gratitude and scrament trays

Dear Dallan. Jan 24th 2010.
This marks the last letter I will write to you as a missionary so I better make it good. For all the rest of you I made a promise to MJ that if he got excellent grades at School I would continue my weekly musings in letters directed to his inbox. And if you haven’t heard the good news my bribe worked and apparently MJ can not possibly live without his weekly dose of Woodin Nickel hysteria, and MJ got EXCELLENT grades this semester. He deserves to be taken out for Ice cream and a root beer but since Florida charges way to much for their frozen dairy treats I will simply congratulate him via email, for the entire next semester…but I’m warning you bucko one not so EXCELLENT grade and I am withdrawing my hilarious support! Other people withdraw their financial support, but since I already spent that, I can only withdraw the stories that my children inspire!
Speaking of my children inspiring …something. Hunter was very inspirational for our humorous column today. In sacrament meeting today he was sitting on the bench or rather lounging around on the bench halfway between Jon and I. And when the bread was passed it was a bit of a fiasco to divert him from trying to grab two fistfuls of bread and devour them, but we succeeded…sort of…he only got ONE handful. We were not very smart when the water came by and Marcus passed it to Hunter and then Stiles tried desperately to take the tray from Hunter who had grabbed the handle with both hands in an iron clasping grip and was not about to let it go, and pass it to me. Jon had Wyatt in his arms and I had William in mine and between the two of us was quite a length of bench, not to mention a few children to get past. After much trying, pulling, yelling and the Help of Sister Terry, who was seated in the row behind us, we spilled half of the tray, before we were able to pry the handle out of Hunters hands, and pass the tray to me. I was able to partake of the sacrament and then pass the now mostly empty tray on to the Cooper family. It was indeed a not very spiritual portion of our sarament meeting for the Woodin family and I for one was very grateful when it was all over. Sister Terry laughed about the whole ordeal with me later.
I have discovered that I am raising very ungrateful children, or maybe they are just plain ole selfish. Maybe you can read this next story and help me decide. Stiles Desperatly needed a new pair of shoes. So on Tuesday I headed to the store in search of some new footwear for my oldest son. I was also on the lookout for some new shoes for William since I lost one of his tennis shoes and he has been wearing his sandals out in the snowy weather. Well I found some great tennis shoes for Stiles early on and some really cute cowboy type boots for William. Then I wandered around the shoe section for a few more minutes until I found some cowboy boots. They had some nice looking boots in Stiles size as well as Marcus’s so I threw the new footwear into the cart and then happened by some girly western boots and knew that Erica could not be left out and left the shoe section with 5 boxes of new shoes for my children. When I got home I knew that bribery is a great way to get my children to do what I want them to do but I prefer to call it “working towards a goal” so when my dear sweet childrens returned home from a “hard” day at school I gave them all a snack and informed them of my desire to give them a gift of some new cowboy boots when …they had finished their chores for the day. I excpected delight and glee as they looked upon what could be theirs with a little bit of work. Instead I heard. “OH Mom…I don’t want BROWN ones.” “Who gets the black ones.” “That’s not what I wanted!” “I want PINK ones…those ones are NOT pink!” “We ALWAYS have to do our jobs, and its too hard!” “I am NOT doing my jobs” . With this I realized that my Children needed a lesson in gratitude. So I swooped up the new shiny boots and told them that I was not going to give any such gift to children who didn’t appreciate that their Mom was trying to give them something nice and that their Father workes hard all day long to provide it for them. The least they could do was say thank you mom. And do their assigned jobs. So I informed them that none of them would recive the boots and that I would be happy to take the boots back to the store. Then my children started to really cry and beg for second chanced and opportunities to earn back the lost boots. Seeing my golden opportunity for a great “working towards a goal” moment I gave vague ideas about good behavior and clean rooms and the chance that if that happened I might not take the boots back to the store right away. In the end I had very cooperative children and cleaner than normal bedrooms (which still could be deemed a hazardous area) all week long. On Saturday I dangled my goal in front of my children and gave them a list of things to accomplish to finally achive the goal. After doing everything on the list with minimal grumbling and complaining and “MOM, so-and so’s not helping!” I told my children that they had earned the right to have a the boots I bought for them. But asked them if they thought it would be a good idea to show their Daddy how grateful they were for him providing the money for the boots by cleaning up his office. They were all in agreement that this was indeed a good plan and worked happily, and quickly and accomplished the job. So On Saturday when they were finally sporting their new footwear I think they might have a small understanding of what it is like to be grateful. But I am not going to hold my breath.
Hunter is trying to say his alphabet. Jon has been working with him. And Hunter often askes in all of his grunts if he can say the prayer. We are seeing some more pregrssion in his speech but it continues to be slow. William is a toal tease and we love him ever so much more for it. His two little dimples melts many hearts and he is trying out the just haw far can we push Moms buttons before she loses it all by himself. His latest trick involves emptying kitchen cuboards and carrying their contents all over the house. Some meals we have to go on a scavanger hunt to find the right pan I need to fix the next meal. But we all love the our Willy Joe. Wyatt has a dear little smile and is a very content baby. He does like to see what is going on and is enjoying the use of the Johhny jump-up that is hanging in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. I rather like it too. But I have to tell the older siblings not to spin Wyatt around and around. Hunter only had to get stuck in it once to decide that it wasn’t that fun to be in and I have used it to trap William so that he couldn’t get in the way.
We will miss praying for Uncle Dallan on his mission. But we are looking forward to your return. And I just wanted to point out to you that you can say you served exactly 2 years to the day! Seth claims serving for 4 years, be we all know that he is kind of full of it. HEE HEE. Love you tons. Work hard your last week. Don’t be the elder that someother Elder gets to complain about having this really trunky elder as his companion. Keep working. The Church is true. President Monsen is our prophet. And you are the cutest little missionary brother I have.
Love Monica and the rest of the Woodin Nickel Kiddos-and Jon too!