You’ve been there: Whirling into a coffee shop or dinner with friends. Or talking on the phone while your kids fight in the other room (#methisweek) and you try to remember whether you’ve added salt to the recipe you’re cooking, dang it.
But somehow, the person looking you in the eyes, or on the other end of that phone call has the ability to just…
Be there.
Parenting has this way of exposing a part of who you are in ways both beautiful and terrifying.
As in, Wow! Who knew I had this gift for creative teaching? Or, Who knew I could handle this amount of laundry and still emerge with enough panties to fight the day?
But also, as author Elizabeth Stone has written, Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
So some of you parents are thrilled that your kids are home. And some of you would like to be thrilled, you really would! You are definitely working on being thrilled.
Especially if they would go fight somewhere else? Or maybe pick up their cereal bowls.
A couple of weeks ago, my son and I attempted homemade ravioli. I say attempted not because they didn’t taste good. (They tasted great!) I say this because in the midst of chaos–some foreseen, some not-so-much–we didn’t really seal the little ravioli pillows correctly. So ricotta leaked out into the water. Never fear: Every single one of the little guys was still eaten up, and since perfect ravioli wasn’t the goal, I’d consider it a smashing (smashed?) success.
I’ve been pulling kids up on the counter next to me (and sometimes sitting them in the bowl of the sink) for a little over a decade now. Initially, it was a strategy of containment. If I am cooking, I know where you and your fast little feet are, and what those little hands are dumping. But cooking has been a way that my kids and I create rich quality time together.
Near the end of the day, we are creating something nourishing together, learning a life skill, chatting about whatever, laughing, and sealing the memories with taste and sound and sight and smell and touch. Somehow the mundane, to me, seems to take on a little magic.
This week has been a tough one for me. So I’m creating some art to anchor my soul. Want some? I’m hoping you can sink your toes and yourself deep in truth from the Psalms.
Up here in the Rockies, spring looks like it could be a long time coming. But let’s fake it with some art, shall we?
Many thanks to FreePrettyThingsForYou.com for the free watercolor clip art!
So–it’s cool that I have a lot of friends who are are smarter than I am in a smorgasbord of ways.
Last night, sitting with my friend Amber–a stellar junior high teacher, which means she is to be praised in more ways than one–she mentioned she’d be helping her kids with New Year’s goals. She bases their goal-setting on Luke 2:52: And Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.
I love that we still celebrate a day of gratitude–and I never want to skip over it and scurry on to Christmas. I’m grateful for you, readers, as you pursue healthy, real relationships with God and the people around you. Enjoy celebrating with your family–and perhaps these can help. If you like them, feel free to share.
Many thanks to FreePrettyThingsForYou.com for the free watercolor clip art!
Happy Thanksgiving!
This year, my family is opting for a paper-plate Thanksgiving: That is to say, we’re going for a little less prep, a little more togetherness. (I hope.) Because I’m eager to make all this about something more than a meal.
When I learned that the pilgrims built seven times more graves than huts, it started to dawn on me that this isn’t always about this surplus always spilling around us. We need this day, no matter how much we have or how harrowing of a year it’s been, to turn our faces upward.
So I’m eager to pass this on to kids, too–to create great memories around the actual acts of giving thanks!
Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.
Mindset of the man too busy: I am too busy being God to become like God.
Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God
Switching out what’s on my fridge is a lazy easy way to continue to help my kids meditate on Scripture without even knowing it. And let’s face it; I feel really dumb when I refer to the “4:29 Rule” when my kids’ mouths need some work, and they look at me like they have no idea what I’m talking about (see poster #1). Here’s to Friday for all of us who could use a low-ball.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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