"You Better Just Manage."

Rebecca’s post on discipline struck a nerve with me–in a good way. Many’s the time I’ve mentioned my kids here. I’ve got two: an almost seven-year-old daughter and a four-and-a-half-year-old son.

My daughter, I say lovingly, is a “challenge.” I’m aware that discipline is another word for teach and I try to do the best job I can “teaching” her. She does not make it easy. She was born skeptical of her mother’s motives and distrustful of anything I say until proven correct. For the most part, I sigh and go on. On my more helpless days I’ve thought she could give Rose a run for her money. In fact, I’ve even gone so far as to sympathize with Laura, trying to parent a child so clever and precocious that too many times all you’re left wanting to do is throw up your hands.

I learned a lot from the Little House books, mostly through osmosis. I didn’t realize I was picking up cooking tips or life lessons or discipline strategies, but I was. And even though the books always were a huge part of my life, I’m still amazed that I actually find myself relying on them, even pulling them out from the recesses of my brain when faced with a particularly vexing problem. And often those problems have to do with my kids.

Not only do we live in farm country, but we live way outside of “town.” It’s an 11-mile drive to the town we officially live in. (Don’t think I haven’t considered this in wagon time! Although cars–at least the ones I drive–have to stick to the established roads, which run perpendicular to one another on section lines. So it might be a shorter trip as the crow … er, as the horses walk.) This “official” town contains a gas station and a post office. The school was shut down about five years ago. So for all intents and purposes, it’s actually a 22-mile trip to go to school, get groceries, or do pretty much anything.

All this to say that staying out on the “claim” isn’t all that fun for my kids. We have a fenced yard, and a trampoline, and a paved area for bike riding, but the kids know where the action is, and it’s not at home. One endless weekend day when The Man of the Place was away, the kids began to get restless, and as a result so did I. They entertained themselves by teasing and fighting with one another while I tried unsuccessfully to get some housecleaning done around them. I was on the verge of sending them both to their respective rooms when a phrase popped into my head.

“You better just manage.”

It was Pa’s words, but I saw Laura’s face. I pictured Laura’s anguished outburst that was all but a plea for help, and Pa’s even response to her. I remembered Clarence and his three pages, and Ruby and Tommy and their blackboard lessons.

“Kids,” I said. We all faced the refrigerator and I handed them cleaning supplies, then addressed them one by one. “You do the fridge, and you do the freezer, and we’ll see who can get them cleaner. Then we’ll try another part of the house.”

The kids busily got to work on their respective sides, and I leaned back against the sink with relief, the words coming into my brain of their own volition.

“There! That’s one thing managed.”