Skip to main content

An Answered Prayer and a New Challenge

Emma has struggled with friends for the past several years. Some of her childhood friends either moved away or moved on. Some friends did not have the same standards she did and  so they drifted apart. For about a year she has been almost friendless. She has friends at church and she would talk to kids at school, but she had no one she could hang out with on the weekends. I had been praying for her for quite some time, but a couple of months ago we decided to fast and pray together. 

In December she started a job at "Chubby's" it is a local burger and shake joint. It has pretty good food and is close by. Spencer worked there for a few months when he was in high school. The owners are cool, they are closed on Sundays, and the kids are home by 10 on weeknights. Those are all pluses to this job. 

When I dropped Emma off for her first shift. Ashlynn was also walking in the door. Ashlynn is a girl who became somewhat of a friend at the end of ninth grade, but they didn't see each other at all over the summer. They were happy to see each other and Emma gave her a hug. At least she knows someone who works there too. 

Well, the kids at Chubby's have been very welcoming to Emma. She has gotten dates and found new friends she started working there. She has lots of people calling, texting, and wanting to hang out with her. She even told me that there are to girls who work there who fight over Emma's attention.

She and I both recognize the answer to our prayer. She is happy, bubbly and pushing the boundaries. We try to reserve Monday nights for Family Home Evening and I don't want her to work more than 2-3 shifts each week. She still has homework, mountain biking, family responsibilities, etc. The owners only schedule the kids for two shifts each week, but she was picking up extra shifts from kids. She got behind in school and was missing FHE regularly. If her boss schedules her on Monday we try to adjust FHE, but she was asking to work on Mondays or taking shifts from other kids so she could work with a cute boy who usually worked on Mondays. She just now called me from school asking if she could work at 7 tonight and close for someone else. She knew the answer, but thought she would ask anyway. 

She was asked out on a date by a boy she was acquainted with last year in her seminary class, but lost contact with. He, by the way, doesn't work at Chubby's. She told me they were planning to go mountain biking, to dinner, then to his house. I said, "Great, who is the other couple who will be going with them?" She tried to tell me it wasn't a date and that she had been mountain biking with other boys before. Taylor and I told her it sounded like a date to us and reminded her that she needed to double date until she graduates from high school. 

She is a good girl with a solid testimony of Jesus Christ. She is just having new experiences and hoping to push the boundaries along with it. She hasn't done this much before so that part is kind of annoying even though I am actually so happy that she is having fun, social experiences. I want her to have good memories of high school and learn how to have fun with peers. She is doing that and I am so grateful!

She went to one casual school dance with a mountain biking friend and had fun at the date and dinner beforehand, but she did not enjoy the dance. She told a recent "crush" of hers that she didn't like dances. I hope she doesn't tell too many boys that because I would like her to go to at least one formal/semiformal dance during high school. 

We will see what the future holds, but for now she is loving life and I am loving watching her grow.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Should Have Known, But I Didn't or It's Been a Year

I began this blog one year ago this month.  This is my 31st post.  That puts me at exactly 2.4 posts per month.  Not a world's record, but a personal best.  Up from the zippo I had before.  I started it so that my children would have some record of their family's life.  I haven't been very good at journal keeping in the past.  I have been hit or miss at best.  What I hadn't anticipated was how much I have enjoyed writing and reading this blog.  I have reread my posts, some of them several times.  They have made me laugh, cry and reminisce about my life.  I like to write, so it should not have been such a surprise.  But for some reason or other I didn't realize how much I would benefit from it.  Maybe next year I will average a 3 or even 4 posts each month.  I have ideas and notable life events that I could write about, but we shall see.

Yesterday we had a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad" morning that ended with a Christlike Kindness

Last Saturday morning SHOULD have been an ordinary Saturday morning.  The children have "Saturday chores" that they are required to do before they move on with their day.  There are a few exceptions.  This morning Spencer had an exception because his scout troop led by Destry went on a rock climbing expedition.  It was a gorgeous day!  They had a great time thanks to Destry's former missionary companion and friend, Dallin Ward, who shared his talents and expertise with the group.  Spencer was the star as I was told.   For those of us who stayed behind, it should have been chore time after they left.  They were all playing together nicely for a while and I just let them.  It is fun to see them getting along and playing well.  At around 10:00 I reminded them  to get get started because Emma had her first basketball game of the season and Estelle had a birthday party that both started at 1:00.  That should have been no problem. ...

It Has Only Taken Her 9 Years, but Estelle Finally Sleeps All Night Long In Her Own Bed: She Can Do Hard Things!

Estelle will turn the big 9 on May 4th. She has only slept through the night in her own bed a few times each year for her entire life until about two months ago. After spending a lot of energy worrying and bribing and consequencing I finally surrendered and figured that she would sleep through the night whenever she was ready. I put a pillow and blanket on my bedroom floor and told her to just lay herself down there. That worked for a couple of years until she decided a year ago that she would get in bed with Emma instead. While that did not bother me at all, Emma was not too fond of that arrangement. After a fair amount of understandable crankiness from Emma, Estelle was informed that she either needed to remain in her own bed or sleep on someone's floor. She has been more partial to Emma's floor lately, but after having slept in a bed all night she would rather do that. A few months before she turned seven I thought I had the sure thing for motivating her. Destry had put i...