Category Archives: Parenting

Happy Birthday to Jason!

Posted on by

This is the first time in years Jason has been home on his actual birthday. And it’s his last one at home before getting married.

Hope you have a great day! Love you!

Baby Jason

image0

Jason sr.

DSC02677

Jason is the “middle child,” and I alwayd loved what Erma Bombeck said about the middle child (as well as the oldest and youngest) in this column, originally posted in 1971:

I’ve Always Loved You Best

It is normal for children to want assurance that they are loved. Having all the warmth of the former Berlin Wall, I have always admired women who can reach out to pat their children and not have them flinch.

Feeling more comfortable on paper, I wrote this for each of my children.

To the first born……

I’ve always loved you best because you were our first miracle. You were the genesis of a marriage, the fulfillment of young love, the promise of our infinity.

You sustained us through the hamburger years. The first apartment furnished in Early Poverty… our first mode of transportation (1955 feet)… the 7-inch TV set we paid on for 36 months.

You wore new, had unused grandparents and more clothes than a Barbie doll. You were the “original model” for unsure parents trying to work the bugs out. You got the strained lamb, open pins and three-hour naps.

You were the beginning.

To the middle child…

I’ve always loved you the best because you drew the dumb spot in the family and it made you stronger for it.

You cried less, had more patience, wore faded and never in your life did anything “first” [actually you did have some of your own firsts], but it only made you more special. You are the one we relaxed with and realized a dog could kiss you and you wouldn’t get sick. You could cross the street by yourself long before you were old enough to get married, and the world wouldn’t come to an end if you went to bed with dirty feet.

You were the continuance.

To the baby…

I’ve always loved you the best because endings generally are sad and you are such a joy. You readily accepted milk stained bibs. The lower bunk. The cracked baseball bat. The baby book, barren but for a recipe for graham pie crust that someone jammed between the pages.

You are the one we held onto so tightly. For, you see, you are the link with the past that gives a reason to tomorrow. You darken our hair, quicken our steps, square our shoulders, restore our vision, and give us humor that security and maturity can’t give us.

When your hairline takes on the shape of Lake Erie and your children tower over you, you will still be “the baby.”

You were the culmination.

~ Erma Bombeck

Honoring Mom

Posted on by

I’m thinking about Mother’s Day a week late since we postponed most of our celebration due to all the busyness last week.

I was saddened recently to read Albert Mohler’s thoughts that “Mother’s Day is a bad idea.” I agree with some of his points: it’s wrong to passively neglect or actively dishonor one’s mother and then try to assuage guilt with a card and flowers on Mother’s Day. And I do agree some sentiments are over the top: sometimes when buying cards I have wondered if they were made for real people at all. Sentimentality, though, is often in the eye of the beholder. What might seem “gushy” and over the top to some might seem just right to another. And, yes, most holidays have become too commercial, but that doesn’t mean we need to do away with them completely. There are multitudes of options between going all out and not celebrating at all.

I consider Mother’s and Father’s Day and many holidays  in the same way I think of Thanksgiving: we’re supposed to be thankful all the time, but there is something special about that one day and taking special care and thought into pondering just how much we have to be thankful for and the One to Whom we owe our gratitude. So with a day dedicated to parents: it’s one of the ten commandments to honor our parents, and Mother’s and Father’s Day is just one way to do so. It’s not that we save up our honor all year for this day: we honor them all the time, but this special day we focus on them, their love to us, and all they have done for us, and let them know we love and appreciate them.

I did not always honor her as I should have. I wrote more about learning to do so at the end of this post. A couple of years ago I wrote Things I love about my mom. I won’t repost it, but I did enjoy reading over it again. I only wish she were still here for me to honor, but I do honor her memory.

Today I wanted to share a couple of poems I’ve seen around the Internet.

This one was seen at The Sparrow’s Nest:

A Mother’s Day Prayer

I said a Mother’s Day prayer for you
to thank the Lord above
for blessing me with a lifetime
of your tenderhearted love.

I thanked God for the caring
you’ve shown me through the years,
for the closeness we’ve enjoyed
in time of laughter and of tears.

And so, I thank you from the heart
for all you’ve done for me
and I bless the Lord for giving me
the best mother there could be!

~Author Unknown~

Often this day can be painful to those who aren’t mothers and want to be. I saw this prayer at Quill’s Cottage and thought it beautifully encompassed many different types of mothers.

A Mother’s Day Prayer

God our Creator, I pray:
For new mothers, coming to terms with new responsibility;
for expectant mothers, wondering and waiting;
for those who are tired, stressed, or depressed;
for those who struggle to balance the tasks of work and family;
for those who are unable to feed their children due to poverty;
for those whose children have physical, mental, or emotional disabilities;
for those who have children that they do not want;
for those who raise children on their own;
for those who have lost a child;
for those who care for the children of others;
for those whose children have left home;
and for those whose desire to be a mother has not been fulfilled.

Bless all mothers, that their love may be deep and tender,
and that they may lead their children to know and to do what is good,
living not for themselves alone, but for God and for others.
Amen

~ Author Unknown

Here’s some other previously published Mother-related thoughts:

Mother’s Day funnies
Mother’s Kisses
A few Mother’s Day poems

Stray thoughts here and there

Posted on by

Here are some other people’s thoughts that have blessed, encouraged, instructed me, and made me think recently:

Why we need the arts.

Herb Cookery: Vintage Tip Sheet.

Being vs. doing.

Mothering, chores, and consequences. Favorite quote: “…one theme that seems to keep coming up in some of the episodes we watch, and that’s women feeling as if they’re hopeless about getting their children to do chores. ‘They never clean up! They see me cleaning, but they never help, and finally I give up because it’s not worth the hassle and arguments they give me!’  Where did women ever get the idea that they were this hopeless? They are the MOTHERS. They can make their children clean up.”

10 good reasons to exercise hospitality. The posts linked to there are good reading as well. This is an area where I fall short consistently.

Valentine’s Day Single.

Reassurance for parents of young ones. Quote: “…the first few years are the hardest, if you do them right. Picture discipline like a pyramid: you discipline a lot in the first few years, and then when they’re older you don’t have to do very much. What’s required gets smaller and smaller because they internalize good morals (and hopefully a relationship with God).”

Raising sons, raising heroes. Quote: “I’ve been wondering lately,though, about the wisdom of always counseling my guys to avoid risks. Truth is, there are plenty of times in life that you need a guy around who is bold enough to take a risk. To do something.”

20 tips for living on one income.

Write as you read — different approaches to Bible study and getting more out of devotions.

A vision for women’s ministry. Quote: “Women’s ministry is not about women’s rights or about women’s feats, it’s about expressing our love for Jesus and His church – his body.” — Mrs. Susan Hunt

What we call “traditional” gender roles. Quote: “Far too often a couple who claims to be following the Scriptural model for gender roles are actually following a cultural tradition without any foundation.”

Collected thoughts for the new mom.

Fabric boxes.

My son pointed me to the This is why you’re fat blog (that sounds funny…he shared it because he thought it was interesting, not because he was hinting that I was fat…), a site showing “deliciously gross food,” like this Deep fried cupcake with chocolate syrup and sprinkles, the Bacon Cheese Pizza Burger, which uses pizzas as the top and bottom of a burger, or this  Bacon-wrapped meatloaf with a layer of macaroni and cheese.

bacon-wrapped-meatloaf

Some of it is pretty gross — some of it actually looks good — but only in small portions!!

Have a great weekend!

When children’s beliefs and practices differ from ours

Posted on by

When you work with young people, whether as a parent, teacher, or just another adult with some influence in a particular child’s life, there comes a time when you’re dismayed to discover the child has a mind of his or her own and is not afraid to use it. 🙂 Of course we want our young people to develop and use their minds, but when they take views opposite to ours sometimes we wish for the “easier” days when they agreed with everything we told them and our primary care of them was physical (though at that time we longed for the days ahead when our kids could take care of themselves more.)

Let me encourage us to, first of all, keep the lines of communication open, and second of all, to choose our battles. I sometimes wince at that last phrase because I have seen some parents use it when they abandon training their children in some area that the child is resisting. But there are some areas of difference that are fine and just expressions of different personalities. For instance, if you like pastels and florals in your decorating, but your daughter likes dramatic colors and modern abstract patterns, that’s fine. God gave us different personalities to reach different people.

It’s a little harder when it comes to different convictions. We may hold strong views on courtship vs. dating or schooling or entertainment choices or any number of things, and we see signs that our children are not going to maintain those views in their adulthood. Romans 14 applies within families as well as within the church. I had to really wrestle with some of these things when we lived out of state and could not find a church that held to some of our convictions, though we found many with whom we agreed doctrinally. Unity in Christianity doesn’t mean we all do everything the exact same way. Roman 14 and related passages teach that good people can be on complete opposite sides of an issue and still be right with God, still doing what they do as unto the Lord, fully persuaded in their own minds that what they are doing is what He wants. So we need to discern whether the issue involved is a matter of core doctrine and truth or whether it is an issue that good people can disagree on. If the latter, as parents, teachers, authorities. or mentors, we can still insist that a certain standard be maintained in our home or classroom, but we don’t need to regard the young person with the differing conviction as a second-class Christian or as out of the will of God.

Still harder and scarier is when the young person does begin to question our core values, doctrines, and beliefs. Let me encourage us all not to shut down the questions. The first fundamentalist pastor I had was an old-school authoritarian who not only did not entertain questions but looked on the questioner with suspicion as a rebel. Even as adults we can sometimes wrestle with questions like “How do I know this is all really true?” I’ve often prayed for myself as well as my children, when those kinds of questions come up, that if there are answers, the Lord would help us find them, but also help us to be willing to take by faith what there are no answers for. One of the best messages I have ever hear along these lines was “God Is Wise and We Are Not” by Dan Olinger of the BJU faculty. I like that he says “God is able to handle our questions.” He doesn’t always answer them the way we’d like. But He’s not intimidated by them. And, honestly, I’d much rather have a young person wrestle through some of these things and truly make their beliefs their own and come out the stronger in their faith for it than to be swept along in a positive peer pressure without knowing why they believe what they believe.

The hardest of all, though, in this progression of differences between our beliefs and our young people’s, is when they outright reject truth. The Common Room a few weeks ago shared some remarks that started off my whole line of thinking here. The context of the remarks she has that I want to share had to do with a child of friends who was marrying someone the parents did not approve of. I’ve seen parents handle things the way she describes, a way that will make reconciliation all the harder, if not impossible, and I felt her thoughts here to be valuable:

I wrote last year about an unhappy wedding we attended (and that wedding has already ended), and while I wrote it specifically about a situation where a rebellious and wayward young person was marrying somebody most unsuitable, the general principles apply to several situations, and I’m reviving it slightly for this post:

I am seeing an awful lot of defrauding going on- and it’s the parents defrauding their children.

The time to raise objections, to point out possible character flaws, to object to a relationship that you believe may be toxic- even if you are right, dead on target, and absolutely correct in all your judgments is before there is a relationship to cloud judgment, before saying these things will cause a fatal wound in your child’s relationship with you, and especially if you allowed that relationship to develop in the first place.

Do not let your most fondly cherished hopes and dreams for how your child’s marriage will happen… come between you and your adult Progeny, whether they share those hopes and dreams or crush them under foot.

I have conservative views on mating, dating (we don’t believe in it) and courtship, views shared by my husband happily, still shared by our Progeny- but those views are not more important to us than our children themselves.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love….

All my earnestly held beliefs in the world will not matter a fig if I conduct a slash and burn policy towards a wayward child and use my convictions as an axe against the root of our relationship in such a way as to drive my adult son or daughter away from me. In fact, in several instances I can think of, parents have attempted to bludgeon adult children into compliance with their own cherished convictions, only to see that weapon shift in their hands and become a catapult which only serves to launch that young person as far away from his parents as possible, often into the arms of any waiting other.

It is possible to speak winsomely and gently of those convictions, to explain them sweetly when leavened well with humility.

But too often we prefer to pontificate proudly and strut and huff and puff about them, sure that we are producing a new breed, if only that breed will shut up and get in line, we mean, obey their spiritual heads, and then it is of no matter how pleasing to God the convictions themselves may or may not be, our hearts are poisoned in His eyes, and we are acting in such fashion as to poison any future relationships with unsaved in-laws and grandchildren.

It is a tragedy to see parents angrily but sincerely pleading, insisting, that their children return to the fold, something they truly desire with all their hearts, while all the time they are pleading, they are pouring gasoline on the bridge between them and their loved ones and then setting it afire.

There are times we do have to take a painful stand. But we need to remember that some of God’s tenderest expressions of love, some of the times He most reveals His heart for His people, are in those passages in the prophets where He is having to confront them with their sin. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” applies to loved ones as well as to strangers — perhaps even more so. The purpose of chastisement is reconciliation. We need to avoid destroying the relationship and making it all the harder for the young person to return to the fold while standing for truth. Let us not burn the bridges but rather, like the prodigal son’s father, gaze with anticipation down a clear path while we wait for their return.

1129495_winter_day

(Photo courtesy of the stock.xchng)

Odds and ends

Posted on by

I mentioned in my Fall Into Reading Challenge post that I had been wanting to reread Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. What I failed to mention is that I have been wanting to read an unabridged version. I’ve read two different abridged versions, and I wanted to read the whole thing. I ordered it from Amazon.com and got it a few days ago. It is a thick book!

Thick book!

1,463 pages! So this will keep me busy for a long while.

If you prefer listening to books rather than reading them, Focus on the Family Radio Theater has an excellent version here. It has been a long time since I heard it, but as I recall it was very moving. There is a brief sound clip there.

There has been some really good reading around the blogosphere lately:

Finally, Carolyn at Talk to Grams passed on to me this sweet award, which of which the originator says:

Many of you have touched my heart and life in ways that have changed me eternally! I thank you for being a faithful servant and being obedient to the upward calling every time you share a piece of His heart living out in you! I pray that you will share this award with others who have touched your heart by sowing seeds of love into your life! They will know we are His by how we love one another! Let us sow seeds of love throughout the blogging world and touch the hearts of those who come to read what we all share! To HIM be all the glory forever and ever! AMEN!

And Alice gave me the I Love Your Blog Award (a while back — forgive me for taking so long to acknowledge it!)

And also just today this Butterfly award:

Thank you so much, Alice and Carolyn!

Now here is my dilemma. Many people to whom I would love to pass these on just don’t “do” awards on their blogs. And so it ends up that I seem to pass awards on to the same people all the time, though that’s ok. And I am always afraid of leaving someone out or hurting feelings. So let’s just say if you read and comment here, please take the Faithful Servant award, because you are a blessing to me in that way. And I try to comment regularly, or at least occasionally, on the blogs I read, so if you have seen my comments on your blog, feel free to take the other two as well. I enjoy it or else I wouldn’t keep reading and commenting. 🙂

And the final finally: the dreaded root canal is tomorrow. I feel much better than I did a week ago — praise the Lord for antibiotics!! I am looking forward to getting it over with.

Have a good day!!

First lessons in trust

Posted on by

Yesterday we had a consultation with the same orthodontist who shepherded my older two boys through their season of braces.

It seems Jesse has the complete opposite problem they did. They had overbites: he has a pretty pronounced underbite. His teeth have compensated by tipping inward: if they were straight, they would overlap his top teeth.

And that presents a problem: if they straighten the teeth without adjusting the skeletal problem of his jaw, he’d probably be worse off than leaving his bottom teeth crooked.

Thankfully the top teeth are pretty much ok, so when he smiles or when school pictures are taken it isn’t obvious he has anything wrong.

This particular type of problem is one that, when fixed orthodontically, can revert back if he grows significantly within the next few years. And at age 15, he probably does have a great deal more growing to do. So for now we wait and see what happens with his growth. They have their measurements from the x-rays they took, and we’ll go in about every six months to see how things are going. Once there has been no major growth within a six-month period, then we’re probably safe to start treatment.

Hopefully some of the jaw problem will grow in the right way. But if that doesn’t happen, or if the jaw situation gets worse…then we are looking at possible surgery to remove part of the jawbone. The doctor hopes that won;t be necessary, but felt he needed to mention the possibility in order to give us the complete picture. If he didn’t mention it now, and then brought up the need in a year, we would wonder why it hadn’t been mentioned.

I was wishing, however, that he hadn’t told me all of this in front of Jesse. I don’t want him to worry about the possibility for the next year especially when we can’t do a thing about it except wait and see how he grows.

As we got in the car afterward. I asked Jesse, “You’re not worried about the possibility of surgery are you?” He seemed to have taken it in stride.

But he answered, “Yeah, I kind of am.”

So we went back over what the doctor had said and discussed the need to pray about it and hope for the best, but to also trust the Lord that if He allows it, He will help us through it.

Later I got to thinking that this may well be the first major issue Jesse has had to pray and trust the Lord for. He’s too young to remember when I first got TM, and though we have prayed about things as a family and for our church and friends, and I have shared answers to prayer with the boys, but this is the first big thing to affect Jesse directly. And in the grand scheme of things, of course, it is not as big a deal as cancer or a heart transplant or that sort of thing, but, still, facing any surgery can be scary.

My heart’s desire all along for all of my boys has been that they develop their own relationship with the Lord. They have all made professions of faith and I think have seen the Lord work in our family. But part of that relationship is trusting the Lord through trial, or, in this case, learning to give the situation over to Him and trust Him for it while waiting for the outcome. In my desire as a parent to ease my children’s way through life, I can’t shield them from everything. And that is probably a good thing, because if I want them to be mature spiritually when they leave our home, they will have to go through some of these kinds of situations.

So, though if I had had the choice I would have shielded Jesse from the possibility of surgery, God in His wisdom allowed it as a first experience in learning to trust.

A Laborious Meme

Posted on by

Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer is hosting a meme for Labor Day about labor — the kind that results in delivering a child.

Moms do like to talk about labor. I think it is kind of like men’s war stories. It’s something we were afraid of, faced, and survived, and each one is unique…at least for most of us. I did have one friend who said that every time when she was dilated 3 cm, this happened, and then when she was dilated 6 cm, that would happen, etc. I thought it must be nice to have such a regular system! Each one of mine was different.

Here are the questions:

How long were your labors?

Kid #1, about 9 hours.
Kid #2, about 6 hours
Kid #3, 2 weeks. 8 1/2 hours, I think.

How did you know you were in labor?

Kid #1, water breaking.
Kid #2, I was expecting my water to break since that had happened with #1, so it took a while for it to dawn on my that I was having contractions. They had to break the water manually later on.
Kid #3, when the drugs kicked in. I had to be induced: I’d had little things going on for a couple of weeks, but labor just wouldn’t start, and he was 13 days overdue.

Where did you deliver?

Kids #1 and 2, in a very small hospital on the campus of my alma mater. Very cozy.
Kid #3, in a women’s hospital due to his size and overdueness.

Drugs?

I had to have Pitocen with each one as my labor would peter out, a little earlier with each one. No epidurals — I know people rave about them, but I knew a couple of people who had had problems with them, and I was kind of afraid of them. Just had a “local” shot with each one just before delivery.

C-section?

No, thankfully.

Who delivered?

Beloved Christian doctors. We were with the same practice in the same town for all three. One doctor delivered #1 and 3 while the other delivered #2.

Just a little funny story in connection with Jesse’s birth: He ended up being 12 lbs. I don’t know how: I did not have gestational diabetes with him as I had with Jason and my weight gain was the most moderate of the three (and all the rest of his life he has been the skinniest of us all!). He was born in a women’s hospital where the only children patients were newborns, so they only had newborn diapers, but those wouldn’t fit him, so someone had to go out and buy the next size. When Jim went to the hospital cafeteria, he overheard one hospital employee saying to the other, “Did you hear we had a 12-pounder today?”

Shannon has set up a Mr. Linky if you’d like to read other labor stories or link up to your own.

A mother’s nightly ritual

Posted on by

Mother’s Little Angel

by Norman Rockwell

Courtesy of imagekind

I inadvertently began a nightly ritual when my firstborn son was a baby which has continued with some changes to this day. Before going to bed for the night, I would check on him to make sure everything was all right, watch the rise and fall of his chest for a few moments, perhaps even lay a hand on his back or chest to reassure myself he was breathing and he was all right. I expanded my rounds with each new child. As they grew, I would smile at their tousled hair and and relaxed sprawl and pull the covers back up to their shoulders.

Some time during the teen years they began closing their bedroom doors at night, but there was still a settled feeling knowing everyone was home, safely tucked in for the night. When they became active in their youth group or started working outside the home, I don’t think I ever went to bed before they came home. I may have fallen asleep on the couch, but I couldn’t rest easily until I heard them come in.

But the days came and then multiplied when they didn’t come home for the night, and passing by their empty bedrooms caused a bit of a pang to the heart. First sleepovers for a night, then camp for a week, then mission trips with the youth group for several days more, then working away from home for a whole summer, then going to college for a whole semester. The day will come when they will have their own homes, and these beds will remain empty except for brief visits. I’ll no longer be able to check on them at night or to know that they are safely tucked in, or to go to bed with that settled feeling that all is well for another night.

But I can entrust them to the One who never sleeps, who watched over the wandering Jacob when he left his home and guided him on his way. They will be beyond my sight and care, but never His. His power to keep both body and soul has always been beyond mine, but whereas for over two decades I have been able to watch over them and see that they are fine, soon I will have to walk by faith and not by sight in this aspect of life as well as all others.

And so my nightly ritual will change. Instead of going room by room in my house until I am settled in my own, I can pray for each child in my heart, trusting Him to keep a watchful, loving eye on us all.

(Updated to add: I put these thoughts in poem form here.)

Thursday Thirteen: Dad’s Famous Sayings

Posted on by

In honor of Father’s Day this Sunday, I thought I’d salute dads and post lines that seem common to dads everywhere. Did your dad say these? Can you think of any others?

1. Do you think I am made of money? (or Do you think money grows on trees?)

2. This is going to hurt me a lot worse than it will hurt you.

3. You’re not leaving my house dressed like that!

4. Close the door. Were you born in a barn?

5. As long as you live under my roof, you will live by my rules.

6. Don’t make me stop this car!

7. “Hey” is for horses.

8. When I was your age , I….

9. You didn’t beat me. I let you win.

10. Who said life was supposed to be fair? Life is not fair.

11. I’ll tell you why. Because I said so. That’s why.

12. What are your intentions with my daughter?

13. You’ve got a headache? Here, let me step on your toe, and you’ll forget your head hurts.

More Thursday Thirteens are here.

(Graphic courtesy of Snapshots of Joy)

Mother’s Kisses

Posted on by

They’re good for bumps and good for lumps
They’re even good for dumps and grumps,
They’re good for stings of bumblebees
And barks from shinnying cherry trees.
For splinters, sunburns, “skeeter-bites,”
For injured feelings after fights,
And scratches, scratched while Tabby hisses —
Mother’s kisses.

There’s naught so pure, there’s naught so sure,
Indeed, they seem a heavenly cure,
For pounded fingers, and stubbed toes,
And all the long, long list of woes.
Yet did you ever think it queer
That while they’re fine for every fear
They’re just as fine with all the blisses —
Mother’s kisses.

~ Annie Badcomb Wheeler

A few other poems for Mother’s Day are here.

My tribute to my mom, written last year, is here. This is one of those days I most miss her.

Happy Mother’s Day!

(Graphic from Anne’s Place)