Grace

If you're anything like me, grace seems like an abstract, impossible notion to effectively give in the realm of parenting. I mean, what does that look like? We have to walk this complicated, intricate balance of how to pour out grace on our children, all the while maintaining a lesson of life: there are consequences for your actions.

I don't by any means, claim to have the "know-how" when it comes to parenting. I'm just like everyone else, doing the best that I can. That being said, I feel like today my heart had a little lightbulb moment when it comes to grace.

My daughter asked me if she could make dinner. She has been reading a book about meals that people eat in different countries and asked if she could try one of them. There was an easy smoothie recipe (that supposedly hails from Australia), and she asked if that could be our dinner. I said sure! and we proceeded to make the smoothies together. We washed and cut up apples, mango, bananas, limes, and threw in some blueberries for good measure. Lolli was tasked with getting the blender out (yes, I'm one of "those people" who store the small appliances they don't routinely use in a cupboard). She started to move it to the counter and dropped it. Then she picked it up and dropped it again (maybe she wasn't certain if it broke on the first drop? hehe). Slippery fingers? I'm not certain. I was busy cutting up apples.

Let me allow you to glimpse into the mind of mothers. We are constantly cleaning up messes. Our things are dropped, broken, spilled on, stained, destroyed. It's almost like children see something that parents love and they immediately have a robot-like need to destroy it. Because of this, mother's don't always handle broken things with grace. Sure, there are those freak-of-nature-June-Cleavers (who I am convinced are really sociopaths, hence their ability to show no angry emotions when their children destroy things) that say all of the perfect things, but for the majority of Mom's in the world the response is generally something like: WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!?! AAAAHHHH! YOU DROPPED IT! IT'S BROKEN! YOU DON'T HAVE ANY SHOES! SOMEBODY GET ME SOME SHOES!!!! AND THE BROOM! And then we proceed to angrily, frustratedly, perhaps silently (but usually this is that scary angry mom silence...), clean up the mess that our children have made.

On this day, I did not overreact. I said Is it broken? She said I don't think so. Dad investigated and it was. So I said Maybe Daddy will go to Walmart and get a new one and then we can finish making our smoothies. Grace. Grace poured out. And maybe that's what parental grace is supposed to be. It's not "letting it slide in grace" when our children behave like criminals (and let's be honest, children really basically behave like criminals almost daily: violence-hitting, biting, scratching, stealing-grabbing whatever toy they want when they want it, lying under oath-if I have to explain this one to you then you clearly do NOT have children, and on and on), but rather giving grace when the accidents come. Maybe grace is having the self control to recognize the things out of our children's control, and not behaving in a life-long-emotionally-detrimental way. Maybe grace looks like going to Walmart to get a new blender. Maybe grace is not being pissed when they spill (and mash) blueberries into your brand new couch. Maybe it's allowing them the freedom to destroy, fall apart, and then being the platform from which they can put things back together again.

So today I had a glimpse into how grace should show up in my home a whole lot more.

Spock and Princesses

I live in a world that I've created for myself. It's filled to the brim with meetings, tasks, events. It's an overloaded calendar and a way-too busy schedule. It's a sea of stress and over exertion.

Today I looked up and my eye caught the gaze of one of my children. She was standing about ten feet away from me, watching. I was busily working away at the computer. Emails, homeschool lesson plans, facebook pages all demanded my attention and I "needed" to get it done.

Come and play with me, Mommy.

My instinct was to say Just a minute and the truth is on any other day that's probably what I would have said. More than likely I would have said it in an irritated tone that hinted at "How dare you interrupt me?" But for whatever reason that I can't possibly give myself credit for, I got up. I walked over to her, smiled and picked her up. I spun her around and she laughed and laughed in the way that only she is capable of doing. She kissed my cheek and I stared into her brown eyes. She had a small patch of her curly hair over her eyes, between her glasses and her face. I brushed that aside and said You are SO beautiful. She proceeded to Vulcan Death grip me. I reminded her that I am immune and in my most serious super villain voice I said BUT YOU ARE NOT!!! MWA HA HA HA!

She jumped down, screamed and ran off down the hallway. She did so, in a beautiful tone that hinted at "Come and chase me Mommy!" I happily obliged, and turned myself into a Star Trek bad-gal out to get Ms. Spock (that's who she likes to be).

When it was all said and done I had this overwhelming sense in my heart that this is what I want them to remember about me. I want them to reflect back on their childhood and remember that Mommy got up from whatever it was that she was "SO busy with" and played. Even if she didn't feel like it. I want them to remember us playing with legos, barbies, and baby dolls. I want them to remember pillow fights, Sardines, and dog-piles. I want them to at least know, for a period of time that I hope to make last as long as possible, that they are safe, they are adored, they matter. Especially since reality will come in like a hurricane one day and tell them the opposite of all of those things. When it comes, it will chip away at their foundation, and I want to have built up enough of it to be able to withstand the destructive components of "you suck" that wash over children in puberty.

I want them to believe me when I tell them about how much God loves them, because I have lived a life that has shown them how much I love them.

I can't give myself credit for getting up and playing Spock. I have no idea why I did it. But for a moment, however brief it was, and how little it damaged my unending to-do list from being completed, I made my six year old brown-eyed girl feel like the center of my world. It cost me nothing, but it gave my heart so much joy.

Thanksgiving Breakfast

It's Thanksgiving Day! In honor of this, my favorite holiday, I will share one of my secret recipes with you. Enjoy!

My attempt at food photography

Apple Cranberry Oatmeal (AKA Thanksgiving Breakfast)

Ingredients:

Oats (I prefer not instant)

3-4 large apples (I use Golden apples)

1/2 Cup Prepared cranberry sauce (you can also use canned, if you didn't make your own. It doesn't matter if it's jellied or not)

1 TBSP Cinnamon

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup of butter

Prepare Oats per package instructions. I make enough to feed six people.

Finely dice apples. You can peel the apples, but I do not. Melt butter in a saucepan on the stove. Bring butter to boiling, and immediately add the apples. Cook for 1-2 minutes while the butter is boiling. Reduce heat to low-med. Add brown sugar and cinnamon. Stir. Leave apples to simmer on the stove for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove apples from heat. Add cranberry sauce to apples and stir well to combine. Pour over prepared Oats and enjoy!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

Shining like the dawn

Do you have kids afraid of the dark? I have one who has apparently inherited that awful experience. She is terrified of the dark, and in true-to-how-her-mother-was fashion, she is almost always sleeping in bed with her sister (remember Jo!?).

Last night the hallway light, bathroom light, basically every light the kid had the bravery to get up and turn on, was on when my husband got up to go to work (his exact words: our room was lit up like the sun was shining this morning when I got up). They weren't on when we went to bed, so we know someone got up and turned them on. This prompted a conversation with my kids this morning:

Me: Did someone get up and turn on the bathroom and hallway lights last night?
Charchee: (hand up) I did.
Me: Why did you do that?
Charchee: Because I was scared.
Me: Thank you for admitting that you did it. But do you know why we need to not do that? It is very important that we think very carefully about everything we're using on our planet. When we leave lights on while we sleep, we waste resources that could have been used to do something else.
Charchee: Well I was scared.
Me: What are you scared of?
Charchee: The dark.
Me: What about the dark?
Charchee: The monsters in the dark. Well, at least I think there are monsters in the dark, but they're not real.
Me: How do you know they're not real? Did you ask them?
Charchee: WHAT!? Ask them? 
Me: Yeah! Why don't you ask them if they're real!
Charchee: (laughs)
Me: Listen, the world is filled with all sorts of beautiful things that come JUST when you're scared. They're called angels. Angels come in the darkness and they keep watch over you. Maybe those monsters you've been seeing are really angels hanging out in your room! But if you turn the lights on, then the angels hide.
Charchee: Why would an angel come in my room?
Me: Maybe they want to check out your really neat angel halloween costume!
Charchee: WWWWHHHHHAAAATTTT! (laughing) I bet they really like it and they want it!
Me: Maybe you'll be able to catch them tonight and then you'll know it's really angels and not monsters in your room. But you have to keep it really, really dark or you won't be able to see them!
Charchee: Okay Mommy. I'm going to look for them.

I think as parents our instinct is to tell children things are not there or real. But that's simply not accurate. Whether you believe in God or not, there are presences that come and surround us all the time. For some people it's ghosts, for others angels/demons, deceased family members, or it's the dreams and ambitions of a creative mind. Whatever you believe, I think that telling a child there is no such thing as monsters is ludicrous. Maybe my creative child, actually sees monsters in the darkness. Maybe the best thing is to teach our frightened children that scary things really do exists, but there are tools to handle them.

In our home I want to teach my children to understand the things they can not see. There is so much to believe in that is not something we can physically touch or feel. While I absolutely wish my child was not afraid of the dark, I am thankful for the opportunity to dive into this scary experience and show her how awesome the unseen things can actually be. So awesome, in fact, that they're scary ;)

Cleaning with Kids

I am almost constantly amazed at how quickly a completely clean home can go to filth. I'm not talking about messiness, I'm talking about filth. We have a rule in our home that every morning we all spend 20 minutes cleaning during the week. All five of us (not six because Dad is off doing his keeping-our-nation-safe-Army stuff) get up, turn on some music (I almost always let the kiddos pick), and get to work.

Each day the workload is bit different. Some times it's sweeping, dusting, mopping, picking up, tidying up, organizing, scrubbing, etc etc. Some days it's bathrooms, other days it's the coloring box (we have a box where all of the kids' colored creations go and we occasionally have to go through and purge what isn't very important, and then set aside what is important to go in the end of year coloring book). 

Today on the menu was an actual cleaning of my house. I kid you not that the house has been cleaned for an hour and already there is dog hair collecting in the corner. I'm beginning to believe that my Chocolate lab sees a clean floor, goes over to the corner, sheds what looks like enough hair to make a woolen sweater, and then walks off. Is this the dog version of marking their presence? You know, like how single individuals will leave an item of theirs in their significant others' home/vehicle/stuff. He's not allowed to pee in the house so maybe this is second best!?

Our other dog quickly got to work tearing apart his dog toy so that the stuffing would be all over the floor. Maybe he's trying to create the appearance of snow. The only problem with that theory is that he's 8 weeks old. He has no idea what snow looks like. :-/

My home looks funny to me right now. With the new pup in the house, all of the rugs have been removed from the floor. Don't judge me, do you want to clean up puppy accidents from a shag rug? I didn't think so. Now, to be fair, he has had almost no accidents in the house. He is an excited pee-er so occasionally a droplet will come out when he's SO happy to see you in the morning. But even that is pretty uncommon. He is quite genuinely the world's greatest puppy. But, until I am 100% certain that he is solidly beyond those days (and me and Hubs are solid on his cues, body languages, and signs) the rugs will stay rolled up in the corner of my living room, looking funny.

Well, I'm off to sweep the floor for the second time today! Hope you're having a wonderful Halloween and that you have an awesome "Holy Night" tonight (Halloween = Hallow's Eve = Holy Night).