Humility

There are very few places like church that provide wonderful opportunities for humility.  While going to the store with Aaron often turns head with people judging me for all sorts of reasons, I don't have to see those people every single week.  I have fairly thick skin, but there is still a little part of me that would like to put on a front that I am a good mother who doesn't let her children leave the house looking like Pig-Pen from the comic strip Peanuts.  Is this too much to ask?  Apparently it is.  Let me back up for a moment.  If you've been reading this blog, you know that ANY functional language should be rewarded IMMEDIATELY by doing what is requested.  We have also been working very hard on answer questions with "yes or no" (more importantly choosing which of those words he wants, and not answering the question with the phrase "yes or no"!!!)  Over the past 3 days Aaron has made some pretty cool gains by answering yes and no questions appropriately, and making brand new requests (with words he hasn't used before) that we have acted on.  Fast forward to this morning.  I wake Aaron up and tell him to get dressed for church.  Naturally he goes for the nasty, pizza smeared clothes he wore yesterday.  Our conversation goes like this:

Me: (Taking the dirty shirt away from him)  No honey.  You can't wear this shirt today.  It's dirty.

Monster: Shirt.

Me: (Quite happy that he has correctly identified the object in my hands, as he has never done this before, but still standing my ground).  You can't wear this one.  It's dirty.  How about this one? (Holding up another shirt).

Monster: (He takes the shirt out of my hand and puts it back in the drawer, and then tries to grab the dirty Captain America shirt out of my other hand).  Shirt.

Me: (Standing my ground.  So I put the DIRTY Captain America shirt between my legs and pick out two other shirts.  I hold them up.)  Your shirt is dirty.  Which shirt do you want to wear, this one or this one?

Aaron:  Dirty!

I've been defeated.  This boy has never verbally told me that he wants to wear his dirty nasty clothes (although he has let me know in screeching and whining in the past).  So I have to go by the "rules" and let him wear the nasty, dirty, pizza sauce smeared shirt.  I figure I would outsmart him by having him put a sweatshirt over the shirt and then people wouldn't see the nastiness.  I tell him he needs to put on a sweatshirt, and he does.  As we're walking into church I see that the stupid sweatshirt is dirtier than his shirt!  And so, I walk into the doors of church with Pig-Pen.  The only thing we were missing was his nasty blanket and my pride.