3. Lately I've also been thinking about the balance of positive to negative interactions (from what I learned at BYU too!), and I like your perspective.

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