strong-willed children

dear emily,

james dobson saved my life with our strong willed daughter, shelby.  he encouraged me to not look at her nature as a trial but as a life with a strong purpose.  truthfully, though there were difficult aspects in raising such a strong will, the benefits dramatically outweighed the obstacles.

who would you rather have on your team, the person who doesn't really care or the one who knows the best way to win?

she really had the most brilliant ideas and constantly implored me to do better. i wish i had discovered earlier that her opposition to many things stemmed from her ability to improve ...almost everything i did. unfortunately, it never dawned on me that a three year old had a finer sense of schedules, clothing, cooking, cleaning, etc. than her mother!

no children's expert ever said, "some of you have children that can help you be a better mother." they all said, "whatever you do, make sure your strong willed child knows that you are the boss!"  so, one time i asked her in exasperation, "who do you think is the boss around here?"

she calmly replied, "me."

i wish i had just given her the car keys right then.

so, here is the balance.   she needed to know not only that mom and dad were the ultimate bosses but also that her opinions were valued and occasionally implemented.

a wise person once told us to never ask a child to do something or not to do something unless we were prepared to back it up.   this forced hans and i to think before we said things.   if we asked shelby to pick up her room, and she didn't do it, she had a consequence.  if she ran into the street after we told her not to, there was another consequence.

in spite of my many mistakes, shelby is now a precious young woman of God.  your little samara will be, too!

love,
lea

1 timothy 4:12

'don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity.'

saved by the blanket

dear emily,

i performed many crazy experiments on my children. they suffered through my extreme health craze, no TV phase (for three or four years), and fanatical 'no santa' syndrome. i feel embarrassed about some of them, but am the most mystified by the blanket trick, because i only know of one other person who ever taught this to their toddlers.

there were many older women who gave me excellent child-rearing advice, but one surpassed them all. she taught me that you can spend all your time running around cleaning up messes and saving your kids from dangerous situations. but it is wiser to put that time to good use by training them to do something...like little german shepherds! jk

she said that if i were to train my little puppies to sit on a blanket with special toys and books for a couple of minutes a day, they would become accustomed to it. then i would be able to take them anywhere, and they would feel safe with their blanket and not be so fidgety.

basically they could learn 'to stay' on the blanket.

yeah, right.

being the maniacal mother that i was, i tried it. i bought the most colorful,
soft blanket i could find and four or five new toys. then, i sat down beside
my toddler and said that we could only play with those special toys while
we sat on that blanket. after two or three minutes, i picked up the toys
and blanket and told him we could play with them again the next day.

that was the hard part, because he really liked those new toys! but
toddlers, like puppies, are easily distracted. i re-enacted this little
routine everyday, increasing the time to about fifteen minutes, until he
even sat by himself. if he got up off the blanket, i simply withdrew the
toys for the next day.  (pavlov's bell) :)

i kid you not, in a week's time, i would say, "max, play on the blanket with
your toys," and he did it! hans and i could take any of our five kiddos
anywhere, with that blanket, and they were happy as clams....for ten or
fifteen minutes. honestly, ten or fifteen minutes of peace was worth the
hours of training! when the children were older, three or four, i did not
subject them to the indignity of blanket sitting. this was just a toddler tool.

i would wait until the 'witching hour', fifteen minutes before hans came
home when the children were bored to tears with me, to pull out the
blanket. then i could breathe a big sigh of relief, because i knew the
ultimate 'blanket' was about to walk in the door.

can't think of a single scripture for this...umm, gideon, i think, put out a
blanket as a fleece before the Lord about a battle...judges 6:36-39

little boys

dear emily,

don't you just adore little boys? there is something about their carefree, ornery zest for life that just slays me. i love that you let asa and phin get just as dirty as they need to play as hard as they should. nothing is more winsome than a dirt-smudged smile and an excited high-pitched voice saying, "mommy, look what i found for you!" it's also a little scary...a flower from your garden or a snake from the creek?

it is pretty adorable, too, how much they revere their daddies. my boys used to watch out the front window for hans to return home and then tackle him at the door. no matter how tired he was, he would throw them over his shoulder and hurl them onto the couch. this was the signal for 'chinese team!' the shrieks of laughter would increase and someone would inevitably get hurt, but what fun they had playing this mysterious game.

their natures are wired to hunt, gather, and protect. i'm not sure if 'chinese team' taught them much more than that they had to be a little tough to play and that their daddy loved them a lot. when isaac was three, he used to pretend to be samson between a column and the couch. he would close his eyes and say, "let me die with the philistines!", imagining that he was bringing the whole house down.

we don't know what the Lord has specifically planned for our sons, but we can prepare them for most anything by teaching them that He loves them even more than their daddies do and that He will equip them for any task. we can pray that they will be valiant and courageous, with hearts turned toward the Lord and wills bent to obey.

ezekiel 22:30

'i looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap...'

beauty

dear emily,

i was a plain, introverted little girl, completely content to be left alone to read 'black beauty' and 'little women.'...until the fateful day i discovered make-up! before the annual church choir banquet, my gorgeous mother applied the tiniest bit of mascara to my pale, lifeless, puny lashes.

it was the most amazing thing to watch a skinny, homely girl turn into a choir queen! i actually did win that title at the church banquet (what kind of a church has a choir queen?) it was heartbreaking to wash off my beauty that night before i went to bed, and the next day at school, i kept wanting to tell all the kids, "you don't understand, i really AM beautiful!"

the good news was that i still had 'black beauty.'

hans and i decided, before we even had girls, that we would never speak to them about their looks. we wanted them to be confident in who God made them to be and not in how He made them to appear. we worried that if we extolled their 'outside', they might neglect their 'inside'.

1 peter 3:3,4 'your beauty should not come from outward adornment...instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.'

i have a dear friend whose mother wouldn't allow her to fast in high school, because she worried about the health risk. so my intrepid friend barbie fasted makeup one day a week...in HIGH SCHOOL! needless to say, she is a mighty woman of God.

even with our good intentions, when the girls hit high school and saw us as the ignorant, annoying people we were, we threw out our principles and shouted desperately, 'we think you're beautiful!'

a cup of cold water

dear emily,

i just read margaret jones' witty and sensible posting on being sane and single. she has the spirit of jane austen in her!

in responding to your worries about being a wise and loving mommy to your four precious children, i have been prodded back to sweet days that i treasure. oh, to have one of my little ones bouncing on my knee again! thankfully, i occasionally have yours to fill that role.

hans used to tell me that i was a cup of cold water to our children. most days i felt like lukewarm dishwater! there was never an end to diapers to be changed, meals to be prepared, or knees to be bandaged and kissed. after falling into the rocker to nurse the baby, an older child would inevitably want me to read him a story or get him a cup of water.

that is when i felt the weakest and most impatient. i would lean into the
Lord and ask for strength and grace, and He would amply supply that
need. then we would settle into another chapter of "the fantastic mr. fox"
...and fill another cup of water.

and, of course, He would fill another cup for me, too.

matthew 10:42

'if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, i tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

lilies of the field

i have been encouraged to take a weekly sabbath rest from blogging,
and i like the idea.  in lieu of a new post, i will be re-posting an old
one.

lilies of the field . . .  october 31, 2009

when i was in highschool, all the kids listened to fleetwood mac, james taylor, or kenny loggins, but i idolized barbra streisand. it was so uncool that i didn't tell anyone besides my boyfriend, who promptly bought me four of her albums.

i, of course, married him.

i recently read a quote of barbra's, "i always wear the same thing at home. i can't be bothered with jewelry. my pants have elastic waists. i like to be comfortable." now she is totally my idol.

sometimes i'm afraid my kids will turn me into "what not to wear". stacy and clinton would have a field day with my uniform of sweat pants and oversized denim shirts.

there were only two hard and fast fashion rules in our home, modesty and well, modesty. shelby was the basketball trainer in highschool just as low rise jeans became popular. i told her that anytime i saw skin between her shirt and jeans at the basketball games, she would have to pay me two dollars. 

we didn't purchase expensive handbags, etc. for the girls, because it seemed foolish to allow them to think that fashion was that important. the boys, on the other hand, did wear 'michael jordans'. such a double standard!

when the kids were little, they mostly looked like little street urchins
from fagin's band of pick-pockets.    i sort of liked them that way.  

we wanted those little urchins to know that what you wear is less
important than what is in your heart.

matthew 6:28

'consider the lilies of the field, how they neither toil or spin, yet i tell
you, even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'

love,
lea