Learning in the midst of homeschooling

I just had a very life giving conversation with some friends today about homeschooling, mothering, teaching our kids and then I thought, maybe I could blog about this?

Honestly, I love homeschooling.

It's kind of like mothering for me. I didn't think I would like it, I thought I was too cool for it, that it wouldn't be "for me" but really, my heart is like, yes, this is incredible.


I want to boast in my weakness right now. I have the privilege of diving into the Word of God every day and using it to teach my kids character and it's just in the everyday, mundane stuff of life. I'm not really amazing or wise, I just get to be a student of the Word and God has given me the ability to recall just the right verses at the right time. It's truly the Holy Spirit who is working inside of me, I don't know how I come up with these scriptures except I just heard them once sometime in my past or heard a sermon about it or read a book about it. I don't even know.


Yesterday Levi, Aria and Simeon were unloading the dishwasher. I asked them to unload it while I went upstairs to lay Jethro down for his afternoon nap. I came down to Aria running upstairs and crying in her room and Levi and Simeon continuing to work. I asked what happened and Aria said Levi hurt her feelings. Levi said, "What? I just said she was lazy and not working very hard."

Immediately I thought of Ephesians 4:29 "Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up, that it may benefit all who listen." Were the things he was saying benefiting everyone who was listening? Was it building up Aria or tearing her down? We got to sit down and have a heart to heart talk about this. I also brought up Proverbs 19:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat it's fruit." Levi, were you speaking life or death over your sister? How can you encourage her to work harder without tearing her down?


Today was special. I mean, I honestly want to have a whole blog devoted to the antics of Paul. It's like I could write a book of his first three years. I love it and I hate it all at the same time. Paul has taught me to be strong. Thankfully, he's leaving the terrible twos and entering the wonderful threes. (At least that's how it is in our family, I know others say the threes are the worst, I totally get it, twos are our "year of deep dark sadness")

Okay, sorry, I felt like I needed to intro this story with that explanation.

So Paul was playing with one of Simeon's new matchbox car and carrying it around everywhere. I was doing school with the big kids and the littles were just playing around. Paul had to go to the bathroom and came out a little while later telling me proudly that he had pooped in the potty. I knew he hadn't wiped himself (he can't quite get himself clean yet) so I was like, okay, let's go back to the bathroom and clean you up. On the way he informed me that he had dropped his car in the toilet.

Oh dear.

I looked and from what I could guess he had pooped, flushed it and then afterwards somehow dropped this car into the "cleanish" toilet. I'm just glad it wasn't sitting in the poop nor was it clogging our toilet. You have to understand that as a mom of five who has cloth diapered and potty trained and pretty much nothing phases me. You single people without children are totally grossed out by now. It wasn't pleasurable and I washed the car and my hands thoroughly but I definitely reached in there and got it after wiping Paul. 

I hear outside the bathroom door, "Hey Simeon! Paul dropped your car in the toilet!" Thank you Levi, you didn't really need to broadcast that to the house.

Immediately the verse came to mind about love covering over sin. I was like, how does that one go again? Google can come in pretty handy with that stuff. I found it in Proverbs 17:9 "He who repeats a matter separates close friends but he who covers over and offense promotes love." I asked Levi, did Simeon really need to know this? Was it an accident that Paul dropped it in the toilet? (I'm not positive, but I'm giving Paul the benefit of the doubt on this one.)  We want to promote friendship between Paul and Simeon, it's already a tenuous relationship at times, does Simeon really need another reason to dislike Paul?

We talked about not lying or covering over legitimate sin. We talked about that if you see a kid doing something that is disobedient to go and tell an adult or that if someone does something to you to hurt you, you need to tell Mommy or Daddy.

These things are hard to teach.

I didn't find them in any textbook, they were just in my spirit.

Yes, we do reading, writing and arithmetic every day. These core subjects are important and I feel like they are like bricks that we are laying one day at a time, and then we will look back and see that we have built and entire house. But even more than these things, the atmosphere, the culture we are creating in our home is in these day to day, character building times and I truly, honestly love it.


I really love it.

Thank You Lord for this amazing gift that I didn't even know I wanted. Once again, You know me better than I know myself.

Fear of Suffering

Oh man, I have said this many times before, but sometimes I just don't want to blog. That's ridiculous. Jody, why do you have a blog then? Why are you typing right now?

I guess I blog to just put myself out there, to say what no one wants to say out loud. Many times before I do something I don't want to do, I have to just say so out loud. For some reason, it helps.

I don't want to blog.


There.


Fear. That's what I was thinking about today during our sermon at church. I love our pastor, can I just say that? At one point he was talking about how God leads us through suffering because He is preparing us to lead others. Whenever I hear people talk about suffering... I don't know, I just feel like we haven't had a lot of it. I mean, this past season of Ben rupturing his achilles and me being pregnant and sick and dealing with two little kids, that was hard, but I don't know if it was tragic, painful... I don't know, I just don't know that it was suffering.

I remember when I was first pregnant and hearing this couple on the radio talk about having a still-birth. I have never miscarried, but I'm not sure it would be as hard on me as waiting a whole 8-9 months and then giving birth and the child die. I just don't know. (I need to be knocking on wood right now). Honestly, I have been thinking, "why have I been able to get pregnant so easily and others around me struggle for so long?" Why have I had two and a half completely healthy pregnancies and others around me struggle?

Part of me worries. I struggle with a bit of fear that we have not been through major suffering yet. Something could happen to us or our children... thankfully, I don't walk around thinking about that all the time.

Two things: I don't want to be exempt from suffering and I want to go through suffering because I know it will bring me closer to God. I want my relationship with Him to be strengthened.

I think it just grips my heart to think that something could happen to my children or my husband that God would use as suffering. I'm not at all saying that is always the case and this is bound to happen and my children WILL be instruments in the process of strengthening my faith.

Lord, I don't know what You will do. I know I want to be close to You and I want not to fear. Help me to focus on my family now. Help me to keep my mind on what is important. Help me to teach my children about You and Your goodness no matter what. I want to follow You whatever the cost, teach me to trust and to move forward. Help me not to be afraid of the unknown. Thank You for the good and precious gifts that You have given us. Help us not to take them for granted for one little moment. I give it to You. I ask that You would strengthen Ben and me as parents, as husband and wife, strengthen us and grow us together in You.

Thoughts on Motherhood

My days are filled with little feet and little hands.

Little feet pattering into my room in the morning, running up and down the hallway all day. Hands that get into everything, make spills, make messes, get out toys and other things they are not supposed to be touching.

Little hands always reaching up to be held. Little arms wanting to hug me when I'm sitting on the floor and overwhelmed.

Dozens of little outfits needing to be laundered. Little cups and dishes waiting to be washed. There isn't enough time in the day.

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to move through molasses. Some days it feels like nothing really gets done.

Life as a stay at home mom is hard. I don't mean to complain, I don't want to complain, I'm doing  what I believe is a valuable thing that the Lord has called me to do. I don't want to sit and rant about how every day is the same and how I'm always cleaning up something or wiping someone's bottom or fixing someone's breakfast, lunch or dinner, or snack. I don't want to complain.

But it is hard. It's demanding and it doesn't really stop. Except when they blessedly fall asleep.

Getting the child to sleep is another story though. It takes all I have to get them to bed some days. It also takes all I have to keep them in bed. Aria is easy, I put a new diaper on her, put on her jammies, we say good night to daddy and she is in bed. Levi is another story completely. He requires help with his pull up, his pajamas, brushing his teeth, coaxing and eventually threatening punishment if he doesn't at least try to go to the bathroom. We read books, there's always an argument on how many. I say two he says five, we usually end up with three. Then there are songs and scratching his back and then I pray and then he always needs and kiss and a hug or two or three. It's like I feel like I'm conditioning him into sleep. If we skip any of these long, detailed steps we have to go back or there is major whining or crying and eventually spanking because we are not going to stand for that. I have to say it is so hard though. And then when he gets out of his bed, it's hard not to get angry and say, "I did all these things and all these steps, you have to stay in bed now!"

I really did this to myself though. Somewhere along the line we started to do more than one song, then we started to read more than one book. I kept giving and he kept taking. That's probably why Aria's bedtime is so simple, because that's all I gave her. We don't read books at night, just during the day. I sing one song and she usually doesn't care whether or not I finish either. When she was younger I would often walk out in the middle of it, just start the song and lay her down and walk away. Oh, if only I could go back. But I also have to keep in mind that she is a different child than Levi and we wouldn't be guaranteed the same thing anyways.

I struggle with anger. I struggle with depression. I struggle with significance, maybe that's why the internet and social media are so appealing at times... it's a way to feel significant (not that it's always the case).

What I must say, is that it's also a great joy. To get to see my kids grow and change every day, to get to know the intricacies of their personalities and desires. I get to know them better than anyone else on the planet. I get to be the one to kiss their ouchies, I get to celebrate their victories and encourage them. I get to sit in our big green chair and read them story after story, I get to watch them play and jump on the couch. I get to see them run up and down the hall as they eat their snacks. They make me laugh if I stop taking life so seriously.

Lord, help me to treasure these moments. Help me not to waste this.

A Bunch Of Updates.

I don't really feel like blogging right now, but I was just now wasting a bunch of time of Facebook, you know when you just scroll through the feed completely mindlessly? So, it's probably better to just blog.

Pregnancy Update: I've been feeling close to awesome. It's bad because I tend to think I'm invincible and tonight I ate after Aria who has been getting over a cold. We will see how invincible I am. Yikes. The only thing is the hunger. It's like clockwork, basically. We got out of church this morning and started to talk about lunch, I was like, I'm not really hungry, those whole wheat pancakes really stuck with me today. About ten minutes later I felt like I could eat a horse. I'm trying to be really conscious of what I'm putting in my mouth, but it's hard when you feel like you are about to die of starvation.

Levi Story: His new favorite bedtime song is Come Thou Fount, today he totally sang almost the whole first verse with me. I'm pretty sure he has no idea what the lyrics are actually saying, but it's super cute. Also, each evening and nap we read a chapter from the Jesus Story Book Bible and a Clifford book we got from the library. So each night it's Jesus and Clifford. Yep. Jesus and Clifford.

Aria Story: (which one do I tell?)  Today she took the stool from the bathroom, carried it into the living room and set it on the coffee table. She then proceeded to climb on the table and then onto the stool. Let's just say she likes to walk on the wild side. She also loves wrestling and playing with Levi, until he gets a little too rough, then she lets loose her blood-curdling scream. Gotta keep that one in the back pocket.

Ben is off his "crunches" (as Levi calls them) and knee cart. Every so often Levi looks up at him and says, "I'm really sorry about your achilles dad." He's a thoughtful little kid.

We are in the midst of re-doing the kitchen. For some reason the Lord has given me a love for sanding and tearing down wallpaper lately. Ben is the resident painter. My prayer is that we will keep our momentum going. It's fun to see the progress and exciting to think of what it will look like in the end.

God Is Teaching Me: That I'm not a perfect parent. And that's okay. I realized the other day that even though I don't want to and I know it's wrong, that I base my worth so often on what my kids do. Sometimes they are angelic and sometimes they are demonic. I feel maybe the most judged in my parenting. It's not that I have had people talk to me about it, but maybe it's that I've been the one to judge. Maybe it's that I feel eyes on me when I'm out and about. Maybe it's that I don't have complete control over my children. You can never truly have complete control over them unless you harness them or put them in a straight jacket. Seriously, they will always have a desire to do what they want to do.

Lord, help me to rely on You. I do things that break Your heart all the time. I speak in ways that I should not, I disobey, I rely on myself. I need You. Help me to release control to You. Give me strength to discipline not out of anger, or feeling frustrated, but to discipline because my child needs it. Help me not to worry about the opinions of others, but to be respectful and teach my children to be kind and considerate. I need You.

The easy way or the hard way?

Do I really even want to blog right now? I really just want to sleep. But I am staying awake so I can teach Levi.

See, a while back when Ben left we started some bad habits. I'm terrible at starting bad habits because basically bad habits are the easy way out. Bad habits like not making Levi eat all of his dinner and then giving him yogurt or cheese instead later on because he is hungry. Those kinds of bad habits.

One bad habit I have started is lying in bed with him until he falls asleep. Now that he is in a big boy bed and can get out it is much easier if I just lay in there with him until he's asleep and then I don't have to struggle with putting him back in his bed and back in his bed and spanking him and putting him back in his bed and then talking to him and putting him back in his bed... Some nights when Ben was gone we would spend two hours doing this. It can make you feel like a crazy person. So, should I spend 15 mins in bed with him while he falls asleep or should I spend two hours teaching him to stay in his bed? One has short term results that at least get him to sleep but in the long term he is not learning to put himself to sleep on his own.

If it weren't for my husband I think I would be the worst parent. He is the one who reminds me that this is not a sustainable thing. "Jody, you can't do this for the rest of his childhood." When he reminds me of these things I just want to snap back at him, "You have no idea what it's like to be shut up in a house with a two year old all day!" But I restrain myself and admit that he is right. I hate it when he's right. I'm thankful that he's right but at the same time it kind of infuriates me sometimes.

I guess I could call it "Easy way out parenting" parenting in the moment instead of with the end goal in mind. I have to constantly be asking myself, is this going to blow up in my face someday? Am I going to regret this decision further down the road? Sometimes Ben sees something that I am doing and lets me know that we are not going to do that as parents. We are not going to go lay in Levi's bed when he wakes up in the middle of the night and comes and gets us. We are not going to let him stand up in his chair during dinner time. I don't need to nurse Aria every time she cries. I don't need to nurse her to sleep every night (we are trying to wean off of that one right now). If they wake up too early they are going to have to go back and sit in their bed until it's time to get up in the morning. I know. we are mean parents.

But I think the best ways are often the hard ways.

Lord, teach me what it is to have grace for my child. Help me to raise them to be healthy and obedient. Help me Lord, I am so weak in this. Thank You for a good husband. Thank You for good friends and family who support us and love us. I am so often bad at this and I lose my brain so often. Please help me Lord. Thank You for being patient with me, help me to be patient with our children.

Weak Parenting Moments. And A Levi Story.

I think I could probably blog every day, a couple of times a day if I could. If I had the time. But I think that would be too excessive, ya know?

I think this post might be a little difficult. If you follow me on Instagram then you may know that Levi spilled yogurt on my computer. Yes, yogurt. So I did what you are supposed to do, I powered it down and took off almost every key and cleaned it with alcohol and q-tips. I put it back yesterday and I'm not sure I got everything quite in place. Sometimes when I hit the space bar there is no space, or if I shift it doesn't always capitalize... If I catch it I will try to correct it. 

I guess that's a Levi story. It's also a stupid-parent-moment. I have lots of those moments. 

It had been a hard day. The morning was awesome hanging out with friends, but when we got home Levi was just not acting tired. He had slept late that morning (this is a crazy freak of nature thing but he has been sleeping until 8 and 9 o clock this week, usually it's more like 6:30). So I thought maybe he needs to skip his nap. I wanted him to go in and have "rest time" and just stay in his bed with the lights out. That lasted for about 10 minutes. I could have forced it to be longer and kept putting him back in his room and explaining it was "rest time" for the next hour but it was a lazy parenting moment. I just didn't feel like enforcing this one. (mistake number one).

So for the rest of the afternoon I was trying to do stuff on the computer and I wanted him to sit quietly and play with his cars. He wanted to throw toys across the room. 

I was trying to order some pictures from Walgreens but our internet filter kept blocking it. Very strange because initially I could go to the site and make out an order form. But then I would try to upload some more pictures and it would block it. Then slowly as I kept trying to go back and then order and then try to get this deal that I saw on the front page, little by little the site would be more and more blocked. Totally frustrating. Turns out that I didn't order the pictures. 

Levi kept coming up to and staying "I'm tirsty, I wan some miiiiilk."  

or "I'm huuungry, I wan some gole-fish."

Not right now Levi, we are going to a friend's house for dinner tonight (I don't even look up from the computer I am concentrating on, in my frustration of course I am checking Facebook and different blogs because OF COURSE they will help... psh).

Then I remember that I have to practice piano because I will be leading worship at small group that night. Levi wants to play too. He doesn't want me to sit on the stool, he wants to sit on the stool. He wants to bang on the keys. Okay fine, I'll just go put on my makeup. So that's what I did. He eventually wandered away and I sat down to play. My computer was open on the kitchen counter and I had given him some yogurt earlier. I don't think he was actually hungry, looking back in retrospect I think that all of this just stemmed from him wanting my attention. Even as I write this I am starting to see clearly what I may not have seen in the heat of the moment. 

Anyways, I started playing and I heard from the other room some strange sounds. In the back of my mind I thought, I should check on him but the other part of my brain was saying, at least you can actually play the piano now! Use this opportunity!

More noises and I come into the kitchen where he is and he has a 7 foot long pole (we recently used as a roller extender for painting) and he is knocking over the GLASS jars above cabinets. Praise the Lord that they did not fall on the floor and shatter into a million tiny pieces. 

I should have checked on him when I first thought of it.

I look over and in the chaos of waving this huge pole around he has knocked his yogurt onto my computer. 

At this moment I hear Aria starting to wake up, I look at the clock and we need to leave in about 15 minutes. 

Lord, help me to listen to my children. Help me to listen for their needs. I can be so selfish. I don't want my son's image of me to be one of always looking at a computer or a phone, just trying to get away from them. Yes, this is a trying time and sometimes I feel like I'm seriously going to lose my mind, but help me to not let these years and months and days to slip by. 

I am weak, but he is strong. 

Anger

So, today I am struggling with anger.

What better way to get it all out than blog about it?

I was sitting in my nursing chair with Aria and thinking, "Lord, I am so angry and I can't seem to do anything about it. Please take this anger and crush it. Crush it beneath the weight of Your glory."

Why in the world am I angry today? I guess I have several reasons. All of them are selfish. I don't want this blog to be a big moan and complain blog, I want it to be: Here is my problem, here is my solution, now help me Lord. So, I'm going to try not to sound like I'm just whining.

Ben is sick today. He was gone all last week, I even had to survive Saturday by myself for the most part. Seven days with two little kids... non-stop for the most part... I meant not to complain didn't I? Nursing, changing diapers, putting kids down for naps, putting them to bed, disciplining, it makes me tired just thinking about it. I was really excited to see Ben come home. And then he came home. And things weren't as great as I imagined they would be.

I had just a smidgen of a taste of what it must be like to be a military wife I suppose. (I want to emphasize smidgen.) You think it's gonna be so great when they get back and you will have your love with you and it will be wonderful with the kids and blah blah blah... really, it's all just kind of hard. We had gotten into a rhythm without him and now he is re-entering our household.

Now to top it all off, he is sick. Not that I didn't have enough on my plate with taking care of two kids. Now I have to take care of a sick husband. I also FAILED at the grocery store yesterday by forgetting bread (who forgets to buy bread?!) and tomatoes. I also forgot sugar and probably some other things. When Ben came home from lunch yesterday I wasn't ready (totally my fault). Anyways, long story short, yesterday I felt like a complete failure. Have you ever had those days where nothing you did was quite right? Everything felt hard. Levi is continuing to challenge me on every turn. Aria and I have gotten into some bad habits, the main one that I have to nurse her to sleep. (I don't HAVE to, it's just that I haven't had the strength to just let her cry until she falls asleep and she gets pretty angry while we are trying to let her cry it out.)

Ephesians 4:25-27
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Lord, today has been a hard day. It's not over yet but help me not to sin in my anger. Help me to love my husband (love is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered) and to love my children. Help me to be thankful for the things I have, even though my house is messy help me to be thankful for it. Help me to be a good steward of it and keep it tidy. Please reveal the changes I need to make if I need to simplify things so that it will be easier to keep clean. Help me Jesus, I am in such desperate need of you. I can't get over this anger problem on my own. I need You.

Being a mom of two part 2

Each day is a new adventure with new quandaries, new things to learn. Sometimes being a mom is really hard. It's difficult to stay home and discipline all day long. It's difficult to hang out with a two year old who isn't able to converse just yet. It's difficult when he is trying to communicate something that he wants to do and you don't want him to do it. When he doesn't know his needs, just his wants...

He makes Aria feel like a breeze.

All I really have to do with her is nurse her, change her, burp her, snuggle her and then put her back to bed... every couple of hours. Yes, she cries and sometimes I just have to walk out of the room and let her cry herself to sleep, but really, she is nothing.

I love Levi. I just want to be clear on that. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I love him. When he is disobeying for the same thing that I've already spanked him for ten times I have to remind myself that I love him.

He can be very frustrating sometimes. Today it was kind of non-stop movement. It's all right there under my feet too. I'm trying to fix an egg and he is right there, attacking the butter with the knife. I am trying to wash the dishes and he is right there dipping a mug he found into the dishwater and DRINKING it! Yuck!!! I pretty much screamed at that one. He has also drank out of a puddle in a parking lot before... this kid is going to have a killer immune system if he survives. He wants to drink my coffee, he wants to be right there while I'm trying to nurse Aria, today he (I don't know if it was accidental or not) kicked her in the head. I went ahead and spanked him because we do not kick people. I have explained to him over and over that we can kick balls but we do not kick people.

In all of this he can have the most brilliant moments. Today he started singing part of Jesus Loves Me, he has never done that before. He only sang "For da Bible tells... me... so!" over and over, but it was still Jesus Loves Me  in my book :).

I finally bit the bullet this morning when I was changing yet another poopy diaper and his bottom was so red with a rash. He couldn't walk without crying yesterday because of the rash. After I saw this I said, "No more diapers, that's it Levi." I was so tired of it, I thought, I will clean up anything as long as it's not his red, hurting little bottom. There were several times when he asked for a Pull Up, but I stood strong and didn't give it to him. I even put him down for his nap without a Pull Up. I have done that before and that's when he took the opportunity to poop in it. This time I decided I could clean it up. His mattress is covered in plastic anyways.

We had the most pees on the potty today than... maybe ever. We also had one poop on the floor. He ended up not sleeping for his nap. I realized around 3 that he never really got that great of a lunch, so I just got him up and we fixed green smoothies. He had one poop on the floor but thankfully it wasn't that hard for me to clean up.

Well, I am very tired from a very loooong day. (I really hope Levi doesn't drop his nap soon.)

I'm going to go to bed now.

Life with Levi part 2

This morning I was thinking about how refining it is to be a parent.

What is that song?
Holiness, holiness is what I long for,
Holiness, holiness is what I need
Holiness, holiness is what You want for me...

Holiness is not a comfortable, easy thing to attain. It's not like I'm just going to walk down a flowery, happy path and become holy. It's that I'm going to be tested by fire, by life and come through refined. Tested. I was tested yesterday as I'm chasing after Levi to get clothes on after a bath, tested with patience, that I wouldn't become angry and discipline him in anger. Testing as I am cleaning out diapers for my son. (I sort of feel like changing diapers is maybe the lowest form of servant hood in parenting. No one wants to do it, but it must be done, we must humble ourselves to that level and wipe the poo off of our child's bottom. It smells, it's disgusting, but it is necessary. I feel like it's one of the more ultimate day to day sacrifices... I'm just sayin')

I am tested as I'm trying to get Levi to eat healthy foods that he doesn't want to eat. Help me to be patient, not to raise my voice, not to get angry. To just keep telling him he has to eat it, and then when he flat out refuses we have to spank him. (side note here: Yes, we spank him. But I never want to spank him in anger, and we almost always pray afterwards and hug. I appreciate spankings because they don't drag out the punishment. It is quick, painful and then over. We get to move on with life. It has also been extremely effective with Levi, he has stopped throwing his food on the floor and spitting it out and he is eating his carrots and black beans all because we took the time to mindfully and consistently spank him and talk about what he did.)

Okay, wait, I'm going to go into the spanking thing a little further with this.  I want to always make the spankings private and intentional. I'm not going to just haul off and whack my kid because he did something I didn't like at the moment. We spank when he directly disobeys. I will take him to his room or a bathroom if we are in public, or the car. some place where we will be alone. This is how I can show respect for him. I would not want to be punished in front of a huge crowd of people, so I'm not going to do that to my child and shame him. Then we always pray with him (this calms him down most of the time) and I tell him I love him and we hug. Then we move on. I'm especially thankful for the prayer afterwards because it directs my heart towards the Lord and it is an opportunity to just pray over my son, that he would come to know the Lord someday, that he would learn to obey authority, that the lesson would sink into his heart... it's an opportunity to thank God for my son and just love on him.

These moments of discipline are never convenient. They happen mostly when I am tired or busy or we are about to leave or he is strapped in his high chair... more testing in my own life. Patience gets magnified and learning times a hundred with children. You just thought you were a patient, loving person... and then you have kids. :) Kids teach you WHAT patience is. It is a beautiful, refining thing.

Lord, help me as I parent my children. Give me more patience, give me a heart for them and their betterment. I pray that they would come to know You and have a passion for You and Your Word. Help me to do what is necessary today in their lives as well as mine.

children are a blessing... children are a blessing

This morning I was thinking about how kids are inconvenient. I thought that being married was inconvenient because I had to make sure my husband would be fed, his dirty laundry done, that kind of thing... but I really had no idea.

Do not get me wrong, I am so thankful for my little Levi and this new one on the way, sometimes I don't know what I would do without him in my life... hmmm, probably go to the grocery store a lot faster, run errands during nap time, probably meet friends for coffee at cute little coffee shops, take nice long showers without little hands pounding on the shower door wanting to come in... I used to shower while he took his morning nap, now I try to shower before Ben leaves so Levi will be distracted. Today I missed that window of opportunity and he pretty much cried the whole time. Some of you moms may be asking, "Why not just bring him into the shower with you?" Oh no, you don't know my son. He LOVES water. That is even more stressful for me because we don't have a lot of room in our shower and then when the water goes of he FALLS APART. So I'm standing there wet, trying to get my towel and then he's in a crouched position literally screaming in agony because the water has somehow been shut off. If it were up to Levi the hose, faucet, bath, shower, all those things would be running constantly. We have meltdowns over water activities more than any other thing in his whole life. It is remarkable. So then he's running around wet and naked and crying, dripping water on the carpet and I'm just trying to dry myself off... No, it's easier for me to just take a shower with him crying outside and then he stops when I get out. Much less stressful than trying to catch a slippery, wet 18-month old while I'm just trying to dry off myself. Yes, feel free to laugh at the thought because I am too.

What was I even talking about in the first place? Oh yeah, children, kids... inconvenience. Ask any mom who has had to pack her kid in a carseat, especially when they are screaming and arching their back, makes you loathe cars (I completely understand the safety factor here and wouldn't dare drive without Levi in one, more than anything, it just makes you not want to leave the house).

Other times I don't leave the house are during nap times. This was really frustrating when Levi was taking three naps a day. That was a challenge to do grocery shopping then. I remember just being home a lot.

Okay, that's enough complaining, I'm starting to get on my own nerves now. Sorry about that. The Bible says that children are a blessing from the Lord, that they are arrows in your quiver, I guess that means that they are an asset and a help to you. But I also suppose that means you have to sharpen them and make them straight so that they will go where they need to go. I sit here on my couch, semi exhausted from all the chatter, crying, doing, playing, fixing food... and I think, why am I doing this? I could have chosen to work and send him to daycare all day long, I wouldn't have to deal with this. I could have made it so that I would only have to interact with adults all day instead of baby talk... I guess my answer has several folds to it. Ben and I both had moms who stayed home with us. The whole way through. We decided that if we have children we want to be the main ones to raise them and teach them. Every day I'm teaching Levi not to throw his toy cars, not to hit, to say please, to obey, to not fall on the floor in a temper tantrum, I'm able to pick him up and hug him when he falls and hurts himself, I am able to take him on walks and we point out the birds and squirrels... this is why I stay home with him. I look forward to when we have our next one and I can begin to teach him that the world doesn't revolve around him and how to love his new little brother or sister.

The other reason I am realizing more and more each day is that it's not about me. It's not about what I want. It's not about convenience and me getting my way and life being simple and care-free. Levi teaches me every day that my needs can be put aside... to change a poopy diaper, to fix breakfast, to fix lunch, to put him down for a nap, to just play with him when he's lonely and longing at my feet. Really, I just want to read my book, or I just want to get the house clean, but sometimes these things get put aside so that I can mother my son.

It's hard, this whole parenting thing. It's not for the faint of heart... It takes perseverance, consistency, time, energy, sacrifice... lots of sacrifice. I'm thankful I don't have to do it alone, thankful that I have Ben. Even more, I'm thankful that I have the Lord. What would I do if I could not call on Him for help when I am confused or frustrated? What would I do if I didn't have the plumb-line of His Word to guide me? What would I do if I didn't have hope that things will be better when we reach eternity? I'm tired of living in a broken, shattered, messed up world where things get stolen or wear out? Where people hurt me and I hurt others, I'm anxious to see my Savior and tell Him face to face how much He means to me.

Levi is a blessing. Children are a blessing, a gift from God. Not an easy gift, not a convenient gift, but a good one. For sure.