I put five new pints of blueberries in the refrigerator yesterday. When I opened the refrigerator today, this is what I found. Gee thanks, kids. You left one berry for your dad and one for me. How generous!
At lease some of our daughter refrigerator raids are benevolent, such as the time she pulled out milk and eggs from the fridge and made star shaped waffles for us.
Cooking is not one of my favorite things to do, and I'm not very good at it. That's a shame because I really would like to feed our family more organic, unprocessed foods. So, since it has recently come to my attention that others think I am a health nut and only feed my children whole/unprocessed, organic, super foods high in antioxidants, I need to correct that assumption with the truth. I have attempted to get my kids to eat healthier foods, but I have been unsuccessful more times than not. The reality is that if it were not for Hungry Howie's pizza, our kids would not get dinner at least one night a week. And the other day, I resorted to this horribly unhealthy but tasty waffle breaded chicken sandwich for dinner because it was easy, I knew they would eat it, and they could use more meat on their bones.
I share this confession because I am committed to being authentic. Social media can be problematic for those who play the comparison game because people tend to post only about their successes and near perfect moments. After all, who wants to share all their misery with all their friends, anyway? This positive posting tendency gives an unbalanced and false perception of that person's life. So I try to keep it real, and apparently, my realness has helped those who insist on comparing feel better about themselves and even "helped" them parent their kids. In fact, one mom told her whining children while standing right in front of me, "You should be grateful for all I do for you. What if you were those kids (while pointing to my children). Be glad I'm not like their mom." Ouch! While I find the comparison game to be highly destructive and refuse to participate, I am committed to being real, so if my "ministry of mediocrity" makes you feel better, then I am happy to help.
Candy Store and Camera Endeavors
Now that school is out, the kids have to run more errands with me. While shopping with me, our daughter decided she wanted to establish a candy store out of our garage. She easily sold her brother on the idea, and they have now started a new business called "Sweet Siblings" to raise money. They offer convenience candy (and fruit & nuts for the health minded upon my insistence) at their neighborhood candy stand. We made them write up a business plan detailing expenses, revenues, and net profit and a marketing strategy. They used all their own money and set their business hours. The store opened today, and I expected that either no one would come or that parents would get upset at us for allowing our children to solicit unhealthy, tooth rotting products to their children, but after they put so much heart and effort into it and seeing it as such a great opportunity to learn about basic business economics, we gave them the okay. And every kid deserves a treat now and then. A few neighborhood kids have dropped by repeatedly. The kids' first mistake was not publishing regular hours, so they may lose all their customers if they don't post regular store hours and commit to operating during those hours. They got hot outside in the 100 degree heat quickly, so now customers ring our doorbell for service. Their next step will be franchising the business. LOL
I wasn't too surprised by my daughter's daring move to start her own business. Unlike her parents, she loves sales and marketing and networking with other people. Unlike her mom, she sees no obstacles and just does whatever she decides in her mind to do whereas I tend to let the practical side hold me back. And if I didn't think this candy stand would not be a less costly way to teach her why most start-up businesses fail than having her learn that with a major investment when she's older, I probably would have talked her out of it. I admire her confidence.
I must have been shaky after my husband's surgery because I dropped our camera when we brought him home and broke it. It was still in the case, but based on the pictures it was taking, we assumed the sensor was broken and started investigating repair options. We never even looked inside the camera to investigate as we immediately assumed it was something we could not fix ourselves.
Since the newest model of this camera cost only $150 more than the repair cost if purchased brand new, Jeff bought me a new camera. (I won't forget that trick for getting a new upgrade on digital devices! :-)) Our RIGHT-brained girl was determined to fix the old camera so she could use it. She's the last one we would have expected to try to fix it!
As a tutor and a teacher,
I've learned that one must never ever doubt the potential of any
student regardless of whatever LABELS someone has given them. I have
advocated for these students and begged them to see the potential in
themselves that I see, and I've had the great privilege of watching God
do miracles in their hearts and bring amazing successes from their
efforts as that potential is unleashed. Yet, I could not see my own
hypocrisy as I gave my own child the label "right-brained", albeit out
of love and respect for I so admire those attributes in her that I would
like to have myself, yet I doubted her ability to fix that camera as
such a feat did not mesh with the label I had given her. Never again
will I call her right-brained, for her mind is wholly beautiful as is
everything God designed.
Tooth Fairy
Our daughter lots her LAST baby tooth this week. When she lost her first baby tooth, took tons of pictures, blogged about it, created several scrapbook pages about it, and noted that this important milestone occurred for our princess while riding in a horse drawn carriage. How fitting. For the next 5 or 6 lost teeth, I noted the important events that occurred on the same day. It was such a big deal back then. Now that she apparently knows who the tooth fairy is and probably knew all along because we never lied to her about Santa Claus either, we tend to forget, and we even forgot to send the tooth fairy for very last tooth. How sad! But I am going to write it down here. She lost her last tooth on Tuesday, June 23, 2015! Now she can finally get the braces she's been wanting, and I'm thinking paying for braces is a mighty generous tooth fairy present, but we did make it up to her the next day.
Parenting Messy Children When Your Husband is a Messy Too
The hardest part about living in this house is the clutter. I manage to keep the downstairs neat and tidy, but the 2nd floor is where the kids' bedrooms, my husband's cave, the entertainment media room, the playroom, the art nook and such are kept. I have an office up there, but I rarely use it because I can't stand walking past all the piles or over all the legos or Nerf pellets to get to my office right beside the staircase.
In an effort to help my kids understand how disrespected I feel when they continually take what I have organized in the house and turn it into disorder, I had them read my Myers Briggs personality profile. After reading the part about the need for order, my son said, "Mom, you need to go look at one of my dresser drawers. It is nearly empty after I moved the clothes to my closet."
"Then why don't you pick up whatever is on your floor (I don't even go up into his room with my eyes open or the lights on anymore it's so bad, and he's far more organized than his sister), and put it in the drawer."
He responded, "Well, I only have 15 buckets of Legos spread out across my floor, but I don't think they'll all fit."
Now both kids are taking Myers Briggs inventories leftover from my leadership skills trainer days, so I can better understand their need for disorder. Ugh!
Out of the mouth of the 8-year-old
Recently, our 8-year-old just asked, "Since you sometimes let me read before bedtime, and I've finished all the library books, can I please work some math problems from the math challenge book Mom got me?"
Now that is bedtime delay tactic I've never heard before. That boy must really want to stay up later tonight, or is he buttering up his math loving parents in an attempt to cover an offense or to ask us for money? Whatever the case, he fell fast asleep, so not I have a new remedy for insomnia. :-)
In his most clinical voice, the 8-year-old said to me while checking out library books online, "Mom, I know you think the titles of these books are corny, but there is something you need to understand. Between the ages of 7 and 11, kids go through this phase in which silly things like being hit by a frying pan or running into a brick wall seem absolutely hilarious to us. You may think it's dumb, but it's not."
He forgets that I too was eight once. So I told him, "You may think it's funny, honey, but it's snot." And he laughed and laughed.
Virtual Reality
My husband and son's obsession with computer games and virtual reality annoys me, just as I'm sure my obsession with social media annoys them. Both are a form of entertainment and escape. I need to write out my thoughts and sort through the issues of my heart verbally while they prefer to escape via gaming systems. Both take too much time and remove us from our duties at home, but perhaps both are necessary in moderation.
At any rate, my husband asked me to buy some "lenses" from China for less than $2. He downloaded a template and cut out goggles from cardboard. Then he inserted his smart phone with Google earth and several other apps installed while my daughter decorated this DIY virtually reality headset. So, for less than $2 and with a phone we pay for anyway, our family now has a virtual reality headset. The sophisticated manufactured VR goggles sell for $99 to $600, so they were quite proud of their creation. I'm thinking it sounds like a great idea for the STEM classes I'll be teaching next fall. Here is a photo of our 8-year-old testing out the DIY goggles for the first time. The depth of his dimples in this pic indicates to me that he highly approves.
Muffin's Summer Style
Sable point bunnies are always changing color and markings with the major changes taking place seasonally. It looks like Muffin has decided to accessorize for the summer with bobby socks on her feet, black barrettes where her ears meet her head, and possibly a surgical mask over her nose. That bunny continues to keep life interesting around here.
I volunteer as a "buddy" in the Access (special needs) ministry at our church every other week, while my daughter serves on the alternate weeks. We are both assigned to a precious 3-year-old, Zoe, who was adopted from Taiwan with a "severe brain damage" diagnosis. This family has a call on their lives to adopt those deemed "not likely to ever be adopted", so they now have 6 children, three of whom have various medical labels, and they are currently trying to adopt Zoe's biological brother.
Anyway, when they brought her home, medical doctors took more brain scans. She does have severe cerebral palsy, but it still wasn't as bad as the first scans showed, so God gave them a little miracle right off the bat. Recently she had major surgery performed by a specialist in Chicago, and she now undergoes lots of therapy each week with the hope that she will eventually be able to walk. Out of her four limbs she currently only has full use of her left arm, hands, and fingers. Her right hand is always in a clenched fist, and her legs cannot support her yet. The family also recently learned that she is legally blind due to no depth perception. This vision loss and the cerebral palsy were caused by an illness her biological mother had while pregnant.
Zoe's adopted parents founded and direct the Access ministry at our church and have helped churches around the country start special needs programs like ours including the life class, buddy program, and Joy Proms. She speaks at conferences, publishes articles, and advocates regularly for special needs ministries.
Caring for Zoe during my ministry time on Sundays is exhausting as I try to help her integrate with her non-handicapped classmates as much as possible. Last time, the kids went to the playground for a long time. It was very hot and humid outside. The extreme fatigue I have been struggling with on and off was really bad that day. I was dressed for church, not the playground, and I could not get Zoe's wheelchair to move across the shredded tire mulch. So I picked her up and carried her to all the different playground stations until my arms felt like they might fall off my body. But she had conquered the playground, and she seemed so happy when she realized what all she had done. I did worry a little that maybe her parents might not approve of me taking such risks with her, so I sent them this photo and asked them if it was okay to put her on playground equipment.
I will admit that when I felt called to serve one-on-one as a buddy to children in our church's Access ministry (which helps kids of various degrees of physical need integrate with all the other children at our church), I asked God, "Why me? For you know I am far too impatient and unmerciful to serve in that way." (ie: This is outside my comfort zone!) He was probably nodding and thinking, "You have described yourself well, my child, and that's why I am calling you."
My daughter wanted to join me in this ministry, and I immediately saw a unique gifting in her for that type of ministry, so I assumed my calling was for her. She is now serving independently at a different time than me, but I still feel called to serve as a buddy one-on-one because God is teaching me about Himself in ways only these kids can show me.
I have more empathy now for their parents, because I have found caring for kids with such needs to be physically exhausting, and that's probably minor for them compared to all the mental/emotional toil of all the therapy scheduling, IEP meetings, record keeping, advocating, etc. By the time I had carried my buddy onto each piece of playground equipment last week, my biceps, triceps, and lats all were throbbing, despite all my efforts over the years to make them stronger. But, Y'ALL, I would carry that child to the ocean and back just to behold her captivating smile. One smile or hug from her makes the world seem right again and fills me with indescribable joy and hope.
Nothing truly worthwhile or valuable in life seems to ever come easily. The struggle is what refines us so that we can see and appreciate the treasure. When I look at these precious children who are so dependent on others for daily life needs, I see children who are infinitely valuable regardless of what they can or cannot do, and not only that, I see a picture of God's glory!
These kids have taught me that the more you give of yourself, the more you love and value others and vice versa. So if Christ gave everything, suffering and dying on a cross, for us in our utterly helpless estate, imagine how beautiful our smiles are to Him! Oh how much He must delight when we look up to Him, acknowledging our need and asking for help, and then smile back at Him with pleasure.
Okay, so back to my original story...
I was feeling insecure about my decision to take on all the daring playground equipment with her, this message popped up onto my Facebook wall from Zoe's mom. (I have replaced names with asterisks to protect privacy.)
If your church says yes to kids with special needs and works creatively to lovingly include them well, you are blessing families more than you can imagine. Today, our family was blessed by ************ (my name and names of other children's workers who interacted with Zoe that day) *************** while other sweet servants loved other families well at our church and at churches around the world... thank you, each one of you. What you do matters.
That post was her way of saying not only that I am allowed to take Zoe on the playground but that they encourage me to do integrate her as much as possible. A few days later, she posted this photo of Zoe in in brand new yellow Mercedes Benz. I love you, Zoe!
The media is filled with headlines that would make our founding fathers weep with sackcloth and ashes for the state of our country and over how far we've moved away from the values and freedoms so meticulously protected by the Constitution which isn't honored by our leaders anymore and particularly not by our POTUS. So much of what the media is publicizing is deceptive which leads people to form wrong conclusions. For example, now the Supreme Court has been tasked with redefining marriage, a sacred institution established by God and respected across nations since Eve was created.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." (George Orwell )Biblical prophecy says that in the end times, man will make themselves "gods in their own eyes", and the Supreme Court is the last group of people I will give authority that belongs to God alone. It's depressing, but it helps to know whether or not sexual gender preference is genetically inherited.
The media insists is true is that homosexuality is a genetic trait. I know enough people who have come out of that lifestyle and entered happily ever after type marriages with those of the opposite gender to question such an assumption. Now repeatable (a characteristic of research that is required before it can be deemed reliable) research studies support what many of us have already repeatedly observed...that is a tendency to migrate toward hetero from bi/homo rather than the other way around, and that sexual attraction is fluid, not hard-coded in one's DNA.
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