Everyday Life

Categories Parenting

The Time for Forming Affections

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I am a teacher at heart.

I love to transmit information, ideas, skills.

I like to think deeply, like to communicate deep thoughts.

Which is why I was nervous when I was asked to teach Sunday School to second graders a few years back.

I love to teach, not to do worksheets with kids. I like deep doctrine, hearty theology, difficult passages. How could I do that with second graders? (I learned, somewhat)

This is why I was nervous when I was placed in a 3-year-old classroom this year.

I love to teach, not to babysit. How could I do that with 3-year-olds? (I’m learning)

It’s also why I’m kinda tentative with my own daughter.

Everyone tells new parents that it’s hard to mess up parenting a baby. You change them, you feed them, you love them.

But I love to TEACH. How can I teach my baby?

Mostly, I think of how I’ll teach her one day when I actually can.

And then I started noticing Tirzah Mae going over to the pile of books, pulling one out and babbling to herself as she leafed through the pages. She likes when I read the board books to her – but she prefers books with regular pages when she’s reading to herself. After all, that’s what her mama reads to HERSELF.

And then I started noticing Tirzah Mae grabbing a pen (my Zebra pens!) and holding them ever so carefully between thumb and forefinger, running the point along whatever surface is handy.

And then I started noticing Tirzah Mae perking up whenever music came on, waving her hands and singing along.

And I realized that now may not be the time for teaching Tirzah Mae to read or write or sing. It may not be the time for imparting information or attaining to skills. But it is the time for forming affections.

When I spend every spare moment (when my hands aren’t otherwise occupied) with my nose in a book, I teach Tirzah Mae that books are valuable and worth reading. When I spend my mornings writing as I do Bible study and as I jot down a note on what I’m reading or make a grocery list, I teach Tirzah Mae that writing is a valuable skill and worth learning. When I sing a song, turn on a CD, dance to music (in my own home and elsewhere), I teach Tirzah Mae that music is valuable and to be enjoyed.

She likely doesn’t understand the Bible stories I read to her every night before bed. She probably doesn’t get the deep theological truths in the hymns we sing as she falls asleep. She doesn’t know what the words in the Bible I read every morning mean.

But now is the time for forming affections. So even if I’m not lecturing, not explaining some truth. Even if she’s not internalizing the Bible passages or their meanings, she’s learning. She’s learning that the word of God is precious. That the truths found in hymns are beautiful. That they are important.

I don’t see outward signs yet, like I do with reading and writing and music; but I can continue modeling Christian discipline for my daughter and can do it with ever-renewed vigor when I am reminded that now is the time for forming affections.

Categories Everyday Life

Vacation (Part 2): Thai and Travel and Porch Swings

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September 6: Day 2

Sunday morning, Daniel dropped me off at church early to prepare the “opening” activity centers for the three year old Sunday School. We were learning about Noah, so I had a sticky wall rainbow and, by now, I can’t remember what else. Oh, but it’s coming back – pairs of animals to match and blocks to build an ark with.

Daniel went back home to take care of our guests and to get Tirzah Mae ready for the service.

After church, we went out to the land, where we inspected the then-current state of construction – at that point, the walls had been poured but the forms not yet removed. Timothy and I tramped around the perimeter so Tim could see our land more fully.

Our family at the hole

Our family in front of “the hole”

From there, we went out for Thai at Chiang Mai Thai (Oh my, so much going out to eat this vacation already!) As is our custom, we served Tirzah Mae from our own plates – in this case Green and Yellow curries. The older woman who served us kept exclaiming about “The baby!” “Eating Thai curry!” After expressing her astonishment to us, I heard her in the kitchen, expressing her astonishment there as well :-)

Once home, Daniel and Joanna and Tim watched the very bloody The Untouchables, about the attempt to put away Chicago mob-boss Al Capone. I squawked around like a chicken with my head cut off, doing endless loads of laundry and attempting to get us packed for our trip to Lincoln.

When the movie was done, we “scared up” breakfast for dinner – caramel apple oven French toast I’d prepared earlier, as well as bacon and sausage and kiwi and whatever else I could find in the fridge that needed to be used up.

Then, all four of us adults got busy getting the packing done and the house cleaned up so we could leave for Lincoln at a decent hour the next day!

September 7: Day 3

After the usual scurry of last minute preparations for a trip, we took off – Daniel and I and Tirzah Mae in our gold Trailblazer, Tim and Joanna and their baby-on-the-inside in their blue Trailblazer (one of the fun parts of having a large family is occasionally accidentally matching!)

Tim and Joanna on the world's largest porch swing

Tim and Joanna on the World’s Largest Porch Swing

We stopped at the world’s largest porch swing in Hebron, NE where we took pictures and then took Tirzah Mae over to the playground. Tirzah Mae enjoyed her first swing ride (that is, she enjoyed a swing for the first time, not that she rode one for the first time.) She also went down a slide for the first time.

Aunt Joanna helps Tirzah Mae get acquainted with the swing

Aunt Joanna helps Tirzah Mae get acquainted with the swing

Once we were done in Hebron, we wished Tim and Joanna good-bye and headed on toward my parents’ home in Lincoln.

Categories Everyday Life

Grace to Know Your Limits

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This week was our first week back to fall Bible studies, having been gone for the first two weeks since they officially began.

I was leaving Tirzah Mae in the nursery, which meant doing all those things that must be done for other people to take care of her – stuff diapers so the nursery workers don’t have to figure out prefolds, fill a sippy cup with water and a dish with precut grapes since the nursery workers can’t breastfeed her, put her in clean clothing so I don’t look like the worst mom in the world…

It hadn’t been a terrible night – wakings at midnight and 4, but ones where I’d quickly fallen back asleep after feeding and settling Tirzah Mae.

When I got home from Bible study and had my list of usual morning tasks still to complete, I decided I’d forgo my afternoon nap.

Eat lunch. Switch laundry, hang laundry, fold laundry and put it away. My eyes started feeling heavy, my temples started to throb. But I still had to rinse diapers, give the toilet a quick scrub, and get the mail before I could start on my afternoon tasks.

“Grace to know your limits,” I thought – and began composing the blog post in my head (and then on the back of an envelope.)

Now I must learn the wisdom to work within my limits.

(Which is why I must now stop writing and get to taking that nap!)

Categories Everyday Life

Breaks, Intentional and otherwise

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I don’t plan blogging breaks – but only because I’m not that intentional about blogging. I rather expect that I’ll post daily (except on Sundays), but I (generally) don’t stress if I don’t. Usually, that means I end up posting 3-5 days a week.

And then I started doing I-don’t-know-what at the beginning of this month. (Probably trying to get my list of books read since starting my “read every book” challenge organized and counted for this post.) I was busy and just didn’t blog. Then my brother and his wife and their baby-on-the-inside came to visit over Labor Day weekend. Then we went north for a week-and-a-half-long vacation.

I didn’t intend for that to equal a blogging break. I’d have access to a computer, as well as my tablet (with a keyboard). I’d probably even have time, since we weren’t there over a holiday – meaning that our families were still generally working during the day.

But blogging barely crossed my mind.

Which means I have plenty to report, right?

Of course right.

September 5: Day 1
I spent the morning writing up the aforementioned challenge progress report. Then, when Timothy and Joanna texted that they were about an hour away from Hutchinson, we took off for Hutchinson’s Cosmosphere.

Tirzah Mae in the Ejection Seat

Tirzah Mae sits in a spacecraft ejection seat

If you ever find yourself in southeastern Kansas, you really should check out the Cosmosphere. The first time we went (with my parents sometime last year, I think?), we bought tickets for the whole shebang: the museum, the “digital dome” theatre playing some documentary, “Dr. Goddard’s lab”, the planetarium. We spent a fair bit of time exploring the “upstairs” portion of the museum – with all sorts of facts about the planets. When we went downstairs for the “Hall of Space museum”, I was already tired, but I took a fair bit of time reading everything in the first gallery, a display all about the Nazi V1 and V2 rockets – precursors to modern space flight. I had no idea how large the museum was.

This time, we knew better than to waste our time on documentaries and planetarium shows we could see just about anywhere. We were prepared to plunk down our cash for tickets to the Hall of Space museum – and nothing else. As it was, my brother asked for the military discount (a couple dollars off ticket price), was asked if he was active military (which he is), and was handed free tickets to the Hall of Space for us all.

A bright-eyed Tirzah Mae looks out from her space suit

A bright-eyed Tirzah Mae looks out from her space suit

Anyway…we toured the Hall of Space, reading about and seeing artifacts from the entire history of the Space Age – from the aforementioned V1 and V2 rockets of World War II through the Cold War space race and the Apollo missions up to today. This time, I had more energy (not having wasted it on the upstairs stuff!), but I still wore out by the end of the museum. There is SO much to see and to learn.

Once we were done, we were all worn out – so we ordered Mediterranean in (from Le Monde – a delicious place).

And that was our first day of vacation :-)

Categories Parenting

Unavoidable tantrums

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In the past several years, I’ve seen not a few web articles focused on preventing temper tantrums. The gist of each of these articles is that temper tantrums are generally the result of a child’s unmet need, often biological.

A temper tantrum happens, the expert mother-blogger writes, because your child is hungry or tired or hasn’t been told what to expect. If a mother can just make sure her child is never hungry, never tired, and never unprepared, she can prevent temper tantrums.

I never gave much thought to these articles until recently, when Tirzah Mae started throwing temper tantrums – full-fledged, beat-on-the-floor-with-her-fists, angry temper tantrums. I observed that these did indeed generally occur when she was tired or hungry.

I wondered – are the mommy bloggers right? Are Tirzah Mae’s temper tantrums biological necessities? Are they a result of poor parenting? Are they God’s fault? Are they my fault? Or does she hold some responsibility for her actions?

Then, I found myself having a temper tantrum.

I generally forget about my temper tantrums until they’re upon me.

The thing that has been bothering me all through the month, that I’ve been patting myself on the back for handling so well? Suddenly it’s too much and my blood is boiling.

I don’t need to check my calendar to know what time of the month it is. This temper tantrum – these temper tantrums – the seemingly uncontrollable frustration and anger and disappointment and rage happens like clockwork once a month.

It feels like I don’t have a choice in it, feels like my biology insists upon this temper tantrum. I try to resolve to control myself, to fight against myself. But month after month, I lose the battle.

It’s my hormones. I don’t have a choice.

I can tell myself that, but it’s not true.

Sure, my biology contributes to my tantrum – but my sin contributes more.

It’s my sin that seeks its own, that refuses to see another perspective. It’s my sin that pouts instead of presenting my requests to God. It’s my sin that rages instead of seeking resolution, that harbors grudges instead of forgiving.

So what does this teach me about parenting my daughter?

I think it teaches me several things:

First, I must pray for my daughter.

When the flesh tries to control the flesh, it fails. It is only by the Spirit of God that anyone truly develops patience, kindness, and self-control. If I, a regenerated believer who has been walking with the Lord for over 25 years, still struggle so much with my temper, how much harder must it be for my daughter? Tirzah Mae’s temper tantrums should remind me that she, that we all, are sinners at the core and in need of salvation through Christ. As a parent, I should be regularly be bringing my daughter before the Lord, pleading with Him for her salvation.

Second, I must not excuse her behavior.

Just as I cannot excuse my own temper tantrums. I cannot excuse hers. Temper tantrums must be dealt with. Simply giving in to the demands she makes will not teach her anything – it won’t teach her to control her temper or teach her to go to the Lord for help to control her temper. It will teach her that temper tantrums get her what she wants – and she will continue to have them regularly. As a parent, I need to be teaching my daughter what is and is not appropriate behavior and what will and will not produce desirable results.

Third, I must not provoke my daughter to anger.

Ephesians 6:4 warns fathers not to provoke their children to anger – but I think it applies to mothers as well. While I can not prevent all of her temper tantrums, I can learn how to gently guard my daughter from situations where she feels that a temper tantrum is her only recourse. I can, to the best of my ability, make sure she is fed before she’s ravenous by establishing regular meal and snack times. I can, to the best of my ability, pay attention to her cues and put her to bed before she becomes over-tired. I can pull her out of crowds for a time out when I see that she’s getting overstimulated.

Finally, I must trust the Lord with my daughter.

It’s so easy to think that everything our children do reflects directly on us or to think that somehow we should be able to change our children’s behavior. But it doesn’t and we aren’t. Our children are their own people – and the only One who can change their hearts (far more important than changing their behavior) is God. So we must continue to entrust our children to His keeping.

Categories Parenting

Not as bad as I make it look

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Do I make parenthood look bad?

It’s the question I asked myself as Daniel drove us home from our twice-monthly dinner club.

We’re the first couple among the group who’ve had children while continuing to regularly attend – and when people ask me how I am, I’m likely to respond that I’m tired, Tirzah Mae’s not been sleeping, it’s got to be teething, or (my favorite line) “I signed up for this – and it’s only another twenty years or so.”

But is that the sum of how I feel about parenthood? How I feel about myself as a stay-at-home helpmeet or about Tirzah Mae as my 24/7 companion?

No. It’s not.

Parenthood is hard, make no mistakes about it. But it is also rewarding, fun even.

But the “Happy Food” friends ask me when I’m hungry because it’s an hour after my normal eating hour, when I’m exhausted because I’m at the end of the day (and quite possibly after my usual bedtime.) So I respond with a litany of complaints.

I remarked on this to Daniel and he responded that I was being honest. That I have found parenthood hard.

And it’s true. Parenthood has been hard. But I realized that even Daniel doesn’t see the fun I have.

By the time Daniel gets home from work, I’m hungry (it’s almost dinner time!) and I’m tired (it’s been a long day of work and play.) Tirzah Mae gets clingy right around the same time I’m trying to get dinner prepared, so I’m often feeling stressed about juggling cooking and a clingy child. So Daniel hears my frustrations, my exhaustion, my readiness for a break.

When Tirzah Mae and I go out in the morning and I talk with other moms, I’m more than likely stressed about having had to get out of the door by a specific time and I’m working to keep Tirzah Mae’s normal morning energy under control so she’s not disrupting whatever we’re doing. So I’m likely to be happier than at night, but still frustrated.

What no one else sees is what happens in the mornings and early afternoons, while Tirzah Mae and I are both well rested and well fed. We roll around on the floor laughing. We dance around the living room. We make faces at one another. We cuddle. We go out on the front porch and watch the rain streaming down, occasionally sticking our hands in the overflow from the gutters. We talk through the ordinary events of our day – making oatmeal, changing diapers, making the bed, putting on makeup or brushing my hair, cleaning the toilet, watering the garden, washing dishes, emptying the dehumidifier, folding laundry or hanging it to dry,

I’m sorry for how I represent parenthood. It’s not as bad as I make it look.

Categories Parenting

The day I bottle-fed in public

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The plan was that she would drink her bottle on the way over to our missions pastor’s house, she’d fall asleep in her car seat, and then we’d set her car seat in some remote corner at their house while we visited with our mission’s care team.

Instead, she refused the bottle, stayed stubbornly awake for the drive, and spent the entire visit (all of which was after her normal bedtime) climbing around on the floor where we sat.

Well, except when she grew hungry and I pulled the bottle out of my purse to feed her with.

I know our missions pastor’s wife breastfed – her daughter got fussy while we were visiting during a new person welcome function when Daniel and I were new at the church, and she and I talked a bit about breastfeeding. Our missionary had been breastfeeding her sweet daughter as we all talked. She’d mentioned wanting to maybe learn more about maternal/child health so she could help the women she worked with – and mentioned breastfeeding specifically as part of that.

And I just pulled a bottle out of my purse.

I’m not usually self-conscious about my mothering – Daniel and I have been entrusted with the care of our daughter, and we’re caring for her as we know best. I don’t obsess over what anyone else thinks about that. I’m pretty confident that I’m doing the right thing – and I don’t need validation from others to give me that confidence.

Until I pulled a bottle out of my purse.

At that moment, I worried what these people would think. I’m a bottle-feeding mom. I don’t value breastfeeding. I don’t understand its importance. I’d just told one of the other women that I’d been a WIC dietitian before Tirzah Mae was born – would she think WIC wasn’t pro-breastfeeding?

I stuck the nipple in Tirzah Mae’s mouth and she sucked it down like the bottle-feeding pro she is.

No one mentioned it.

I wanted to defend myself, to interject that Tirzah Mae was getting expressed breastmilk. Could I somehow work the fact that I still have breastmilk from Tirzah Mae’s hospitalization in my freezer into the conversation? There was no opportunity. No need, really. But I wanted to defend myself from what I feared the other women were thinking.

Everyone’s eyes were closed to pray when Tirzah Mae grew fussy again. I stood and we walked to the side of the room to breastfeed. She calmed down and I returned my blouse to normal. Someone closed the prayer time and everyone’s eyes opened again.

It’s the first time I’ve ever bottle-fed in public.

Categories Education

Making Connections

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Unit studies were all the rage when I was reading about homeschooling in my mid-teens. Monthly themes governed every subject in the homeschooling curriculum.

A unit study on bugs would have children reading about bugs, catching bugs, counting bugs, exploring the bug ecosystem, learning about how bugs are used in different cultures or throughout history. Bug art would abound.

If mom didn’t have the time, energy, or creativity to come up with her own unit study, websites and books offered an abundance of options.

Learning like this is more natural, the unit study people declared.

I wished I could jump on the bandwagon, but it was unfortunately too difficult for me to figure out how to connect bugs to calculus.

It wouldn’t be long before a radical old approach became popular, thanks to Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer’s The Well-Trained Mind. This new approach was much more systematic than either the unit study approach or the traditional school approach (at least as far as social studies is concerned).

Wise and Wise Bauer’s brand of classical education focused on a four year cycle for both history and science – strictly (for history) and loosely (for science) following the progression of historical thought through the ages.

The Well-Trained Mind gave an example of how students make connections, even when their mothers don’t plan in such a way as to make the connections explicit. They used “Mars” as an example. A student might learn the mythology of Mars when studying the Roman Empire and later learn about the planet Mars (red with blood, like the warlike god). Likewise, he will learn about the martial arts and will trace the term “martial” back to the god of war. Each bit of knowledge becomes a hook upon which other pieces of knowledge (from disparate disciplines) are hung.

When I read this example, I nodded my head. Sure, I acknowledged that was probably true. It’s like when you get a new car and suddenly see that make and model all over the road. It’s not that those cars weren’t already there, it’s just that you became more aware of them.

But apart from my car example, I couldn’t really think of a time when I’d had “hooks” to hang new information on.

Then my husband and I checked out Tom Reiss’s The Black Count to listen to during our fourth of July travels. The Black Count tells the story of the novelist Alexandre Dumas’ father (also named Alexandre Dumas), a general during the French Revolution.

Now, until a year ago, what little I knew of the French Revolution came from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (not a bad read by any means, but certainly not a comprehensive introduction to the Revolution.) But last year, that changed when Daniel and I started listening to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions Podcast. We listened as Duncan gave a history of the English Revolution, and then the American Revolution, and then the French (he’s not done with the French Revolution yet – and I haven’t listened past the first dozen or so podcasts on the French Revolution.) As we listened, I’ll admit that my eyes sometimes glazed over and my mind started wandering. So much was so unfamiliar – the names, the events, the political bodies.

But as we listened to The Black Count, something strange happened. I started hearing the names, the political bodies, the events I’d heard before. And I listened more carefully this time around. It picqued my curiosity to read more, to relisten, to become more familiar with the French Revolution.

I thought of the differences between unit studies and a more systematic approach as I listened.

While Daniel and I were listening to one podcast after another after another of Duncan’s Revolutions, I got worn out with the topic. If I’d have been listening to The Black Count concurrently, I likely would have ignored the parts about the French Revolution, thinking I’d heard it before.

But, listening to it several months later, I was able to see the Revolution through fresh eyes, able to enjoy it, able to pass through again to impress the events more deeply upon my own memory.

I feel that there must be application to how I choose to homeschool someday, but I’m not sure exactly what it is.

I’m still rather enamored with the Bauer and Wise Bauer approach to history studies. I still rather enjoy immersing myself in a topic every once in a while. But I think this has reminded me that connections can be anywhere – and that it’s okay to let them arise naturally.

I don’t have to beat my children (or myself) over the head with learning. I have to make plenty of good books, good audiovisual learning opportunities (like Duncan’s podcasts!), good educational experiences available to my children.

They will make connections – even if it takes them until they’re 30 to start recognizing it.

Categories Everyday Life

Driving lessons: Six lane highways

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Complaining about other peoples’ driving, like complaining about the weather, seems to be ubiquitous to the human condition (at least in the modern age).

Everyone thinks that they understand the rules of driving and the conventions of traffic, and that they drive in the most common-sense way. If only everyone else drove like them, traffic would flow smoothly.

I am no exception.

Now, let me clarify. My husband and I are what you could call aggressive drivers (which is not the same thing as bad drivers, family-of-mine). I am aware that not all people have the, er, gonads to drive like we do. They are easily frightened by changing lanes or taking left turns.

Other people drive differently than we because they have different levels of experience. Many residents of our hometown, Lincoln Nebraska, have no reason to regularly drive a six lane highway. It makes sense that they would have a lower level of comfort as well as a lower level of understanding of how to properly drive on a six-lane highway.

But Wichitans, who drive on a six lane highway on a daily (or at least weekly) basis, should have a basic understanding of how to drive when they have three lanes all going the same direction.

Alas, they do not.

In case you were taught by a Wichitan, or were never taught, how to drive on a six-lane highway, allow me to educate you.

A six-lane highway has three lanes going in each direction. Each of those lanes has a different function.

It would behoove you to think of the outermost lane as the “merging” lane, the middle lane as the “driving” lane, and the innermost lane as the “passing” lane.

Functionally, this means that you should only be in the outermost lane if you are getting onto or off of the highway. You merge onto this lane when you enter the highway, after which you should be looking for the first opportunity to move into the middle “driving” lane. When you want to get off the highway, you merge back from the middle lane into the outermost lane and then to your off-ramp. Getting into the “merging” lane should happen no more than 2 exits from your off ramp. Ideally, you should never pass more than one exit at a time in the outer lane.

Why is this?

Lots of people are getting onto and off of the highway at any given exit. They HAVE to travel through the outermost lane to drive on the highway. If someone is just hanging out in this outermost lane, access onto and off of the highway is impeded, resulting in traffic snarls on and off the highway.

The innermost lane should be reserved for passing and should only be used if you are going faster than the traffic in the center lane. It amazes me that people don’t understand this particular convention.

If you are going at the same speed or more slowly than the driver to your right, that means that anyone who comes up behind you is forced to either slow down or to switch into the (already busy by necessity) outermost lane in order to pass. The more people that are popping in and out of that outermost lane, the more likely it will be for accidents to occur. So, to keep traffic moving and to avoid dangerous snarls, you should only drive in the innermost lane if you are going faster than the traffic in the middle “driving” lane (and if someone comes up behind you going faster than you? You should move into the middle “driving” lane to allow them to pass before moving back to the innermost “passing” lane to pass those who are going even slower in the “driving” lane.)

THAT, my friends, is how you should drive on a six-lane highway.