Back on the bandwagon

Sorry friends, apparently I fell off the blogger bandwagon for, oh you know, 2 months!  It’s 9:00 on a Friday night, all 3 kids are sleeping and all I want to do is join them….but here’s a “quick 5” update for ya’ll on what we’ve been doing in the last 2 months!

1.  The kids and I spent a week last month in October with most of my family.  Poor Tom had to stay home –between work and National Guard drill, he just couldn’t get away.   We had a great time….but I won’t be taking any vacations with 3 kids by myself any time soon!  I can’t tell you how thankful I was to have my family there to help!!

2. House plans are in full swing –actually we have house plans in our hands and now we’re visiting with a few builders and getting bids so we can get one hired and hopefully start on a new house in the spring {its contingent on a few things, but I have high hopes that everything will fall into place so we can start soon}

3.  Major work changes are on the horizon!!  I can’t share a lot about this just yet –I’m staying at the same firm just making some changes to make it more do-able with 3 kids and I’m super excited about it!

4.  My baby girl is already six {and a half} months old, she talks all the time, giggles, rolls and LOVES go be right in the middle of all the excitement her big brother and sister create.  Where does the time go??  Gracyn is such a sweet baby, she’s happy most of the time and wakes up every morning with a smile on her face, wiggling with delight.  Love her! 

5.  My other baby girl turned FIVE last week.  Crazy!  Seriously, where does the time go??  It seems like just a few months ago that I was waddling the halls of the law school….and now she’s in preschool and telling me she’s ALMOST six (you know…only 51 more weeks!) Love, love love that girl!  She’s such a sweet big sister, she loves to help out (thank you God!), and she has an infectious smile and giggle!  I don’t know what we’d do without her! 

And because I can’t leave my Micah man out, you get a bonus quick 6.  We’re working on potty training….with lots of bribing positive reinforcement.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure Micah’s new motto could be “will poop for hotwheels cars.”  Sigh.  Some day he will be potty trained.  I’m sure of it….I just hope we both live to see that day!   Micah is ALL BOY, he lives for his tractors {and trailers….and please don’t make the mistake of buying him a tractor without a trailer….it will cause a meltdown because tractors NEED trailers}

I’ve had a ton more on my mind and heart lately….and at least 50 “deep” blog posts written in my head.  Maybe someday they’ll actually make it on here!  Happy weekend friends! 

Creating a Legacy

We spent this weekend in Dubuque IA celebrating Tom’s Grammy’s 90th birthday – SO, SO much fun!  We celebrated Grampy’s 90th in Florida in January 2008, but they aren’t as mobile as they were then, so we all traveled to them for this celebration!   Tom’s grandparents are SO fun –they’ve been married 66 years, traveled all over the world together (like even kayaking in Antarctica), raised 4 kids and until last year, they still lived in the home that they built when their kids were young.  (Last year they moved into an independent/assisted living type apartment.) 
Spending time with them this weekend got me really thinking about the legacy I want to leave—and realizing what an amazing legacy his grandparents have created.
I couldn’t find an electronic copy of their wedding picture – but here are Tom’s grandparents with their first child.
 
And here’s the picture I took last weekend – seriously, I hope I look this good at 90!

And here are their 4 kids – then and now….

And after 66 years of marriage and raising 4 children – they get to enjoy 6 grandkids (1 wasn’t able to make it) and 10 great grandbabies (The 1 grandson who couldn’t make it has twin 13 month old boys). 


I imagine that Grammy had days when she yelled at her kids, maybe crabbed at her hubby, wanted to pull her hair out, wanted to throw in the towel….you know some of THOSE days that we all know all to well.  But she and Grampy stayed the course – they stayed committed to each other and to the daunting task of parenthood….and 66 years later, what an amazing story they have!  And what a sweet, sweet reminder of the bigger story, the bigger picture that can be all to difficult to see when you’re “stuck” in the day to day job of changing diapers, feeding babies, breaking up fights, cooking, cleaning and washing the 17th load of laundry.

Faith and Family: Memorizing Scripture with the Little Ones

A dear friend and I were talking a few weeks back about fostering our children’s faith, and one of the specifics we talked about was helping our kiddos memorize Scripture.  I’m obviously not any sort of expert on this….but we’re working on it and I’ve found a couple of super great resources to help me!  If you’re interested, here’s what we’re doing (as in my kids and I):

1.  Step Into the Bible --  I started this book with Makenzie before Micah was really old enough to do any memorizing.  It’s a GREAT book –it has short 10 minute or less Bible stories and a Bible verse to memorize with each lesson.  The really great part—the Bible verse stays the same for 5 lessons, so it gives you several days to really get the verse memorized!  Makenzie soaks this book up and even asks to do devotions in the mornings –and she’s done a great job of “keeping” her verses memorized!  Each morning we do a devotion, I’ll have her go through the verses she has previously memorized and usually if I give her the first word or two, she can take off and recite the whole thing.

2.  Another friend recently introduced me to Teaching Children Memory Verses –this is WAY more Micah style than the previous book.  My little man has the attention span of a mosquito…or maybe of a 2 year old boy! By the time I get done reading a devotion, he’s long gone….usually sitting on the floor making growling noises at me or trying to drive his cars over the book I’m reading to Makenzie.  This book is more like Sunday school materials –it has a color sheet/activity to go with each “lesson”….but the lessons are short and the activity is good for keeping attention!  They have these books for various ages --I bought the one for 2 and 3 year olds and it really doesn’t seem to be too young for Makenzie. 

I think my biggest struggle in all of this is that I want it to be grand and elaborate and perfect…..and well, 2 and 4 year olds just don’t go for this!  We’re talking a maximum 5 minutes of good attention.  But here’s what I love –God is faithful!  God made my kids with that 5 minute attention span—and He also made them more than capable of soaking up His word in that timeframe! 

The other struggle is time – 3 days a week we’re racing to get out the door to work and daycare and sometimes that means mom’s yelling at everyone to put their shoes on for the 17th time instead of sitting down to read a devotion or go through a Bible verse.  As much as I wish this wasn’t the case, I think it’s just life….if it wasn’t work and daycare it would be something else….one more year and we’ll be racing off to Kindergarten in the mornings.  (Man that’s hard to actually type out….I’m definitely not ready for that!)  The 2nd book is great for this –just this week, I gave the kids a coloring sheet at 7:45 am, we talked about the verse while I fed Gracyn and they colored, loaded up at 8:00 and practiced the verse as we drove to daycare.  They weren’t fighting, I wasn’t crabbing—and they LOVED it!  Both kids insisted on taking their coloring sheets to Trinity to show their friends and teachers.  I’m thinking “Memory Verse Mondays” are going to become a regular occurrence at our house because I’d much rather have my kids going out the door with a verse in their head than a replay of me telling them to put their shoes on/brush their teeth/ stop fighting etc. etc.

Moms - I’d love to hear your ideas—how do you do Scripture with your kids?? 

Just what I needed….

It’s been one of those weeks around here – you know, the kind where mama is way to crabby and the 2 year old isn’t sleeping well and is taking great joy in antagonizing his sister and the 4 year old is testing the little tiny bit of patience that mom still has…..and the daddy is gone for 4 days (not to mention the crabby not so patient mom is also nearly 39 weeks pregnant and slightly freaking out at the prospect of the hubby not making it home if she goes into labor). 

BUT, today has been fantastic!  The sun is shining, the weather is warm, the kids can run and play outside while I sit in my favorite red lawn chair soaking up the sun (and occasionally playing referee), we have a play date with friends after naptime….and the icing on the cake, both babes are down for naps and I found this article on a blog I love to read.  Perhaps my favorite part of the article was the quote at the beginning -- “God doesn’t expect us to be instant experts at something we’ve never done before. And he promises to make up the difference.” 

And I’m SO, SO thankful for His help in this adventure called parenting! 

Progress

I would love to tell you all that after my last (somewhat depressing) post, we’re all sleeping through the night, the crying every time mom leaves the room is over, the sassiness has ended and this mom will never, ever be crabby again….but I think you all know that would be a lie! The good news is – we’re making progress!! 

Micah man has limited his waking up to 1 time per night, and his screaming hasn’t exceeded 10 minutes for the last several nights!  For whatever reason, he refuses to just come into our room in the middle of the night….he prefers to wake up and yell in his bed until someone comes in.  And me laying in bed telling him to come in and sleep on my floor doesn’t help….but I keep trying I’m determined to get to a point that DOES NOT require me to get out of bed in the middle of the night!

Yesterday he had a great day at daycare—he still cried when I dropped him off (and even though I know it’s usually short lived, it never fails to break my heart!)  but yesterday was noteworthy for 2 reasons: (1) His daily sheet said he had a “GREAT” morning!  AND (2) he wasn’t crying when I picked him up….and I wasn’t even the first mom there.  He was actually playing happily when I got there!  SO good for this mama’s heart! 

As for the sassiness….let’s just say we’re still working on it!   Yesterday I think we only had one consequence for sassing…..today we should have had 17 before breakfast.  A couple days ago she and I were having a little chat (after a timeout) about why it’s not okay to sass and what we were going to do to stop it (because she’s pretty sure that mom’s consequences are a bad idea) and she told me, “I think I just need to talk to God about it, I really don’t need consequences.”  Just another reason I love this girl! 

Perhaps the best news of the week –getting some much needed sleep, spending lots more time praying, trying hard to spend less time yelling, and seeing some progress on the “bad”….this mama is feeling (and I hope acting) a little less ugly! 

The good, the bad & the ugly

THE GOOD

1. Micah man scooting over in his tiny twin bed and saying “mama nuggle?”  This little guy melts my heart!

2.  Makenzie dancing.  I think she’s learned some new dance moves at Trinity….she tells me there’s a stage there and she and her friends practice.   She asks me almost everyday to turn on music so she can dance – and her new dance moves look something like a cross between ballet and interpretive dance, really pretty impressive for the girl who got her mother’s lack of coordination! 

3.  Micah copying Makenzie.  Whether its dancing or skipping or doing cartwheels, or anything else Makenzie might be trying, Micah is sure to want to try too –and if it isn’t funny enough to watch Makenzie do it, trying to watch Micah copy his big sister is sure to make me laugh! 

4.  A daddy who’s willing to play in the snow with my kiddos (mostly so that I don’t have to!)  I’m just not a huge fan of snow….unless I can sit inside with a good book and WATCH it snow outside, so I’m thankful that Tom actually enjoys taking the kids outside…and making things like a cute little snowman family of five (even if the Makenzie snowman is “way too big”):

5.  Technology….like 4d ultrasounds that let me see this little bug kicking up a storm inside my belly!

THE BAD:

1.  Daycare.  Not actually daycare – the daycare itself is great and Makenzie loves it…the issue?  Micah cries inconsolably every single time I drop him off and he’s almost always sobbing again when I pick him up.  They tell me he does “okay for the most part” during the day, but that really doesn’t help this mama’s heart.  I know he has one teacher that he dearly loves….and even calls “grandma” but even having her there in the mornings doesn’t seem to make them any easier, and usually by the time I get him dropped off and leave him crying (with coat still on, blanket and elmo in hand because he refuses to take his coat off and settle in) I’m ready to drive straight to my office and quit my job –on the spot, just so we don’t have to go through this everyday!

2.  Night time.  We’ve been having a serious war around here with bedtime.  Micah has really been struggling since we moved him to a big boy bed….but matters got so.much.worse. during his 2 week long cold episode.  He was up all the time with a nasty cough – and I resorted to survival mode (rocking, snuggling, laying in his bed) just so we could all get at least a little sleep.  Now the cold is gone and the bad habits remain – and lately the little guy has been waking up as many as 6 times a night needing mama and screaming his little lungs out if dad gets up instead.  I decided enough was enough – with only 8 weeks till #3 is due to arrive, I was a more than a little panicked at the prospect of being up with 2 kids multiple times a night.  We tried putting him back in the crib but that was nothing short of disastrous and resulted in long spells of screaming and crying (and no sleeping). 

So I implemented a new plan two nights ago….I’m still laying with Micah to get him to sleep at night (bad habit probably….but SO much easier than a 45 minute bed time battle!) but then he is on his own for the night.  Mama doesn’t get out of bed, no matter how much yelling we have - Micah can either soothe himself back to sleep in his own bed or come sleep on the floor in our room – I even have a little bed made up for him.  I’m trying to do very little talking and negotiating because there is NO reasoning with a 2 year old in the middle of the night.  So, I got into repeat mode –give him his choices and then when he yells my name, I whisper quietly, “shhhh, mommy’s sleeping I need you to be quiet…..over and over and over. 

The first night he and I were up 4 times in 2 hours, then when I went back to bed and told him to come sleep on the floor beside my bed, he stood about 6 inches from my face and yelled/cried for 45 minutes straight.  But, he finally collapsed in a heap on the floor around 2 am and slept the rest of the night.  Last night was MUCH better – he woke up once at 4 am, stood in the hallway and yelled for about 10 minutes then went back to his bed and went to sleep until 6.  I have high hopes that maybe we’ll make it through the night with NO waking up in the near future!  

3.  The sassing.  (And the sassing combined with a way too tired (and therefore not very patient) mom!)  Miss Makenzie has picked up some major sass lately and trying to turn that around has proven to be a challenge!  She seems to get “stuck” in sassy mode sometimes and nothing short of naptime or bedtime will get her out of it….consequences make matters worse (at least for the short term….I’m holding out hope that consistent consequences will eventually get rid of the behavior!) 

THE UGLY:

1.  Me –functioning on way too little sleep and way too much stress.  Unfortunately the “bad” has made for a crabby, no fun mama at this house! And everybody knows, if mama isn’t happy, nobody’s happy!  Here’s hoping for a good nights sleep so we can turn this crabby household around! 

Thankful.

I’ve decided I spend too many days being stressed out, focused on my way too long “to do list” and not just enjoying life.  The other day I heard the Trace Adkins song on the radio…..

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

All I could think was SO TRUE….this is SO my life right now, and I already wish these days wouldn’t go by so fast.  In an effort to “hang on” to these days, I decided I needed to make myself a list of all the things I really love about these days, so here it is…split out by kiddo:

Makenzie

* I love the little prayer you’ve adopted from your Boz movie and that you “add on to” every day – “Jesus prayer that he made for our family and our friends, taking time to sit/lay (sitting or laying depends on whether its a daytime or bedtime prayer) and pray, thank you God for this great day and thank you for….(insert long list, usually involving mom, dad, Micah, Grace, Kenna, the food on your plate….and sometimes including things as random as Zoe Dog, our house, the things in the Advent calendar, your teddy bear).  I love that you are so good at thinking about the things you are thankful for – I need to learn to be more like you!

* I love your excitement for the Christmas story and our advent calendar, and that randomly during the day you’ll ask questions about Zachariah and Elizabeth, why Zachariah couldn’t talk, or what the angels name was that told Mary she was going to have a baby.

* I love your soft heart and your love for Jesus!  I love that today you reminded me that we should buy groceries to take to the food pantry because Jesus wants us to give food to people who don’t have it (We just read The King’s Christmas List….great book by the way!) 

* I love that you tell me every day “I like you and I love you mom.”  You melt my heart!!  And I love telling you, “I’m glad you’re my girl” and hearing you respond every single time “I know….I’m glad you’re my mom.”

* I love that you’re such a little mommy, looking out for everyone (including mom and dad!)  And I love all the funny things you say, like the other day when we were packing for Lincoln and you were frantically searching for ponytail holders in your bag…when I reminded you that you didn’t even wear ponytails because your hair was short, you told me, “I know, but you need them for your pants.” 

* I love that you love to help, and you do it so willingly!  I love having you help fold laundry (and clean out the lint trap on the dryer….it’s your favorite!)

Micah

* Believe it or not, I love your curiosity, even when it means unloading the toy baskets for the 10th time in a day.  I love that you love to explore and I love it when you take my hand and tell me “play” and then want me to sit down on the floor with you to play.  You are too cute! 

* I love that you love to help me – whether its unloading the dishwasher, cooking, doing laundry or putting on my makeup, you love to be right in the middle of the action!

* I love listening to you chat and I love the way you try to say everything you hear.  You talk ALL.THE.TIME right now and I think every single day you’re saying new words!  Some of my very favorites right now are “ga-mo” (Grandma Moore), “gama/gammy”, jammies, sissy (which used to just be “see” and only in the last week gained the first syllable), kimma (Christmas), and sorry –which you say LOTS of times a day, usually to your sissy.  

* I love that you can’t say the letter “s” yet – so words like snow sound more like h-no – and it makes me smile everytime I hear you say it.

* I love that you love your new Christmas jammies, and  I even love it that you want to wear them every night (and most days!) 

* I love that you love to try everything your sister is doing and want to be with her ALL the time

* I love your independence – and the fact that at not even 22 months old, you insist on walking everywhere and climbing in and out of your car seat by yourself.  When I get frustrated with the slow speed, I remind myself how thankful I’ll be in April when you can do these things on your own! 

Baby #3

* I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE feeling you kick and wiggle all.the. time…even if it means kicking my bladder at 3 am because I love the assurance that everything is okay in there, that you’re doing well and growing bigger!

* I love that your sister and brother love you so much already—they love to kiss and pat on my belly and talk to you. 

And if you’re still reading – bless your heart!!  You get rewarded with pictures!  

Reason # 6,542 I’m not winning any mom of the year awards…..

My poor little man spent the last 2 days running around with a fractured wrist.  AND….he fractured that wrist in the church nursery, under MY supervision.  ugh!

I’m not sure exactly how he did it – I watched him climb up into a glider rocker in the nursery Sunday morning and he was sliding back out of the chair when I turned to look at another kiddo, and the next thing I knew he was laying face down beside the chair screaming.  I didn’t think a lot of it, he did cry pretty hard, but he’d been overly emotional and clingy all morning…we came home from church and he didn’t eat any lunch, instead he snuggled on the couch with me and we both fell asleep.  He woke from his nap much, much happier and that was the end of it (or so I thought).  He went to daycare yesterday and I didn’t even mention anything to our daycare gal, then I was home with him today and several times he complained of his arm hurting, twice when I was holding his hands to pull him up.  After 4 separate incidents of him crying about his arm hurting (all before noon), I decided I better have him checked out….after 2 hours at the doctors office, we found out he had a buckle fracture in his wrist.  Poor little man!  Honestly though I think the cast bothers him almost more than the fracture!  He’s so stinkin cute though! 

Still feeling a little sorry for himself….and maybe hoping for a little sympathy!

Hamming it up for mom!

Letting sissy decorate his cast.  I think it might be just as hard to be the big sister who had to spend 2 hours in the doctors office and go home WITHOUT a cast!  

Just out of the bath….check out the plastic bag on the arm!  Is it permissible to resort to sponge baths when your toddler has a cast??  I can’t fathom how we’re going to keep that thing dry (or even slightly clean!!) for the next 3-4 weeks! 

It hasn’t slowed him down a bit, and thankfully he even went to bed without any trouble tonight… the glow in the dark cast must have been a good choice!  It was either that or purple.

Quick 5 (top signs/reasons I might be losing my mind)

Okay actually Quick 3 because (thankfully) as I was writing this blog I couldn't only come up with 3 blogworthy signs that I've completely lost my mind.  :)

1.  I lost my keys today - searched everywhere, unloaded my entire purse, called my mom in a panick, had her call my brother to see if he picked them up, ran back into Runza and asked the staff if they had seen the keys, walked back out to the car and saw them sitting on the roof of the car over Micah's door.  Apparently I sat them there while I unbuckled Micah from his carseat and left them while we ate dinner with my parents. 

2.  Bathtime.  It requires 2 adults, there's no way around it.  Tonight I got Micah through the bath with no trouble, but while Makenzie was in the bath Micah nearly fell in the tub, unrolled toilet paper, started shredding it & dipping it in the toilet...when I shut him out of the bathroom so I could get Makenzie's hair rinsed out (w/o his help) he unloaded Makenzie's clothes baskets & threw them down the stairs.  Bathing them together is out of the question - Micah torments his sister, which makes her scream, and Makenzie spends the entire bath analyzing why her bottom looks different than Micah's....it's easier to let Micah destroy the house while Makenzie takes a bath.  Thank goodness bedtime comes right after bathtime!

3.  Last minute court hearings.  Not really last minute, just last minute for me because the hearing didn't make my calendar.  Not my fault (at least not this time) because I never got a notice of the hearing--neither did any of the other attorneys but they had all talked at a team meeting that my client and I weren't invited to.  Nice.  Thankfully I had several reports for the hearing in my mail this morning and figured out I had a hearing about 4 hours before it started.

And now my children are all tucked into bed, looking like little angels, my keys are tucked safely into my purse and my court hearing tomorrow has been on the calendar for months....tomorrow is looking promising!

Have I Mentioned that I Love Her?

This morning Makenzie and I were snuggled on the couch reading our daily devotion book (I'd love to have you all think we do this every morning....but that's not really the case....we try but there are lots of days we miss.  Makenzie LOVES our devotion book though and memorizing the bible verses in it, so that makes reading it together all the more fun!)  We're about six weeks into this book - its called Step Into the Bible by Ruth Graham.  There's a short reading for each day, some questions to make it easy for mom's and a bible verse to memorize (the bible verse changes each week....so you have a week to get it memorized!)  I have been seriously AMAZED at how Makenzie has memorized the bible verses, and kept them in her little memory!  She can recite all the verses we've gone through and we're working on our next one!

Anyway - this morning we were reading about the fact that God sent Jesus to earth to show us how much God loves us and that Jesus had to die so that we could be forgiven for our sins.  This isn't a new concept for Makenzie, we have talked about it several times and Sunday she stayed in church with Tom (I was home with a crabby boy who I figured out sprouted a new molar...hence the crabbiness!).  It was communion Sunday and Makenzie was very curious, she had lots of questions for her daddy about what communion is and whether or not she got to take communion which provided a great opportunity for Tom to talk with her about asking Jesus into her heart.  Fast forward to today....we finish our devotion and were talking about forgiveness and Makenzie announced that she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart.  I told her I thought that was a great idea and before i could say anymore she said "I need to pray" and proceeded to bow her head and fold her hands and say, "Dear Jesus please come live in my heart.  I'm sorry for the naughty things I do, those are called sins.  Amen."   I just sat there, somewhat dumbfounded, totally amazed, crying at the miracle I had just watched firsthand, and totally in awe of how God can work in the heart of a precious three year old little girl. 

Quick 5

A good friend and college roomie, Stef, does lots Quick 5 posts and since I'm short on creativity tonight, I'm stealing the idea:

1.)  This week marks Week 4 of working out...you know instead of paying nearly $50 a month for a Y membership that I never use.  Novel!  And, I can truly say I'm enjoying working out!  I've started doing a noon strength training class (i.e. no sweating) on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then trying to get in either running or eliptical time two days a week.  I'm totally out of shape and I have a long way to go, but I've started!! 

2.)  Work has been kind of a bummer lately --just lots of reminders of how crappy life really can be and how much people need Jesus!  I met with a 16 year old girl today who is hospitalized after a very very serious suicide attempt that nearly took her life.  She has too many cut marks to count on her forearms and in our 30 minute meeting she smiled only twice.  It breaks my heart! 

3.)  Micah seems to be 100% after puking from Saturday-Tuesday!  Hallelujah!  And after a couple days of no dairy, all he wanted to eat tonight was cheese...so much so that he even said the word cheese for the first time tonight!  Love that little boy! 

4.)  My dear husband took out our ridiculously loud dishwasher Sunday night to replace it with one we bought from somebody in town who was remodeling and replacing all their appliances.....only problem was the "new" dishwasher was just as loud as the old one, it leaked water and it refused to drain.....so last night he pulled out the "new" dishwasher and put the "old" back in.  Bless his heart!  And after washing dishes by hand for the last few days I can't tell you how thankful I am for that noisy dishwasher! 

5.)  Miss Makenzie might make me lose my mind yet! :)  She's going through a major attachment phase and crying every time I leave her (no matter who I leave her with....dad, grandma, Cori (our beloved babysitter whose house Makenzie LOVES going too), children's church...this morning I had to peel her off my neck and leave her screaming.  Cori assures me this lasts less than 5 minutes and she does great the rest of the day.  Tonight when I picked the kids up Makenzie told me she wanted to stay at Cori's house forever and not go home with me (I think mostly because Cori had jello that she really wanted to eat!).  Oh life is rough when you're three!

LOVE THESE TWO!!

You'd never know by the picture that we had to wait to put Micah's outfit on him until we were ready to take pictures...and within minutes of taking this picture he puked on his tie!!  Please tell me I'm not the only one who would dress my poor puking baby in his Easter outfit just for the sake of pictures! :)  And if I am, oh well - look how cute the picture turned out!!  

Thought for the Day

" I am not sovereign over my children - God is.  And God will use every aspect of my human parenting, EVEN MY SINS AND FAILURES to shape my children into who He desires them to be, for the sake of His kingdom."  --from Parenting if Your Highest Calling....by Leslie Leyland Fields


I don't know about you, but I think this is incredibly encouraging!!  Especially on a day like today--Micah is on day 4 of throwing up, Makenzie is sick and tired of Micah getting all mom's attention and is doing her best to draw attention by screaming and throwing fits over everything even to the point of screaming at me "I don't want a fruit snack ever ever again."  (Those of you who know my daughter know that she LIVES for fruit snacks :)).  I wish I could tell you that I turned into supermom and spent my day taking care of my poor sick boy while giving my 3 year old all the attention she needed...and I could tell you that, but it wouldn't be true!  The truth is, I've turned into a total crab--I've crabbed at Micah when he's crying to be held and I'm trying to switch yet another load of puked on laundry.  I've crabbed at Makenzie for needing my attention while I'm trying to tend to Micah.  I've crabbed at Tom for not helping the way I thought he should help.  I nearly bit off my secretary's head when she didn't understand my instructions over the phone.  Not exactly the picture of the mom I want to be!  But what an encouragement to know that God uses all of me, even my sins, even my failures, to shape my children into who He desires them to be!  Thank you Lord!