Finding Fun

April 2, 2015April 3, 2015Leave a comment

Not too long ago I fretted over everything parenting.

When I was pregnant I fretted over the size of my baby, I fretted over labor and delivery, my mind overflowed with the all consuming role of motherhood as I felt my toes dangling over the edge of my expectant role, not quite ready to jump in.

During the newborn years I fretted over tummy time, sleep schedules, appropriate amounts of Baby Einstein, Your Baby Can Read and how many times I could get through the Jesus Storybook Bible so the redemptive story of Jesus would begin to grow in their little newborn minds.

When they were infants it was the screen time and the fretting to make it out the door on time for story time at the library. (I don’t think we made it on time a single stinkin’ week.)

When they were toddlers I fretted about delayed walking and delayed speech and my heart would race when they mixed up their “Nello Mello Peas” mid alphabet song.

In preschool it was my boys being unable to sit still and concerns that they needed to be coloring more and digging for worms less.

And the fretting over whether my sons would ever begin to use the toilet??? I can’t even talk about it. That was a dark, dark place for me.

Then something wonderful happened. I stopped fretting. I’m not completely recovered, I am a recovering fretter, the relapses are hard. But I have consciously made an effort to stop checking the milestone charts and have some more fun.

When I find myself fretting. I try to replace it with fun.

We sing and dance in the kitchen more, we take more impromptu trips to the donut shop on Saturday mornings and sometimes this mommy who said no wrestling would ever occur in her house will find herself wrestling with my three boys on our living room floor WWF Smack Down Style.

I have found a road to recovery from the fretting when spend more time beating my boys at Smash Brothers than thinking about whether they will survive kindergarten.

I believe recovery from living under the yoke of fretting is absolutely necessary for me as a mother. I could fret the days away and let them pass without ever finding fun.

I hope that I am not too late in this journey of finding fun and once my children are grown and gone they will remember how I was able to enjoy them, right where they were, wrestled on the floor or knee deep in the mud.

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So I’m recovering from fretting and reaching for fun.

As a step toward finding more fun this year I have been surprising my boys at the bus stop randomly in costume. This started innocently when my Halloween Costume, Queen Amidala, arrived fifteen minutes before the bus came one day in the fall. I tried the costume on and as the bus came up the road I figured it would be fun to meet my kindergartner in costume.

Then randomly in December I tried to ease into the idea of Bus Stop Dress Up by using a superhero mask.

In February I tried a Mario Brothers Hat because my preschooler had joined my kindergartener on the bus and my preschooler loves Mario.

On St. Patrick’s Day I began to build up a little more courage and tried a hat “costume” which was a little more risky but I need something green so I found a Yoda costume hat in the dress up trunk.

And the latest bus stop costume was the riskiest. I was in full costume. White hooded sweatshirt, black leggings, tall boots and a toy Boba Fett Blaster. I’m not even a Star Wars fan but I have three sons so I’ve had to learn the names of all these different battle weapons.

I left guns and lightsabers in the yard so they could shoot and slash back at me. This was a really fun one.

And I’m planning something really big for the last day of school.

I also have big plans for my third son once he starts riding the bus and I am saving all the princess costume ideas for when my daughter reaches kindergarten age four years from now.

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At first I fretted over this, what will the neighbors think? What will the bus driver think? What will my kids think? Will I traumatize them? But honestly, the neighbors laugh kindly and wave if they drive by, the bus driver and I have become good friends over this whole thing and my sons love it. It helps that they are the first drop off in the afternoon. They probably think everyone gets picked up by someone in costume.

And the fun cures the fretting. How could you not love shooting at your sons with toy guns when they get off the bus?

I fretted over the other stuff for too many years. And all my fretting was forward thinking. I was fretting forward instead of enjoying what I had right in my lap. I literally had a present in my lap and I was so busy fretting I forgot to have fun.

Hopefully fun can find me permanently and I can become completely recovered from the fretting.

Hopefully it’s not too late for me.

The Mark Of A Mother

March 10, 2015March 11, 2015Leave a comment

Today as I was sitting in the bright white room at the doctor’s office talking to my beloved pediatrician about my fifteen month old daughter at her well check up, my daughter dug her nails into the exposed skin below my neckline and drug her hands passed my heart all the way down to the squared neckline of my green Old Navy tee.

An hour after the incident.

I swore I was bleeding. I kept talking to my pediatrician but, at the same time, checking the part of my upper chest for blood. My daughter was smiling as she as she hurt me but I still swear that sweet child of mine may have been out for blood.

I have a bleeding heart for my children. I love them so much it hurts.

Mothers are just like that. All mothers. Breastfeeding mothers, bottle feeding mothers, working mothers, stay at home mothers, organic mothers and drive thru mothers. I am or know all of those kinds of mothers so I know its true.

We all have bleeding hearts for our kids. We all love them so much it hurts.

When my daughter straight up assaulted me in front of our pediatrician I literally gasped in pain but then smiled and went about our regular check up. I also probably kissed my daughter and told her how much I loved her as we left the office more than I can even count.

The Mark of a Mother is deeper than the marks on their skin or their ego. The Mark of a Mother loves the unloveable. The Mark of a Mother takes the pain inflicted from a sweet child and says,

I don’t care how much you just hurt me, I still want to smooch your face off.

The Mark of a Mother knows our days are few.

You know you are a mother when the pain from your child, the blood on your hands of the stain on your ego does not change your love for them. The love for a child from a mother is unconditional and never ending.

The Mark of a Mother feels the pain and loves anyway.

That is the dangerous calling we have all been given. To love in the hurt. It is natural for us to do so. That is the Mark of a Mother.

Today when I checked out at the receptionist’s desk she gasped, Did someone scratch you?

I nodded, yeah. Kids do things like this.

I really don’t care. Of course, I want my children to grow to respect me but even if they don’t (and that could happen) even if they continue to scratch the surface of my heart… I will love them with a ferocious love anyway.

You hear that kids, no matter what you try to do to hurt me, I love you and I will try to smooch your face off anyway.

This is the Mark of a Mother.

I see you moms and know you have that ferocious Mark of a Mother too.

More Than Cute

March 4, 2015March 6, 2015Leave a comment

Disclaimer: This post is about rethinking the way we as people speak to others. How our speech forms how others view themselves and how the words I’ve heard have shaped me as a woman.

I have been a girl mom for fifteen months. With boys the phrase that comes up often is “you’ve got your hands full.” I have written about this before and have received comments about how people are not meaning any harm and I should respond in love. I hear you. I want you to know I have never back-handed anyone or snarled at the ones rolling their eyes at me or shaking their heads and sighing when they see me with my three sons so close together. My sons do not cause me trouble nor are they inconveniences to me but they are, each and every one of them, a precious gift.

This post and the peeling back of responses to children in culture is more about an aching heart for how we see and respond to others. How we can give a voice to the little dear ones in our strollers and our grocery carts. How we as grown ups can reform ourselves, grow and be better when we engage people out in the world.

I don’t think I have heard the phrase “you’ve got your hands full” since my post They Can Hear You went bananas last summer and basically broke the internet. That is a win for me. So here it goes with my latest thoughts about speech… I have been a girl mom for fifteen months and there is a new phrase I am rethinking. It is a phrase we all use and a phrase that bubbles out of our months when we see a little girl approaching our path, “she is so cute.”

Cute. C-U-T-E. attractive, especially in a dainty way; pleasingly pretty

This is an overwhelmingly kind comment. I actually use it all the time when I see girls of all kinds. Cute shoes, cute hair, cute shirt. I remember being on vacation one year in Florida and I had seen some family there who were vacationing in the Sunshine State at the same time. I remember running into a particular younger family member, she was maybe seven at the time, and I used these exact words to connect with her. “You are so cute.” Her father quickly interjected and said, “She is also very smart and very kind.”

I was taken back. I didn’t understand his rebuttal back then but I do now.

It seems as if we as people are very quick to comment on the outward appearances of especially women and we forget to see what God sees, the inward beauty that is not fleeting but is everlasting.

Being cute, dainty and pretty will eventually come and go and on that day the women and the girls we have been complimenting on their cuteness will be left wondering, who am I? But inner beauty cannot be matched. Courage, boldness, intelligence, a heart for the Lord, kind, important and loved. Those are the things we should be fighting to say to those sweet girls that will one day be women when they cross our path in that grocery store.

I love dressing my daughter in ribbons, bows and smocked dresses. She loves standing next to me while I put on my makeup and she likes to brush the make up brush on her face and say “pretty.” I am not calling for a strike against girliness, I love being girly. However, I am wondering about how I can build my daughter up with other words, words other than cute.

Currently, when we hear the phrase, “she is so cute” I always respond, “she is VERY loved.” And she is. Who wouldn’t be in a family with three big brothers?

L-O-V-E-D: held in deep affection; cherished

As a woman in my thirties I would much rather be cherished than the words dainty and cute. Cherished feels more secure than dainty.

I want my daughter and all of the daughters in our homes to know from the beginning that they are more than their appearance, their bows, or the outfits they are rocking on that day.

All of our daughters are loved, cherished, kind, smart, important, accepted and loved by The Most High God. Let’s saturate our compliments for little girls with truths they can take with them into eternity.

Cute and dainty are the outward things that man sees. Let’s try to fight to see the inward beauty that God sees. For a more confident generation: will you walk with me in reshaping the way we rotely respond to our sisters… young and old?

Teach Them To Pray

March 3, 2015March 3, 2015Leave a comment

I am currently reading Timothy Keller’s book, Prayer. I am the kind of reader who reads the last chapter when I am about halfway through a book, the anticipation of the last words is the kind of anticipation that causes me to read the end before the middle. I cave. Every book, every time.

Keller’s last words on Prayer say, “Why are we settling for water when we could have wine?”

This question rips through me. Prayer can be something that we as human beings just spin around on the circle of what we have always known. We know to pray when we are in trouble and need help or we pray and ask God to give us what we want. That is what I have always done and this kind of prayer is right and biblical, “give us this day our daily bread” simply means give us what we need, help us Lord.

When I get stuck on the wheel of the “I want” and “help me” prayers, also known in the church as supplication prayers, I find myself settling for water instead of wine. Prayer becomes very much about me and what I want and less about God. The relationship of prayer is one-sided and I become the main event. When I make prayer about me, I am settling for water.

I can have access to wine when I seek to have a two-sided relationship with the God of The Universe. When my prayer requests for everything that is wrong around me become only a part of my prayer life instead of the only thing I pray for is when I will break the hamster wheel of spinning around what I have always known about prayer.

This is hard to do. In the world of weight lifting it is recorded that “It takes 3,000 to 5,000 repetitions to burn a movement into your body’s muscle memory.” a minimum of 3,000 times at the generous amount of praying three times a day (Keller’s book suggests two) would take you 1,000 days to change the muscle memory of your prayers. This is three years! Three years of forcing yourself to step outside of your comfort zone and feel the soreness and pains of a new workout.

As adults it is much harder for us to change our ways. Most of us are already set in the way we do things. Especially when we do not live in community with others who are committed to the process of walking in this life as Christians and committed to growth and change in their watery prayer lives.

As I read Keller’s book all I can think about is, “What if my kids just always knew how to have a vibrant prayer life?” What if my kids just always heard prayer as a two-sided relationship, a conversation of the peeling back of our hearts and praise to the One who desperately wants them?

At night I pray with my sons and around 18 months I will begin to pray with my daughter at night time by their beds. Sometimes I am tired and I settle for the watery prayers of safety while they sleep and protection over their thoughts and their dreams. But I never forget to say, “Lord, please change the hearts of my kids so they know you and love you with all their heart and give them friends and spouses that love you with their whole hearts too.”

I say this so often that while talking to my youngest son (3) about the gospel just the other day, I went through the normal questions…

1. What did Jesus do? (He died on the cross)

2. Why did Jesus die on the cross? (For our sins)

3. Did Jesus stay on the cross? (No, He rose again and He lives forever in heaven)

4. What does it mean if you believe Jesus died on the cross for you sins? (We can live forever with Him in heaven where there is no more crying and no more bad guys)

Instead of the answer I normally get from our children to question two, Jesus died for my sins, my three year old confidently said, “Jesus died for my heart.”

My three year old basically smacked me in the face with the same words I have been praying over his bed since he was 18 months old. “Jesus died for my heart.” What a beautiful picture of the gospel to see in that moment. Jesus wants our whole hearts, not just the pieces we offer to give Him when we feel like we need Him. We need him all the time, the chaos of our hearts just prevents us of seeing that clearly.

What if we could teach our kids to pray so we could break the “settling for water” cycle and our kids just always knew how to have access to the wine: the rich, full-bodied relationship that you can find in prayer if you choose to train your muscles differently.

What if our children just always knew that Jesus wants our hearts in prayer?

Here are a few suggestions. I am not an expert so I know there are more legitimate resources out there for teaching children how to pray. I am just a mom, not a theologian or a parenting expert, these are the tools that are working for me to teach my kids to pray.

1. Pray so often that it isn’t something they feel like they have to do but they feel like prayer is something they can’t live without.

2. Pray when you discipline them before they leave time out. Ask for forgiveness and thank Jesus for paying the penalty of sin on the cross.

3. Pray for them on the way to school. Turn the radio off and ask what they need Jesus to give them for that day. On the way home, ask if Jesus helped them and if He did pray in praise to God so they can see the tangible work of God in their lives.

4. Pray scripture with your kids. Teach them to access God through His words, not just our human words. Let the words from the Bible saturate your words when you pray with them. Recently, my six year old was struggling with seeing scary images from a television show at night time. He was working on memorizing Philippians 4:8 (Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things.) We just prayed those scriptures at night and then I followed up to see if God answered His prayers.

5. Use the Lord’s Prayer as a framework to teach them to pray:

Adoration prayers: prayers about how awesome God is. (Our Father Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name)

Confession prayers: specific ways about how we fall short of the glory and holiness of God. (Forgive us our debts)

Thankfulness prayers: thankfulness for things but also salvation and the rescuing of our hearts (This gives us the recognition of the Giver of all things, 1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Supplication prayers: prayers asking God to help us, heal us, protect us (Give us this day our daily bread and deliver us from evil, )

6. Model going to God in prayer and praying full bodied prayers rich with relationship.

7. This may be a harsh one but when I find my kids asking for material things or wanting things in the store that they don’t need, I ask them to think of the things God has already given to them and pray with thanksgiving for what they already have.

As I read Tim Keller’s Book on Prayer, I can only dream and hope that my sons and my daughter will one day pick the same book up twenty years from now and think, yeah, my parents taught me to pray like this.

The next generation of believers could be so great and full of faith if we simply changed our water for wine and taught our sons and daughters to grow more deeply in their prayer life.

May my kids, your kids and the kids of every tribe, tongue and nation never know a day without giving God their hearts in full-bodied prayer.

The Thing About A Three Year Old

December 20, 2014December 20, 2014Leave a comment

Sometimes it is easier to see what is bad about the phase of a child. It is easier to scream and complain about the awful and the challenging. Some people write it down and when it is attached with cynicism others seem to applaud. Others gravitate toward the negative that is masked with cynicism. The challenging things go viral while the redeeming qualities of a phase stay in the background.

No one applauds the praiseworthy traits because everyone huddles around the ugly ones.

I know children go through challenging phases. I have four young children and I have experienced most of the awful and all of the challenging. I could tell you all the stories. The poop stories, the tantrum stories, the flat out ridiculous embarrassing moments at Target and the times my children ran into a parking lot without the helping hand of a responsible adult.

I think the praiseworthy moments deserve an applause. There is a world out there reminding us of the awful and through the noise, sometimes it is hard to stay joyful in the dog-days of parenting young children.

The thing about a three year old is there is a loyal, independent, teachable child behind those stubborn eyes.

I do not think there is a day that goes by that my three year old does not stomp his foot down and tell me, “I want to do it by myself!” BUT there also is not a day when he does not take me by my hand and say, “Mommy, you are my best friend.”

There is not a day when he does not begin to cry if his blanket is just right, BUT there also is not a day when he doesn’t want to smooth my hair out of my face and tell me I am beautiful.

The thing about a three year old is they are your best friend beneath all the challenging yuck.

They are loyal to you, you are still their best friend because peers are still of little importance.

Three year olds can dress themselves.

Three year olds can use the toilet.

Three year olds can put on there own shoes.

Three year olds can play in the snow for longer than it took you to dress them in their snow gear.

Three year olds get birthdays. They get Christmas.

Three year olds truly love their siblings: they look up to the big ones and care for the little ones.

Three year olds can set the table and match socks.

There are so many praiseworthy things about a three year old. Don’t hear the bad and embrace cynicism. Embrace the praiseworthy. I promise when you search for the praiseworthy you will find the joy in the dog days.

There are so many lovely things about a three year old. Find them. Write them down. Hang them on the fridge.

The world wants you to see a three year old through the eyes of cynicism but God wants you to see them differently. As His children, the thing about a three year old is they significant and important to Him, no matter the challenging and the yuck.

Strive to see the praiseworthy. “Whatever is praiseworthy about a three year old, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8