2007 Goal Update, Part 4

In January, I made a New Year's Resolution.  I don't usually make them, but did this year because it was for a worthy cause.....my daughter.  :-)  The link to the original post is above.  You can go HERE to read the other updates I've posted about this.  Just scroll to the bottom and start from the January 15th post.

In a nutshell, my goal is to make a connection with my daughter through some of the chores I have to do around the house every day.  I chose to focus on doing laundry together this year.  My success with this goal is mixed.  Part of that is due to the changing dynamics in our family.  Back in January, Third Son was usually in bed by the time we were ready to tackle the laundry.  Today, at 17 months, he's wide awake and into everything!  I have found myself falling back on my Daughter as a babysitter for him so I could get the laundry done without having him into everything in my bedroom, where we fold and iron.  She is so good with him.  She's the sweetest Little Mama I think I've ever seen, which makes it easy to have her take up the task of keeping Third Son entertained.  But then that leaves her doing her thing, and me doing my thing, and there's not much of a connection that way, eh?  So the last few weeks I have had to make a conscious decision to have my Daughter come fold laundry with me and bring Third Son along so he's not into the dishwasher and garbage can as my Husband and two older sons clean the kitchen from dinner.

We are constantly distracted in our conversation because of Third Son's antics, but I've found that even that brings us together in our work, and it's all good.  And we've had some interesting chats!  Well, lately, my Daughter is doing all the chatting.  She has taken to telling me stories while we work.  Man, that girl can spin a yarn.  We also play a casual game of hide and seek.  Whenever one of us has to leave the room to put something away, or go get hangers, the other hides.  So it's fun.  :-)  I plan on this being our job together for forever, and I hope she looks back at this time together when she's doing the laundry for her own family, and decides to reach out to her own daughter in the same way.

I think next year we'll start scrubbing the kitchen floor together. 

heh heh. 

No, seriously.  ;-)

Pregnancy Update

Since this is my fifth pregnancy, you would think that I am a little more savvy in all things related to pregnancy, but the other night, after spending a good two minutes grunting my way to a comfortable spot in bed, I said to my husband, "I don't think I can get any bigger."  My husband told me that yes, I will get bigger, and I said, "No, I don't think I can get any bigger."  So there.

I think Third Son agrees.  Yesterday he wanted me to read him a book, so he plopped down on my lap and kept trying to scoot back!  I finally had to say, "There's no where else for you to go!" 

I am 24 weeks along.  It seems as if it has taken forever (you know, about 24 weeks) to get to this point, but on the other hand, it seems as if I was blogging a pregnancy announcement just yesterday!  At my OB appointment today, I had to face the dreaded Glucose Tolerance Test and it really wasn't that bad.  I was definitely ready to eat by the time I got home, but I wasn't freaking out as I have in the past.  I know that the difference is Cod Liver Oil.  I used to have low blood sugar issues, but ever since we started taking Cod Liver Oil every day, it has never been a problem and things like the Glucose Tolerance Test is a very little deal.

Another great thing about this pregnancy is that sugar is replusive to me.  Never in my life have I been repulsed by sugar.  Love it!  Crave it!  :-)  So with the nausea of the first trimester and my new hatred of sweets, I lost ten pounds the first trimester.  The nausea is over, but the sweet thing continues, and I have never gained back all of the ten pounds yet.  There is a real possibility that I may end up weighing less after this pregnancy than when I started!  No, don't worry about me, the good Lord knows I have it to spare.  ;-)  But I have never lost weight during a pregnancy.  I'm one of those gals that gains 50 pounds and looks as if she's about to give birth any day even though she has eight weeks to go.  HA!  I tell ya, there is NO SUCH THING as a "normal" pregnancy.  Just like the kids, they are all different.

Cuisenaire Rod Fun

Today I'm working on lesson plans.  Can I say that I LUV working on lesson plans?  I don't know what it is about filling in the little rectangles on my kid's daily schedules that thrills me, but it does.  If only we could ALL be so easy to please.  ;-)

I want to re-visit place value with Second Son this week.  I thought it would be fun to pull out the Cuisenaire Rods again and wanted to find some activities with the rods for place value.  On to Google.  Love that, too. 

Here are some fun links I have found.  Not necessarily to do with place value, but learning with the rods in general. 

Cuisenaire Rod Math Games from Paula's Archives
Cuisenaire Rod Patterns - scroll down on this page
This is a great link! Cuisenaire Activity and Exploration Book

Bringing Up Baby, Part 2

So I started praying that God would show me what it meant to base our homeschool on the Bible and I received an answer through another book that He placed in our path.  I've written a post on how the book Ten P's in a Pod fired up my husband and me in the area of Bible reading.  We have begun reading to our kids from the Bible two, and we aim for three times each day.  We believe that God is less concerned with Biblically based curricula than He is with us going straight to the Word with our children.  We believe that is what is meant by basing our homeschool on the Bible.  Not sure that others would say it means the same thing to them, but that's what we believe God is telling us.  What this has meant for us is a family who is learning how to work harder and faster to fit the chores and play that we want into our day so that we are sure of getting in the All Important Bible Reading.

A little blurb from Ten P's in a Pod has been ringing through my head.  The book was written by Arnold Pent III, one of the sons.  This is what he said his mother said about all the Bible reading she and her husband did with their children:

My mother has often said, "During the time when the children were all much younger and going through rebellious stages of one kind and another, it just didn't seem we were making progress with all the Bible reading we did.  But as the months and years went by, and they started becoming conscious of the world around them, I saw that spiritual seed coming to life and giving an unending stream of Godly insight and a desire and determination to spend their lives for Christ."

And who doesn't want that for our children??????  We are taking Arnold's Mom's words to the bank and counting on their reliability!  We're taking God's word for it as well.  ;-)  In Joshua 1:8, He says, "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success."

So the Bible is my new parenting book and my search for the perfect parenting book is over!

Bringing Up Baby

A friend of mine and I have scoured the earth's best parenting books.  We read them together, have special meetings at the library to talk about our inspiriations we have gathered from them, then go our separate ways and proceed to do little, if nothing, that we have learned from all those books.  We truly have been looking for that magic potion that would tell us the way to lead our kids away from their character issues.  Yet everything we read seemed to be lacking, even though most of what we read was written by Christians.

About two years ago, my husband and I read the book When You Rise Up by R.C. Sproul, Jr.  Great book.  Not necessarily about parenting tricks, but more about discipling our children.  We loved the book when we read it, and this small excerpt stuck in my brain:

What does it take to raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?  The Bible, and the Holy Spirit to illumine the Bible.  I have a Bible.  I have several, in fact.  And the Bible tells me that it equips me for every good work.  It is a good work to raise my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  Therefore, it equips me to raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

It stuck in my brain, but meant nothing to me in a PRACTICAL sense.  Then about a year and a half later, I was reading a blog, and the writer said, "we base our homeschool on the Bible."  I was glad to read that, and at the same time, thought to myself, "What does that LOOK like?  What does that MEAN?"  We read the Bible to our kids every day.  Did that mean that we also based our homeschool on the Bible????  I didn't know, so I started praying about it.

To be continued......

My New Look

How do you like the new look of my blog?  My husband is a wonderful Web Man, and designed it for me.  He is SO good to me!  :-)  Thanks, honey! 

I hope to add more interesting stuff to my sidebar as time permits (HA!).  ;-)

We Have the Mind of Christ, Part 3

 

Here's a challenge.  Put your children in place of the woman in the black t-shirt.  Put yourself in the place of all those who tempted her away from Christ.  Ask yourself if there is anything you are placing in front of your children that takes time away from their life with Christ, as in Bible Study, Church, One-on-One Discipling from you or your spouse.  There are many, many things that we, as parents, come up with to fill our kid's time, such as sports teams, co-ops, youth groups, a book that is a must--read, & etc.

This is a subject that I think we parents must constantly visit.  Exactly what is it that we are doing that is drawing our kids to Christ?  Do they know that they have the mind of Christ  (1 Cor. 2:9-16) and can draw close to Him in a way they never imagined through reading the Bible and prayer?

My Husband and I used to have the goal that we wanted to raise our kids to be "better" than we were by the time we hit our 20's.  Not a hard thing!  ;-)  We definitely had some {partying} issues.  But now our new goal is becoming to teach our kids that they have the mind of Christ.  What power we give them to maneuver through life's surprises, if through God's grace, we succeed in meeting our goal.

Read these:
Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years
Most Adults Feel Accepted by God, But Lack a Biblical Worldview
Teens Evaluate the Church-Based Ministry They Received As Children