Encouragement

Encouragement can come in all sorts of forms and from all sorts of places.  It can sound like pleasant words or it can feel like a pat on the back.  It can also look just like this.

In our family, we have an all-hands-on-deck approach to keeping the house running smoothly.  A few weeks ago, I realized that while we had many jobs devoted to the physical environment the emotional climate could use a little pick me up.  I added new jobs to our rotation such as encourager, artist, and letter writer.

When it was Aidan's turn to be the encourager last week, he threw a bit of a fit about it.  See, part of the reason the air had gone cold around here was the lack of kind words between a certain pair of oldest brothers.  (Which was leading to an unfortunate lack of kind words from a certain grown up who knows better.)

So what is going on in the picture above?  Aidan is hiding from encouraging words by doing all of the laundry for me.

Five loads- washed and dried while listening to The Hobbit on my iPod.

Hours- most of a day really- sitting on the washing machine in our basement.


He thinks he beat the system.

He thinks he out smarted his job as encourager.

I think I'm going to let him think that for now.