parenting – Page 13 – little thoughts

time together: sensory baking

Posted on 2015-10-192015-10-21 by kristinabean

a cloudy rainy Sunday calls for baking and naps! So Rondel and I made some cardamom-spiced pear bread and wintry oatmeal cookies together while Limerick took a nap with Daddy. It is hard to make time to spend one-on-one with Rondel and this hour or so was really special for both of us.

I brought all the ingredients, utensils, and bowls down to the kitchen floor and together we poured, stirred, cracked eggs, and explored with all our senses! Rondel noticed the difference between how brown sugar and white sugar felt on his hands, and between how they poured out into the mixing bowl. (I measured the sugar out into bowls and let him dump them into the big bowl – my “little” bowls were probably too heavy, though, as he ended up dropping them into the butter.) He felt the difference between the fine powdery baking soda and the coarse grainy salt – and liked the feel of the baking soda so much that he put his whole hand in the box to feel more! He felt the cool smooth pool of vanilla and the cloudy soft pillow of flour. He felt the firm unbroken shell of the eggs, heard the crack as he hit them against the bowl, felt the sharp fragmented edges and the slippery egg white as he tried to pry them open from his little starter hole.

He tasted the oats, dry and chewy, texturally pleasant but rather bland; he tasted the walnuts, cold and crunchy from the freezer; he tasted the cranberries, tart and bright on the tongue; and he tasted the white chocolate chips and didn’t want to stop tasting them! He observed the funny folds and crevices of the walnuts, and used his imagination to see silly cars and trucks and animals in their fantastic shapes. He saw how the white flour disappeared and was absorbed into the dough as we stirred.

And what he didn’t do faded into the background, and we ignored it. Some other day he’ll want to feel the butter, help grease the bread pans, taste the creamy-grainy mix of butter and sugar, and lick the bowl with me. He can grow in his experiences in his own way, and at his own speed, and we can still have one of the best afternoons we’ve had together in a long time.

(I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want to step out of the moment with Rondel, so you’ll just have to imagine the cuteness and the mess! Sorry about that!)

family life

baby-safe edible finger paint!

Posted on 2015-10-142015-10-12 by kristinabean

This is probably one of the simplest finger-paint recipes out there (and unfortunately I can’t remember where I first saw it, to give credit for the idea). It takes literally less than a minute to mix up, and is completely safe for the baby who tends to put everything in his mouth.

From what I remember on the original site, it does also dry well on paper, but I just used it on the highchair since only Limerick was playing with it. (Rondel was camped out on the sofa resting off a fever, poor kid).

All you have to do is add some food coloring to sweetened condensed milk and voila! Perfect paint. It has just the right consistency to spread easily without running, and the colors blend together marvelously for another dimension of play and experimentation.

Rondel, with his sensory defensiveness, has never been a fan of messy play like this – he deeply dislikes the feel of anything slimy or sticky on his hands (he will play with drier things like dirt, sand, sidewalk chalk, and crayons, though) – so this is one of my first forays into the world of finger paint. Personally I love finger painting… I love feeling different textures on my fingers and seeing things meld and change as a result of my motions. While I can rationally understand Rondel’s sensitivity and dislike, it is nice to be able to enjoy this sort of thing with Limerick! And he definitely enjoyed it.

The one downside of sweetened condensed milk paint is that it is incredibly sticky. Limerick had to get a shower after this to clean it all up, and I was finding sticky drips of paint on the floor where the high chair had been for hours afterwards, despite my efforts to clean everything thoroughly right away.

The highlight, of course, is that I got to eat some of the condensed milk right out of the can… and lick some off the highchair tray before washing it… and turn the leftovers into hot fudge sauce later… these are much better perks than the cornstarch paint alternatives could possibly afford, and I think they make the stickiness worthwhile 😉

family life, musings

loving sick littles

Posted on 2015-10-132015-10-17 by kristinabean

Little kids don’t really understand what it means to be sick. Suddenly, they feel uncomfortable and out-of-sorts, more easily overwhelmed, worn out, and generally at odds with everyone and everything. This stems from their bodies being at odds with them and acting in rather upsetting, abnormal, and unpredictable ways. I think for some children, like my oldest, for whom routine is very important, the unpredictability of their bodies during sickness is one of the worst parts of being sick!

In light of this curious cluelessness in sick kids (I’m not sure how long this phase lasts, but it definitely exists in toddlers!), where they’re feeling awful but they have no idea why or what to do about it, we as parents have to be more aware and then enforce some general rules for rest and recuperation. Leila’s post at Like Mother Like Daughter has a very comprehensive set of guidelines so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here – go read her page 🙂 I’m just writing and thinking about this heightened awareness we need to have because our little kids just don’t have it yet, especially when they’re very young. With experience they’ll start figuring it out but until then we really have to pay attention. We have to know our children’s normal MO so that when something’s bothering them and they’re acting differently we can pick up on it. We have to be able to tell the difference between the slightly bored complaint of a toddler who needs to get out and run around, and the attention-seeking whine of a child who needs to reconnect with his mom and be reassured of her love, and the general malaise of a child who’s starting to feel unwell.

It just confirms, to me, the crucial role of a parent (and perhaps especially a mother) in the life of the very young child, and how impossible it is to replace that role with daycare or babysitters, no matter how good they are. No one can love my children like I can, and no one can be in tune with their needs like an involved and present parent can. I can still love my children well despite working outside the home, but those hours away from them do make it harder to read their moods and decipher their needs, and it makes it even more essential for me to be aware and fully present with them when I am at home. My active presence – my ability to understand what they’re feeling when they’re confused and unable to express what’s wrong and respond in a helpful manner – goes a long way towards making them feel unconditionally loved, understood, and accepted for who they are. Hopefully I can continue to get better at it as time goes by and I gain more experience in this crazy adventure called motherhood!

musings

Virtue on the hard days

Posted on 2015-10-11 by kristinabean

Hard days are made harder when they’re not confronted with virtue.

When everyone is feeling sick or stressed or overwhelmed and I choose not to respond with charity and patience, everything falls apart that much more quickly and dramatically. Feelings are hurt, problems are left unsolved, and the general aura of chaos and disarray multiplies.

When the general pattern of our life is difficult for a season, and our margins are essentially nonexistent, and we’re all pushed to the breaking point, and I choose not to respond with hope but rather react with bitterness and resentment, I add to the struggles we face, and push our family apart instead of drawing it together. We remain blinded to the beauty and blessings that we do have to enjoy, and let the hardships dominate our thoughts and emotions.

When I’m utterly exhausted and the baby wakes up that one last time, like the straw on the camel, and I choose not to respond with gentleness but rather with a sharp voice and rough hands, neither of us end up sleeping well, and our relationship is wounded. The peace of the night is shattered by my selfishness and it takes an extra effort to restore it.

Virtue isn’t easy, but it’s almost a necessity at times like these, because a lack of it is so much harder to deal with in the long run.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – RAIN!!!

Posted on 2015-10-082016-03-17 by kristinabean

{pretty}

This is a desert sage. It’s not actually related to culinary sage and the leaves aren’t edible, as far as I can find out. But it is a good landscaping plant so it’s all over the city and this particular one lives right outside our front door. Here it is, sparkling with the fresh rain, rejoicing with us in the cooler, wetter weather.

{happy}

I love the rain, but no one loves the rain more than a young child set free to run around in it! I didn’t realize how much I had mellowed with age until I saw the exuberant glee of my babies running and splashing and exulting in the downpour.

the walker gives him so much more independence!

I don’t think he stopped moving the whole time it was raining 🙂

When I was younger I didn’t want to age and mellow, to lose the fierce intensity and passion of adolescence and young adulthood, or the wild happiness and anger of childhood. To me, adults seemed to have lost the ability to deeply feel life – to truly experience its terrifying highs and devastating lows. I think what I’m beginning to realize now is that it’s possible to mature in one’s reactions to the roller coaster of life and emotion without getting off the roller coaster or taming its hills and curves. That is, I can still feel everything just as deeply – enjoy things just as intensely, become angry just as quickly, and so on – without letting those feelings control how I treat others and respond to my environment. Also with age comes greater understanding of the passions that burn inside my heart, so that I’m not caught totally unawares by them, and can in turn direct them to areas of greater and more lasting value (so instead of letting the power of my emotions be wasted on a crush or a car cutting me off in traffic, I can use them to rejoice in the beauty of great music, or delight in the presence of my husband, or grow fiercely angry at the injustice surrounding immigration, abortion, or homelessness). It’s not dulling my conscience or my emotions – simply deepening my understanding of my emotions and bringing them into greater unity with my conscience and my reason. And it is a good thing, despite the fears of my youth!

{funny}

Rondel noticed the raindrops landing on the driveway, leaving the little wet splotches behind, and started pretending to pick up the fallen drops and eat them. It was really cute – and then his daddy joined him and it was even cuter 🙂

{real}

And, no surprise, we have more dirt-eating. I can’t get this kid to stop putting dirt, rocks, and sand into his mouth. Where does the fascination lie? I can only imagine it tastes terrible (from my one childhood recollection of tasting sand intentionally, it wasn’t pleasant). He seems happy about it though…

I hope you all have had a great week too! We have been so blessed out here with four (four!) consecutive rainy days. This never happens in October in Arizona! Join the linkup at LMLD and visit the other blogs – they are such a good source of encouragement and happiness in the simple everyday aspects of life.

family life, musings

unplanned pregnancies

Posted on 2015-10-072015-10-06 by kristinabean

I found out via Facebook that one of my young cousins is expecting a baby. She’s 21 now, so it’s not exactly a teen pregnancy, but she isn’t married to her baby’s father and neither of them have much in the way of education or career prospects, and they’re both still living at home. It doesn’t take much intelligence to deduce that this wasn’t a planned pregnancy.

But if my first reaction is to think, “how could she make such a stupid choice? why would she have s*x before getting married anyway? doesn’t she know that’s how babies happen? she should have made sure she was in a better financial position before moving ahead with a family” – then I really don’t believe, in my heart of hearts, the full truth of the pro-life position.

If, then, my second thought is along the lines of, “at least she’s keeping the baby instead of killing it – but this is going to make her life so much harder, and it won’t be good for the baby either, and honestly she deserves it for her foolish choices that brought this baby into existence in the first place” – then all my words about how babies are a blessing from God, how every baby should be valued and fought for and given the love of its parents, are empty and hypocritical.

Was it a poor choice to be intimate before marriage? Undoubtedly – there’s a reason God commands us not to do that. But that doesn’t mean everything that follows from that poor choice is a punishment, consequence, or negative outcome. God is in the business of forgiveness and redemption, after all, and maybe this gift of new life is part of His plan of giving grace and renewing all things.

Is it foolish, in the estimation of this world, to have a child before finances and jobs and future plans are all figured out? Yes, of course! Financial security is the idol of our culture, and a baby makes establishing that security more difficult than just about anything else. But God tells us that a baby is a blessing, not a curse: that the love that baby brings, and the joy of making a family, and the virtues that bloom as a family grows while following Him, are worth more than anything money could promise. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, and all that. To set aside this opportunity for multiplied love in the name of money – to close our hearts and our bodies to a great blessing and pursue our own comfort and convenience instead – that is truly foolish.

Will having a baby right now make her life harder? Of course, of course it will. No matter when a baby comes, it makes life harder for its parents! Rather than glossing over her choice to keep the baby and focusing on her choices before the baby was conceived – rather than emphasizing her mistakes, in other words – our heart as pro-life Christians should be to praise her, to thank God for her courage and her strength, that despite the incredible hardship this baby may bring her as an unmarried, uneducated mother, she chose the right and the good at the cost of her comfort and convenience. She didn’t try to hide her mistakes, but let the world see, and know, and judge her, because she knew that the life of her baby was worth more than the pain of their judgments.

If we are truly pro-life, we will stand with my cousin and other women like her, without judging her for her mistakes, or shaming her for her “foolish, unplanned pregnancy”, or whispering behind her back about the stupidity and lack of character in these poor women who conceive children out of wedlock. Instead, we will congratulate her for the miracle of new life growing within her womb. We will praise her for the moral fiber and courage it took to choose life for that tiny and vulnerable baby over whom she held complete power and face the judgment of both the moralists and the materialists. And we will offer her whatever help she needs to continue to build a beautiful and blessed life for her baby and her family, for as long as she needs it.

family life

how to love my family – reminders for myself and a story

Posted on 2015-10-062015-10-04 by kristinabean

Been mulling over some thoughts this weekend that I’ll hopefully have the chance to write up soon – they’re a bit too heavy for a single blog post, so I’ll need to plan out exactly how I want to address them.

In the meantime, I’m thankful for unexpected October rains, and some cooler weather at last, and sons who love each other, and a husband who takes care of me when I’m feeling down. I’ve been selfish and impatient and my family has been so understanding and forgiving. This attitude that they have towards me – that I’m human and imperfect and trying my best to love them, so they’ll keep loving me no matter what – is the same one I want to have toward them. My tips for myself?

Always assume they had the best possible motivation.

Always assume they want to reconcile after an argument or hurt feelings.

Don’t take their feelings or words personally (especially when they’re tired or hungry!).

Renew trust, remain patient, and extend grace.

Remember that little expressions of love – a hug, a smile, an extra five minutes doing something together – can brighten the whole day.

When Rondel was about 3 months old I remember a horrible night where I was exhausted and my husband was working and Rondel was so overtired that he wouldn’t go to sleep but was screaming and tossing and turning and just wanted to nurse and my body was so sore and worn out that I couldn’t take it anymore and I lost it: I yelled at him to shut up and go to sleep, or something along those lines, and set him on the bed and left the room for a few minutes to try to pull myself together. Sometime not too long after I was telling someone this story and the appalled look in their eyes devastated me. It was confirmation that I was a failure as a mother, that I had somehow ruined my relationship with my son or broken some sacred trust.

But today, my son comes running to me with an ear-to-ear smile and glowing eyes when he sees me come into the room. His little voice announces my presence with excitement when I come down from putting his brother to sleep for a nap upstairs. When something isn’t quite right in his world, his safe place is by my side or in my arms, snuggling up to me, drawing strength from my strength as the adult, the rock, the haven in his life.

Our mistakes, our failures, the things we regret, the broken moments – they are not the whole story, or the end of the story, when there is love. I didn’t continue to yell at my baby, those years ago; I chose to apologize, and speak with tenderness, and rebuild the trust in our relationship. So I know that when I lose my patience today, he will continue to love and trust me – and he knows that when I lose my patience today, it is not a way of life but a mistake and a shortcoming, and that he can expect gentleness and unconditional love tomorrow (or even in five minutes…).

And this is a confirmation of my hope that our intent to love well, and our efforts to love well, are not in vain: that my son has begun to extend grace and gentleness to me when I tell him I’m not feeling well, toning down his play and his demands to what I can handle; he has started to treat his brother with tenderness and love, adjusting his exuberant affection to the softer touch a baby needs; and he has learned to express his own needs with calm respect for both himself and the people he needs to help him, instead of with the desperate panic of an anxious and overwhelmed infant. It is encouragement to continue the hard path of unconditional love and gentle guidance, to pick myself up from a bad day and begin again with intentionality, self-discipline, and grace.

There is love, and there has been love, and there will be love, running along all the delicate strands of the intricate web of our family life, because they were built in love and can only be maintained by love. And Christ who is love is the master planner and the great sustainer of it all, of our family and of all families who seek to love and to follow Him, and He will not let us fall or fail.

family life

brotherly love – a scene

Posted on 2015-10-03 by kristinabean

Earlier today Rondel climbed up onto an armchair and asked if Limerick could sit with him on the chair. Since Limerick had just been trying to get up into a second armchair, I thought he would like it, asked him if he wanted to sit with Rondel, and then put him up in the chair with Rondel. I wasn’t exactly sure how well it would go – Rondel can swing between an almost aggressive physical affection for his brother and a panicky meltdown if they get within two feet of each other – but given my ongoing goal of increasing their love and companionship, I was willing to give it a try.

And to my utter delight, Rondel put his arm around Limerick with great tenderness and drew him near in a hug with the sweetest smile on his face – and Limerick burst into the biggest grin ever.

I wish I could have gotten a picture! It was so incredibly sweet, and such a fulfilling moment as their mom. This love, this joy in each other’s presence, is what I’m trying to nurture in their relationship, and I pray that it continues to grow through the rest of their lives.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – thankful for the things I do have

Posted on 2015-10-012015-10-01 by kristinabean

{pretty}

We may not have much space, especially outdoor space, but we have room for the beauty of green growing things:

{happy}

We may not have lots of space to run around, or big places to explore and build forts and play games, but we have the security to play with carefree happiness in the space we do have:

{funny}

We might not have space for me to back up enough to capture the whole of our tiny yard in a picture, but we have space for the boys to play together where I can capture them both at once like Rondel asked me to:

Parallel play – and the impossibility of getting them to look at the camera, or at me!

{real}

We may not have woods and grassy hills and flowers so they can touch and see and smell the wonders of nature, but at least we have a garden so they can feel the dirt on their hands… and taste it in their mouths! The realities of toddlers!

There’s dirt in his mouth, on his face, and on his hand!

No clue why he’s eating the pot… I don’t ask anymore

To be real with you, it makes me happy deep in my heart to see Rondel with dirt in his mouth and on his hands like that. The garden is one of the few places where he’ll relax enough to get truly messy: he’ll use his whole hand to dig in the soil instead of using one finger or a scoop/tool like he prefers to do with sand or play dough. (He won’t even touch gooey or slippery things, like cornstarch slime or Jello…) I know that letting him get dirty and become comfortable with his hands and body in the soil will have huge payoffs for his sensory processing skills, and since he really hates getting messy at other times (even with food) this is our stepping stone to improving his tactile processing skills. For me, even if nothing in the garden bears fruit, it’s worth it just to see my boy getting dirty without being bothered or wanting to be cleaned up instantly.

Go visit LMLD for the rest of the link-up! I hope you had a wonderful week as well 🙂

musings

what I learned from a catholic mom

Posted on 2015-09-272015-09-26 by kristinabean

It was an offhand comment.

“It’s just so hard to find time to pray.”

I was bouncing a baby on my hip and she was swinging a needy toddler up into her arms. We’d been talking about the general busyness of life, like most moms of littles, and about the struggle to establish routines, accomplish everything that needs to be done, and find time for things that mattered to us pre-kids. With a third baby on the way, she was wondering how she would be able to manage everything and still find time for what was most important to her.

I thought the mint had died, but under the surface the roots must have held on, and now new life is coming up.

I’d had similar conversations with new moms in the past, when I was college and the staff women in my Christian student group all seemed to be having babies. But their phrasing was slightly different:

“It’s so hard to find time to read the Word”

They would describe their tips and techniques for making sure they read and meditated on Scripture daily, and worked it into the fabric of their home life. I drank it up. I am still thankful today for the wisdom I gleaned listening to their conversations. But I never heard any of them talk about how to pray as a busy mom – how to pray alone, how to pray with your husband, how to pray with your children. Either they all had awesome prayer lives and took it for granted, or it just wasn’t as central to their faith as reading the Word.

It sounds like the old argument – Catholics don’t care about the Bible, they don’t take the time to read from it, and their faith isn’t formed by the truth of it. And there may be something to that. I deeply love and value the reverence my fellow Protestants have for the Word of God, and it does seem like Catholicism doesn’t put nearly as much of an emphasis on personal Bible study.

On the other hand, the Protestantism I’m familiar with doesn’t put nearly the same emphasis on prayer. We struggle with prayer. We don’t know what to say, or how to say it, or what our attitude and motivation should be. We follow the guides and programs in the prayer-help books but give up because it feels too stifled, impersonal, or rote. We try to pray from the heart, in our own words, but sometimes our emotions dry us up and even the “Dear God” at the beginning is an effort. As a result, we feel guilty, and we talk about our time in the Word instead, because that is territory in which we have confidence and experience.

Catholic prayer, and I think high-church Protestant prayer, is different. People memorize and pray prayers that have been passed down through the centuries, in addition to their own personal thoughts and thanks and requests. I think those pre-written prayers can act as a springboard for the soul, a key to entering into more personal and intimate communion in prayer, and I think that is why it was prayer, not Bible study, that came to mind first for this woman.

My mother-in-law made this heart for my garden! I love the imagery of beauty, virtue, and life (symbolized by the white rose) in the core of the heart.

“It’s just so hard to find time to pray”

What hit me with a flash when I heard those words was the centrality and importance of prayer to this mom. Prayer was the thing she desperately craved, the essential aspect of her faith that she didn’t want to let slip away. And why? Because prayer is our direct communication with God, where there is both giving and taking, talking and listening, unburdening our anxieties and sins and receiving His forgiveness and grace. Reading can become an intellectual exercise, whereas prayer is relational by definition. In addition, as I’ve discovered some of the traditional written prayers more commonly used in Catholicism than Protestantism, I’ve realized the power of having words to pray when my own words seem stilted and unwilling: it allows me to overcome my emotions or my self-consciousness and simply come before God to worship, to thank, or to petition. I don’t ever want to lose my love for the Bible, but I think it would be good to learn from this Catholic mom how to love prayer as well, and make it more central to my life and my walk with God.