Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with...

Anna with a little white rock in her hand

 (after she had fooled me into telling me that she had lost another tooth!) 

The following is from one of my favorite writers, Winn Collier, from a post on his blog yesterday, and I think this is a fabulous reminder that when problems come that we really do have a chance to see them as opportunities to grow and learn (easier said than done like yesterday when Taylor was having a meltdown about not wanting to do homework or guitar practice or much of anything he needed to do.) But as you will see below, "Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with."

"Toss the heavy tomes to the side. Some of the best advice I’ve received for raising kids arrived via Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. One might think I would be reticent to admit I snagged parenting cues from 30-minute bits aired on the National Geographic channel, but we all know this parenting gig scoffs at a man’s pride. The most intriguing Dog Whisperer episodes are when there is an especially troublesome canine. Perhaps a small pooch who’s diminutive size has given him an inferiority complex, and now he bites every person other than the one human he considers his “mommy.” Or a large brute who repeatedly rips the sofa and shreds the rugs and chews the wooden chairs like they are a rawhide treat. I recall one episode where a couple, married maybe thirty years, had their life completed upended by a little 9 pound fur-ball with a very large attitude. The emasculated man surrendered his bed and his place and became the third wheel. It was pitiful to watch. I am not a patient man. I would like to say that I am, but I am not. If I were living with any of these dogs, I do not know what would come of them, or of me. I do not know how that story would go, but not well. Cesar, on the other hand, exudes gentle authority. Cesar, with the benefit of edited tapes of course, rarely gets flustered. When a dog exhibits bad behavior, Cesar says, “Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with.” Gentleness has been my word for awhile. I want to be a more gentle man. Mainly, I want to be a more gentle father. When one of our boys presses hard on that magic button they so easily locate, the one that triggers my blood pressure and my nervous twitch, I want to just lower the shoulders and drop the rigorous energy and say, “Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with.” My high-pitched response to my boys’ foolishness (and it is often foolishness, let’s be honest) actually says more about me and the state of my soul than anything it says about the two rascals. Maybe my less-than-gentle reactions say something about my view of the world and the stock I put in keeping things in some semblance of order, maintaining the illusion that we are not swimming in chaos. But you just recognize these things and you move on. I imagine God getting a chuckle and saying, “Ah, now this is good. This is something to work with.”  -http://winncollier.com/cesar-knows-something/