Prayers of my Children #1

"God, help us not to be enticed by evil but to look to you for help in all things."

Thomas, 4/29/13, in response to Proverbs 1.

It's All in Your Perspective

I work with some amazing people. I really do. So it should come as no surprise that they have some amazing kids. One of these amazing kids is little M. She's in kindergarten this year.

After doing her homework, her mom told her to put it on the table and she would check it. Well imagine her mother's surprise when she found this:

Of course everyone had a good laugh over it. "But Moooooom, my teacher KNOWS pigs poop!" But it got me thinking. Here this little 5 year old was asked to draw a picture to show how she arrived at her answer. And she drew exactly what she visualized - a pen with 4 pigs in it is obviously going to contain some poop! And once she had her picture drawn, she was able to go look at the illustration and find the answer, which she got correct. But all the adults could focus on was the fact that she added pig poop to make her drawing more realistic.

How many times do we do that in every day life? We have a tendency to focus on what is wrong with the picture and not what is right. We want to completely change the picture, to make it more acceptable or correct. But what if in order to answer the question we need all the details, even the more unpleasant ones?

Sometimes you just have to look past the poop to solve the problem.

Spook Towne, USA

(Yes, it's December and I'm posting about Halloween. I just went back into drafts and found this)

We had a Spooktacular Halloween this year, even though my little goblins were bummed because I told them they are now too old to go Trick or Treating. But it's ok, Pinterest and Nana to the rescue! 

Mummies in a blanket, witch hat pizzas, Jack-o-Lantern fruit cups

Bubbling cauldrons and Witches' Brew. Who knew they sold dry ice at the grocery store?!

Dracula made a guest appearance.

We even played Halloween bingo

and Stick the Spider in the Web!

If you want to see the recipes we used, they are all in my Halloween board on Pinterest.

Why Furby is Evil

And no, it's not because it costs $60 (?!?!).

Thomas has to leave the room every time the Furby commercial comes on. And it's not even because I'm trying to convince him that there is no way that thing can possibly be worth that much of my hard earned money. (Although seriously? There is no way I would pay that much for that thing. If you are planning to, I'm not judging you, I'm just saying that's too much for something they are gonna play with for 30 hours and then be over it)

No, if it's one of my boys and a phobia, you know there has to be some hilarious back story to it. Because, let's face it, I am pretty darn good at creating ridiculous phobias in my children!

So what happened was, when Thomas and Steven were toddlers (probably around 3 and 4), we drug down all my old stuffed animals from the attic. And in the bin was my old Furby. Steven of course fell in love with it because it was a stuffed animal. Yes, he has very high standards for judging stuffed animals to love and never part with. Something along of the lines of a) is it somewhat soft and b) do I already own the exact same thing (note - variations of even the slightest degree from an already owned and loved stuffed animal qualify it as "different" and therefore eligible for being adopted into the stuffed animal herd).

Anyway, we tried to make Furby work again. Cleaned the contacts, new batteries, I think my Dad might have even gotten into its "guts" and worked on the circuit board in an effort to make Furby work. But Furby just wasn't having it after a decade of living in a Rubbermaid bin in the attic. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that Furby just wasn't going to do cool stuff and went on about life.

But Furby had other plans.

At some point we noticed that Thomas was avoiding the room that Furby (Now renamed "Kirby", sorry to my dear cousin Kirby who is not, in any way evil) now lived in. And that, in fact, he would walk around the dresser and distance himself as far as possible from Kirby at all times. Kirby was living in my kids' playroom over at Nona and PawPaw's house. We call it "The Land of Yes" for a reason, so there were any number of things on that dresser that could have been the source of the phobia. But it was pretty much confirmed that Kirby was the root of the problem when Steven got it down to play with and Thomas came running out of the room like a cat on a 3am crack high.

Well if you know Steven, you know what happened next.

Did my darling sweet child throw Kirby in the garbage? Stuff him in a pillowcase? Vow to rid the world of Kirby and his evilness?

Nope.

He proceeded to goad Thomas with Kirby every chance he got. Hide behind the door and stick Kirby out as Thomas walked in? Check! Put Kirby in Thomas' bag of toys? Check! Walk up behind Thomas and put Kirby on Thomas' shoulder? Check!

Now of course, wonderful parent that I am, I think that the whole "Thomas is afraid of a dead Furby" phobia is hilarious. And while I certainly didn't encourage Steven's mission to scar his brother for life, I probably could have done a little more to DIScourage it (translation: if I hadn't been laughing so dang hard, Steven probably would have stopped after a couple days of scares).

Now you are probably wondering why Thomas was freaking out over a dead Furby. I mean yeah, it has those freaky eyes and such, but dead Furbys from the 90's have closed eyes. I just chalked it up to it being one of Thomas' "things" and left it at that.

Then we discovered the REAL problem.

One day my mom was sitting in her living room and heard singing coming from the playroom. The kids were not there, and hadn't been there for a day or two. She went in to investigate. There was Kirby, rocking back and forth, humming a little tune to himself, all WITHOUT having been activated. Kirby was working again all right, but only when KIRBY wanted to work. You couldn't turn him on, and you couldn't turn him off. He would just spontaneously do his Kirby thing.

Imagine you are about 4 years old. You are spending the night with your grandparents. And in the middle of the night, this freaking thing on a dresser high above your little head starts singing, swaying back and forth, and talking in some unknown language. Well no wonder the kid was terrified of it!

He was probably at least 7 before he could even look at that thing without freaking out.

At least that's ONE item he WON'T be begging for at Christmas! Though I wouldn't put it past Steven to ask for one just to torture him with it....

Thomas and the Floor Mats

Sweet Tea. It's bad for kids. But good for community and spiritual growth.

If you give a kid a sweet tea in the backseat of your brand new-to-you minivan on a hot day, there is about a 75% chance of that tea getting dropped into the floorboard of said brand new-to-you minivan. Hopefully you will retain your composure enough to a) not cause a wreck and b) not beat your kid after you get pulled over so you can attempt to mop up the soggy mess until you can get home to clean it out. Oh and of course you will have 3 napkins and a used kleenex to do this with.

Anyway.

When we got home, Thomas had to take the floor mat out and scrub it so the mess wouldn't get worse. And since it's a gorgeous day outside, that means bare feet and dish soap in the driveway.

So we drag out the mat (Ewww it's all sticky and gross!!!) and turn on the hose (Mom, why is the water spraying everywhere around the trigger thing? A gasket? What the heck is a gasket?!) and proceed to wet the mat.

"Now Thomas, " I tell him, in my best Mom the Teacher voice, "you need to wet the mat down first with the mist setting, then put some dish soap on it and scrub the whole mat with the brush, and then rinse the soap and dirt away. Then we'll leave it in the sun to dry and it will be good as new."

So I go in the house for five minutes because I know he's going to get completely soaked and I'll be fighting the urge to tell him he's doing it wrong. (I mean seriously Leah, how can you wash a floor mat wrong, cut the kid some slack)

When I come back out he is just finishing up rinsing it.

"Oh hey Mom," he greets me, with his best Thomas the Responsible Preteen voice, "I'm almost finished washing the mat. But I bet you are wondering why I changed the setting on the hose." I wasn't, I was actually wondering how he managed to get more water on himself than on the mat and driveway combined. "Well you see, we started out with mist, and that was all well and fine and all, but once we started scrubbing up the mess with the soap and the brush, the mist wasn't going to wash all the soap off the mat, and what it DOES wash off isn't going to take the dirt with it. So I switched to the full setting. This setting lets me get straight to the soap and dirt and get them out of the carpet but it doesn't blast the carpet into smithereens like the jet setting would do. It's just like Pastor Brian was saying at church this morning. When you are dealing with people in community, sometimes things get messy, just like when I dropped the tea in the car. So you have to help them clean it up. But you can't just dance around the problem they have and you can't just blast them with 'you need to do this to fix your problem, so just do it'. You have to use the right setting to help them clean up their mess."

When did he grow up so much?!

I am so very thankful that God has placed us where he has, in a community of believers who love my family and pour the truth of the Gospel into them. Who invest their time and talents into us. And who aren't afraid to use the full setting to help us get the sweet tea out of our floor mat lives.

The Life Stages of Humans

"Mom, I want to tell you something. We have figured out the Life Stages of Humans."

Well coming from my kids, you know this ought to be good.

Deadliest Catch

Well, my kid brought home a permission slip so I signed it. Then I asked what it was for.

Oh.

It was permission to bring home these guys from his school science kit.

You might not be able to tell, but yes, those are fiddler crabs.

Well, if we are going to be crab owners, we might as well have fun with it, right? So I cobbled together some basic supplies and prayed for my child's sake they would make it through the weekend.

Well considering I did 17 minutes of research on Google and the fact that I have seen all 7 seasons of Deadliest Catch on Netflix, we should be good to go, right? Please note, if you haven't watched Deadliest Catch, the rest of this post is going to make you wonder if I am on crack, because it is NOT going to make any sense.

S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G B-E-E

BOTH my boys are in the school spelling bee this year. Yay!

(Teachers I work with might want to skip the next paragraph)

This is funny to me because:
a) spelling is not something we practice at home
b) I think spelling homework past 2nd grade or so is a complete waste of time
c) The only reason I make them do spelling homework is because they need to learn to do what the person in authority tells them to do, even if they don't see the point in it.

Now of course my KIDS don't know how I feel about spelling homework. They think they better do it and do it well each and every day. But I'm pretty sure there have been times they turned it in incomplete or misspelled because I didn't bother to do more than glance to see they had attempted it before signing off on it.

Anyway, back to the spelling bee.

Open Letter #17

Dear Parent of Screaming 2 1/2 year Old Standing in My Lobby,

Your child is wailing like a 3 month old baby. I had to look twice to make sure you didn't also have a young infant in here.

At 2 1/12 years old, your child is more than capable of vocalizing to you his needs and wants. The fact that he is pulling on your shirt and crying like a very small infant tells me that when he throws a fit like this at home he gets his way.

This is further enforced by the fact that I know first hand that your 8 year old and 6 year old respond the very same way here at school.

He's been crying like this for 23 minutes. TWENTY THREE MINUTES. Take him back out to the car until he calms down. Or find a sitter. (Or stop giving in to him when he acts like this.) This is a school. Other people's children are trying to learn. You are disrupting the learning environment.

Your kids aren't bad. It's your parenting skills.

It's Time to Grow Up Now Because You are a Mom,
The Secretary who Can't Answer the Phone Because Your Child is So Loud

Open Letter #13

Dear Mr. Shoe Store Man,

I did not appreciate the dirty looks you gave my family at your shoe store last night.

You didn't need to come back and stare at us every 20 minutes like we were trying to steal your shoes. You better believe if I am going to pay $65 a pair for shoes my kids will destroy in 3 months and outgrow in 6, I am going to make darn sure they fit first.

This means that yes, I am going to make you remove the giant circle thing in the shoe so I can see if the shoe fits properly. And yes, I am going to have my kids walk around the store in them. And maybe even jog a teensy bit. This is why you put the kids shoes at the BACK, remember? So all the loud, romping children would be out of sight of the rest of your customers?

My children were not all that bad, by the way. We threw our trash away and they even went back up to the counter with each pair that didn't fit so they could be retagged with your anti-theft device. How many people do that, huh?! AND they only ran a little bit. And they were quiet-ish for the most part. Certainly not screaming like banshees or running around like something out of The Exorcist or laying in the floor doing the Curly Shuffle while their parents ignored them.

Plus, it's not like you were doing a ton of business on a Tuesday night anyway. And we spent $158. So seriously? Next time try smiling and asking if you can put those shoes back for us, or offer to find us a size. Be glad you don't work for tips.

Sincerely,
Angry Mama Bear

Open Letter #11

Dear Sweet 10 1/2 Year Old Child of Mine,

Thank you for teaching me more about the love of God. Thank you for showing me how to trust God more through your example. Thank you for making me a better person.

You have a million questions and I only have about half the answers. You push me to find them, and in doing so I am able to further my own knowledge and understanding.

You make me laugh with the funny way you understand things. I think you get that from me. It's probably my fault for trying to wrap every explanation into an easy-to-relate-to scenario. This is probably why you told me heaven sounds like an episode of The Waltons. Thanks for breaking that down for me. I think we may need to revisit that particular scenario.

You have the sweetest prayers. Seriously. You can bring adults (even those OTHER than your dear old mom) to tears with the fervency and sincerity of your pleadings with God. You have such a strong faith - you don't doubt for one second that God is there and that he is listening specifically to you. I have yet to hear you pray anything for yourself. I am sure that you do, and I know that some of the things you pray for are indirectly for yourself, but you always put others first in your prayers. We're working on that being evidenced in your deeds, but I have no doubt we'll get there eventually.

The suffering of others truly bothers you. You are always outraged at injustice and want to fix it, and fix it now. Even from a very young age, you have always been compassionate towards those less fortunate than you. You are also truly color and ability blind. You don't care what other people will think or say about you. You see others the way God sees them - as special and unique individuals worthy of your time and energy. You actively seek out those who are different and strive to incorporate them into your life. That's a lesson we all could stand to learn.

Please forgive me for being short tempered with you at times. Your mom is a sinner just like the rest of the world, and sometimes that gets the best of me. I need to be more patient with you. I need to be more understanding. I need to recognize that the Son of God offered himself up on the cross as a sacrifice to save you from your sins, and that then he gave you to me to love and care for. To guide and nurture, and to point back to him on a constant basis. I know I have made many mistakes and will continue to make them, but I pray that you will forgive me for them and that God will continue to shape and mold me to be the best mom to you that I can be.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your life's story.

I love you more than you will ever know,
Your Mama

Open Letter #6

Dear 10 1/2 Year Old Child of Mine,

Please do not make a big freaking deal out of losing a tooth at dinner, complete with theatrics about blood in your mouth and how much the tooth was hurting beforehand, and then demand your Tooth Fairy money up front. Especially don't have a fit when you wake up the next morning and discover that the Tooth Fairy hasn't paid you yet for said tooth. Maybe the Tooth Fairy has been working really hard at her day job lately and was tired and went to bed right after you did and forgot about the tooth. Or maybe you were last on her list of stops and it is still technically the night because we get up at Dark Thirty every morning like your mom told you.

So when she actually DOES come after we leave for the day, the very least you could do is check and see if she ever showed up. Cause there is totally a dollar under your pillow. And the Tooth Fairy had to call in her helper, Mr. Tooth Fairy to get that dollar under there before you got home from school. And it's been 2 whole days now. And you still haven't found it.

Also, thank you for still being young and sweet enough to believe in the silly 'ol Tooth Fairy. Cause she still thinks you are an itty bitty baby who is never going to grow up and leave her one day. Even if your feet ARE bigger than hers now and your armpits are stinky.

Love,
Your Crazy Mom