Whoops!
Author: shara.anderson
This morning I told the kids that cereal was the option because we didn’t want to be running late for church. Addie chose Honey Nut Cheerios, and I poured them into her “Thomas the Train” cereal bowl (this is what a girl gets when she has lots of boy cousins…train bowls). Addie got milk and was quickly making her way through her cereal. I was helping Cade and Ella get their cereal when Kirk rounded the corner.
“Um, did you happen to wash that bowl.”
“No…it was on the counter.”
“Hmm…well that’s what I fed the kitty out of last night.”
WHOOPS! Sorry Addie! She didn’t seem to mind.
Saying Goodbye
Author: shara.anderson
This Friday we will be saying good-bye to some very dear friends. They are moving across the country.
We’ve lived life together.
When we met they had 1 child, and we had none. Now we have 9 children between our two families (that’s a little lot crazy!!).
These are the friends that you can literally drop in on anytime!
We’ve prayed together for children, the healing of cancer, wisdom, direction, and all kinds of life change.
We’ve watched God answer those prayers…repeatedly.
We’ve done Bible studies and watched “Amazing Race” together.
For me, this has been the friendship that has helped me grow because Kristen was so grace-filled that I could be real about who I was…and find healing.
We’ve eaten hundreds of meals together.
We’ve roasted quite a few marshmallows over our campsite bonfires.
We are already planning our 18 hour trek across the country.
You will be so missed!
God bless your family as God brings you to the next chapter in your life!! We love you!
Whisper Prayers
Author: shara.anderson
You know when you hear someone speak and you decide you’re going to implement every last thing that they suggested…and then you get home and you really can’t remember much of anything that was said, and you seem to have gone back to just the way things were before?
There was a speaker that I listened to from a conference we went to a couple of years ago. There was something that I took away from her talk that we still utilize today. Her name is Melodie Sterrett, and she spoke on “The Balance of Loving Discipline“. I remember liking most of what she said, but I really couldn’t tell you any specifics anymore except for what she called “Whisper Prayers”.
It’s such a simple concept and yet it is something that really has been such a connection point with our children. Basically, whisper prayers are prayers that you whisper in your child’s ear while you are in their bed tucking them in at night. It doesn’t seem all that monumental, but it gives you a chance to be one on one with your child. It’s the time that I take to think through the day and thank God out-loud for the things I see taking root in my child; to really speak a blessing over them. It can also be a time that we pray for what can be worked on as well. Sometimes apologies are made or we laugh about our day. Many times, after the prayer, the child will ask some deep question that otherwise wouldn’t have been addressed. Each of our kids love when we whisper pray.
I thought this coincided so well with the “Gentleness Challenge” that I’ve been following on “Women Living Well“. Whisper prayers can be a great place to start. A place to maybe confess some of your faults to your child and pray together. It may be a place to have some healing begin in a strained parent/child relationship. Or it may just be a place to strengthen an already strong connection.
Kids~You are Blocking My Goal!!
Author: shara.anderson
New Years is a time for setting new goals. We really all already have goals…we just don’t necessarily look at them as goals all the time.
More gentleness is one of my goals for this year. One day it seems like I have all kinds of patience for my kids. They can be putzy (which kids really are), and needing help for every last thing and I’m not one bit irritated. Then the very next day (or hour) they are doing the very same thing and I am annoyed, bothered and angry with them. I was thinking about why that is.
I think it comes down to the fact that I am perceiving the kids as blocking my current “goal” at that moment.
I am often frustrated with the kids as I am heading out the door and trying to beat the clock. The goal: be on time (or at least don’t miss the whole event LOL). They are blocking that goal. The lost shoe becomes a huge frustration, and I act toward my kids in a disrespectful and very “ungentle” way.
When I am trying to finish up an email and the kids are arguing I am often less than gracious in how I handle it. The goal: finish the email.
When my children are disruptive and disorderly in public I get frustrated. The goal: look like a good mom with good kids.
I’m trying to sit and rest while some children are sleeping and others are outside. Inevitably, someone wakes early or a glove has fallen off a little hand for the 12th time. The goal: relaxation.
So, what if THE goal changes in all of these situations to: lean on God to be the best mom I can be? Can the kids block that goal??
We are running late and my goal is to be the best mom I can be? Can I do that while we are running late? Maybe that means re-evaluating and getting up earlier the next time. Or maybe that means that I take the time to deal with whatever the kids need at that moment and we are late. See, I can be gentle if the goal is to be a good mom because being a good mom may mean being late in a certain situation.
My goal of finishing the email changes to be the mom God has created me to be, and maybe I won’t miss that teachable moment. Or maybe it’s time to train my kids in a quiet time for their good as well as my ability to accomplish things. The kids aren’t in the way…the email is in the way.
What about those disorderly children in public? If I discipline out of the motivation to look good, then that isn’t for my children’s best interest. If I do it to help them learn obedience or self-control because that is what God calls me as a mom to do then I am focused on them and not on me.
The change happens when I’m not reliant on what my kids do any more. I’m only responsible for how I respond to them.
This is something that I need a constant reminder on! So, when I saw the “Gentleness Challenge“ over at “Women Living Well” I thought it would be a great chance to be reminded throughout the month of January. You can read Courtney’s “Gentleness Challenge” by clicking the button below.
My Boys
Author: shara.anderson
Kirk at 5 1/2 months
Cade at 5 1/2 months
Sawyer at 4 1/2 months
Children are NOT convenient
Author: shara.anderson
I once heard about this very unscientific survey that Ann Landers did. She just asked, “If you had it to do over again – would you have children?”. Now, this survey gets used in statistic classes to show how poor it was in a statistical sense, but I still can’t help but think about how 70% of her responders said that they would NOT have children again. Bad science aside, there are still obviously many people out there who regret having kids. (The actual article is copied below if you are interested).
That has gotten me to thinking that somewhere expectations haven’t been met. Without expectation we don’t have disappointment, and it is obvious that many of Ann’s responders have been beyond disappointed.
So, why do I get disappointed with my kids? When I feel like they aren’t meeting my standards, or when they aren’t reflecting well on me? When they are inconvenient, and I can’t do what I set out to do?
I’m not saying there’s never a time to be disappointed with our children, but I think more often than not it is from misguided ideas and goals for our children that brings about disappointment and frustration.
It is evident from the beginning that children are NOT convenient, and I don’t think God designed them to be that way (even before the Fall). They enter the world in a most inconvenient way and then their necessity for care rocks your whole equilibrium and sleep schedule. Then when you pass one milestone you find yourself in a new territory of inconvenience. Children aren’t clean or timely or tactful or cheap.
But what if instead of looking at children as an inconvenience, we looked at them was as God’s perfect provision for showing us more about ourselves? What if, as we worked through how to train and pray for them we were ourselves learning to be more like Christ? What if that one thing that we just don’t understand about Buford (or honestly, drives us crazy about him) is the very thing that God is using to sanctify us? And what if it causes us to trust God that much more and turn to Him? What if, through Buford, God is actually showing us something in US that He wants to deal with (GASP!). What if we changed our perspective, and turned to God in His all-knowing grace and asked what we can learn through our little “inconveniences” instead of responding in frustration. Just a thought…something I need to work on…a LOT!
By the way, I’ve learned that God can use your husband in exactly the same way:).
| If You Had It To Do Over Again— Would You Have Children? By Ann Landers It was a simple enough letter. A young couple about to be married wrote to ask for guidance. They were undecided. They just couldn’t make up their minds whether or not to have a family. “So many of our friends,” the letter said, “seem to resent their children. They envy us our freedom to go and come as we please. Then there’s the matter of money. They say their kids keep them broke. One couple we know had their second child in January. Last week, she had her tubes tied and he had a vasectomy—just to make sure. All this makes me wonder, Ann Landers. Is parenthood worth the trouble? Jim and I are very much in love. Our relationship is beautiful. We don’t want anything to spoil it. All around us we see couples who were so much happier before they were tied down with a family. Will you please ask your readers the question: If you had it to do over again, would you have children?” I printed that letter and the sky fell in. The word didn’t come from Chicken Little. It came straight from the gut of young parents and old parents, from Anchorage to San Antonio. I heard from Junior Leaguers and welfare mothers. The Boston Brahmins wrote and so did the hill people of Kentucky. I had struck an unprecedented number of raw nerves. The question unleashed an incredible torrent of confessions—“things I could never tell anyone else…” After five days of reading, counting, and sorting mail, a bleary-eyed staff of eight secretaries announced we had received over 10,000 responses, and—are you ready for this?—70 percent of those who wrote said, “No. If I had it to do over again, I would not have children.” Twenty years of writing the Ann Landers column has made me positively shockproof. Or so I thought. But I was wrong. The results of that poll left me stunned, disturbed, and just plain flummoxed. Could it be? Not only could it be, it is. The message came through loud and clear. Wake up and smell the coffee, Annie old girl. Your readers had blown the American Dream. Motherhood, which always rated right up there with apple pie, Old Glory and the U.S. Marines was due for a reassessment. About 40 percent of those who wrote to say, “No. I would not have children if I had it to do over again,” didn’t sign their names. On the other hand, nearly all the letter that said, “Yes. Our children have brought us great happiness,” bore signatures. A number of those who expressed the latter view asked me to print their letters. Many said, “You can use my name if you want to.” Approximately 80 percent of the total response came from women. The average letter ran almost a page longer than the usual Landers letter. I was particularly moved by the intensity of feeling. Dozens who wrote said, “I am weeping as I write this. It’s the first time I have ever put such thoughts about my children down on paper. It’s painful.” Many readers who expressed shame and guilt signed their names and addresses but asked me not to respond. A Miami woman P.S.’d, “My mother-in-law makes her home with us. Her eyesight for envelopes is very bad, but it’s perfect for what’s inside. If she found out I had written to you, I would never hear the end of it. Please don’t answer in any way, shape or form.” The “No” mail fell into four major categories. Category One: Young parents who were deeply concerned about global hunger, overpopulation and the possibility that we might incinerate ourselves with nuclear weapons. A San Francisco father expressed his sentiments candidly: “The world is in lousy shape. We would feel guilty if we brought a child into this mess. Later, if we decide we want a family, we will adopt.” Category Two: Parents who stated frankly that their children had ruined their marriage. “Our happiest years were the ones before the babies came,” wrote an Atlanta woman. “In those days, we had time for the theater, parties, rides in the country, weekend trips and best of all—each other.” A wife who had signed her letter “Too Late For Tears in Tampa” wrote, “I was a successful, attractive, career woman before I had these kids. Now I’m an exhausted, shrieking, nervous wreck—too tired for sex, conversation or anything else.” A Chicago mother of four enclosed her check-out tape from the supermarket. The total was $61. “This is what we spent on groceries last Thursday,” she wrote. “The price of food is out of sight. My husband was laid off for six weeks last winter and we had to accept help from my folks. It was humiliating. We love our kids but they are so damned expensive. Actually they haven’t given us that much pleasure. We’d have to vote ‘no.’” Category Three contained the most pathetic letters of all. They came from older parents whose children had grown up and left home. “Manhattan Mom” wrote with more rancor than self-pity. “I get a postcard from the Bahamas at Christmastime. On Mother’s Day, I get an azalea plant. In between, maybe two phone calls. I raised that boy alone. His father died of cancer when he was three. Some thanks I get.” A 63-year-old president of a large corporation in Cleveland apologized for writing in longhand “But,” he went on, “I’m ashamed to dictate this letter to my secretary.” He described the camping trips, the evening devoted to watching their sons play football. The sacrifices (not money, he emphasized) in terms of time spent with their children. “And now,” he wrote sadly, “they are too busy for us, but they seem to have plenty of time for their in-laws. Thank God we don’t need anything from them, but it hurts not to be included in their lives. My wife and I talk about it to each other but no one else knows how we feel. It’s not the sort of thing you lay on your friends. When your column appeared, my wife read it out loud to me at the dinner table. We both voted ‘no.’” The most bitter letters of all came from Category Four: parents of teenagers in trouble. “Where are the joys of parenthood?” asked a Washington, D.C., mother. “We haven’t seen them. But we’ve seen a good deal of security guards who’ve caught our daughter shoplifting. We have also seen policemen who picked up our youngest son for selling drugs on the school grounds. We’ve seen some very depressing emergency rooms where the older boys were taken by an ambulance after totaling two cars and one motorcycle. My husband and I keep asking ourselves, ‘What did we do wrong?’ but I’m not sure anything could have saved our kids. The pressures to steal and do drugs are tremendous. Two other couples we know are having the same problems with their kids.” Parents with traumatic problems that involve police and hospitals are definitely in the minority. What about the majority? Why are they sorry they had children? Many, I believe, are disappointed because their children failed to live up to their parents’ secret expectations. Every mother wants her daughter to be beautiful and popular, especially if she wasn’t. When the daughter turns out to be neither, the mother feels let down. Dad, who didn’t make the high school football team and couldn’t get into Harvard, nurtures the secret hope that his son will succeed where he failed. Nothing is ever said, of course, but the nonverbal communication is at work and Junior gets the message. Getting the message is easy, but doing what Dad wants isn’t. So Dad is disappointed and Junior feels inadequate and rejected. Too many parents have a grossly unrealistic approach to parenthood. Everybody loves a cute little baby but nobody wants an 11-year-old who socks a teacher, a 14-year-old who steals money from his grandmother’s purse, or a 16-year-old who is hooked on drugs. The disenchantment often sets in early. When a young couple has to miss “the party of the year” because the sitter didn’t show up, they can’t help resenting the child who kept them home. Add to this, walking the floor with a colicky baby, no more romantic vacations, and a bill from the orthodontist for $3,000. They ask themselves, “Who needed this?” * Are there some invisible components to help explain that staggering 70-percent negative response? Some missing pieces to the puzzle? I see one, for sure. The person who is against something rather than for it is much more readily inclined to take pen in hand and express his anxiety, rage, or disappointment. People who are contented are rarely motivated to write and tell me how happy they are. Anger, hostility and resentment are often the fuel that moves people to action. Am I saying that many parents who voted “No” are disappointed, resentful, and angry? Indeed I am. They feel ripped off. “Heartbroken In Long Island” wrote, “God knows we did our best. My husband and I even took some night-school classes to learn how to be better parents. We followed the book, did all the ‘right’ things, but two out of three of our children turned out bad. I don’t believe we failed them. They failed us.” If it is true that a large percentage of the parents in this country are sorry they had children, why don’t we hear more from them? Because such an admission goes against the grain of what we have been taught is human nature. Parents are supposed to love their children no matter what. To speak disparagingly of one’s offspring is socially hazardous. Trouble with a husband, on the other hand, is a common topic over teacups, luncheon tables, bridge hands and telephones. By the same token, a battle with the little woman is discussed candidly at bars and clubs—wherever men meet. Plain talk about marital problems is a national sport, because everyone knows no marriage is perfect. But parents who have trouble with their children are inclined to keep their mouths shut—unless their troubles have been in the newspapers, or the parents happen to be in the company of other parents who they know are having trouble with their children. Common misery can make strange bedfellows. A striking example of this was described in a letter from a couple of “No” voters who had to appear in court when their son was arrested for selling speed. Two other sets of parents whose sons were involved in the same ring also turned up in the judge’s chambers. “We didn’t have one thing in common with those people except our children’s arrest,” wrote one of the mothers from Detroit. “They were definitely from the other side of the tracks. But when you have the same kind of trouble, you become brothers and sisters under the skin.” * If I had polled my readers 20 years ago about their feelings toward their children, would the response have been the same? I believe not. While it is true that children have rebelled against their parents from time immemorial (rebellion is a normal symptom of growing up and achieving independence), never in the history of our country have the rebellious young managed to generate so much bitterness and alienation. Our children have far more effective weapons to use against us than we had when we were rebelling. They have ready access to smoking lounges in high schools, communes that feature kooky, far-out religions, and college campuses that permit students to live with members of the opposite sex. (You can like it or lump it, folks, because the colleges say they are not responsible for the morals of the students. But don’t forget to send in that tuition check.) Yes, the game has changed and so have the rules. More radical switches have taken place in our society in the last 20 years than in the previous 200. Parenthood was never easy, but it is far more difficult than ever before. Today’s parents find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the steady barrage of violence (not to mention garbage) on TV—the electronic baby-sitter. Our children are bombarded with magazine ads for pornographic “literature” and “art” that would shatter a glass eye at 40 paces. We have the Pill, pit, LSD, booze for 18-year-olds, and skin flicks featuring kinky sex with close-ups of everything two people—and sometimes three or four—can possibly do together. Our young people have no heroes. They have seen their country lose a war for the first time in its history. They have heard their President say, “I am not a crook,” and resign rather than face impeachment. They have seen their Vice President plead no contest to a charge of tax fraud and leave office in disgrace. Polls show the average American has equal regard for politicians and used-car salesmen. God may be in His heaven, but all is not right with the world. It is no cinch to produce well-balanced, emotionally healthy children in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety and at a time when the values of an earlier era—the work ethic, discipline, firm guidelines and reward for excellence—are rejected as “old fashioned.” Granted, these past 20 years have been extremely difficult for both parents and children. My heart aches for all who are caught in the switches of this transition period. Still I am boggled by that 70 percent. No way could I have responded “No” to that question. My daughter, Margo, has been a joy to me—not the perfect child, mind you, but our problems have been few and of no great significance. It would be utterly impossible to imagine what my life would have been like without her. But Margo is now 36 years old and she has three children of her own, one a teenager. Would I be so joyous about parenthood if Margo were 15? I doubt it.
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ANN LANDERS is COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
I only reposted it here because I couldn’t find it elsewhere on the net to link to.
Traditions
Author: shara.anderson
I’m always interested in traditions. Isn’t that part of what made childhood fun and nostalgic? I have found that I “borrow” other’s ideas better than coming up with my own. Most of these are for Christmas, but there are a couple others. This is a short list of some of the traditions we have done, will do, or have heard of recently.
Little Cader
Cade & Ella 2010
A stocking for Jesus. I just ran across this one this year, and I am the most excited about this one. We have an extra stocking up for Jesus this year. What are we putting in it? Everyone is to write (or draw) about what they have done that was kind or helpful to someone else. Then we will read their “gifts to Jesus” before we open our gifts as a family. I love that!!
Gingerbread House. Every year for the last 5 or 6 I have made a gingerbread house with my kiddos and their good buds who I nanny for. It really isn’t hard (it can be time consuming…just plan accordingly). Here’s a great recipe, and the cement icing really works. Here’s the template we use for cutting out the pieces of the house. It is very basic and simple. You can get much more extravagant if you’re feeling adventurous. I’ll have to post pictures after we do ours this year. The kids LOVE the decorating part and it makes a great centerpiece or decoration.
Night of Lights. On a night where you know you can sleep in the next day take the kids out for a stroll to find houses that are decorated with lights. Bring some snacks (popcorn etc) and enjoy seeing what others took the time to put up. You could make it into a scavenger hunt or a counting game ie. see how many snowmen you find etc. Don’t forget to check out the beautiful stars if it’s a clear evening and you get out of the city at all.
Operation Christmas Child Boxes. This one has to be done more around Thanksgiving time, but it is such a fun thing for each of the kids to pick out stuff for a child their own age and prepare a box for them. It really helps them think beyond what they might be wishing to get for Christmas. We also went on YouTube and found videos of kids receiving the boxes to help the kids really so how excited the kids are for their box of goodies.
Gifts from Samaritan’s Purse. This is the second year we have done this. The kids just seem to accumulate money between birthdays and holidays, and we wanted them to have a fun way to give some of it away. Samaritan’s Purse (who also does the Operation Christmas Child boxes) sends out a catalog before the Christmas season where you can pick out a variety of items from shelters, to mosquito nets, to medicine to purchase to be given to those in need. Ella picked out 2 little stuffed lambs, and Cade picked out a soccer ball.
Popcorn for supper on Sundays. A friend of ours had this tradition growing up. It gave his mom a break, and the kids thought it was great. I haven’t been able to sell Kirk on the whole idea yet:).
So, what are some of your traditions? I love hearing what people do, and be warned that I might steal borrow your idea in the future:).
What’s Working For Us Right Now
Author: shara.anderson
With the addition of Sawyer to the family and our home-school year starting many people have asked, “How do you do it all?” Well, the truth is, I don’t do it “all” and many days we don’t even get to “most”. So, with that disclaimer aside, there are somethings that are working for us right now.
Quiet Time: We start our “official” home-school day with quiet time for everyone. This allows the kids to be in a good habit of having time with their Bible, and it also gives me the necessary time alone with God before we dive in. Right now we do that for 20 minutes. Each child is alone in a different room with a Bible or devotional type book (except Addie who just sits on her bed). Cade many times uses this time to work on his AWANA verses.
Day Chore: Then we move onto our “day chore”. Each day we have 1 chore that takes us less than 15 minutes, and we all work on it together. On Mondays it’s vacuuming (the kids do their own rooms with the stick vacuum while I do the living room etc). Tuesdays is shake the rugs/wash floors and so on.
Time with Addie: Then it is math time for Cade, and Ella gets to choose something to play with Addie. Then it is Ella’s math time and Cade plays with Addie. This has been so good for Addie as she gets concentrated time with each of the older ones and they are helping to teach her how to interact positively.
Taking a Walk: Another positive for us has been taking the double jogger stroller and taking the 4 kids for a walk after lunch…even though it often takes more time to pack up than actually take our walk. Today we counted 19 caterpillars, 4 grasshoppers, 3 butterflies and 2 snakes:).
We are usually done by lunch-time with our schooling, being Cade is 1st grade and Ella in Kindergarten. This gives us flexibility in our afternoons and many times I’m napping with Sawyer while Addie naps and the other two utilize their free-time they’ve been waiting for all day.
It isn’t fancy or rocket science, but it’s what’s working for us right now.
Welcome Baby Sawyer!
Author: shara.anderson
Sawyer Wayne
So, a lot has been going on around here. Baby Sawyer joined us on August 19th (4 days post due date) at 5:11 AM. I suppose that is my excuse for not blogging for the last month, although I don’t know what my excuse is for the previous 3!
Sawyer weighed 8lbs, 8oz which is the exact same weight that Cade was. Cade has had fun telling people this little fact. Sawyer reminds me of Cade when he has his eyes closed and especially when he is wearing an old outfit of Cade’s. He is a sweet baby, and we can’t believe that he will be 6 weeks this Friday already! He smiled for the first time on Monday, but it is still a “few and far between” occurance.
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