Rules for being bored

Summer rolls on. Heat overcomes. Vacations end. And children get bored. What can I do? 


I have boards on Pinterest with pictures of crafts I want to do with the girls. I know websites I can visit listing every activity in 3 nearby counties. I see Facebook posts about my friends who took their kids to a museum, stopped working all afternoon to swim in the pool with their kids, or made organic, no-refined sugar smoothies for their kids for breakfast. And I feel like an overwhelmed underachiever (too much comparison is a trick of Satan because I do spend time with my kids doing awesome stuff...just not constantly). 


I am working to let it go. I am not supposed to spent every moment of the day with my kids. Every moment is not quality time and it is not my job to entertain them all the time. God calls moms to invest in their kids and to train them--not entertain them.  There are no rewards for most crafts completed or even the most organic cook. God wants followers who follow Him...not Pinterest or Facebook. 


So this summer, give yourself permission to not be the boredom rescuer. Around here boredom is a 5-minute state but while in it, there are three rules to get out of it....

You can't let your girl learn to end boredom by eating. Bad habit. And you can't let her end boredom by watching TV or playing video games. More bad habits. Train her to be creative. And if the way she solves her boredom breaks these rules, make her help you with the laundry or whatever you are doing. Following through with the threat is critical to effective parenting.  


But, don't expect your daughter to know how to solve boredom issues alone. Our job is to train our girls, and this includes instruction on using down time wisely. Give her some ideas before you institute rules. I sat down with my girls one day and we brainstormed a list of things they could do when they were bored. It had things like puzzles, baking cookies (baking is different than just eating) for neighbors, painting nails, climbing trees, cleaning their treehouse, asking neighbors if they could help with a project, building a fort, making a new guinea pig house, writing a letter, plan a lesson for an imaginary class etc.


The girls no longer tell me if they bored since they don't want more chores. But sometimes, if they are laying around doing nothing, I apply the rules of boredom anyway. Now, go enjoy your summer without feeling like you need to entertain your kids.  



Participating today with Hearts at Home Blog hop. The topic: How to beat summer boredom. Check out other ideas from bloggers on this topic.

Glitter Grapes

Driving down the road to the soccer party my heart sank, the dessert my daughter and I had prepared wasn't in the car.

"Can anyone see the grapes?"

Gasp. I knew where they were. 

Hubby screeched to a halt and the bowl of glitter grapes careened down the front windshield and all over the road. The kids at the party only got to munch on 20 grapes that miraculously resisted gravity.  The serving bowl was metal and unbroken. The amazing thing? An almost empty bowl of grapes at a soccer team party on a table full of desserts earned me 2 wide-eyed exclamations of their awesomeness. 

I found Glitter Grapes on Pinterest but have since seen the recipe all over the Internet. They are sometimes called Sour Patch Grapes or Leprechaun Candy.  For my directions I combined the best tips from all the recipes I found (yippee for you!). Doesn't the idea of glittering grapes and little girls just go together? A healthy(ish) princess party snack? These crowd pleasers are especially fabulous if you serve them very cold, even frozen, on a hot day. 

Ingredients
Seedless Grapes 
1 or 2 packages of Jell-O Mix, unmade

Directions
1. Remove the grapes from their stem. 
2. Wash the grapes thoroughly. You want the grapes to be wet. 
3. Pour the Jell-O into a shallow bowl and spoon the mix over the grapes. 
4. Chill covered grapes for an least an hour. 
5. Eat. Smile. Wonder if Sour Patch Grapes might not be a better name for these. 

You can use any flavor combination you want but some that you will love: our fav--green grapes with Melon Fusion Jell-O (pictured above and inspired by suggested by Puresugar), red grapes with  cherry.  Or for try unusual color combinations like green grapes with blue Jell-O. 

Participating in the Heart at Home Blog Hop today where bloggers share favorite summer recipes. Check it out here. 

Why your life will never be balanced

The balancing act of parenting are favorite topics for magazine and talk show hosts. They tell you to adopt just 5 simple habits and your life will be more balanced. They surround the balance talk with power of positive thinking and “you are worth it” chants. Don't get taken in.

Consider this. Life is never stagnant long enough to maintain balance. I've only been alive for 36 years and my life seasons constantly change. When my first child was born, I had two needs. Sleep and to care for a new life. I felt like a cow. Showers were huge accomplishments. I was lonely and lost in the transition from work with hourly social interactions to this quiet house with me and a baby who couldn't communicate. But I was focused on my family and our schedule wasn't overbooked. 

By 18-months, Bird and had found a groove. Scheduled play dates and story times created regular adult conversation. Predictable nap times made house duties and meal planning easier. Then Bug came. I felt guilty about not giving both girls equal amounts of attention. Our scheduled habits were no longer practical. Rare me-time was spent in 20 minute hot baths or napping. But I could balance both girls on my lap for snuggles. 

Moving to Montana when Bug was 9 months left me with nothing to balance. I knew no one. Had no place to go. My husband was consumed with grad school. I sat in my tiny house, with two toddlers feeling my mind deteriorate with each singing of the alphabet. I didn't want me time; I wanted friend time. But the house was small and the grocery store awesome. I could keep the house relatively clean, read books of my own choosing, and make healthy eating choices for my whole family. 

And then one day, four years later, the house was quiet. They were both in school. I didn't know how to be a mom to kids who weren't home. I didn't know how to spend my time or if it was even okay to not work if the kids weren't home. I had to rediscover my own interests after years of pouring into those little souls. And suddenly we became that overbooksed family. But  I could have quiet times with God and exercise more. 

Each life stage has its own joys and issues to balance. I wish to live a life where time in the Word and prayer, exercise, healthy eating, and time for me are part of the equation. I want to share with you tips to make it all work. But I don't think it will. Motherhood is an imbalanced business. Some seasons are more slanted than others. Those healthful habits that comprise the balance conversation are excellent pursuits. Rejoice in the moments when there is balance, knowing that the season will change and the acts you have to balance will differ. Give yourself grace because in some season, you might balance five things but in others, three will be stretching your skills to the max. 

Imbalance keeps us turned to God. It reminds us we can't do it all. It forces us to keep being students and sometimes we remember that the best teacher is the Lord. He is the one who will fill us when we have poured ourselves into our family. He is the one who numbers our days. He never tells us to look after ourselves, rather he tells us to lose our life (Matt 16:25). He never promises a neat, healthy life. But He does promise joy and comfort without measure in the life to come.

Moms, seek balance but only by seeking the Lord. Faith in him is the only way to live productively as we wait for our true home. 

Joining Jill Savage and others in the Hearts at Home blog hop today. Visit other sweet bloggers to get more encouragement.

Mom as Superhero

Yay! It's Hearts at Home Blog Hop day. Visit other bloggers (listed below)who are participating and link up yourself if you like. Here's the prompt: 
We all have days when we feel like just an 'ordinary mom'. If you could have any super power that would help you in your mothering, what would it be?


Most days are ordinary mom days. When friends from other states call and say, "What's new?" Usually I answer,  "Nothing, much."  Who wants to hear about bedtime snuggles, grocery shopping or sending an email to my daughter's teacher? None of it is new. 


So when I read the prompt for the blog hop, I started dreaming, what if my super power was.... 


Flying: Picture me, without cape (per Incredibles advice), flying through the air, racing to out of town soccer games or just thrilling my kids(flying always comes with super strength so you can carry other people to safety, right?). Of course, I would arrive a wind blown and disheveled and all the kids would constantly be badgering for rides. Maybe flying isn't the right superpower. 


X-ray vision: I could see the mischief my kids were up to and potential dangers in the house and find those things that go missing. But seeing everything my kids do might create for trust issues. Plus, it might take a while to know how to use and I don't want to start seeing other people's underwear. 


Invisible Powers: I could watch my kids at school and find out what is really going in with all the friend drama. I could disappear when I was tried of being summoned with a loud, "Mom!" every few minutes. I could win every game of Hide 'N Seek. Still, even if I know what is going on, who could I confront? How would I explain to the mother of the mean girl how I know what her daughter said? I don't want to win every game of Hide N Seek--no one will want to play with me then. And my kids, they'd know I had invisible powers and keep yelling louder. 

The girls at a superhero party. Can you guess who they are? 

Power to move objects with my mind (what do you call this power?): Honestly this is the dreamiest power I can think of. I could sit in my favorite spot in the sun and pick up the house or empty the dishwasher. Fast tidiness would be mine. And yet, it's essential that I model for my kids working hard and I could never tell my friends, they'd just want to come over and pick up their house daily. 


Maybe the superpower I need is the ability to see my job as a mom as a superhero worthy. The daily nurturing of young souls to teach them to follow Christ is a greater task than saving the world by using superhuman strength to divert a meteor. Saving the world with superhero strength just takes good timing and big muscles. Raising kids in a world that doesn't fear is a real superhero job. And God will give me the powers I need. My job isn't ordinary and boring. 


Still, I would love to be able to move objects with just my mind. 

Living with Less

Yesterday was a blog hop day over at Jill Savage's blog. I ended up being gone all day yesterday and am just now joining the fun. The topic is to list five things we live without so our family can have more. Jill has a great book called, Living with Less So Your Family Has More. It is an inspiring book that I urge you to read. Being one of the last to join the hop, I am not going to list 5 things. It would just be a repeat of things that have already been said by other bloggers (check those out at the bottom of Jill's post here). We do many of the same things others wrote about, eat out less, buy used cars, furniture and clothing, limiting vacations.

I am a little nervous here, nervous you will think we are not good parents. Not being good providers. Somehow saying we buy second hand seems applause worthy, but I am not sure if you will applaud this choice.  Okay, deep breath before the topic reveal: we don't have a savings plan for our girls to attend college.

There is simply no money to save in this way. Sometimes, I worry about potential debt my girls might incur, especially when I read articles chronicling the last few years of college tuition increases as state's tighten their budgets. But then I remember that God is in control. The decision to live on one income was a decision we thought best for our family. I trust God to honor this decision. I don't think He promises to provide debt-free education for my girls, but I trust that He can. And I know that my girls' ability to follow God wholeheartedly in the future in no way depends on how much money I can save for college.

You know that saying, or maybe it is a song, "I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future"? I think it applies to future educational costs too.

Real Guilt

Ever since Jill Savage, founder of Hearts at Home, asked us to share a story of guilt on her blog hop (read other stories of mom guilt here), I've been pondering the post I wrote. Really, I don't feel guilty about the time Hadley pulled her little sister's arm out of place. For me it is one of those, "It happens moments." Mostly the story makes me laugh.  The arm dislocation story was the first one that came to mind since Jill's story was along the same lines: a time when a child got hurt because we weren't paying close attention. Certainly such stories can cause guilt, but not in my case.

For me, the mom guilt comes in the little things. Mostly in the ways I view myself as inferior to other moms. Here's some examples of little things that make me feel guilty:

• Opening a produce drawer in the refrigerator and finding a rotting cucumber, a rotting pepper and a rotting spinach. 
• Finding leftovers in the back of the fridge that are growing mold, not so much because I forgot about it but because I didn't like what I made and preferred to eat something with melted cheese. 
• Checking out at the grocery store that doubles coupons up to $1.00 and not having any coupons to hand the cashier.
• Spending money on some little trinket like a hair accessory for the girls when I know I the budget doesn't really allow it. 
• Listening to a friend talk about her training schedule for a 10K, knowing that I did not exercise once during the week and really could have found the time. 
• Learning of a friend who accomplished ten big projects in one day while I accomplished only one. 

Guilt comes in two forms: useful (rare) and harmful. Guilt over something we should be doing, like spending time with God, eating well or exercising can be useful only if it motivates us to confess our sin and ask God to help us change. Guilt doesn't usually work this way because even if we confess, we usually hold on to the guilt and allow it to steal contentment and joy. Most guilt, at least most of my guilt, comes from comparing myself to other people and not measuring up. I may not accomplish ten projects in one day, but I called a friend to pray with her and I spent time with God while reading his word, and I counseled my nine-year-old as dealt with the most recent "mean girl" event at school.

Perhaps my guilt is harmful because most it comes from standard's of the world. Guilt can't be useful unless the Spirit is convicting your heart of sin. 

For now, my best defense against harmful guilt is to redirect my thinking to God's word which clearly states the standards of God. 

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8 (NIV)