A blessing

Yesterday we had Collette’s blessing at church. This is a special time for the family. My parents and Laura’s father were in town for the event. The blessing is a somewhat formal event taking place during sacrament meeting. But there’s not much ritual in it. A group of us encirle and pronounce, essentially, a prayer. It is a humbling experience for me as I’m the one saying the prayer. But also it is important to me as it gives me an opportunity to reflect on what I want for Collette in the future and my role in helping achieve those expectations. Not that I want to endoctrinate her beyound thought or feeling into doing what I think is right. It isn’t that at all. But I do want my message to be clear and consistent. Which, is often difficult as I struggle to become my own ideal.

I guess that’s the reality of parenting. Not only do I struggle to become the person I want to become. But I’ll struggle as a father to help my children become good, compasionate people. I can only hope that being aware of that struggle will help in the battle.

Enough of that. In any case, it was great to have family around. It makes me miss being around family and being able to seem them often. Though we’ve been able to convince nearly everyone to visit us out here, I miss frequent visits with them. So tonight, with Abigail, Laura and I planned an FHE that would help Abigail appreciate her grandparents. We drew a family tree. And then we cut out pictures of the kids, parents and grandparents and put them on the tree (too many siblings, perhaps another time). We talked about how our mom and dad are her grandma and grandpa. It was good. She has the tree sitting above her bed.