Parenting

I will share what work He, the potter, is doing on my parenting life here.

Monday, October 14, 2013

I am now a student of the My Singing Monsters Game.  My little guy has written me charts and diagrams to memorize facts about monster names, snacks, decorations, etc…I have been given specific instructions to memorize these charts and I mean wrote.

He gives me 30 min at a time to learn them.  He times me, just like I do them on different subjects, down time and chores throughout the day.  I get pop quizzes at any given time.

I have gone from pathetic at memorizing the material to hearing him boast to his brother, “Yes, she actually knows all the blah blah blah now.  Today I am going to test her on….”

Thank You for giving me the heart to take this seriously because I know it means a lot to him and what a gift to me that he wants me to be immersed in his little virtual world.  I don’t like video games, never really have, and their time is limited to 30 min a day.  I have often complained and grumbled about it too, looking to Erich suspiciously that we should have ever introduced this to them at all.

Thank You for helping me see this is just another opportunity for us to enjoy something so foreign to me, with him.  So, I must study study study.  Like me, after correcting their work, he is super proud when I do well!  Thank You for this joy and for giving me some new brain cells to retain this stuff.  It is getting easier.  I feel younger already… ha ha.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Child:  I have a question.

Me: Okay.

Child:  So, Mom, let’s say I’m out and I have to go to the bathroom.  There is only one bathroom with one stall and it is for both men and women.  What if it comes down to me and a woman having to go and I have to p– and she has to p—…  Do I still have to let her go first?

Me: Um…

Child:  I’m serious!  What am I supposed to do?

Me:  Um…. Did you want your popsicle now?

Tuesday, August 27, 3013

I was clearing out our boardgame collection, preparing to donate the overly dusty ones.  The children haven’t wanted to play LIFE in a long time.

In fact, they said they were through with it. Kind of funny hearing them groan about it:

“LIFE is boring!”
“LIFE is so hard!”

Naturally, they’re on their second round playing.

While one is keen on keeping his bank account solid, the other is excited to grow his family.  Every once in a while, the family guy hollers how many additional children he has acquired. He is loving growing his brood.

Not sure why but at one point I was about to advise, “Make sure you make enough money!” (How could he support my grandkids?) Seemed like the most sensible thing to say to a child eager to grow his family.

Thanks to You (as well as Your creating in me a disconnect with what may seem sensical to most others,) there was a pregnant pause between what I was about to say and what came out. Instead, I heard myself cheet, “Great!  Have fun and take care of everyone!”

I am satisfied with that response.

We have heard “enough money” is not the key to happiness, so why highlight this message to a child at all? Funds can help but it isn’t the source of the sweet liberty in knowing You more each day, one on one.

Taking care of everyone is defined as differently as the number of folks you ask. This is also the case for “having fun.” Both subjective.

Not subjective? You command us to do “take care of everyone” as in ‘Love one another.”

Thank You for reminding me that neither, money, nor any other object of our attention can eber amount to real joy.

Even spirituality, apart from You, is limited. If You are not first, as our sole Provider, money can become just like any other idol to distract us from doing, living, sharing Your will.

You do command us to take care of one another. We can do this with or without overflowing cash flows. When we obey You, we become more and more like You. We are free to become more holy, and so, truly happy.

Proverbs 23:4-5 NIV

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

August 25, 2013

Our almost 10 year old noticed sweaty armpits, after watching Harry Potter 4.  Gulp.  It was scary so this was a fluke right?  He’s really not ready for deodorant yet, is he?

He also got a heck of a lot more hair on his legs.  What is going on?  This can’t be happening?  I am not ready for this!

I also saw a bunch of photos of my kids so tiny on the computer screen.  There is a slideshow that goes on from before they were born.  They were so little.  The things they used to love to do, we may be moving on from a lot of it.

We used to spend hours in the river.  Now, not sure if we would last hours.

We used to take walks in which I had to carry at least one of them.  Now, not sure if they have to keep up with me or me with them.

This is not happening!  Surely, Lord, you can freeze time for me?

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

From Leigh A. Bortins’ book, The Core…

“We parents also have to deal with the entertainment society engulfing us.  Parents even say they would die for one of their children, yet somehow they find it difficult to live with them.  I initially found it hard to be a parent, especially when I knew I could be paid to do things I liked equally well.  When I became a mother, no one told me it would take about three years to figure things out.  I had always worked or been in school.  I had to only be responsible for myself.  Now there were babies who couldn’t talk demanding my attention.  I had to learn how to enjoy being a parent.

Now I love it.  We read, work on math problems, do chores, and play together.   We also fight and sometimes make each other cry.  There are times when I’d like to send my children away to boarding school and other times when I wish I had more children.  I like the way that I have a different bond with each son.  One talks business and politics with me.  One remodels with me.  One shares my appreciation of computers.  One wants me to help him share his Christian faith with his neighborhood friends.  For me, the things that seem natural are the things that seem familiar.  The root of the words “familiar” and “family” are the same, the Latin familia “household.”  It is natural to want to be with your family.  They are the ones who will encourage hard work, rejoicing over successes and empathizing with difficulties.”

Leigh A. Bortins started Classical Conversations in 2007.  It is the homeschooling model we plugged into as of last year and the learning style we expect to enjoy for a lifetime.

You thought this post was about parenting and, really, it was also about homeschooling.  For us, it is one and the same as the latter is a natural extension of the former.

GUNS GUNS GUNS

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Met Shivani and Noah at Wild West City with our boys.  What a trip!  The place definitely looks as old as it is but something magical keeps it alive for sure.  A simple place, the boys surprised us with cheers this was one of the best days yet.

We spent a lot of time, she and I, sitting in the dusty background watching our little ones, thrilled beyond thrilled to run (without us following them everywhere) from pretend storefront to pretend storefront with their cap guns, flying every which way.

We bought those cap guns for them – on purpose – that afternoon.  It wasn’t without toil, as our pc mommy concerns about buying toy weapons kicked in.  We did wrestle, assuring each other we normally are not big into buying toys that might promote violence, that this was new for us.  As an aside, we live not more than one town away from Newtown, where the Sandy Hook massacre took place and gun control is, understandably, a giant issue.  This is always in the back of my mind.

However, there was such a hopeful wildness in their eyes, when we entered the store and saw the display of toy guns on the wall.  It was the same sort of hungry look a crated dog wears on its face when it knows it is about to be set free.  I can only explain their excitement fueled by the imagination of boys coming into contact with an inner machismo I can’t ever hope to understand.

We Moms had to be boring and keep that machismo at bay throughout their play.  We did offer and then shout out commands dutifully, where they could and couldn’t point their weapons and how loudly they could and couldn’t chase one another up and down the make believe town.

There was even the occasional:  Aw MA!  What’s the point of having a gun if you can’t shoot it?

As if they aren’t used to Moms by now and our:  Okay, get in the pool.  But don’t splash each other.  Especially the face.  No hanging on or touching.  Don’t wet anyone unless they want to get wet.  (Ummmm….???)

They’re outside playing Lone Ranger now.  They’ve had minimal exposure to this character.  I found a youtube clip that wasn’t quite the one I was looking for but sufficed.  I hope to find the movie version my brothers and I memorized, having watched it over fifty times, I am sure.

So, do guns kill?  Yes, depending on how they are used, absolutely.  Does buying a toy gun encourage killing in the real world sense?  In and of itself, I hope not.  Does buying a toy gun and explaining how to play with it correctly and incorrectly – even if it doesn’t make much sense even to me – make my kids more violent?  Good grief, I don’t know.

I am pretty sure I didn’t think of these things at all when I bought them, or I would never have pulled out my wallet.  There was something inside me that said, “Just go on now.  Let them try to see how they would even play with them.”  I went with it.  So did Shivani.  I suppose we can blame each other.  We tried to disguise our discomfort by purchasing matching cowboy hats for ourselves.  I think the distraction was supposed to ease the blow I might have made a bad decision.

But as I write this, I hear those pistols clacking and lots of running around in the yard happening.  There is role playing and imagining.  There is a lot of dialogue and pretend play and I am not regretful in the least at this moment that we got them.  This may change down the road.

Maybe they’ll be inspired to create comic book strips of the role play that goes on today or write their next short story recalling scenes from the day’s play.  Perhaps they will want to read up on Jesse James.  Who knows?  I assure myself I will still give dreadful guidelines on how to correctly play with guns, again, foreign as that is to me.

I am bemused as I hear them discover a kind of play I never got to enjoy half as much from our living room couch as they are, playing face to face together with these toys outside. Their imaginations have been allowed to come to life in their play – never mind mother’s secret fears of guns, morbidity, the state of the world and potentially playing a part in the world’s degradation.  I tell myself, I am within earshot anyway.  So, long live their play, our mother child connectedness that would bring to light any foul play worth addressing and, long live trust and all that winning out over fear!

ON THE VERGE OF MOMMY TANTRUM

Sunday, August 10, 2013

You hear yourself on repeat.

Again.

“We turn off the lights when we leave a room.”

“What do you mean you can’t find your science presentation?  We put things away when we are through.”

“Be nice to one another please.”

You tire of it.

You lose your patience after a while.

You are a broken record.

“Is anyone but me hearing this and listening?”

STOP.

Time to stop talking.

Time to close your eyes, notice your breathing and become aware of your anxiety levels.

Exhale and let your breath regulate itself again.

Now, ask  for help.

Cry out loud if you have to.

“Help!”  Just like that.

Don’t go into why you need help.

Don’t recount what makes you frustrated.

He already knows.

He is waiting to guide you and restore peace within your heart.

Joy even.

He is about to equip you even more.

Now listen.

What would He have your do or not do next?

He’s got your back.

It’s going to be okay.

Isaiah 40:11

11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.

Psalm 32:8

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.