The One About Commnity

     Community.  This topic keeps coming up in my life.  It comes up in my Theology class.  It comes up in my conversations with friends. It comes up in sermons at church.  It just keeps on popping up and in my experience, if something keeps on popping up, God is nudging me to explore the ins and outs of it.

     Community seems to be something that most people are lacking.  Even in the church and family communities, people are too busy to make connections.  We work side by side; we share smiles; we share pleasantries.  We rarely go deeper and show who we are.  We rarely allow ourselves to open up.  Life has taught us that people are untrustworthy. We have to protect ourselves from being hurt.  People fail us time and time again and walls are built higher and higher each time.  This breaks down the opportunity for true community.


          The book of Acts depicts a true community:

So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added. They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Reverential awe came over everyone, and many wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles. All who believed were together and held everything in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need. Every day they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and humble hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved.

     Today's life isn't set up for this type of community.  However, community is still achievable.  If people can put themselves out there; not be easily offended; be gracious, kind and giving; and follow the Lord's example, community is achievable.  
 
     A friend recently challenged me by saying "now the question becomes are you to search for it [community] or be the facilitator?"  It is *hard* for me to be a facilitator.  It goes against my introverted core to put myself on the line even by simply inviting someone to dinner.  But I am going to take steps to seek opportunities to facilitate it more and see what comes of it...

The Rocking My Baby to Sleep One

As a parent, every day you're faced with the choice of how to parent numerous times/day whether you realize it or not.  The 3 y/o has a massive meltdown and you have to choose to ignore it, redirect, address it, or discipline it.  I've written before how important it is to assess each situation that arises because sometimes you can easily "cure" the problem by realizing that they are just really hungry or tired or stressed & all it takes is a snack or a kind word to calm them.   People who feel bad, act bad... so sometimes it's as easy as a gentle reminder and hug to calm them down.

Last night I ran into such a situation.  My 4 y/o was completely melting down over the fact that my 9 y/o wouldn't talk her before they went to sleep.  Lights out had already happened and 9 y/o was sleepy from a sleepover the night before. I was already in bed because I haven't been feeling well... gluten withdrawal.  Matt went in and tried to calm 4 y/o down, but she wasn't having it, so I went in. I realized that over the past 2 days we have been out of the house 14 hrs on Friday & 8 on Saturday.  Late nights and crazy schedules had pushed her over the edge.  So I scooped her up in my arms and carried her downstairs.  I rocked her and sang to her as she clung to me.  Within 30 seconds I felt her body relax.  Within 3 minutes I heard her soft sleepy breathing. Withing 5 minutes she was completely out.  I carried her upstairs and tucked her in where her sister was already fast asleep.

I realized how differently that could have gone if I had gotten upset with her (which has happened, believe me!) or if I had told 9 y/o to talk to her for a while.  It could have changed the whole situation.  I've always tried to make a point of calmly putting the kids to bed at night.  Oh, we've had those frustrating nights where I'm ready to pull my hair out, but I feel that kids get a deeper & most restful sleep if their bedtime is calm & relaxing.  *I* certainly don't sleep well if I'm full of turmoil.

I'm just thankful that we, as parents, have the ability to assess each situation individually and go from there.  There's no absolute rule that you must do 'x' every time the child does 'y'.  Don't believe it when the books tell you there is.  Each child, each situation, each parent is different than another, so why would there be one "pat answer" to fix everything?!  Consistency, Grace, Discipline & Kindness.... those will get you far in parenting in my opinion.

The Lost One on Discipline

I found this post that I started a year ago and never finished... weird.  :)  It sounds good tho. :P No idea why I didn't finished..

Parenting is a game & you have to be wise enough to figure out the next play. You have to know which battles to pick.  What is the underlying heart reason your child is acting out? Is it truly a heart issue or is there some other reason that your child is acting out? 

My previous post about KT and the bonding time really made me think about these things.  Are are definite times where discipline is needed and warranted.  Times when they need to be removed from the situation.  Having worked with children since I was 12, I've seen so many types of discipline techniques, personalities and parenting ways.  To be honest, before I had children I thought I had it all figured out.  Then I had children and everything *I* knew flew out the window. I realized I needed to seek the Lord more. It's way more than just discipline. 

Too many parents are afraid to discipline these days.  I don't know why, but I see it a lot.  People don't seem to be teaching their children to be respectful.  They drop their kids off at events and wipe their hands clean of them for that hour or two.  Ahh... relief from the children is nice, but in the end your child is your responsibility.  Nobody else has been given the commission from God to raise your children.  

The Busy One

I haven't blogged in a while again.  I had lofty goals of keeping up with blogging, but man oh man, I'm strung right out with craziness.

 Here's how my busiest day goes w/ my "handful":

1. Up around 6:30 to see the hubster for a few minutes
2. Kiddos up at 7.  Breakfast & then school time starts. 
3. See 6th grader off for trumpet lessons. 
4. School the first grader for about an hour to an hour and a half.
5. See 4th grader off for flute lessons
6. Read to and "do school" with the preschooler. 
7. Snack at 10. 
8. Check over 4th, 5th and 6th graders work as needed.  Correct/teach things to them.
9. Check on laundry/dishes/housework and do what I can. 
10. Have lunch.
11. Leave for work 
12. Work until 5:30
13. Set up classrooms at church for clubs. 
14. Either help teach a class or work. 
15. Home around 8:45 pm
16. Tuck kids in
17. Spend time with hubster
18. Crash. 

Then there are the days we are scooting off to ballet or to homeschool group or church functions.  Is it any wonder that I'm exhausted?! 

The One With Pros & Cons of Having a Large Family

Pros
*They have each other to play with.
*They help each other out.
*In order to run the house smoothly, children in large families tend to learn responsibility sooner. Mom doesn't cater to their every whim/need when there are 4 others needing her as well.
*The olders help school the youngers, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
*The olders teach the youngers responsibility & respect.
*The youngers teach the olders patience, grace & kindness.
*They are rarely bored because there is someone else to play with.
*If they ARE bored, there's plenty of chores to do!

Cons
*They share germs so a simple 24 hr bug can last for ddaaayyys... or even weeks in some cases.
*They eat a lot... time to own a small farm to keep up with their food intake!
*Sometimes one gets left out and that is the end of the world for them... so heartbreaking.
*If one learns a bad habit, you have to undo it in all of them & that takes time.

Mostly, the pros waay outweigh the cons & I LOVE having a large family.

For fun... here's a summer picture of my handful...

The One About The Broken World

I don't have anything amazing to say about the recent events in the news.  I don't have a son that I can write an article about or the gift of turning traditional Christmas poems into a poem of comfort. I'm just a Mom who is heartbroken over the recent events.

I have a son who is the age of the children in that class.  I cannot tell you how many times since Friday that my eyes have welled up with tears as I watched him playing without a care in the world. His laugh, his joy, his creativity has always warmed me.

 My heart is broken for the families of the children who were lost.  No laughter on Christmas morning, no giggles and yelps of delight as they open their gifts.  Even the families who have surviving children will not experience it in the same way.  Everything will be a reminder of the children who are missing from their homes.

 A friend & I were texting about this earlier and it really struck me that we live in such a broken world.  It's been broken from the moment Eve took that step & listened to the Devil instead of to the Lord. It was *so* broken, God destroyed it with a flood.  It was *so* broken that God sent his Son to make the ultimate sacrifice to take away the brokenness and restore the life that God created the world to be.  And one day He will send His son back to claim it for His own. He will take away the brokenness and restore it to the beauty, fullness & perfection it was back on Day 1.

It's hard to watch the news, to read the news, to listen to the stories & see the smiling faces of those little ones.  I'm thankful for the reminder that one of our pastors gave us today.  It's ok to mourn.  Jesus wept with Lazarus' family even tho He KNEW He would raise Lazarus from the dead.  He wept with them because he mourned with those who mourn.  It's ok for us to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep.  Even if we don't know them, it's ok to hurt with those who hurt.

The One About An App

I don't usually blog about iPad apps, but today, I want to share this one. And it'll take more than a Facebook post, so I'm posting here. :)

   I found an app called iallowance. Matt and I looked it over and decided it was worth the $4 to try it out. I love it!  In this app you can create a profile for each child. Under that profile you can make a list of all the chores that child has. You can put the chores on a rotating basis, which is great for me because I rotate the kids through chores every 4 weeks. You can choose if the chores are rewarded with stars or with $. If they are rewarded with stars, you can have those stars go to a bigger reward. For example, when my kids earn 100 stars, they get a special day  :)

   You can  also keep track of their allowance on this. It reminds me of online banking. You can set up as many banks as you want.  I set up a savings, spending and tithe bank for each of the kids. I entered the amount of their weekly allowance and split it between the banks. 10% to tithe, 25% to savings and the rest goes into spending $.

    The last awesome thing is that you can set up a negative "chore"that they need to work on doing better at and they will get negative points if they do it wrong. That doesn't make much sense... For example, I have one child who leaves the door open all the time. So I set it up so that when he leaves the door open, it deducts .10 from his spending money.

   I've had an iPod for a year and an iPad for 8 mos & this is the first time I've gotten really excited about an app. Talk about making my life easier!  It keeps track of chores and allowance for me!  And the kids like it so far. (Except the deducting $ part.)