Three years ago, I had a little list of things to tell you about Relating with each other that included doing schoolwork together, doing chores together, eating meals together, and so forth.
We still work together a lot, but the jobs are bigger, and everyone is using that work to train for adulthood, whether they recognize it or not. In the last year, we have flipped a house, moved across town, organized all of our things, watched as our bookcases were built, set up our library, learned how to care for a pool, trained everyone in yard work, done lots of cooking lessons, and built a fence.
These messages allowed lots of opportunities to grow in relationship with each other as we worked together to complete them. We all made progress in extending grace to each other. The boys wanted to learn to make sushi because they like to eat far more of it than I would like to pay for at a restaurant. After I had a meltdown over how long it would take me to figure out how to cook something this different from our regular fare, I had to ask them for forgiveness. I found some nori in the cupboard, cooked some short grain brown rice, and purchased a little smoked salmon. The next day we made some pretty tasty Philly rolls and ate them for lunch with some cherries. It turns out I CAN figure out how to make sushi from YouTube videos and a well-timed viewing of “East Side Sushi” on Amazon Prime.
Our days are full of ways to practice relating from a place of grace and forgiveness.