Parenting | Ramblings of a Christian Mom

When I Realized I Wasn’t a Very Safe Parent

October 4, 2016

Every good parent wants to keep their children safe. We don’t fill the crib with soft fluffy things. We keep medicines up high, and cleaning supplies locked up. We buckle up car seats. Gates and cabinet locks appear when babies start to become mobile, and we hold hands when crossing a parking lot or street. When we found out about my son’s food allergies, we became a nut-free house and we read food labels carefully before giving him anything.

But I’m realizing, sadly, that I’m not as good at keeping my children’s hearts protected as I am their bodies.

I’m sinful, and prone to becoming frustrated and overwhelmed easily. I get grouchy and I grumble, I get snappy and loud.

I react instead of respond.

And often, my reaction is worse than the offense I’m reacting to. I want my children to come to me with difficulties or problems, but I’m realizing that they very well might not see me as a safe person to come to, lest they get in trouble.

And if they feel like they can’t come to be with something as minor as an accident in the bathroom or a spill in the kitchen, they most definitely won’t feel safe coming to be in 5 or 10 years with the much bigger problems that teens and young adults these days often face.

The Bible has a lot to say about acting in anger. Here are just a few verses.

¹⁹Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear,slow to speak, slow to anger

-James 1:19

A hot-tempered man stirs up strife,
but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.

-Proverbs 15:18

¹¹A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back.

-Provers 29:11

The Bible also has a few things to say about being slow to anger, and forgiveness. Of giving grace. Being patient.

A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.

-Proverbs 15:1

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

-Psalm 37:8

⁴Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

-Ephesians 6:4

⁶Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

-Colossians 4:6

I want to be a safe place for my children to come to when they’re struggling. I want my first concern to be for their heart, not for my floors or mental chore list. A mess they make lasts only a few minutes, but my words and reactions will last in their hearts for a lot longer.

And to be straight out with it, when I blow things out of proportion and get snappy, I’m sinning. A harsh word stirs up anger; do not provoke your children to anger.

Bring them up in the discipline of the Lord. How does God deal with my repeated mistakes? With love and grace and forgiveness. That needs to be my goal.

I need to store these verses in my heart. I need to stop before I react. I need to repent and ask forgiveness when I slip, so that my kids will realize that I know it’s not OK, and that I’m trying.

Do you struggle with a tendency to react out of anger or frustration, instead of responding with patience and grace? How do you work toward making a habit of responding to circumstances in a more humble way? I’d love to hear from you!

Book Review: Believe Storybook

September 9, 2015

believe storybook

Believe Storybook: Think, Act, Be Like Jesus

Edited by Randy Frazee, with Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton. Illustrated by Steve Adams
Published by Zondervan

Book Description

Presented by bestselling author and pastor Randy Frazee, the Believe Storybook shows children how they can think, act, and be more like Jesus. With 60 old and new testament stories from the Bible that showcase the themes, combined with captivating and dramatic illustrations by Steve Adams, children and adults alike will be inspired to become more like their savior and the person they were meant to be.

My Thoughts

I am very impressed with the Believe Storybook. It’s a large book with nice, thick pages and simple yet beautiful illustrations. There are 10 chapters for each of the three categories, Think, Act, and Be like Jesus.

Each chapter has a key word or phrase (such as Compassion, Stewardship, Offering my Time), a short introduction to the topic (called the Key Question), and an Old Testament and New Testament reference and story. After the Old Testament story is a The Jump to Jesus discussion which discusses how the Old Testament points r relates to Christ in some way. After the New Testament story is The Jesus Answer, which explains to the children how what they’ve learned can help them be more like Jesus. There is also a key idea (ex. I offer my time to help God’s plan) and a Script verse that relates to the topic.

I really look forward to using the Believe Storybook in our homeschool this year. It’s simple enough that my 4 year old will be able to follow along, and maybe my 2 year old as well, but not baby-boring in any way for my older children. It will be a great resource to help children learn how they can apply Biblical lessons to their own lives, and easy enough to read that young readers could read it on their own. I think this book would be great for any elementary aged child.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for review from the Book Look Bloggers program. I was not obligated to provide a positive review.

Malachi’s Birth Story: A Birth That Didn’t Go Quite As We Had Planned

August 20, 2015

It’s been over a week since Malachi was born, and I’m finally sitting down to write up his birth story! Labour was very quick so there isn’t too much to tell really, but I thought that maybe his story could maybe encourage others, as we weren’t able to do the birth we’d planned.

On August 9th, around 10:30pm, I was laying in bed trying to sleep when I felt the strangest sensation…a thump *pop* in my pelvic area. And then the gush. I ~~hopped~~ clumsily rolled out of bed and grabbed whatever I could reach to try to avoid a mess on the bed and floor. My sudden movement woke up up husband and I told him my water broke. This was the first time in any of my pregnancies that my water broke on its own so this was brand new to me.

I noticed that the fluid was a bit yellow tinged and asked my husband if he thought that was normal; I’d never looked before. He said he thought maybe so, but wasn’t sure. It was hard to tell the true colour against a coloured floor.

We went downstairs and Louis called the midwife while I went to the bathroom to get cleaned up a bit. The midwife said that it sounded like there could be meconium so she was going to come by and check. Contractions hadn’t started yet so we just started getting things ready for either a home or hospital birth. We let our neighbour know that we might need her to come if we were sent to the hospital and waited.

My midwife arrived shortly after 11 and contractions were just starting. She listened to the baby’s heart rate, which was good, and confirmed that there was definitely meconium in the fluid.

There went our ideal home birth plan.

We let our neighbour know that we did indeed need her to come, and within about 10 minutes we were on our way. Thankfully our hospital is close; less than a 15 minute drive. I truly feel for anyone who has had to be in a car during labour for any amount of time, especially for those who need to drive an hour or more. So uncomfortable, and I wasn’t even very hard labour yet.

I’m not sure what time it was when we got to the hospital. Probably somewhere around 11:30 or 11:45. I went straight to the bathroom and ended up spending most of my labour in there, with my body cleaning itself out. Labour progressed very quickly with contractions only a minute or two apart and very painful. After a while my midwife checked my cervix and said I was about 6 or 7cm. I felt very discouraged; it was so intense and I really didn’t want to have to deal with it for a lot longer.

Thankfully, God had other plans. Maybe 2 or 3 contractions later they were more than I could handle quietly; I only get to that point when I’m pretty much ready to push. My midwife had me go to the bed (with the meconium being present, she wanted to make sure it would be easy to take care of the baby if he was struggling in any way once he was born) and next contraction, I was pushing. I think it was only a few minutes and a few pushes before Malachi came into the world, screaming and healthy. He was born at 12:43 AM on August 10, less than an hour and forty-five minute since contractions started and sharing a birthday with my mom, his grandma.

He went up on my chest immediately and after the cord stopped pulsing, I cut the cord for the first time in any of my pregnancies. I had no tearing, just swelling, and Malachi was doing fine. He latched on to nurse without difficulties; in fact, I had a harder time with it as I was still too sore to sit or lie comfortably.

We had to stay in hospital for 3 hours after the birth to be monitored before we could leave, so I got some rest while Daddy got some bonding time with his new son.

As soon as we could, we were headed out and on our way home.

Well, almost.

We got to the parking lot and discovered that the pay gate wasn’t working. We paid, and the arm didn’t move. So that set us back about 10 minutes while the ER staff tried to free us.

Then we got home to discover we were locked out. We hadn’t thought to grab our house keys and our neighbour had locked all of the doors before settling to sleep on our futon. But eventually we were in our home again, with our neighbour (who is like an adopted Oma to the kids) snuggled and cuddled Malachi. We were home by 4:30.

We went to bed for a couple of hours before the kids got up to discover that Tobi’s prayers had been answered (he’d prayed for the baby to come that night before bed) and that they had a new baby brother!

They were so eager and squirmy to meet him that I couldn’t get a clear photo.

Josiah and Gabriel especially can’t give him enough kisses.

And Tobi is loving being a biggest brother once again.

There were several things I’d been praying about regarding labour and delivery throughout the entire pregnancy. Some things were answered with a ‘yes’, other things were answered with an “I have other plans.”

I’m thankful that even though the birth didn’t go quite as we’d planned and hoped for, it wasn’t traumatic in any way like many women experience. I was still able to deliver naturally, there were no complications, and we were home before the kids woke up. But we still had to deal with the sudden unknown if there would be problems because of the meconium, with having to leave our children in the middle of the night without knowing if we would be home before they woke, and with having to trust that God’s plan might be different from ours, but He sees the big picture and He will take care of the details to get us through.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

Anything that happens in life, that jumps out at us unexpectedly, is only a surprise to us. God isn’t surprised by it! And He’s got his own plans already set in place to deal with these situations.

People have asked me before what advice I’d give to someone preparing for her first labour and delivery and usually I say something along the lines of “Have a plan, but be prepared to be flexible about it.” Malachi’s birth was a great reminder to take my own advice!

This has turned out a lot longer than I expected, so if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! And all of this to say, welcome to the world Malachi! May the Lord bless you and guide you through all of your days.

Malachi Jacob

7lbs 15 oz.

19″ long

August 10, 2015

Potty Trained!

July 30, 2015

Josiah has taught me a lot in his 4 years. He was a very difficult to please baby. To the point where, I actually had someone tell me that I must be doing something wrong, not giving him enough attention, because normal babies didn’t cry as much as he did.

He met some major milestones early, like when he pulled himself up standing at 5 months old and was fully walking at about 7.5 months old. We even caught him climbing about 3 feet off the ground up a bookshelf when he was only 10 months old. He’s always kept us on our toes!

Other milestones, however, have been a bit slower to come. Josiah didn’t really talk..at all..until he was 3 years old. Before that, his vocabulary was restricted pretty much “uh-oh”, “ow”, and sometimes “no.” He could say all of the letters of the alphabet by the time he was 2, and most of their sounds as well, but communicative vocabulary just wasn’t there. Around the time he turned 3, he had a word explosion and started really communicating. His speech is still behind that of most peers his age, but I care more about improvement than comparison. He’s also been a late bloomer, socially speaking.

Potty training has been another struggle. I learned with my eldest that pushing to potty train just doesn’t work. I pushed and pushed, and he resisted and resisted. Of course, he eventually potty trained..several months after I gave up on trying, and he just decided on his own that he was ready. From that time on, he was dry day and night. He was about 3 years and 10 months old.

I had expected Josiah to potty train before he was 4 but that didn’t happen. He turned 4 this past March. He resisted any attempt I had to get him to sit on the toilet, and the rare times he agreed to, he either wouldn’t or couldn’t get anything out. So, I let it go. And I tried not to feel judged that my 4 year old was still in diapers.

However, with baby #5 being due any time now and still having 2 in diapers, I started bringing it up more. I’ve had 3 in diapers before and hoped to avoid it again. I started talking to Josiah about how he’s a big boy and will be ready for underwear soon, asking him more often if he wanted to try out the toilet. If I tried to let him go around bare-bum in the yard, he’d be asking for a diaper about 5 minutes later. His interest was pretty much nil; he just didn’t care if he was sitting in a wet or poopy diaper.

Then I tried potty treats. At first, he didn’t really care. Then, he would just sit on the toilet and try to squeeze out a few drips in order to get a treat. I rewarded every success, no matter how minuscule. Eventually, he got a full pee out and was so excited and proud; Bing! There was the interest he needed to proceed.

I let him go bare-bum in the house, and voila! He did great! The first day he had no accidents, the second day just one accident. It’s been almost 2 full weeks now and he’s had maybe 3 or 4 accidents in total, all of them just being a tiny pee from waiting too long. Sometimes he wanted to try by himself, other times he wanted someone to come with him. I let him lead. He even started trying to go pee more often so that he would finish his small jar of potty treats because that would mean he was officially potty trained.

And he is!

By the end of the first week he loved counting down the treats until the jar was empty, and eventually showing off the empty jar.

We haven’t gotten to the point of wearing underwear yet..we’re slowly going from bare-bum to wearing loose shorts so he doesn’t get that familiar cozy and close feeling, but we’re getting there!

Oh, and what have I learned in this?

That if you let a newly potty training child go bare-bum at home all week, he might go streaking through church come Sunday. 😉

Take heart, potty training Mommas! Don’t stress! Don’t compare. Don’t let other moms make you feel like you or your child is failing or behind. If your child isn’t ready to potty train (both physically and emotionally) it will not be worth the stress and frustration of trying. It will happen, though!