Hmmmm......puppy love

I know I know.....I really don't need to be emailed again (thanks Chris) to be told that I should add more info to the profile or add pictures or even put up some sort of explaination about why I've named this blog Paid in Full. I'll get to it...ya'll know that I do half of everything backwards anyways so just be patient.

Things are blooming here at home....yes I know it is December and yes I know it is cold outside and yes I know that most things don't bloom in the wintertime. I'm talking about puppy love...it's gone from a tiny bud to a full out bloom without me catching on. Yup, I'm talking about my precious little Tae again. Nope, like I keep telling people she is NOT the perfect child....actually she is a very good girl most of the time but when she makes an oops it tends to be a bit bigger than ummmm, say "ooops, I tied a knot in my shoelaces". Sometimes it is as big as "oops, I sucker punched my little brother in the nose and then kicked him in the shin because he was irritating me and wouldn't get out of my way". Sometimes it is as big as "oops, I accidentally spouted off something really ugly about one of my sisters in the Lord without thinking first because I got in the flesh". I can assure everyone that the only perfect thing about Tae is that she is perfectly normal. I've known for quite awhile that she has had kind of a crush on a certain young man at our church and I'm not naive enough to think that it has been any kind of secret to most of the other people there either. I didn't encourage it and really did do my best to not even mention said crush because Taeler is only 12 and I certainly didn't want to give her the impression that I was encouraging her to start husband hunting already. I kind of secretly thought it was a little bit cute that she was behaving like a lady about this and dedicated myself to watching the situation carefully......apparently not carefully enough.

Yesterday afternoon I found out that Mr. Puppy love and Tae have been exchanging notes via a cooperative and very naive younger brother. Goodie for me, younger brother couldn't contain himself anymore and told baby brother who we all know has the biggest mouth in the family and nearly immediately spilled the beans to Mom in the middle of the days school work. Needless to say the remainder of the day at home got very interesting. The ONLY child of mine who has not gotten a thorough talking to and additional reading assignments was baby brother. Secrets from Mom are a super big NO NO in this house!! Things only got more interesting when Daddy got home from work last night and was given all of the little letters that have been received by his sweet baby girl.... he said and I quote "hmmm. hmmmm. hmmmmmm. He had better be really glad I like him." then read a bit more and the hmmmmm part started all over again. I won't go into detail here about who Mr. Puppy love is or what the letters had to say but I will say that Tae is being watched like a hawk and that she is FAR FAR too young to be courted.

I'm really not planning to be too harsh with Tae and the afore mentioned Mr. Puppy love. I don't think that Troy is planning anything harsh either. I'm not so old and hardened that I can't remember what it's like to have a crush on a cute fella. I certainly remember passing notes to boys and getting notes back from them. Truly I can only fault myself for not being more observant (bet that don't happen again) and for not having taught Tae a bit more about how to handle this kind of situation should it come up (working my tail off to correct that one now). Tae spent a couple of years in public school with me working full time and the world encourages our very young people to engage in such things as having boyfriends very early. I should have done more to correct that false teaching with Tae before now. If any of you have any great books to recommend please please do......if there are any out there for the parents I would certainly be happy to read those too! I don't want to risk any more poorly thought out or too little prayed over decisions when it comes to raising my kids for the Lord. Troy and I both want Tae to be ready for courtship and marriage when the time comes....we just never thought that the time would be now. Hooray for Tae for having good taste though....Mr. Puppy love is a very nice young fella who says he is 100% sure he is going to heaven, comes from a good family and kept everything within the notes in a good and decent context. The only real mistakes either one of them made was 1) not coming to the parents first 2)keeping secrets from parents and getting younger brother caught in the middle and 3) not giving themselves the appropriate circumstances to deal with such an important issue. Truth be told I really feel sorta bad for both of them....it's clear that they care for each other very much, there are just so many things that they are not old enough or mature enough to understand. I wouldn't be that age again for all the money in the world!!!