Proverbs 31 - to attempt or ignore?

Every Christian woman knows what lies within the chapter of Proverbs 31 in the bible.  I would dare say that most Christian women ignore it or avoid it like the plague.  I was one of those Christian women.  I would decide that I wanted to be a Proverbs 31 woman and I would begin reading it and quickly feel overwhelmed at all that I would never be.

But more recently I've felt more open to some change.  I reflect back on my life and I can see places where I have had my own personal growth. Places where I finally said to God "Ok I see that this isn't how You want me to be so help me to be open to the changes." and He has been faithful to do that.  *I* could not maintain lasting change on my own.  I simply could not do it.  But with God's strength I can.  With a whisper I can be reminded to think before I speak rashly.  Change isn't easy and I'm not always eager to improve myself because by and large it involves a few unpleasant things. First I have to admit that I have been wrong.  If I need to change then what I've been doing up until this point is wrong.  I hate being wrong.  Don't we all?  But fact is we are all wrong now and again and it's ok to admit that.  Secondly I have to realize that I have been selfish and be willing to give up this small piece of selfishness to better myself.  Does that sound counter-productive?  The whole giving up selfishness to better my SELF?  Well it sounds that way but ultimately I'm bettering the person I am relationally to others around me and while yes, becoming a better person certainly benefits me it's also benefiting those around me.  When I am slow to anger it is a positive example to my children.  When I stop and consider my words before speaking to or of my husband I can find a way to word things that won't cause an argument or negative feelings from others towards him.  And no worries, I'm not perfect.  There are still times when I say something and later regret it.  There are still times that I yell at my children.  But I'm trying.  I really think that's the important part.  The trying.

So Proverbs 31 is a chapter I have a very different opinion of now.  I began a bible study on this chapter about 4 weeks ago.  It is a very in depth study and I just never knew there was this much to find in this chapter.  I think my favorite thing about this study is I'm doing it with other Godly women and we can all read the same small verse and come back with our own message from it.  I LOVE that.

So far in Proverbs 31 this is what I have learned.

*She is something to strive to be but something that in our earthly humanness will never quite get to.  That does not mean we should stop trying.  It just means that we should not become discouraged in our human failures.

*This chapter was written by a mother to a son.  It is about the kind of wife she wishes for him.  I have sons and of course I only want the best for them in all areas.  So of course this woman has the highest of standards.  In the past I've always read this chapter as a judgement of one woman on all other women.  I have previously felt taunted by the woman.  But realizing that it's a mother's words to her son changed my entire perspective.

*She works eagerly - this one hit me hard.  It has been so easy to get weighed down in the mundane day to day and whine about why does it always have to be this way.  When I am like that *I* am not happy, my husband is not happy, my children are not happy, and nobody is happy to keep my company.  I will be content and eager and even joyful in the roles God has called me to.  I am after all doing what I always wanted to do when I grew up, how ridiculous for me to resent that in some way.  How many people get to be as an adult what they've wanted to be since they were a young girl?  For me that was a teacher and a mama.  And here I am.  Teaching and mama'ing my babies.

*She feeds her family.  My husband was recently asked what his love language is by a good friend.  His response was "Dinner" and he was dead serious.  I have known for a LONG time now that the ONE thing I can do to tell my husband in actions that I love him is to have dinner in process or ready when he gets home from work.  The few verses we've gone through already talks about her shopping for their food, preparing their food, feeding her family.  It's one of our most basic needs.  It has to be done.  And it's something that I've viewed for too long as a necessary inconvenience to our days.  Not so anymore.  I am moving my family to fewer and fewer processed foods and baking more of our snacks and daily eats from scratch - which is both healthier and cheaper.

*Rises before the sun - yeah this just isn't happening here.  But really when I read this verse what I saw was that she did two things - she prepared her day and she started her day with prayer.  I can do both of those things without rising before the sun (or my sons who are up at 6:30am pretty much every day).  I have gotten into the habit of preparing things the night before.  Esp if we're leaving the house.  Having our bags packed up, lunches made, clothes laid out has made our last few times that we had to get out the door first thing in the morning go MUCH better.  Plus I got the sleep I needed to be a good mama to my babies.  And really my kids wake up and watch tv.  There's nothing that would hinder me from waking and spending 10 or 15 min starting my day in prayer in my bedroom before coming out to meet the day.  So I don't really think this verse is meant to be about waking up super early.  I think it's about preparing our day and starting our day with God.

*She does not rush into things.  This is what we're learning this week.  She considered a field - she took her time and thought about it.  She saved up for it.  Then she turned it into something productive for her family.  When I first read this particular verse I was like "Um, I have no interest in buying a field.  I can't even remember to water my tomato plants."  But the other wonderful women I'm doing the study with saw so much more than a field and even my husband had a great take on this verse.  The field could be considered a dream.  A dream that would use our talent to enhance our family.  I have a "field".  But the Proverbs 31 woman considered her field first.  She prayed about it, planned it out, saved up for it, and then she bought the field.  This may not be the season of your life to buy a field.  That's ok, continue to consider it, plan it out, save up for it and pray about it.  When the time is right for your field God will let you know.  This is not the season for my field and I'm ok with that.  I will continue to consider it and pray about it and plan for it in the future.

KOJ's thoughts were that a field is something that we are investing our time, talents, and energy into and he considers our children my current field.  And I do too.  They will hopefully one day produce the fruit of all my tending.  What a great perspective.  I don't have to feel like a field-less woman any longer. lol

So I would encourage every woman to take another look at this intimidating chapter.  Open your heart up to have a willingness to change and let God guide you through it.

When I began this study I was nervous.  I was nervous that I would not be willing to change in all the ways that I knew God would call me to change.  I prayed that God would help me to be open to the changes I knew this chapter would convict me to make and I have.  I feel at a much deeper level of peace with myself and I hope my family has felt the positive impact as well.  That is not to say it's been easy because it has not.  But I want to be the best me I can be and I will continue to work towards that through the rest of this study and hopefully beyond.

Have a blessed Thursday everyone!

Whirlwind of life

 Last week was a complete whirlwind and this week has just plain disappeared.  Not sure where it went.  Last week on Tuesday the kids and I went up the children's museum. The kids had a blast. We were actually there because my sister's son had his school field trip and she didn't have a way to get there so we volunteered to go up and play too so she could be there for her son. So aside from my four children, the one child of another couple, and two children of a mom and grandma pair, there were about a hundred kindergartners running through the place. I was actually VERY impressed at how controlled the chaos was. The museum had a great protocol in place for field trips and it was amazing to see how well it worked first hand.

This is the toddler area, the field trip kids weren't allowed here.  Kayd thought the pieces for making a house were awesome there in the duplo blocks.

Sierra plays with the water.  She loved this.

When the field trip kids went to lunch, those of us NOT on the field trip flocked to the water table.  And the kids had a blast.

Colton played dress up for a bit.

Sierra practiced her mad grocery shopping skills.

 

Then on Wednesday evening our very good friend Diana from Life Light Images and her husband (also our very good friend lol) took our family pictures. Here's a sample. We haven't gotten them all but if these are any indication they're going to be amazing.

This was an attempt to recapture the below picture from almost 2yrs ago when she was a newborn.

I cannot believe how much she has changed in two years.  It's amazing.  Still she's so precious and sweet and captivating.

 

Then on Thursday my kids were ferried out to friend and sister and my mom and I took off and spent the day shopping. We went to Ikea. It was my first time ever to go there and even now a week later I'm just still in awe of this store. We loved it so much. We spent three solid hours there and only left because we were hungry. Seriously. Amazing. I could spend a fortune there. If I ever won the lottery I'd be spending a huge chunk of it there. Just saying. I haven't won the lottery and therefore only spent a small amount there on small things. See, Kayd built that track using some of the new pieces I found there at Ikea.

Friday was a blessedly calmish stay at home day. Saturday morning though there was a war. The Civil War to be exact. We went to the Civil War Days hosted by our town. It was totally free and very cool. We really enjoyed it a lot and will definitely go back again next year. I LOVE the dresses from back then. Not sure I'd love wearing them but looking at them is fun. I don't have any pics of it but they had a staged battle at 2pm on both Saturday and Sunday. KOJ took the boys on Saturday and then again on Sunday. Sunday was cooler (well not really it was over 90 on Sunday, but still) because a friend of the boys' from church was playing one of the drummer boys in the battle. He got shot and taken to the field hospital and they got to go visit him there. I stayed home with a napping princess. We don't do battles in 90 degree heat. But it did sound like a lot of fun.

As if that weren't enough fun for our weekend on Sunday evening we loaded up the kids and took them to the fountains.  Last year we also loaded them up and took them to the fountains on Memorial day weekend and since it was so hot we thought it might be fun to make it a tradition (weather permitting).  The boys jumped right in but Sierra was a little hesitant.

She did get wet finally though.  She had so much fun and was so much fun to watch.

My boys, warming up for a minute.

 

Then on Monday my mom kept our kids at her house while KOJ and I had a morning date. We went out to breakfast and spent some time perusing goodwill. It's what we do on our dates, eat and shop. We're ok with that. Then that evening Mom came over to our place and we had a cookout type dinner only we ate it in. We had cheeseburgers, and corn on the cob, and pasta salad, and watermelon. And for dessert I made a cheesecake. I chose cheesecake for the express purpose of making it look like this in honor of Memorial day.

This week has been a lot less active around here thankfully. I became sick with sinus and congestion stuff throughout the weekend and I'm still trying to get rid of it as of right now. I'm at the tail end but I'll be happy once it's gone again.

And in closing I want to say a HUGE Thank YOU! To any service members who might stumble upon my blog. A few days late but I do appreciate all that the service members of our country do for our freedoms. I also appreciate all the spouses of service members. They have a job I could never ever do and I admire them greatly for it. So thank you. And know that my children and I are praying for you.

Rough draft of Summer Bucket List

Our Summer bucket list... a rough draft version.

Kayden:
swim in the big pool at Heritage
play in the sprinkler
play at Heritage park

Colton:
school
play with the sprinkler I got (for his birthday)
Play at the fountains
(he came back to say "Mom, I also want to swim at the pool.")

Sawyer:
school
go in the sprinkler
build super duper big guns

Mmhmm..... there you have it people.  My boys, the like water, outside, and guns.  Oh and school.  What is that anyway??

For myself:
Take the kids to Pokagon for a fun day
Strawberry Fest
Apple Fest
Yard sale going
Go to the Ft Wayne zoo
See a parade
Go to the County Fair

And my mind has gone blank.  I know that there are tons of things the kids and I will want to do this summer.  Thank to pinterest and blogland there is no shortage of ideas.  This is just a very basic starter list.  I'm planning to create a kind of schedule similar to ones I've found on pinterest where we do the same thing on each Monday, the same thing on each Tuesday, etc.  I haven't really finalized it yet but I'm going to work on it this week.

We're currently pushing to finish 1st grade the last week of June.  If we can though I'd love to move that up a week or two.  This mama is ready for summer.

Have a great Wednesday friends.

Daddy and daughter sweetness

Every morning when we're getting ready to go somewhere out of the house I get my darling daughter all ready to go.  We pick out an adorable outfit (usually a dress - she and I both love them), we get her dressed up and do her hair all pretty in ponytails.  During the week she's happy to accept my words "So beautiful, what a pretty girl!" as confirmation that we've done well making her presentable to the world.

But when daddy is home on the weekend forget about it.  My word means nothing.  When I finish her hair by putting the bow in and say "all done, so pretty!" she takes that as her cue to hop off of her chair and run straight to her daddy.  Sometimes he sees her right away and sometimes I have to say "Daddy!" and then he looks down at her and he smiles and tells her how pretty and beautiful she is and she twists her little ponytail and sways side to side a little and glows at her daddy telling her she's pretty.

And it hit me yesterday as I watched this familiar ritual take place that this is one of my favorite moments of every weekend.  It never ever gets boring seeing my daughter revel in the love and adoration of her daddy.  Never.

And it hit me that she believes him.  She does not have one second of doubt that if her daddy is telling her she's pretty that it is truth.  I prayed that she would continue to believe him and continue to allow his opinion to matter above ALL others until her husband.  Because she will always be beautiful in her daddy's eyes and if she believes him always then she will know she is beautiful always.

Expect yourself to be YOU not me

I've been thinking all day about what I should blog about.  I have plenty I could say.  But I generally hold my tongue unless I absolutely feel something MUST be said.  So usually when I post about something it's because I feel especially passionate about it right that minute.

I don't feel terribly passionate about anything right this minute.  It's making it very hard to post.  I would normally do a wordless Wednesday but alas broken camera and all that jazz.

I was thinking earlier as I supervised outdoor play keeping my eyes on five small children and thought about how different it was to do it as a mother than it was to do it as a paid childless "teacher".

I made small mention yesterday that I used to do this for a living before I did it as a lifestyle.

When I worked as a head teacher in a daycare I was responsible for the daily care and teaching of 12 2yr olds.  I had an aide because of ratios and it was awesome.  We got along great.  I loved the children in my class.  I started out as an aide.  Then I moved to a newer recently opened branch of the daycare and became a lead teacher.  I started out with the 12-18 mo olds.  Then as they got older and that branch grew I moved up with my students to teach them in the 18-24 mo room.  And then I moved once more as they moved into the 24-36 mo room.  I was with these students day in and day out for about two years of their little lives and mine and I adored them.  I braided hair and tied shoes and wiped running noses.  I went all out decorating our classroom after hours for Halloween and Christmas.  Found fun and fantastic craft ideas and tried to keep our weekly lessons just plain fun while being educational.  I moved our classroom around on a regular basis to keep it fresh for everyone.  We followed a routine schedule that included snacks, lunch, potty times, outside times, and naps as well as play and learning.  It was exhausting but rewarding in so many ways.  And at the end of a long exhausting day I would go home and spend the evening alone or with my then boyfriend (now he's KOJ of course).

When I had my own children I think I had this idea that I could make it as routined and easy as corralling 12 toddlers all day long had been at the daycare.  I was so completely wrong.  I don't think there are even words to express how wrong I was. 

First - these are MY children.  Yes at the daycare I was expected to care for the kids properly and teach them colors, shapes, and abc's along with animal sounds etc.  But as a mom I'm responsible for the people they turn out to be!  That is HUGE!  Seriously.  It's a very daunting fact of motherhood.  Who my children are as adults will be a result of how I parented them.

Second - there is no aide.  My aide was great at helping care for the children but she was also great at adult interaction and conversation!  I am alone.  All day.  Every day.  With children.  No adults here.  If I could afford to pay another adult woman to come sit and just keep me company I would be sorely tempted most days.  I crave adult interaction and adult conversation and I wait eagerly for my husband to return home at night.

Third - my children are already at home.  They aren't going anywhere.  The children at the daycare went home for the night and so did I.  Once I left work I was done for the day.  Here I'm always on call at the very least, even at 3am.  There is always a chance that one (or more) children will wake me in the night for a drink or help using the potty or just because they felt like crawling into our bed and jabbing their knees into my spine.  The kids at the daycare NEVER did that.  Ever.  Amazing. hahahaha

Fourth - and I think this one is huge - the expectations are completely different and that was hard to reconcile. My expectations of myself were completely ridiculous. Prior to having children I expected myself to work my hours and I expected myself to do basic housework. I wasn't terribly good at that second expectation but it was kinda there. Once I had Kayd and was no longer working I expected that our home should always be clean and our life should somehow be rosier. I was just so wrong. First of all Kayd was a hard baby. He didn't want to nap unless he was on me and at the time I had not yet found the amazingness of a mei tei baby wrap (and I have never since had a baby who always wanted to be held, go figure). I also didn't realize how physically exhausted and demanding merely mothering a baby would be. I think it had a lot to do with the third point above and that constantly on call thing. Regardless though even after baby #2 came I thought I should be able to keep a completely clean house and care for my two precious babies. I think when #3 came along I gave up even though I still felt like it was something that I should be able to do I was simply a failure. But in the last two years I've prayed, I've read articles, and blog posts by other Christian mamas out there and I have come to realize that this expectation I had for myself was completely errant. I realized that I am only one person and some women are amazing and some women can keep a spotless house and lovingly care for their babies all in the same day. But I am not one of them no matter how much I wish I were. God has gifted me differently. Now I expect myself to keep our dishes clean, laundry clean, make sure our children get bathed, try to vacuum the living room at least once a week, and everything else housework wise is complete gravy. KOJ and I have agreed that the schooling our children is priority over a spotless house. 

Sometimes though I still find myself slipping into my old expectations and it is then that I have to remind myself that I am not the mother who is capable of doing everything with complete amazingness and a spotless house.  I am not that woman.  I have wanted to be that woman so long but I end up realizing that I am not her, I am me.  I am gifted differently.  I am that mom that even though I'm exhausted at the end of every day cannot think of one thing to say the mother-to-one that I run into at the park who looks at my four children and says "wow, I barely stay sane with one, I can't imagine four!" because frankly four has it's challenges but I cannot imagine only having one.  One was harder than four.  There is some kind of strange easiness that comes with having multiple children (and I'm sure it helps that mine are so close in age) where they play together, they help each other, they teach each other, they do half of my job for me.  I am that woman who will melt crayons with my children.  I am that woman who gets carnations from her children for Mother's day and her first thought is "YAY! We can stick them in colored water and do science with them."  I am and always will be that teacher who always wants to make things fun and hands on and never let things get dull and boring.  And while routine might work in a day to day daycare setting almost 7yrs in I still have yet to make it work for our family.  There are simply so many more freedoms involved in being the mom of the children in my care than there were in being the care provider only, that allow for more spontaneous and less routine fun.

And so if there were something I feel passionate about and felt should absolutely be said it is this:

Regardless of who you were or thought you were before children and regardless of who you thought you would be after children, be who GOD made YOU to be.  Don't look at my blog posts and think somehow that you are less than.  Don't look at someone else's blog posts and think that you are less than.  Melting crayons does NOT make me better than anyone.  I only post the pictures I WANT people to see here on my blog.  The ones with my kids running around naked are never seen.  The ones where my children spilled water or milk all over the place and I freaked out yeah, that doesn't make a great blog post.  If YOU are spending time with God, and striving your very best to be the person, the wife, the mother, that He created YOU to be then you are an amazing person.  Life would be so boring if we were all the same.

Proof that I only share what I want the world to see.

moment I would never ordinarily share - my son, wearing underwear on his head.  I sure hope they were clean!

And so that apparently is what I wanted to say today.

I'm linking this post up here:

Tot School Tuesday: Photo free edition

Please find it in your hearts to forgive the lack of personal pictures.  I dropped my camera at Colton's birthday party and it hasn't worked since.  So I have no pictures for our tot school post this week.

I do however have some thoughts on tot school I still would love to share.  There will be amazon links in this post.  They are NOT affiliate links.  I do not get anything if you click and purchase something or anything like that.  I'm not cool enough to figure that sort of thing out so these links are just "here go check out these awesome things and then buy or borrow them if you like them" links.

One thing Sierra and I did in her tot school this last week was read a fun "action" book.  Calling All Toddlers

Sierra LOVED this.  She loved doing the movements that the first poem in the book calls for.  To be honest we only did the first one in the book and I've only skimmed over the rest.  I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this here on the blog but prior to having children teaching 2yr olds on a daily basis was actually my paid job.  Shame nobody pays me for it now. lol  So in my three years of doing that I came across lots of great books that included movement to get the kids more involved in things.  Going on a Bear Hunt is great, Monkeys jumping on a bed is always a classic.

I love books too that allow me to point out shapes, colors, animal names and sounds.  This past week completely by coincidence I worked on animal names and sounds with Sierra.  She is now fantastic at mooing, meowing, and as always ruffing.  We practiced these sounds while reading What Shall We Do With The Boo-Hoo Baby?  This book was super cute and both Sierra and Sawyer LOVED it.  I'm a little tired of it now.  We also read Duck on a Bike by David Shannon (we love his books - No David! is practically my life with Sawyer and Sawyer's favorite book).

In the past I've shied away from reading with my toddlers.  Not because it wasn't enjoyable but because it wasn't enjoyable. lol  No, really, the fact of the matter is that having 2 and 3 and 4 kids clambering all over you, digging their elbows and knees into parts of your body you'd rather have left alone but are now covered in bruises just never did come off as enjoyable to me.  We're doing things a bit differently around here the past couple of weeks so school time with Sierra is school time with just her (and likewise with the boys).  One child sitting calmly on my lap or in front of me with nobody getting in their way of seeing the pictures makes for a MUCH more enjoyable reading aloud experience.  I think reading with our children is important.  I think it's even fun if you pick good books.

For my tot another favorite of her books are touch and feel books.  She's not terribly picky about brand name on the book but we have and love several of the Usborne books from the "That's not my..." series.  These things hold up well.  The truck one we have is from when Kayd was about 1.  So it's held up 5yrs and it is still in excellent shape.  

*I want to pause here and say that I am an independent consultant for Usborne books and if you click on that link there above it will take you directly to MY Usborne books sales site so any orders you would place through that link would earn me a commission.  Interest of full disclosure and all that blog jazz I see all over blog land (I'm so not a techy, really, I'm not!)

Sierra will often bring me one of those, I'll read it to her, she'll hold out her hand so I can "help" her feel the thing on the page.  It's very cute and makes me chuckle because she's very capable of just touching the things herself (and often does before holding her hand up to me).  When we finish the book she's happy to take it and "read" it to herself a second time.

So basically this past week of tot school consisted of reading.  We also colored.  She colors daily.  She loves to color and "write".  It's also very cute.

And just for the sake of adding at least one picture of the cutie here is what she studied during Colton's birthday party:

She discovered dandelions.  She looks so sweet sitting in this "field" of them playing and experimenting with them.

 

As with last week I am linking up to the linky party at Confessions of a Homeschooler so do go check out the other great tot posts.

Wordless Wednesday

Colton turned 5 last week.  So bittersweet.

as is family tradition - a hand shaped cake.  I still remember my hand shaped cake.

A very proud and happy 5yr old.

The train cake for the party the next day.

 

I have linked this post up with Mama to 4 blessings Wordless Wednesday linky party.  Head over and check out the other great wordless Wednesday posts.