Every day, my children leave behind a trail of change—for me, those changes morph into memories that I scramble to save and savor.
I light candles on birthday cakes and snap pictures, laughing at my child’s delight—all the while swallowing back a lump in my throat forming at the thought of the thousand little goodbyes that day represents.
Goodbye, pacifier, blankie, sippie cup, toddler bed.
Goodbye, Little People and Playmobil. [Read more...]
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Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe.
If you want, you could simply tell us what you request for your birthday dessert or take a picture of your favorite skillet. Basically we’re pretty relaxed over here. Posts that tell stories involving food are as welcome as menus and recipes. [Read more...]
Heidi of God is Doing a New Thing wrote about busyness and her “refusal to rest in the Lord”:
“I don’t know how you do all you do!”
Compliments like these cause me to evaluate if I unwittingly parade “all I do” around specifically so I can get accolades from others. I hope not!
The truth is, I don’t do *any* of the many things I do well. (Even now, a part of me wants to list them all for you, so you can know what I mean. The other part of me–the suspicious part of me–thinks this would merely be a perverse attempt to win yet more accolades and encouragement…so I will restrain myself!)
What if my busyness (something that is celebrated and respected in our culture) is just another way to keep from being in the present moment?
What if God wants me to be still and know that he is God?
Be still and know that I am not?…
Read all of “Busyness – My Refusal to Rest in the Lord” HERE.
“Yogurt” photo by “MOEVIEW”/Aaron Molina. Available on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Our youngest is extremely verbal. He listens, remembers, and repeats. He thinks about things a lot. He asks questions and when we’re not expecting it, our own words will come back to us via his sweet, thoughtful, six-year-old voice. And when we state our intentions and commitments out loud, we’re sure to be held accountable:
“But, Mom, didn’t you say you wanted to spend less so that you can save for another mosquito net?”
“Wait! We forgot to pray for the people of Bangladesh!”
“Are we going to support a child through Compassion International soon?”
“Have you read the psalms for today?”
“Here’s the Bible story book. We just read about Saul. What’s next?”
“It’s Saturday–didn’t you say you’d clip my fingernails every Saturday morning?”
This can be a little annoying when I’m “caught,” when I haven’t followed through. But I think that’s the point of having an accountability partner:
I realized that The Boy’s super-verbal personality is a gift. He can remind me to follow-through with things and be true to my word.
Sometimes it happens naturally, because he listens to everything I say and simply asks out of curiosity if I’m doing what I said I’d be doing.
Sometimes, however, I can be more intentional and actually ask him to bring it up. “I’m going to try to memorize this passage of Scripture. Can you ask me to repeat it to you later?”
He agrees to it. And he does ask later.
When he’s able to type, I’m thinking I can set him up with a website so that he can start his own accountability ministry.
In the meantime, I get to benefit most of all. A simple thing he’s helped with lately is reminding me of my blog commitments:
“It’s Sunday night, Mama–you need to write your Monday FunDay post!” or “It’s Tuesday. What are you going to write for Works For Me Wednesday?”
So, when I need some accountability, I just ask my most verbal child for help. He may only be six years old, but it works for me.
Before you go, feel free to browse my previously published WFMW posts, or return to Rocks In My Dryer for more great ideas.
** Works For Me Wednesday visitors get in on the fun by reading below. Find your way back to ”Don’t Try This at Home” here. **
It’s Monday. Again. Strange how it comes around with such amazing regularity…
Are you feeling a little down? A little dreary? A little blue?
Join us every Monday and find out how to make it a Fun Day–we can encourage each other with some good, clean, simple, everyday fun.
Write up a post at your blog with a story, idea, or explanation of how you and/or your family has livened up Mondays (or any day), then link back (using Mr. Linky below), so that we can collect some great fun ideas in one place. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your FunDay ideas in the comments. Ideas, by the way, must be squeaky-clean, family-friendly fun.
Here’s what we did last week. I think the fun started on Tuesday and lasted all week long.
One of my daughters was reading a Curious George collection and came across the story where he folds a bunch of paper hats and boats with the newspapers he was supposed to deliver–naughty monkey! She was inspired. Digging out newspapers from the recycling stack, she proceeded to fold numerous hats and wore them all around town. Now let me tell you, that’s fun. People just loved seeing a sweet girl confidently wearing an oversized paper hat! She brought smiles everywhere she went.
Well, before long, all the kids got into the act. They followed the instructions in the Curious George book and made hat after hat. For a few minutes, they were Robin Hood, and other times they were navy admirals. The main folder modeled one of her hats, sliding it around this way and that. I suggested she might resemble Napoleon, and she struck a pose something like this.
So all that folding reminded me of a recent conversation with some moms about “cootie catchers.” Remember those? We used to fold and design those all the time in school when I was a kid.
My kids hadn’t seen them, so we looked for folding instructions online. This site explains how to fold them and gives ideas for silly “fortunes” that you can write under the flaps. In spite of all the laughter generated by those goofy predictions (“You will eat nothing but corndogs for a year” or, “You will have all the pets you ever wanted”), I preferred encouraged conversation starters or story-starters under the flaps, instead. Here are eight conversation starters you can use if you and your kids want to try folding them–I think that’s the right number for a “conversation catcher”:
You could do anything with them. A Fun Day idea would be to write out crazy things to do:
You get the idea.
A fun side benefit? Early readers get practice spelling if you use colors or shapes in your designs. If they are holding the “Fun Catcher” (I just renamed it), and colored dots are on the outside, they have to spell the color as part of the process. “G-R-E-E-N.” Draw shapes and they have to spell those. “C-I-R-C-L-E.” You could draw anything you’d like them to practice spelling on those outside flaps. “D-O-G” or “H-O-U-S-E.”
Here’s a simple sample of one of the dozens that brought a lot of hilarity to our household.
Instructions for Mr. Linky:
1. After you’ve typed up your Monday FunDay edition for this week and posted it at your blog, come back here and click on Mr. Linky to add your link.
2. A window will prompt you to type in your name. Type in your name or blog name, and in parenthesis, include a two- or three-word “teaser” for your idea. Something like this:
Ann K (folding fun)
3. Below that is a spot for you to paste in the url of your post. Copy the url for your own Monday FunDay idea and paste it in (including the http:// part of it).
That’s it! It should be saved by Mr. Linky and appear back at this post. To see what others have posted, click on Mr. Linky and pay a visit to the fun bloggers who have joined in!
Next time your coworkers or neighbors complain about how depressing Mondays are, send them here, to discover ways that they can make their Mondays…funner.
It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how!
The New York Times posted reporters at polls across the country to interview citizens, asking who they’re voting for and why. They collected these sound bites and created an interactive feature, utilizing a clickable map.
Last night, a friend of mine phoned and told me how to log on to the map and click on Arizona. She and her husband were interviewed, and both of them were included! I thought it was fun to see–and hear–them in a major news publication and wanted to share it with you.
By highlighting them here, I’m merely celebrating their 56 seconds of fame–I’m not seeking to promote a particular opinion. If you’re curious, you click on Arizona and scroll down to Southard. Her interview is first; his is farther down. Interestingly, they did not vote for the same person.
I hope the link works without requiring you to sign up for access.
And while I’m talking about politics, which I might never do again, let me introduce a blogger-acquaintance of mine who has launched a blog called “Politics for Moms.” Here’s how she described it to me:
I have always had a fascination with presidential elections and politics although I have absolutely no credentials or experience to make me an expert on the subject. I’m just a news junkie with an interest and growing passion for the process.
What I have noticed, though, is that moms tend to “check out” of discussions on politics and elections because, frankly, we’ve got better things to do. It may not be as leader of the free world but our mounds of laundry, dirty diapers and desperate need for a good night’s sleep are about all we care about.
When we do show a little interest in what’s going on the information that is thrown at us from thousands of sources is overwhelming, confusing and, frankly, doesn’t seem to really affect our daily life. As a mom, I don’t have time to worry about CAFE laws and whether you voted for something before you voted against it.
So the disconnect grows and before long we are merely going to the polls to fulfill our democratic duty, but not really having a clue who we are voting for and what they stand for. This frustrates us because we know we’re not one of those mindless moms; we do care, we can think for ourselves, we know we can do better than throwing caution the the wind and flipping a coin before we flip a lever…we’re just not sure how to get started in this world of information overload we live in.
Politics for Moms is intended to help moms simply and quickly understand the issues and the candidates. It will be a place where moms can ask questions, hear other moms’ opinions, and get the information they need to make their own informed decisions.
This site will not endorse candidates, parties or ideology. It is simply a resource for moms to use in educating themselves on the American political process and on the candidates and issues so moms can make their own decisions.
Isn’t it nice to have a fellow mom collecting stories, links, voting history, websites, results, and other helpful information during this election year?
Read, think, learn…and vote!
I sure enjoyed visiting the Monday FunDay participants’ posts, storing up fun ideas to enjoy with my kids.
La Donna Mobile wrote a post entitled “Let Children Be Children,” highlighting a long passage from a book I’d never heard of, called Glimpses into the Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinckley. The passage inspired several comments packed with nostalgic stories. It took me back to my childhood and reminded me of the conversation Andrea and I had about getting kids outside in nature:
When I was a kid, I occasionally rode my bike to a tiny store that sold candy, cigarettes, snack food, and bottles of pop. My friend and I bought a few packs of baseball cards, pedaled back to her house, stuck the rectangles of pink gum in our mouths, and traded cards while sitting on the cement slab that served as a patio.
My friend and I rode down to a creek sometimes, too, wading in and feeling the mud squish between our toes. I remember digging deep under the rocks and brown mud at the bottom of the creek bed one time and pulling up some gray clay. I extracted a pile of it, formed a pinch pot and dried it in the sun for several days, feeling very Native American. We would skip rocks, too, and watch minnows.
It was a slow, rich life, with lots of time to think and create.
I actually wrote two poems that capture some of those simple, rural moments. If you scroll down this page, you can read “Field Hands” and “Summer Days,” which refer back to real-life, childhood reflections. “Feeding the Cows” is fictionalized and in the voice of a young boy, but it’s based on my experience feeding our own cows. “Remembering Crawdads” is more recent.
I’m glad that late yesterday evening, in the unseasonably warm weather, I took the kids for a walk down to the neighborhood playground. They wore their rubber boots and splashed in puddles all the way there and back. As we said goodnight, they were all smiles. “That was so fun, Mama!” one of them exclaimed. “I loved feeling my boot get stuck in the sand at the volleyball pit. It made that big suction sound when I pulled it out.”
We weren’t out very long, but for a few minutes on Monday, I was able to let my children be children.
So to review my Monday fun, we danced in the kitchen before dinner, just as I recommended in my Monday FunDay post (the kids really did dance the ’80s style). Then we ended the day splashing in puddles at dusk.
Life will include many serious moments, and we must teach our children self-discipline and the value of hard work.
But it really is fun to have fun sometimes.
Check out Andrea’s interview with me over at Flourishing Mother.
Andrea and I chat about life as a contemplative mom, getting kids out in nature to connect with God better, and practical ideas for communing with Jesus.
And if you haven’t entered my Bloggy Giveaway for a chance at winning a copy of my book, The Contemplative Mom, why, you’d best stop by and do that first.
Then head on over to Flourishing Mother for the interview.
See you there!
Usually it’s the mom who insists, “Look me in the eyes.”
But sometimes it’s the other way around. You see, at our house, it’s one of my children who insists on eye contact.
When The Boy was younger and asked me a question, I would sometimes respond without looking at him if I were busy in the kitchen or working at my computer. No matter how mundane the request (“Mama? Can I get a drink of water?”), he wanted me looking straight at him.
So he would say, “Mama?”
And I would answer, “Yes?”
And if I wasn’t looking at him, he would repeat Mama? as if I never answered. He would get louder, in case I didn’t hear him, but his tone wasn’t angry–just determined to get my full attention.
In fact, this could go back and forth quite a bit until I actually pulled away from browning the ground beef or staring at the computer screen and finally looked at him.
“Mama?”
“Mm hm?”
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Look at me, Mama.”
When I finally turned to him, looked straight into his big, brown eyes, and said Yes?, he would finally pose his question.
“Mama, what are we having for dinner?”
Sometimes he would go so far as to gently take hold of my face and turn it toward him. He wanted to be sure we connected. He wanted to eliminate distractions. He wanted my full attention.
And why shouldn’t he have it? Why shouldn’t I give it? To him, or anyone else?
My son instinctively understood from an early age how important it is to connect, and he figured out how to train his mother to do what his mother should have been modeling to him. I used to be very good at making eye contact, but by the time I was the multi-tasking mother of four, I’d gotten used to folding laundry, listening for a sleepy infant to wake from a nap, tying somebody’s shoes and talking on the phone all at the same time. Eye contact wasn’t necessary to accomplish all the tasks at hand.
But what a loss.
Thankfully, my boy has retrained me to make eye contact with people. I think I’m pretty good at it again, thanks to his gentle, daily reminders. In fact, his natural skills and expertise in this area have prompted me to organize an Emotional Intelligence conference later this year, where he will be leading several breakout sessions. You can reserve space in advance–leave me a note in the comments, and I’ll be sure to save you a spot.
Seriously, though, I was thinking about how simple this is–to stop whatever I’m doing, turn to the person, and look him or her in the eyes.
It’s so simple, but makes such a huge difference in how we relate. And how very sad that my son had to resort to turning me to him in order to secure my full attention.
He reminded me of this tangible act of love and respect that I can easily practice with everybody in my life. By simply turning to a person, looking him or her in the eye and giving my full attention, I can encourage the kind of human connection that makes anybody and everybody feel heard and understood.
As if that weren’t enough to ponder, I made a leap today when I was thinking about it…a leap to how the distraction of the day affects my relationship with the Lord in much the same way.
When I attempt to connect in prayer, do I truly turn to Him, or do I keep half an eye on the computer screen? Does my mind wander? How often do I give Him my full attention? Have I gotten distracted or allowed multi-tasking to keep me only half-connected to the Lord?
“Ann?”
“Mm hm?”
“Ann?”
“Yes?”
“Ann?”
Do I give Him my full attention? Or does He need to gently take hold of my face and turn me to Him?
“Look at me, Ann.”
Because Jesus was really good at making eye contact. Here, here, here, and here are just a few stories that capture a moment when Jesus made direct eye contact with somebody.
Where are my eyes? Where’s my attention? Where’s my focus? What will it take for me to fully engage with the Lord?
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR0LiRiz4l4]
“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” (Michael W. Smith)
After school a couple of days ago, the kids and I walked to a nearby pond. A layer of ice coated most of the pond. Near the edges, the ice was thinner, and the kids discovered that with a stick, they could chip at the edges and break off ice chunks.
They piled the chunks behind them for later use. They also speared leaves, pretending they were hunting for food in the deep, wintry wilderness. They piled those up, too. “It’s fresh kill,” they said. Handy.
Before long, they abandoned their hunting and returned to the edge of the pond. Ice chunks became the main draw, and they return to chipping and piling up a stash.
I walked with the dog around a manmade asphalt path while they worked.
When I looped back around, they were hurling the chunks and watching them pop and skid across the hard, frozen surface of the pond. Some of the chunks would shatter. Some would slide into the melted section near a drain. Some would swoosh across to the other side of the pond.
The kids used their sticks to shove some chunks forward, like a game of shuffleboard or curling, watching their polygon pucks slide toward the middle of the pond.
We were by ourselves the entire time, chipping, tossing, shoving, and cracking ice on a winter afternoon after school. We never saw another child exploring the area. A man walking a black lab passed by on the road, but that was it.
No one was around to imagine with us. No one else was with us to create a game out of nothing but sticks, dried leaves, and chunks of ice. Nobody was breathing in the crisp, fresh air or listening to the Shagbark hickory branches creak and sway.
Where are all the children?
I know it’s cold, and right now it’s very cold where I live. But I’m just curious, in general, does anybody go outside? Or do we all make a mad dash from the bus or the car to our homes, slam the door behind us, and make a mug of hot chocolate?
Not that I’d blame anybody for that decision. Because it really is cold.
I just wondered…as I sat inside sipping my own hot chocolate.
Blogger: Pursuing a Christ-centered, creative, curious, slightly quirky, slow-down life and sharing it with you, post after post. (Home of Food on Fridays).
Author: Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families
Content Editor: The High Calling (Family/Parenting)
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