On Obedience

This post has been a few weeks in the making.  Probably longer, really... but a few weeks ago i read a post on the blog of a woman in my Ward (church group).  There are many things i greatly admire about this particular woman, i am glad, as with almost all the women in my church, to call her Sister.  She has some very different perspectives and political positions from me, but, for the most part, i really respect her.

Unfortunately, my respect did diminish slightly when i read the post about which i'm thinking and have been pondering.  My concern is for her, a little... mostly, though, i feel greater concern for/that any youth in our Ward or the Church at large may find her blog, admire her, read this particular post and then make wrong and detrimentally life changing choices as a result of her and their admiration of her and potential acceptance of her ideas (particularly the one about which i'm thinking and preparing to write about now).

My blog is not popular or well visited, for the most part, so i'm relatively certain that she does not read here, but if she does (you do), please forgive any offense.  Truly, my intention is not to offend or pass judgement or be mean or anything like that.  My hope is to correct in love - but not necessarily the Sister (you?) who wrote the blog, but more specifically: the ideas presented therein.  It seems unlikely that anyone who reads her (your) blog would also read mine, but i rather hope that if there are any youth that read hers, they will also stumble upon this particular post.

The topic of this post is rated R movies.

This is the topic my Sister addressed in her blog.  It saddens me to say that i almost desperately disagree with the dangerous position she presented, which is, basically, that she's smart enough to ignore our Leaders' direction, suggestion, warning... that we should NOT watch rated R movies.  This direction is not age specific.  I do believe the warning pertains to all members of the LDS Church.

One thing i know is that the R rating currently is much worse than it was years ago.  When the Leaders of my Church began to warn against viewing movies of this rating, the contents were bad enough, but as our society descends ever farther and faster into thinking and practicing evil ways as a matter of course, the rating goes right along with it.  Today, PG-13 is comparable to the rated R of years ago.

Confession.  I am ashamed to say that i went against a decision i made when i began to attend church again to avoid rated R movies and watched one a few months ago.  Another confession: while away from the Church, i was exposed to pornography.  These two confessions come together because there was nothing soft about a particularly graphic scene that was also pornographic in the rated R movie i watched.  My regret over having this particular scene now in my mind with all the other crud i have there available for replay at completely inappropriate times, is tremendous.  The movie was neat... but to me, at this time in my life and Spiritual progression, it is and was not worth the price i pay.

Perhaps the Sister whose blog i keep referencing doesn't have such a brain as mine.  A brain that has such issues with images and recall (especially the random remembrances).  But i believe there will be someone who does who is or will be influenced to do what will harm them by her position, which is put and argued eloquently (as is basically all of her writing).   Perhaps watching the movie to which i refer would not be a trouble or a harm to this particular Sister... but that doesn't mean the choice to watch it is right.  Disregard of direction is still a form of disobedience, isn't it?

Bad stuff is still bad stuff regardless of how the world may esteem it.  My position and arguement is not cool.  It's not popular.  It's not pleasing unto the eyes and minds of men.  But i truly believe it is what the Lord would prefer for us.  He has our VERY best interests at heart.  He wants only the best for us.  If we ingest poison - whether into our body or mind - it will harm us eventually.

While watching the rated-R movie i confessed about above, i was very uncomfortable sitting alone during the pornographic scene. Given my recent history and experiences, i would have probably violently turned the movie off and run away crying if i'd watched it with my husband. As it is, it sickens me to know he saw it at another time.  If my Savior had been visible to me, sitting next to me as i watched that movie, i would have been VERY uncomfortable to watch the pornographic scene.  Who am i kidding?  i would've never turned it on if he was visibly next to me!  (Thus my guilt over my wrong choice.)  The most important of these discomforts is how i would feel watching it with Jesus Christ, of course.  I should not have done it.  Knowing this (and i really knew it before i watched), i yearn to "preach it" to others... that YOU may avoid the guilt and necessary repentance and that you may completely avoid the potential replays you'd not prefer to have in your head.

Please be wise!

As Elder Sorensen said in 'You Can't Pet a Rattlesnake' back in a April 2001 General Conference address, "Don’t allow the poison to touch your souls, brethren. Remember, “He that is righteous is favored of God."  Those words, 'brethren' and 'he,' by the way, are as readily applicable to women as men.  It's universal in the context of the talk even though he was speaking to men... it's not just for the Brothers of the church and/or world.

i pray you will receive this in the Spirit in which i have written it.  Love.

Something Ria Said

I obviously will not work today, as it is still Sunday, so that frees up a bit of time for things I haven't allowed myself to do much (since it would eat up MORE time with the girls AND/OR time I could work). Like BLOG! ^_^

Okay, so I was gathering some resources for reading class this week. (Ria is interested in learning more about Dinosaurs, so I'm trying to get together some reading material that she can handle on her own as well as some for us to tackle together.) While letting some material print out I remembered something really wonderful that Ria said during Reading Class (you see the connection, I hope).

We were reading one of the books I'd printed from Reading A-Z, which is an internet site for helping teachers and parents teach reading. I purchased a membership a few months ago and printed out bunches of books when we had plenty of ink and haven't been able to do much more because we ran out of ink. We've actually had plenty of ink for the last month or so, but I haven't had plenty of time to print the books, then fit them together, and glue them in together. Homeschooling is a LOT of work when you have very limited resources! Anyway...

Alistaire's Night is the title of the book we were preparing to read. It's an "I" in the reading levels (which go from "A-Z" on the site I mentioned. As part of the public school's expectations for education a K or 1st grader (I'm doing them together, so I don't know which it actually is) should be able to identify basic parts of a book, recognize the author, and illustrator.) So, we were talking about those things. Ria was sort of noticing the book's size and appearance and she commented to me, "Mama," in a very serious and slightly concerned tone of voice, "I think this story is missing a lots of pages!" I soothed her concern and told her all the pages were there. She seemed confused, but accepted what I told her. I was thinking about what she said tonight and realized that she was SO worried because she's become accustomed to reading Henry and Mudge and other books that are at least level 2 Readers (another way of ranking levels and I'm not sure exactly how they compare except that "I" and Level 2 are both somewhere in the first grade of expected reading ability. Anyway... Henry and Mudge books are at least 34 pages long with at least a few lines on each page OR a whole page of words and then a picture page facing it. So, Ria isn't put off by lots of words on a page... AND based on the comment, perhaps even enjoys it!? Isn't that AWESOME!? I LOVE IT!

Just as an added note on the reading level at which Ria is consuming books... I picked out a Barbie ballet reader book the other day (these numbered books are from the library) that was a Level 3, completely expecting that I would have to help her through a lot of it. As it turns out, Ria needed help with MAYBE 5 words and 2 of those were names! She's learned through observation how to break words down into parts so she can sound out long words... which makes almost any word consumable/readable! Isn't she AMAZING!?!? I'm such a pleased Mama!!!!

The Spoken Words

What She's Sayin'
I think it's always exciting when little ones begin to speak and we can discern what they are trying to say. The thing about Kat is that she started to speak in a comprehensible manner, and much more than a word or two, when she was around 9 months old. However, for whatever reason, she, like her big sister, stopped vocalizing in "adult" words within a couple months. She still jibber-jabbered, but it was basically unintelligible.

For the last few months Kat has been starting to say things we can understand again. Now, this does NOT mean this little lady has been incommunicado between about 11 months and 19. On the contrary! Where Ria could sign up a storm to communicate her wishes and ideas, Kat JUST communicated!!! She still does this, of course, but there are adult words mixed in now, which makes for very sweet and cute effort to make herself known. I would like to add that most people around Kitty Kat completely understand her no matter HOW she's communicating. She's a GOOD communicator! Because I feel concerned that she's not understood (as I think most Mother's do with their non-speaking toddlers) I usually just interpret what she's trying to convey. Almost without exception, when I do this, the person to whom I'm interpreting Kitty Kat's communication tells me they completely understood her already! There are plenty enough times that they'll interrupt me and tell me what she's saying - AND they are correct!!!! It's pretty awesome! ^_^

Having said all that, it's still lovely to hear Kathryn trying to reproduce speech patterns that will enable her widespread verbal communication. (Of course! What parent doesn't adore the early days of speech!??)

Currently Kat is saying "YaYa" really often. Can you guess why she would say it all through the day? This is her lazy way of saying "Ria." I say lazy because she has more closely replicated RIA, but doesn't do it regularly. Since Ria is either her favorite (or second favorite person - Daddy may have her beat), she calls for and says YAYA all day long!

She's also started saying her own name when you ask her to, but I haven't heard that often enough to try to phonetically write it out. She has said Mama and Daddy as long as I can remember, but she's actually said "Jessie" a couple times! This is, of course, not encouraged, but it still amazes me.

Kitty Kat gets to watch a movie when Ria and I sit down to "do school." When she chooses her movie, I hold two up and she points to one and says, "dzat." Interpreted, is, of course, "that." She uses her version of "that" for other things as well.

Another new addition to all day use is the word "tay." I might say, "We need to leave the laundry room now." And Kitty Kat responds, "Tay." Can you guess? It's her version of "Okay." We've tried to get her to say the whole word, but she doesn't want to add the "oh" sound at the beginning. She's definitely understandable and it's quite cute, so I haven't really pressed her.

Kat and I "do school" whenever she's interested. Thus far we work with colors. She doesn't really SAY most of the colors, it's more about correctly identifying and recognizing them. However, she does say, "pupoo," "boo," and "kink." I'm sure you can figure those out! :)

I'm very pleased when Kat calls for her Winnie the Pooh, which I made for her. She calls him either "poo" or "bayya." I don't think I've heard her put the two together. But it warms my heart that that particular toy is valuable to her!

I'm sure there are more, but I cannot recall any at this moment. Surely I will update her sweet speech as further developments in her adorable vocalizations occur. ^_^