Consequences

Brandt has become quite handy with the phone-calling and texting.  He is constantly calling and texting people, especially grandma and the Hilliers, but he has now added moms of his friends to that list. Unfortunately he usually sneaks off to do it so we never know exactly who he's talking to or what he's saying. One time not too long ago I caught him texting a member of the bishopric during sacrament meeting! We try to always keep our phones with us, but he's a pretty skilled little pick-pocketer. This morning I told the kids that if we could get some stuff done then we could play in the sprinkler and set up the slip'n'slide.  Buddy asked if he could have friends over and I said we could maybe see if that would work.  He put his clothes away as fast as I could fold them and didn't even argue about picking up some of his other stuff.  I went outside to do something quick and pretty soon he came out and said, "mom, Tavis and Krya's mom said she would bring them over in 10 minutes." Apparently I had dropped my phone out of my pocket or something.  Sure enough, here they came a bit later.  He had arranged the whole thing.  So, I had a bit of a choice to make-not allow them to stay because he hadn't asked permission to call or let them stay and play and deal with consequences at a later time.  Since I didn't want the day to be ruined for all of us, I chose the latter.  It may seem like I let him get away with something, and I guess I did for a little part of the day-but the consequences later on weren't something that he was pleased with.  Who knows if that was the right choice on my part, but it seemed to work out ok and I think he still got the point that he had done something wrong.  If we all suffered consequences immediately upon making mistakes or intentionally disobeying, we likely wouldn't learn as much.  Some bad choices in this life have instantaneous effects while others take years to take their toll on us and our families.  We need to learn self-control and continuous obedience in order to avoid the negative consequences.  Likewise, some of the greatest blessings in this life (and the next) take time and continuous effort to obtain, but if we can work at it a little every day I think we'll be much happier with the outcome.