A few years ago, I was watching the BYU channel, and saw a small lecture given by Chieko Okazaki.  She talked about raising families with love and respect.  Among her many ideas, the one that stood out was her simple set of rules she had in her home:  Be polite; be safe.  Just about every behavior falls into these two categories.  It was so brilliant, we have adopted these rules in our own home.

When a child misbehaves, the conversation often goes a bit like this, “What are the rules of our house?”

They mumble, “Being polite and safe.”

Then we ask, “Was it safe to hit your brother?”

“No.”

“Was it polite?”

“No.”

“What do you say?”

“Sorry.”

It’s very simple, and most of the time it helps us avoid further struggles and contention.

Humilimom—as in humiliated mom.  That was me at Target two weeks ago.  My five-year-old—five-year-old!— threw a fit there, right after I had said good-bye to my well-put-together friend Danielle.  I was hoping she would not be privy to my child’s outburst of emotion, but she walked by during phase one of the tantrum.  When we arrived at the checkout line, we were in phase 2—the loudest phase, and there was Danielle, four check out lines down, with her three lovely daughters.
By this time, everyone could hear my daughter screaming. She sounded like Veruca Salt’s evil twin. I was far too embarrassed to make eye contact with anyone in the store who might have the I-would-never-let-my-kid-act-like-that face,  so I did something I’m not a fan of: I covered her mouth. She could breathe just fine, but the second she did, she got a bloody nose. Yes, people probably thought I hit her.
It would be painful for me to continue to tell the story of such a low point in my time as a mother. So, I’ll just tell you the car ride home turned into a lecture to all three of my children on the evils of becoming spoiled brats.
I finally saw Danielle on Sunday. She was out of town for a few weeks—enough time for our display to become a cloudy memory, and enough time for the red in my cheeks to fade. I apologized, and we had a laugh. I suppose all families have their moments—even if they aren’t as humiliating as mine was.

Well, I was going to wait until I started getting a ton of comments before I put up a contest, but I thought this journal and gift bag, designed by Anne Taintor, were so funny, I didn’t want to wait.  The journal says what I think every woman wishes, and the gift bag says, “She had made yet another wise shopping decision!”  Look at the girl’s face—she’s so happy! This line of products is sold at Barnes and Noble (my second home).

Here’s how the contest works:  Since this is the first time I’m doing this, and I don’t have a lot of readers, I’m going to wait until I have comments from at least 25 different people.  So tell your friends, and when I have enough, I’ll pull names out of a hat.  That person will win both the journal and the gift bag.  So good luck, and be sure to tell your friends!

Our kids were playing make believe one evening.  Our five-year-old said to our two-year-old, “Let’s play Narnia.  I’ll be a knight.”  She thought a moment and responded, “Okay, I’ll be a fork!”

This post will get lost in the archives eventually, but before I do this blog for too long, I want to say that I named it “sophistimom” more in hopes that it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy than a reflection of characteristics I believe I possess.  I would love to be some sort of domestic goddess, have my home just so, with children who excel in social situations and have a commanding knowledge of Latin and Shakespeare.  I would love to be one of those girls with a magnetic presence who always looks fabulous but is incredibly kind and genuine.  But alas, I spend more time wishing I had a maid than actually doing housework; my kids are more inclined to play Rock Band, memorizing the lyrics to Wave of Mutilation than they are memorizing sonnets; and, I would make the girl on What Not to Wear hyperventilate in her three inch heels if she ever saw my wardrobe.

But I’ll keep writing the positive things that I’m learning.  Rest assured you have no IDEA how much I edit my so-less-than-perfect life.

I have long maintained the feeling that I should raise my kids to be polite.  But since I started the blog, I have found a lot of media out there that says teaching your kids to say please and thank you is an unnecessary hoop to make them jump through just so that adults feel better.  What a load of rubbish!  We raise our children to be polite so that they can learn to look outward instead of constantly toward themselves — so they can put off their natural tendencies to be selfish for part of the day.  This is a blog, so I won’t bore you with any rantings and ravings — that would be impolite.  But, if you do believe in teaching your kids manners, Emily Post has a list of downloadable printouts for teaching them.  Right before a nice dinner, I like to sit down with the kids and review the one entitled “Top Table Manners for Kids.”  That way, during the meal, I don’t have to keep nagging –elbows off the table! stop chewing with your mouth open! Instead, I can simply raise my eyebrows at them, and they get the picture.

I decided it was time to stop ogling at the Rainier cherries and just buy them already, no matter what they cost.  I filled the bottom of the bowl with ice to keep the cherries cold while I photographed (also to make my measly pound of cherries stick up over the top of the bowl!).  My kids kept nagging me—when can we eat them?  When the pictures were done, we helped ourselves to the best cherries we’ve had in years, and made sure to eat them slowly.