parenting – Page 14 – little thoughts

remembering grace

Posted on 2015-09-252015-09-24 by kristinabean

When you tried a new recipe for dinner and were excited about it and it totally flopped –

When your husband is too tired to give you a smile when he gets home from class –

When you’ve yelled at the toddler over (literal) spilled milk and lost patience with the baby –

When you realize you made a mistake with a project at work that means half the week and hundreds of dollars were wasted –

When you’re moving from attachment to RIE principles of parenting and beginning sleep training (of a sort) and the toddler is crying upstairs with anger –

When the floor is dirty and the table is dirty and the dishes are dirty and the one bright spot of the afternoon was the 15 minutes stolen away to clean the bathroom –

When all you want to do is cry (or maybe sleep) –

Then it is good to remember that you are not alone.

Looking up from our tiny townhome backyard into a glorious expanse.

It is good to remember that there is grace. To open oneself up to the grace that God freely offers. To give thanks for that grace. To find rest in that grace, and then move forward to set things right in the strength of that grace. Setting things right in the power of His grace – that is our mission of redemption in the world, is it not? So often I am the one messing things up and introducing sin into my family and community, but He still gives me grace and extends the opportunity to work with Him, in His grace, to redeem what is broken and rescue what is lost.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, now is, and ever shall be, world without end.

Amen.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – enjoying the end of summer

Posted on 2015-09-242016-03-17 by kristinabean

The garden is starting to take off! I think this is one of my favorite times of year, when I get to watch the new life springing up out of the ground. We’ll see if they make it to an actual harvest though 🙂 I don’t have the greenest thumb in the world!

{pretty}

{happy}

And of course it is still warm enough here to play at the splash pad in the afternoons (and probably in the mornings too, to be honest – our highs are just beginning to flirt with the 90’s when storm fronts come through, and then they jump back up to triple digits). Rather than mourn the lack of any significant autumnal season, we’re choosing to enjoy the summer fun as long as we can. Honestly, too, those late summer storms make this one of my favorite times of year: the nights are sometimes cool enough to leave the windows open, the mornings are fresh and clean-feeling, the days are softly warm and perfect for water play, and in the evenings the great dark clouds roll in with thunder and pouring rain.

{funny}

Rondel’s developing his own will, figuring out how social dynamics work, and beginning to test some boundaries (not much, though – he’s a pretty compliant child). I’m actually really enjoying seeing his own preferences and opinions grow, and watching him learn how to express them in appropriate ways! A funny side effect of it is this little fake pouty face that he makes when he wants someone to do something in a very specific way, and he knows that it’s a kind of ridiculous want, so he tries to pout when he doesn’t get it but can’t quite keep a straight face.

{real}

When do babies normally start holding their own bottles? Limerick can’t seem to coordinate his. Sometimes he’ll try to pick it up by the nipple and then stuff the nipple in his mouth (sort of in the same way that he’d pick up a bit of food and stuff it in his mouth), and a couple times he’s managed to get his hands around the bottle part and lift it up, but then he doesn’t seem quite sure how to get the right part into his mouth. So in the meantime we hold it for him when he gets thirsty.

(That’s my hand holding the bottle… his are passively at his side. Sigh.)

I hope all of you in other parts of the country are enjoying your beautiful fall weather! Join me at the LMLD link up today!

musings

in the garden

Posted on 2015-09-222015-09-20 by kristinabean

Gardening, like parenting, is a gestational activity.

We understand that for a time our plants are going to be small and weak, in need of frequent watering and special care. We acknowledge that we’ll have to put in quite a bit of effort (more or less depending on the particular plant) before we get much back in return, and we don’t expect there to be a harvest right away. So we make choices with that longer vision, that bigger picture, in mind.

I don’t say, oh, a few days of drought will make my baby beets toughen up and be better prepared to deal with bad weather in the future. On the contrary, I worry that if they’re forgotten about for a few days that they’ll be permanently stunted or weakened, so that future difficulties that I can’t prevent might spell disaster.

And I persevere in this gentle care, attentive to the immediate and present needs of the plants with a mind to the long-term goal of a productive garden, and in time the harvest comes.

(the basils, being transplants, have a bit of a head start over the beets)

Can I give my children this same gentle and attentive care?

Can I meet their present and immediate needs, keeping in mind the long-term goal for their lives, instead of demanding them to produce a harvest now, before they’ve had the time to grow and mature?

It’s not fair to expect a two-year-old to express his emotions and meet disappointment with calm grace and rational acceptance in the way that an emotionally mature adult would be able to, and even less fair to punish that two-year-old for his “defiance” or failure to comply instantly with parental demands. That would be a horrible misunderstanding of his current abilities and stage of growth, and it would make it more difficult for him to learn to cope with strong emotions or deep disappointments in a mature way in the future – it would merely teach him that those emotions are bad things that need to be hidden and ignored.

In a way, it would be like demanding my little beet sprouts to have large, red, juicy beets hiding under the soil already, instead of waiting the full two months for them to grow, and then being disappointed in or upset with the plants for failing to meet my totally unrealistic expectations.

Gentle parenting means walking with my children through the ages and stage of growth, as they deepen and mature, as their needs and abilities change, giving them the support and tools they need to grow instead of expecting them to act with skills and wisdom beyond their years. Sometimes this looks like holding my two-year-old in my arms as he sobs out his disappointed protests, letting him know that I hear and understand his feelings, that it is indeed sad and frustrating to have to do something you don’t want to do, and for the fun day of play to come to an end, instead of simply dragging him to the car and telling him to deal with it. An adult has the emotional maturity to deal with it; a two-year-old does not. But maybe my patience and understanding with his immaturity will model for him the coping skills and emotional understanding that he’ll need to gain that maturity.

With my children, like with garden, I’m making decisions moment by moment with a long-term vision in mind. The work may be silent and the fruit invisible for a long time yet, but like a baby grows in the secret places of her mother, or like a beet rounds out into fullness in the hidden darkness beneath the surface of the soil, so I trust that my children are growing into fruitful and mature adults in the nurturing and loving context of our family and home.

book lists, family life

favorite books at just past two

Posted on 2015-09-152015-09-14 by kristinabean

I think it is a good idea to keep track of the best and most-loved books I come across, if for nothing else than to remember to pull them out for younger siblings or give them as gifts to friends and family 🙂 These are some of our favorites – books that Rondel asks for over and over again and that can be read over and over again by me or my husband without inducing insanity.

Just for reference, at the time of this list, Rondel is 26 months old.

Corduroy, by Don Freeman, 1976

This is a classic story about friendship and home, from the perspective of a toy bear looking for his button. Everyday things and circumstances are described with the kind of wide-eyed wonder that a little kid is going to have as he encounters the world, without losing their simplicity. I think it is hard to capture that kind of innocence in an urban setting in kids’ books, at least from the books that I’ve read, and so this book is great for those of us who live in the city and can’t rely on nature to fuel our children’s sense of wonder and exploration. But more than that, Corduroy the bear is simply an endearing character who quickly finds a place in the reader’s heart. Despite this being a longer book, Rondel asks for it often and gives it rapt attention.

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, by Richard Scarry, 1974

This has been a favorite of my son’s for a long time now! It can be read cover-to-cover for the story of the Pig family going to the beach, or simply enjoyed on a page-by-page basis for the illustrations and humor. At this point we usually just read a page or two at a time, because it is a long book and Rondel is more interested in the different vehicles on each page than in the story anyway. Especially if your child is obsessed with cars and trucks, this is a good book to have in your home library.

A Child’s Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, collected by Kady MacDonald Denton, 1998

I’m sure there are a lot of excellent poetry collections available for younger kids, but this is ours, and we love it. Rondel has been asking to read from it at bedtime every day for several weeks now, and when we read from it during the day he keeps asking for more. He’s starting to have favorite poems as well, like the flying-man poem or the chuff-chuff-chuff train poem. Because each poem is illustrated, he has visual anchors to connect with the words and rhythms, which is an advantage over my other favorite poetry collection. There are of course a few poems that feel odd and out of place, or not quite appropriate for the age of the intended audience, but overall the poems are perfect in feel and content and the layout of words and pictures on each page is very well done. The poems lend themselves quite well to finger games, roughhousing, and cuddling also!

Little Fur Family, by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Garth Williams, 1970

This book is, in my mind, very similar to Corduroy in the way it captures the wonder and simplicity of everyday life. In this case, the setting is a normal day in the life of a little fur child who lives in the woods. He spends all day playing outside by himself, making discoveries, observing the world around him with all his senses; Brown uses simple but evocative language to describe what he sees and feels and hears. Then, at the end of the day, he returns home to the comfort and security of his family, whose love and presence is clearly shown. I have always loved this book, even as a single adult. The prose has just enough meter to feel rhythmic and almost musical without falling into a rhyme-y or sing-song pattern, and the illustrations are absolutely beautiful.

“Could Be Worse!”, by James Stevenson, 1987

This book is definitely intended for slightly older children, but Rondel enjoys the vibrant illustrations, the repeated theme (“Could be worse!”), and the ridiculously tall tale unexpectedly told by the grandpa. He doesn’t get all the humor, or some of the more subtle layers of the book, but he likes it enough anyways to ask for it 5-6 times a day! I have a suspicion that he pictures his own grandpa doing some of the crazier things in the story… 🙂

In addition to these top five, there are quite a few board books that Rondel loves and that are easier to read when Limerick is around, since he has a tendency to try to rip the picture books. But I will save those for another post as this one is already quite long!

musings

parenting goals

Posted on 2015-09-122015-09-09 by kristinabean

If, I as said yesterday, the goal of parenting isn’t to produce adults in a sort of factory way – where each new adult meets the required minimum specifications if the right parenting techniques are employed – and if in fact it is impossible to control the outcome of parenting since our children have wills of their own – then what is the ultimate goal?

At this (admittedly very early) stage of my parenting experience I would submit that the ultimate goal of parenting is to multiply and model love. By meeting the needs of our babies when they cry in the night, or cluster feed all day, or panic when we leave the room, we show them that love can be trusted. By playing with our toddlers instead of sending them off to play alone and stay our of way, by reading them the same books over and over again to their delight, by listening and responding to their obsessive, repetitive, conversations and story lines, we show them that love values their unique personal significance. By giving them space to try, grace to fail, encouragement to try again, and a helping hand when they’re overwhelmed, we show them that love will not shame them or make them afraid. By involving them in household chores, teaching them how to care for their rooms and toys and help with the family and home, we show them that love cares for the community and the environment. By coaching them through sibling rivalries, we show them that love works hard for harmony and understanding. By instilling the habits of virtue – hard work, self-control, patience, and courage – we show them that love is not a weak and tolerant niceness, but an agent for goodness.

(Babies have a way of emotionally evoking our love, which is good, since they demand a lot of it. They seem to need it most when they’re least cute and endearing, though… that is why our love needs to be strong, built on conviction and on the love of Christ for us, so that we can give it unconditionally and in abundant measure.)

My highest calling as a Christian, and thus as a parent, is to love. Remember the classic verse that says it is even greater than faith and hope, those crucial virtues of the Christian life? That same passage also gives us some guidelines about what love looks like in action. If I take that love into my parenting and make it my key principle – a love that holds fast, that sacrifices, that labors for redemption, that suffers joyfully, that unites my heart to Christ – then, I think, it will be hard to go very wrong. The most nefarious danger would be in replacing love with a weak sort of kindness that neglects the long-term needs of the child (the deep soul-needs of virtue and character and purpose, as well as the very practical need of care for the self, others, and ones environment) in an effort to maintain superficial “happiness” and satisfaction. Love requires us to pour ourselves out, sometimes with great effort, pain, and sacrifice, for the genuine needs of the other person as a human person with inherent dignity and value, not a pet or a project. There aren’t scripts to follow or techniques to use; it is as far from mechanistic as it is possible to be, I think. It is not easy, because it is being like Christ, and our hearts are full of all sorts of tendencies that pull us away from Him and from the difficult path of love. But it is the goal – to love our God, to love our spouse, to love our children, and to teach them how to love in return, so that the love in our homes is multiplied in each heart, reflected in each member of the family, springing up in beauty and fullness and mutual self-sacrifice, filling up and surrounding us all.

musings

parenting determinism

Posted on 2015-09-112015-09-09 by kristinabean

A lot of parenting tips, techniques, and strategies seem to operate under the presumption that if you parent your children just right, they will turn out just the way you want them (which of course differs from family to family based on the parents’ values). Maybe this is a particular problem with religious parenting guides – they play on parents’ worries and hopes for their children by promising (usually not explicitly, but the idea is there) that if you just follow these guidelines, your children are guaranteed to end up as responsible, successful, Christian adults. The corollary is then obviously that if your child ends up as an atheist, or in a less-than-ideal profession, or has children out of wedlock, or differs in some other way from the “perfect little Christian” mold, you somehow failed as a parent.

But since those promises are empty and false, the guilt of the corollary is equally false. There is absolutely nothing you can do, as a parent, to guarantee that your child will become a certain type of person as an adult, and to try to force that result is detrimental to you, your child, and your relationship. (Your ability to influence your child is a different matter altogether… if your child loves and respects you, he is probably going to want to live in a way that honors you, even when he disagrees with you.) You might be able to enforce certain beliefs and behaviors while your child is young, but the time will come, sooner or later, when your baby will be all grown up and make choices for himself.

(Even this little guy is someday going to be a man! It’s strange to think of it now, but that’s the end we have to keep in sight as parents. They do grow up.)

It all comes down to the free will God gave to each and every one of us. God, our Father, is the perfect parent, is He not? And yet we, His children, most definitely have character issues and make bad choices – I can speak for myself on that one, and I think everyone who is being honest would agree. It doesn’t reflect back on His parenting; it simply means that you can give someone all the tools and guidance and love in the world, but if they don’t want to accept it, if they want to make a different choice than the one you feel is best, you can’t force them to use what you’ve given them.

In toddler analogies, I can give my son a fork, show him how to use a fork, model using a fork, and help him use a fork – but if he wants to eat with his fingers, I can’t make him pick up that fork and use it independently. He has to make that decision for himself. The same thing is true for my child’s faith, education, career choices, and relationships – I can give him opportunities, model wise choices, and demonstrate unconditional love, but I cannot ensure that he will take the opportunities that arise, act wisely, or love in return. He has to appropriate for himself everything he has been given and make it truly his own, because he, like me, is a human individual with will, dignity, and subjectivity. It is a cause for deep, deep sorrow when a person chooses to use his body and mind for self-destructive or sinful ends – but it is not a sorrow that must always be tinged with guilt.

This is why I get so frustrated with the parenting articles and books I come across that make it sound like you can determine what sort of person your child will become, and give the impression that this is the ultimate goal of parenting. All we can do is teach, model, and love – and then commit their hearts and minds and futures to the Father. We can’t choose the direction they will take, but we can do our best to equip them with the skills and habits that lead to virtue and wisdom, and then trust our Lord with the rest.

family life

no no no no (and no!)

Posted on 2015-09-072015-09-14 by kristinabean

Rondel is entering toddlerhood and with that has come a marked uptick in his use of the word “no.”

“Do you want to go to the library?” (one of his favorite destinations)

“no library!”

“Are you hungry?”

“no hungry! no food! no dinner!” (followed by a blood sugar crash about 30 minutes later)

He’ll even hear me offering something to Limerick and say no for him!

I’m not even sure what he was unhappy about here… this pool was one of his favorite places over the summer

I know on a rational level that this is normal and good. The development of opinion, will, and identity is an extremely important aspect of toddlerhood, and when the pendulum swings away from the automatic compliance of babyhood it tends to swing a bit farther than we parents would like. Rondel’s petulance and negativity are simply part and parcel of his growing up, of the huge transition taking place in his mind as it matures, and they probably overwhelm him, and throw him off balance, just as much as they irritate me.

In the moment, however, it is incredibly hard to deal with the litany of “no!”s and respond to my boy with patience, gentleness, and love. If I’m honest with myself, I sometimes just want to scream at him to shut up and stop saying no. But that would be so detrimental to his development as an individual! While his will needs to ultimately submit to God’s authority, just like every other part of his being, it needs to be able to grow and mature so that in its submission to God it is a complete, beautiful, and useful tool. So instead of trying to break or control his will as it emerges from the cocoon of babyhood, my responsibility as his parent is to guide its maturation – to give him the space and freedom to use it and experience the natural fallout of using it, within clear and safe boundaries of course 🙂

connection and communication – that’s the goal, anyway

Let’s just say I’m going to need an increase in the fruit of the Spirit to match this increase of the Little Man’s will! With God’s grace, I’m hoping we can make it through this season with joy, trust, and understanding intact, instead of turning our relationship into a never-ending power struggle.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – birthday fun!

Posted on 2015-09-032015-09-14 by kristinabean

Still playing catch up on the pictures here… I have pictures from this week but they’re still on the camera and I’ve got all of August’s pictures to process first! Hopefully I’ll be up-to-date for next week 🙂

{pretty}

For Rondel’s second birthday back in July we visited the zoo! And our zoo, being in a hot desert environment, obligingly has a spashpad where the kids can cool down. Limerick was a huge fan.

{happy}

This baby is seriously in love with water play – here he’s enjoying one of the Rondel’s birthday presents.

And here’s Rondel himself enjoying the water! He’s a bit more cautious than his brother but once he gets past his initial reluctance he has a lot of fun.

{funny}

I don’t actually have any pictures of him looking happy while opening presents, even the Hotwheels Mustangs from Grandpa – he was just so utterly serious about the whole process! It’s really neat how important every little thing is to toddlers, and how all the experiences we are so familiar with are brand new and somewhat exciting, challenging, and frightening all at once to them, because of course they haven’t lived through it all before.

{real}

My sister got Rondel these peas and we made the mistake of letting him open the afore-mentioned Mustangs first… he had eyes for no other gifts once he saw those cars! Limerick, however, decided that the peas could be for him instead, if no one else wanted them, and immediately attacked them with great delight.

It’s very nice, you know, how little kids don’t hold you to some standard of perfection as their parent – they just ask for your love and attention. They don’t really care about the presents, or about how beautiful the cake was (creatively imagined but only somewhat successfully executed, if you want to know), or about how many people are there celebrating them. I’m sure their desires and expectations will grow with them, but so will my understanding of them and my relationship with them, and it is this knowledge that we’ll be growing together that keeps me from feeling overwhelmed about all the parenting milestones ahead of me.

So happy 2nd birthday Rondel! Here’s to many more years of love and laughter together.

(Go check out the other {p,h,f,r} posts through the link-up at Like Mother, Like Daughter!)

links, quotes

love with courage

Posted on 2015-09-022015-08-31 by kristinabean

One of my favorite parenting posts ever – this article encapsulates eloquently my core philosophy when it comes to raising my sons (and daughters, if I ever have them).

“We’ve always been told to love conditionally- to offer love, affection, and kindness only when children are doing what we like.

What would our world look like if we parents became the givers of unconditional love at all times? We worry that, if we soothe the crying baby, she’ll never learn to sleep. We worry if we give attention to a tantruming child, he’ll learn to throw fits for attention. We worry if we don’t punish the child who hits, he’ll end up violent. We worry if we don’t squash that bad attitude, she’ll get out of control. We worry if we don’t come down hard on his bad decisions, he’ll end up behind bars.

Worry is based in fear. And where there is fear, love cannot thrive.”

Unconditional love does not mean permissive love; it simply means that the love does not decrease or fade away when the boundaries are pushed, the rules broken, and the standards unmet. Unconditional love does not mean approval of every behavior or agreement with every choice; it simply means that the home and the heart and the listening ear are always open, no matter the degree of rebellion or disagreement.