F.H.Emotional Breakdown

Rose came down with a fever of 102 late last night. She has had it now for 24 hours, I hope so badly that she gets better soon. Rose is so uncomfortable, we feel terrible for her.

To say the least FHE was a major bust and then also a major success tonight.

Rose was crying and feeling awful, we couldn't do anything to comfort her. So our FHE turned into all of us piling into our bed to watch the Wiggles and eat brownies. Not too bad, things were going along great...(I'm not going to go into any details) but within a space of 5 minutes all of our children were crying and very upset for various reasons.

And regardless of the reason why they started crying in the first place, it boiled down to just plain stress, thinking life is unfair, and wanting more attention. I can't really blame them, I felt it building for awhile and there is usually some sort of breakdown before school starts and our summer has been beyond crazy.

Anyway, what resulted from the huge breakdown after we put Ginger to sleep of course, was lots of hugs and cuddles, and some honest conversations from both the kid and parental sides.

Can you believe that Nathan thought we hadn't been having FHE very often? We were dumbfounded, like what have we been doing the past 6 years??? I can't blame him, for 4 years our FHE basically only consisted of practising an article of faith then playing a board game while eating dessert. We had to simplify while Ken was going through school and working, otherwise it was just not going to happen. And Nathan really misses that, to him that means FHE. And here I was knocking myself out for lessons. Okay, I wasn't really, but we have been trying to bring up a variety of topics for lessons. Now I think we are going to have to make more of an effort to do the talking and reading and "lesson-y" part on Sunday afternoons so that way Monday nights can be free for the "real" FHE. Because really what's the point of having FHE if it doesn't feel that way to your kids! And he was right, I like our old way of doing FHE better too.

Another interesting point that Darin made was that he wanted a chore chart. This is something I have shunned with a passion. He made a good point how it would keep track of what they have done to make it fair. And it would take away pressure from me since if they have a list they usually go to work straight away and don't come back to me over and over again to ask me what's next. I really hate that last part way more then making up a chore chart, so I'm making them one tonight.

The most surprising thing was that they wanted to do something completely and entirely different then usual. They do a summer reading program with Ken every summer. At the end of the summer he takes them to a big amusement park. They normally go from the time it opens until it closes and they have their Dad to themselves. This year I've felt they have been missing just Mom and Dad time since we now have the two small girls who eat up almost all of our time. I asked them last Friday if they wanted me to come along but they would not be able to stay at the amusement park as long. They jumped at that and we made arrangements with my parents to go with us and I booked the hotel and everything. But tonight they said they wanted to have a day just playing around with me and Ken doing normal things we used to do all the time. So instead of taking them to Six Flags this is their plan:
*Go out to Breakfast
*Watch the new Star Wars movie at the theatre
*Go to Main Event and play Laser Tag and Video Games TOGETHER (totally important to Darin)
*Eat an early dinner at Pizza Hut and play Risk there (Yes, my family brings board games to restaurants)

I'm just wondering but does anyone else's FHE ever have this much drama???