A Culmination of Small Victories

I am realizing more and more the incredible wisdom in the scripture, " by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise" (Alma 37:6) Isn't life really about the small victories? When you add all of those up, you get something amazing and great. 


Let me give you a few examples...the first one would be dieting.  Okay, I am not going to call it dieting because it makes it sound temporary.  Right now, my goal is to eat clean.  To me, this means that I am cutting out sugar and processed food. In simple terms, I am cutting out the crap.  I have had three very successful days of eating this way and let me tell you, I feel great. I don't feel deprived at all. But the small victory this week came at book club.  I brought the treats this month and I picked a healthier fare. I had no intention of eating anything, but I did indulge in a small bowl of kettle corn, which has been my only sugar intake this week.  I made a choice, it was either that or a bag of the 100 calorie minty fudge cookies. Normally, I would have had many choices, but I picked one. But don't think I was not having an argument with myself the entire time, because I was.  "Oh, come on...it is just one bag and only 100 calories, what's the big deal?" "No, it is a big deal because then you won't know that you can exercise self-control."  Yep, these kinds of thoughts were coursing through my brain.


It was a small victory, but I know it will add up to great things.  I am preparing my lesson for Sunday and it is on fasting.  The manual teaches that when we have a successful fast, "We are a little stronger by having proved to ourselves that we have self-control."  I had never really thought of it that way. But think about how when we have a small victory, we are proving to ourselves that we can accomplish our goals.


In the same way I have taken on the monumental task of educating my children. With each day of successfully hitting the books, I am adding drops of knowledge to their little brains, which will culminate into glorious things when they get older. I definitely see it.  They have come so far in their education and I know that I have only laid the foundation for the things that they will do in the future.  With every math problem they successfully solve or word they correctly spell, great things are coming to pass.


This has been palpable with violin and viola as well. Last night I had the privilege of sitting on a bean bag being overcome by watching my children practice their recital pieces with an accompanist.  All the hours of lessons and practices...all of those small victories and now I sit back and watch the miracle. I really did almost cry last night.


As I move forward in my life with eating better and such, I will build off of my small victories. I know that I will not be perfect and I am okay with that. But each day I get stronger. That is truly a blessing.

My Weekly Update

My kids started soccer this week. This is the very first time they have done any kind of organized sports. They have had 2 practices so far, and they both were smiling the whole time. It was joyful to watch them. Of course, the first practice they did not have the proper gear. After five minutes of playing, Raef cried out that he didn't want to play anymore. He had gotten wacked in the shins several times. I informed him that he did not have shin guards and that we would get them before the next practice. It seemed to placate him. He did finish the rest of the practice and had loads of fun. But today's practice went a lot more smoothly for him and he enjoyed it immensely.

On Monday we had a very nice Family Home Evening on prayer. We got some interesting comments from the kids. Raef took several minutes explaining why we pray: because there isn't a telephone that can reach that far into outerspace. It was so adorable. He was really thinking about it.

This was our first official week of school. The kids did really well and I was mostly patient. I have added some really good new curriculum that I have been very happy with so far: Math-U-See, Spelling Power, and Rosetta Stone Spanish. All three of these have been a nice addition and I look forward to seeing there progress as the weeks pass by. We are going to be doing school from Monday-Thursday and take Fridays off to clean the house and do fun things together. Violin has been going really well. Raef is working on Musette by Bach and Zach has finished with Hunter's Chorus and is now plunged into Long, Long, Ago in G Major, with a variation. They are both loving it.

I had a very sweet moment with Zach today as we wrapped up school. He sat down at the piano with me and sang some Primary songs very exuberantly: Called to Serve, Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus, Away in a Manger (he sang the harmony!), and Stars Were Gleaming. When Raef finished his spelling, he came and joined us for the last few. These are the moments you savor as a mother.

I had Zach read to me from McGuffey's and he did a couple stories. Raef read 3 easy pages from the McGuffey Primer. I am taking a step back with him again since I am getting resistance. I am going to try to ease him back into reading, and in the mean time just saturate him with stories I will read to him. He really likes for me to read to him. I read "Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar" and they were both fascinated with it. This book will be good to read to them a lot so that they can understand the factorial principle (i.e. 10!=10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1). I get to learn lots of stuff too.

I found this wonderful language program that is based on the Suzuki Method. The kids memorize poems. They are really easy to start with and then get progressively harder. For example at one point they will learn "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. This week they learned 3 poems: Ooey Gooey, Celery, and another one and I can't remember the title. As they memorize, so do I. I love that. I want to have beautiful language in my head too. It is great.

There is so much to learn...we are having a lot of fun together.

This is now my official educational philosophy: Drip, drip, drip...trickle, trickle, trickle.

It really works. I didn't do as much history as I would have liked to do and we only did an art class once. So next week, I know I need to get those in more as well.