This past week, I have been working on expressing love to our children when I discipline them.  Last night, I watched Shepherding  A Child's Heart  Video #2, the third session, and my main take away from that was to say, "I am not mad at you, I love you, and I love you too much to ignore that behavior."  Today I put it into practice, and I realized there were one or two times when I had to pause before I could say "I am not mad at you," because I really was frustrated.  It forced me to get control of my spirit and even then saying the words reminded me how much I love our kids, and why it's important to be faithful to discipline them. 

I am amazed at the heart response of our oldest son, especially.  He expressed so much love and responded so warmly the whole day.  At one point, both children were playing "kiss" with me. They would kiss me, and I would shriek, "Oh, NO! They GOT me!!" and they would laugh and kiss me again.  At some point, I said, "Well, we'd better finish cleaning up the jars and pots, or we won't be able to make the buttercream frosting!"  and I got up, and Christopher began crawling around, acting like his favorite ktity (Satsup), and was following me around, kissing my shins and knees.   One time, both were crowding around me, and I dropped a large lid on Christopher's head, and he began to cry.  I felt so terrible!  I picked him up and hugged him, expressed how sorry I was and asked him to forgive me (for being careless)."  He said, "Mommy, I forgave you already, right when you did it."   He is an incredibly dear child.