Feeling better.
For some reason this didn’t post earlier!
I’m feeling a lot better today. Granted, we did pull a LITTLE trick this morning. My van keys happened to be in the bedroom, so I grabbed them at 6, and hit the panic button. It only got ONE of them up, but hey, that was an improvement over yesterday!
Homeschool-wise, we’re all caught up and on track. I’m managing, but I still sometimes worry that I’m going to miss some crucial point that he NEEDS TO KNOW! But mostly, I think we’ll be fine. Pez is going to the regular school each day for gym/music/art, so he is still getting some interaction with other kids. I’m torn on the value of it, though. It does disrupt our day, although truth be told, he could be completely finished with pretty much all of his homeschool stuff by the time he goes to school at 1, if he really focused. Alas, that’s his biggest problem – focus. The first few days, though – it really was a struggle to get him refocused when he got back, and I was feeling like maybe it was doing more harm than good. He has settled down somewhat, so we’ll see how the next few weeks go. The school has been AWESOME about working with us. He does gym/music/art, and he can check out books and such. I’m kind of wanting to ask whether or not he could participate in the standardized testing, to make sure he stays on track, but I’m also not sure how I’d handle it if his scores dipped! (He always tests very highly on the standardized tests – if he’s had his meds.)
Hubs and I spent a little time reconnecting last night, and it was really needed. It seems silly when I’m writing it out, to say that he and I can get disconnected in just a matter of a week or two, but it really does happen. The thing is, when we’re good, we’re great. So the slightest misalignment, and it just feels like life is crashing down a little. It’s like having a popcorn kernel stuck in your teeth…it’s just a little thing, but creates a lot of discomfort!
I have to say, though – I’m really impressed with him. Lemon Drop had a doctor appointment this morning that didn’t go the way Hubs wanted it to. He got all huffy and blustery about it, and then realized what he was doing. He took a minute off the phone to stop, pray, and redirect himself. In the past, that never would have happened. He was kind of known for his rants! It is so awesome seeing the changes God is making in him.
Anyway – that’s about all I have to blab about today. I’m looking forward to the long weekend. I’m hoping the baby might allow us to sleep in a little bit at least ONE day!
Hope you all have a great weekend!
Feeling blue.
I’m not sure why, but a deep funk has settled in.
Well, I actually do know why, I just…wish I didn’t feel so down about it.
Family morning devotions? Dead.
Family morning breakfast? Dead.
I get up every morning. I make breakfast. Generally, I have Cheesecake and BonBon up with me, and that’s it. And Cheesecake, bless her heart, eats half of what she’s given before running off to the bathroom to be ill. SO. Failure: 2 Me: Nada.
The pumpkin pancakes I made this morning are really good though. I was patting myself for sneaking in a serving of vegetables. Except that only Cheesecake has eaten them.
Fail: 3. Me: 0
Teach your children well…
I’ve been noticing something over the last couple of weeks.
I don’t want to turn this post into a gripe session about some of my children, because that’s not really what I want to talk about. However. Let’s just say that some of my children…well…being tidy is not a skill they have in their arsenals, despite my attempts to teach that skill for the last six years. I could go into detail, but then I WOULD be complaining.
The reason this is notable is because I have noticed something with Baby BonBon.
She picks up after herself. She picks up after others. She will take her diapers after she is changed and throw them away. She will pick up scraps or other things off the floor, if they are trash, and throw them away. She will sometimes throw away things that didn’t actually NEED to be thrown away. She will put back her crayons after using them.
BonBon is just a little shy of 18 months old.
My older children, between the ages of 10 and 14, just don’t seem to care to do those things. Granted, they are my stepchildren, but I think it’s possibly evident that what they see at home at an early age determines to some extent how they will be when they are older. It could be noted, as well, that my stepkids seem to have even more of a tidiness problem when they visit their biomom, who has recently complained that they just leave their trash wherever they choose, and don’t pick up after themselves. She asked Hubs if this was allowed at our house. HAHAHAHAHA. No. No it’s not.
So I’m stuck wondering….did my bio-kids get genes that just like cleaning up more, or is it purely nurture rather than nature? Because seriously? My stepkids have been around me for 6 years. In my opinion, that’s plenty of time to have learned the survival skill of not trashing my house. And yet….it still happens.
It’s just so interesting to see how BonBon picks up things, you know?
My habitual sin…
Our pastor has recently been challenging us with a series he been doing regarding “Groundhog Day Christianity”. He has a knack, our pastor, for giving sermons that manage to somehow apply almost every time he preaches. Today, however, as I sat and listened at home (baby was sick, so I stayed home with her), I found a particular area I need to address.
This morning, after we did a quick service project for the boy scouts, we were walking back to our cars. I had stopped the stroller behind the van to unload the baby, and pack up the stroller. Peeps, our 12 year old, unstrapped the baby from the stroller and picked her up, and then went to walk around me at the back of the van to put the baby in her car seat on the other side. Unfortunately, as many 12-year-olds do, he just wasn’t paying attention. As he went to step past me, he didn’t look, and there was an SUV passing by behind me that, had my husband not been quick to react in yelling and pushing Eric back, would have hit both the baby and Eric. Hubs didn’t think it was speeding, but in the replay in my head, the SUV WAS going faster than it should have been.
Hubs sat Peeps down at the back of the van as I took the baby and strapped her in to her carseat. And then I took a moment and had a small emotional breakdown. Peeps came over to apologize, but as I stood there praying, thanking God for protecting them, and trying to get the image of what could have happened, Hubs came over and hugged on me, and the tears poured out. All I could see was the mental image of what COULD HAVE HAPPENED.
We got into our cars, and drove home. The entire way, I tried to put it behind me. But I couldn’t. I got more and more sick to my stomach as I drove. The more I thought about it, the more I worried about it, the more I built up that mental picture in my head, the worse off I was.
After I got home, Hubs urged me to just go back and take a moment – to give it all up to God. And it annoyed me. What was I supposed to give up? My baby and our son had nearly been killed, and I was dealing with that – what was God supposed to do about it? But the truth is, it was the worry I was wallowing in that I needed to get rid of.
I will be the first to admit, I’m a worrier. I worry about EVERYTHING. Literally. Our life is such that there IS plenty to worry about, if I really want to spend my time doing that. I know there are plenty of areas in my life that I need to give up to God. Consciously, I have tried to do that. But the worrying…it’s a habit, I guess, and I slip into that on nearly a daily basis.
I was challenged, as I listened to today’s sermon, to give that up. Matthew 6:25-34 tells me what my God thinks of my worrying. It’s actually indulgent and self-serving of me to waste my time on such things, and yet, that’s what my “fleash” leads me to do every day.
Our pastor was talking about one of our church members who gave up smoking. He talked about how the flesh, daily, will seek to fill that urge…how the flesh wants that cigarette. But he also talked about how, when we are living in Jesus, Jesus gets us past that.
So that is my task. Now ironically, my first thought, on understanding that I need to stop worrying and start trusting God…”What if I can’t do it???” “What if I can’t quit worrying about everything?”
I know I can do it, because it’s not me doing it. It’s Jesus. It’s a hard habit, that I probably couldn’t do on my own.
But I’m not on my own anymore.
Frustrated
I’m frustrated, I can’t get a post written these last couple of days.
I start writing, and then one of eight bajillion things going on around the house gets in the way, and I lose my momentum, and it’s gone.
I wanted to write about how, when I was out driving yesterday, I was listening to the dj on K-LOVE talking about how being a Christian is about having a relationship with Christ – not about rules, or good works, or following some archaic methodology for how to get to heaven. And the thing is – they have to have been saying that my whole life, you know? Why didn’t I hear it, or really GET it, until last year? Why did I waste all that time? Why did it take so long, not only to find my own way, but to start showing my kids the right way?
I had another post written on how much I appreciate all the pastors’ wives in my life…from the ones at church, to my sister-in-law’s mom, and my cousin’s wife. They all give so much of themselves – they sacrifice time with their husbands, and sadly are the subject of a lot of judgement from other people merely because of who they are married to…and it’s not an easy job! But that post didn’t get finished either.
Homeschooling went great Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday? CRASH and BURN. I found out last night, after Pez had gone to bed, that he never took his ADHD meds, and this child, without them, is unable to focus on ANYTHING. I thought he was taking them when I told him to, but obviously, I need to be better about supervising him actually taking the pill. He literally accomplished NOTHING yesterday, so today we start over and try to move ahead. Sadly, I think he’s going to have to do some work on Saturday to get back on track.
Family Morning Devotions? We’re still doing them, but we’re going to have to change things up a little. Since Lemon Drop started conditioning for Swimming, she is going to school 3 days a week at 6 AM. Hubs is getting up to take her, and since he has something one other day each week at 6:30, he decided he’s just going to get up every day at 5 and go in early.
From an FMD perspective, it’s kind of crushed things. We’re still doing them, but we’re doing FAMILY morning devotions with only half our family! I think we’re going to start doing them at dinner instead, which will only be a problem on Wednesdays when we have church to get to. Either way – it’s not dead and gone. WE’re still doing it. The kids still nearly sleep through it, but we’re doing it.
From a family perspective, it seems like we’ve been a little more disconnected the last few days. I don’t know why – with Hubs coming home earlier from work, we end up being together for more of the evening, but he’s been going to bed early, while I still have to stay up with the kids, so we’re missing that time we used to spend talking before we went to sleep each night. We have always spent so much time with each other that when we don’t, we really start to feel like something is wrong! SO we’re going to try and find ways to fix that.
AAAAAAnd…now BonBon is demanding bubbles, so that’s all I’m going to get written today!
It happens in a blink, happens in a flash….
I’m sitting here in the kitchen, “proctoring” the doing of the dishes. Some of our children think that if they just don’t do the job the way they’re told to do it, then they won’t have to do it anymore.
WRONG-O. (Which has been proven time and agian, and yet, they persist. Which earns them the right to do the job again and again for practice!) Anyway…not what the post is about…
Pez was headed down to bed, and Peeps is up here working on the dishes. “I love you, Stinko brother!” he yelled, as he headed to the steps. “Love you too, Pez”, Peeps commented sarcastically.
In that moment, it flashed in my head…seven or so years from now – when they’re 17 and 19…them joking around with each other in the same way. Granted, when they’re in their late teens, I’m sure it will be much more coarse than that exchange – but I totally pictured it. The two of them – almost grown and out – joking with each other….
And my heart stopped.
I know I didn’t give birth to either one of these goofballs, but they are MY boys. Yes, they are their mother’s boys as well, but they are MINE. I have watched them go from pudgy little midgets (Pez was 3 when Zack and I met), to tweens, and I can see them – literally see them – as young men.
I know all to well, from watching Cheesecake evolve into a young woman, how quickly it all goes. It’s LITERALLY in the blink of an eye. Yeah, in the day to day you get bogged down and you don’t see it…but POOF – they’re gone! The babies you cuddled and told stories to and cleaned up barf from and made cookies for and wanted to scream at as they worked your last nerve…they are the most precious gift we are entrusted with from God…and we don’t even realize how quickly the time goes by.
I’m sure one of them will do something in the morning that will sprout even more grey hair on my head, and I will think…”WOULD YOU JUST GROW UP ALREADY!!!!!”….
But for this moment, I can see both the future and the past, and it reminds me how special the right now is.
Finally Clicked…
You know, I’m not usually the dim bulb. I do have my moments, but for the most part, I catch on pretty quickly. I’m not bragging – it’s just how I’ve always been. School was fairly easy for me. I never learned good study skills, mainly because I never had to study. I’m not even kidding – I barely cracked a book, with the exception of math, which has been and still is my nemesis.
Over the last year, on a few occasions, I’ve heard the following quote from St. Francis of Assisi:
“Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” (There are differing opinions on the exact wording of that quote, but roughly – that’s it.)
Now, I’ve heard it a lot. And I’ll be honest – I didn’t give it a great amount of thought – it sounded somewhat intuitive.
But I’m here to tell you, I COMPLETELY MISSED THE BOAT.
Yesterday was “Step Out” Sunday at our church. It was a day our church joined together with many other churches around the city to go and serve in various organizations and in our own church community. There were cleaning projects and painting projects and…well…you name it. They had tons of things you could do. On top of that, our church joined with 27 other churches to preach the same message across this city. The message was “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
Now, I’m sure that was interpreted mostly the same way across all the churches who preached it. For our church, we had the honor of having a pastor from a church we are affiliated with in Texas come and preach. In the hour or so that he was up there, I realized, I am not the smart cookie I’d like to think myself.
Preach the gospel at all times. Ok, well I can handle that. I’ve read pretty much all of the New Testament. I’ve read a good portion of the Old Testament. I know the Gospels best of all – so really, no big deal, right? I can talk to anybody about those ’til I’m blue in the face. But…what…if necessary use words??? Well DUH….how else would I tell everybody about the good news???
OH.
SO.
St. Francis actually meant TELL people about the gospel with something other than words? Like by LIVING it? Like by SERVING OTHER PEOPLE? Like by reading what Christ said in the GOSPELS, and actually putting it to practice? Not just paying attention to it on Sunday, and trying to remember it through the week, as I curse at people for cutting me off in traffic or get annoyed with my kids and husband for exasperating me??
LIVE it? Let my light so shine before men? You know, by my ACTIONS? Not my big mouth???
Huh.
I’m so smart, why didn’t *I* think of that?