thankful. 11.20.09 Happy Birthday PinkGirl!!!!

I’m so thankful . . .

For my daughter today on her 9th birthday!

Today, I’m revisiting a Pragmatic Communion post I wrote about her because I’m SO VERY THANKFUL she is still has the sweet spirit and vivacious enthusiasm for life I described two years ago. Her enthusiasm for everything in life comes from her authentic joy and it is contagious!

Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or fret your children [do not be hard on them or harass them], lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated. [Do not break their spirit.]
Colossians 3:21 The Amplified Bible

My daughter is a free spirit.

She sings. Loud. She sings Disney princess songs and hymns. Praise songs and jingles. She sings her own personal compositions. Sometimes they rhyme, sometimes not. Her own songs are l-o- n-g. She sings about everything. Love. Jesus. Her Heart. Disney. Sometimes she throws in a line about gross bodily functions before cracking herself up because it is SO hysterically funny. (She’s 7.) She sings in the car and doesn’t care who stares. She will climb to the top of a playground structure and sing her songs to an audience in the sky. She doesn’t care if people can hear her. She wants people to hear her.

Please don’t tell her to be quiet.

She dances. She twirls. She vogues. She bounces. She skips. She runs when and where there is open space. She swings. HIGH. She calls out “Watch me!” and wants me to take her picture. This is what happy looks like.

Please don’t tell her to sit still.

She loves to dress up. She can’t watch “Annie” without pausing the DVD player for multiple costume changes. She “invents” outfits and hairstyles. She wears prints with stripes, pink with orange and mismatched socks for “flair.” She loves lipstick and jewelry. She loves pink. Not pastel pink. PEPTO pink! BOLD pink.

Please don’t “correct” her wardrobe selections.

She loves to perform. The fireplace hearth is her stage. She wrote a play when she was in pre-kindergarten. She sat in a chair for hours on a Friday night, writing on one piece of paper after another. When it was all said and done, written on each piece of paper were the lines of each character in her play. When I typed it up for her later, she knew immediately which paper to read from next as she dictated the dialog for me. The spelling was creative, but the play was complete with a hero, a villain, a quest, and lots of songs to sing.

Please don’t tell her to “act like the other kids.”

She finds wonder in so many things. A lizard hiding in the grass. A crushed acorn. The shape of a cloud. She can’t go for a walk around the block without stopping every few feet to pick up a leaf, pet a neighbor’s cat or point out something interesting. She wants to see everything and go everywhere. And she wants to tell you all about it. Because it’s made such an imprint on her, she believes she should share it.

Please don’t make absentminded comments when she’s talking to you. She’s smart. She knows.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s not wild and undisciplined. She understands that she should whisper in a library, sit quietly attentive and respectfully listen to her teachers in class, and wear her uniform to school. She understands that sometimes she needs to follow directions instead of direct her own elaborate scripts. She knows to share and to take something she finds to lost and found. She knows that if we forget to pay for the case of soda under the grocery cart, that we are going back inside the store to make it right. She knows proper manners for the using the phone, how to handle a laptop computer and how to carry scissors. She understands that she can’t break out of line at school to chase a lizard or twirl. She knows not to run in a parking lot and to look both ways before she crosses the street. She knows to wear shorts under her skirts so no one can see “London” and that she can’t wear makeup to school and church. She even knows the only time her belly button should show in public is when she is wearing a bathing suit.

What she doesn’t know yet is that someday she may be too embarrassed to express herself “out loud” like she does now. She hasn’t spent time with “that” person. You know, the person who will try to convince her that her free and confident self-expression is inappropriate or wrong. The person who will introduce doubt and self-consciousness.

I pray that when faced with that person – that criticism – she is confident enough to stand strong and be herself. I refuse to silence her just because of what other people might think. I refuse to force her to wear what I think she should or tell her that she should only wear two braids, instead of six. I refuse to make her sit down when there’s no reason she can’t run. I refuse to squelch her spirit – just because it’s different than mine.

Sometimes it looks like she is dancing without music. She’s not. The music is in her heart. We can hear it if we just listen.

Not allowing your children to do innocent but different things is the logical outgrowth of a belief system that emphasizes the symbols of faith rather than it’s substance. This shallow religion measures success more by the image than by genuine authenticity.
Dr. Tim Kimmel
Grace Based Parenting

She challenges me every day and I’m a better person because I get to be her mom.

THANK YOU, LORD!!!

 

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

 

PinkGirl: Part of Your World

This is one of the songs PinkGirl has been rehearsing for the last two weeks as part of “American Idol” day camp.

PinkGirl posted about it on HER blog too. And she LOVES comments!

I’m slightly proud.

kid jokes.

From FavoriteSon’s “yo mama” itouch app: Yo mama is so stupid that she tried to put M&M’s in alphabetical order!

PinkGirl: What do you get when you mix orange and black?

Me: Brown?

PinkGirl: More black.

One of my favorites? Why did Tigger get dirty?

Because he played with Pooh.

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Need a few more chuckles today? Check out Friday Funnies hosted by Homesteaders Heart!

If you’ve got time to hang out for a few minutes, check out what else makes me laugh: Pragmatic Compendium’s “laugh!” category.

uncool mom. cool mom.

What I learned this week:

1. I am not a cool mom.

2. I am a cool mom. FavoriteSon was asked to move up to Varsity Track now that his middle school track season is complete. He was invited to a “track party” the night before the meet. First high school party. We knew the host parents and the coach was going to be there too, so we let him go. When I picked him up around 10pm, I didn’t go up to the door and knock like the other parents. I pulled up outside, parked the car, turned off the headlights and sent him a text message:

“I’m parked outside. Whenever you’re ready. No rush.”

Then I sat in the car and rehearsed Praise Team music for the next morning’s church service. He came out in 15 minutes. I asked him if he preferred the text message or if he would have been okay with me knocking on the door to get him.

Text message. Good to know.

3. What happens at a high school track party. The coach gives a 90 minute testimony and motivational talk. Also good to know. (Both FavoriteSon and the host parents told me.)

4. I need to wear sunscreen to the Varsity Track Meets. They are during the day on Saturdays. Middle School Track Meets are during late afternoon/evening hours.

5. I need to make sure the memory card is in the camera. Before I leave the house to go to a track meet.

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To find out what others learned this week, check out What I Learned this Week hosted by Musings of a Housewife.

Check out other cool moms at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer

Chicken Grape Salad

A track meet lasts for hours. HOURS. I suppose I understand. If FavoriteSon doesn’t rest between races, he tends to ralph. But what to feed a runner between races? Too much and again, ralph. Too little and they don’t perform as well. Then there’s getting him to eat something at all.

Here’s the scene: He runs a race (and wins, of course). I walk to the field with Gatorade or water. He waives me off and turns away. (Because it is NOT cool to talk to your mom at a middle school track meet.) His coach says, “Take the Gatorade, your mother knows what she’s doing.” (That’s RIGHT!)

After a few weeks of that nonsense, I explained to FavoriteSon: “When I walk out on that field and hand you a bottle of Gatorade, I’m invisible. Your friends don’t even see me. You know when they see me? When you waive me away and your coach calls you out in front of everyone.”

silence. thinking.

I continue, “Here’s what I’ll do – after a run, I’ll bring a small snack and drink to you on the field, hand it to you and walk away. No one will even notice me. Okay?

“ok.”

It worked out perfectly. After the first race, I walked out to the field, handed him half of a peeled navel orange and walked away. No eye contact necessary. Didn’t even interrupt his conversation. After his second race, I walked out with a banana and some Gatorade and he actually talked to me. I waited and took away the rest of the banana and the Gatorade bottle. I will not take that as a sign that it is now acceptable for me to interrupt him when he’s engaged in post-race conversation with his friends.

Last week, I packed us a dinner and brought an ice chest in an effort to stave off concession stand food. The big hit was the chicken salad. It takes about 5 minutes to make! The first version was canned chicken breast, drained, shredded and mixed with light mayo and white grapes, sliced in half. BIG hit! This week, I ran out of mayo and had to substitute spinach dip. LOVED it!

I don’t assemble the sandwiches before the meet because they tend to get soggy. I just bring the salad in a container (square, of course), some bread and a fork. I can assemble the sandwiches right there in the stands. Here’s my sandwich from today, using the leftover Chicken Grape Salad:

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Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer

conversations with my mother. 2nd edition.

This past week, Grace came straight from God, through me, directly to my mother. It was a fairly constant flow.

My mother is visiting from Arkansas. I have been filling her days and evenings with activities (with me) to distract her from my dad and sisters. FirstHusband says they owe me big time. She leaves Monday morning, early. I plan on sitting on my love seat on Monday morning, with a cup of coffee, listening to the clocks tick.

Here’s an example of this week’s conversation with my mother:

My Mother: “Did I tell you my joke about the zebra?”

Me: “No.”

My Mother: “The zebra asked St. Peter if he was white with black stripes or black with white stripes.”

Me: (no. please no. not one of these jokes.)

My Mother: “St. Peter told the zebra to ask God. God said, “You are what you are.” The zebra went back to St. Peter and said he didn’t understand God’s answer. St. Peter said, “You are white with black stripes.” The zebra asked, “How do you know?” St. Peter said, because he said “You are what you are.” If you were black with white stripes, he would have said . . . “

Me: (oh, please don’t say it. please. somebody please tell me that my own mother doesn’t think this is funny. Thank you God, that we are in the car and I’m the only one who can hear this. )

My Mother: She finishes the joke. (and if you don’t know what she said, GOOD!!! That means we’re making progress in the world.)

Me: (instead of the expected laugh, smile or chuckle) “You know I teach cultural competence, right?”

My Mother: “Yeh.” (chuckle.)

Me: “Please tell me you don’t tell that joke in public places.”

(I already know she tells these jokes in non-public places. And I’ve known her long enough to know that’s not going to change. The last time she included my email address in a group email and sent an “inappropriate” email to our family shared inbox, she concluded with “anyone who doesn’t think this is hilarious just doesn’t have a sense of humor.”)

My Mother: “Sometimes. But not when anyone can hear me.”

Me: “There are a lot of people who wouldn’t find that joke funny.”

My Mother: (sigh.) “I know.”

Later that afternoon, at my house, in front of FavoriteSon, with PinkGirl a few feet away:

My Mother: “Can I tell my zebra joke to YourFavoriteSon?”

Me: “No, mom. He doesn’t think like that.”

My Mother: “Please?” (sticks her bottom lip out in a childish pout, which she somehow believes has persuasive power)

Me: “No. I’ve done a lot of work here. Please don’t chip away at it.”

I will spare you the comment she made about the black pastor of the church she has been attending. I will skip the mocking imitation of the Latin accented sales lady as we were leaving a store.

I know she was leveling. She needs to see others as less.

Any time I’m around someone who makes fun of others, I see it as leveling. I perceive the person making fun as lacking in self-confidence and finding it easier to put others at a lower level than bring themselves up to a higher one. I believe the same is true for people who use non-joking sarcasm to make others look stupid.

When I witness a person making fun of someone or being snidely or cruelly sarcastic (or when I am the target myself), my view is that it stems from the attacker’s weakness and deep need to be better than others. If I can view them this way, I don’t get angry so much. I feel pity for them, and can give them Grace. But not respect.

sarcasm has its place. (note: this clip has a curse word in it)

539 out of 200

This post, entitled 539 out of 200, was originally published on Pragmatic Commotion on February 19, 2009.

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yep. I said that right. That would be 539 text messages on a plan that allows for 200 per month. And the month wasn’t even half over.

FavoriteSon and FirstHusband went on a field trip to Washington DC last week and while the students weren’t allowed to talk to each other on their phones, they were allowed to text each other. Just for the fun of it, when they got back, I got online to check FavoriteSon’s usage.

Voice Minutes Used: 8 (and he didn’t even call his mother)
Text Messages: 539

That was February 14th and the billing cycle ends in March.

So after a little family pow wow, I got on the phone and increased his text message to 1,500 for an extra $10 per month. Back dated to include the 539 messages so he won’t have to pay 10 cents for each one over 200.

Because he’s 13. And communicating with his peers. Which he wasn’t really doing so much last year. Before the contact lenses. and the clear skin. and the cool hair. and the team sports. and he’s a good kid, who gets good grades and does his chores. most of the time. and is sweet to his baby sister. some of the time.

Besides. He’s paying for it.

The rules? We’re making them up as we go along, but so far:

1. This rule was instituted the day he got his phone: No phone in the bedroom at night.
2. We get to look at his text messages. If we ask, he allows us. (he can read mine too)
3. He promises he will not text anyone anything their parents will need to call us about.
4. No texting during homework or family meals.
5. He doesn’t forward chain texts & tells his friends to stop sending them.
6. He has to check his own minutes and self-regulate.

He is very motivated to keep these rules. He’s eligible for an upgrade.

What teenager cell phone/texting rules have worked for you?

freedom to be different.

Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or fret your children [do not be hard on them or harass them], lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated. [Do not break their spirit.]
Colossians 3:21 The Amplified Bible

My daughter is a free spirit.

She sings. Loud. She sings Disney princess songs and hymns. Praise songs and jingles. She sings her own personal compositions. Sometimes they rhyme, sometimes not. Her own songs are l-o- n-g. She sings about everything. Love. Jesus. Her Heart. Disney. Sometimes she throws in a line about gross bodily functions before cracking herself up because it is SO hysterically funny. (She’s 7.) She sings in the car and doesn’t care who stares. She will climb to the top of a playground structure and sing her songs to an audience in the sky. She doesn’t care if people can hear her. She wants people to hear her.

Please don’t tell her to be quiet.

She dances. She twirls. She vogues. She bounces. She skips. She runs when and where there is open space. She swings. HIGH. She calls out “Watch me!” and wants me to take her picture. This is what happy looks like.

Please don’t tell her to sit still.

She loves to dress up. She can’t watch “Annie” without pausing the DVD player for multiple costume changes. She “invents” outfits and hairstyles. She wears prints with stripes, pink with orange and mismatched socks for “flair.” She loves lipstick and jewelry. She loves pink. Not pastel pink. PEPTO pink! BOLD pink.

Please don’t “correct” her wardrobe selections.

She loves to perform. The fireplace hearth is her stage. She wrote a play when she was in pre-kindergarten. She sat in a chair for hours on a Friday night, writing on one piece of paper after another. When it was all said and done, written on each piece of paper were the lines of each character in her play. When I typed it up for her later, she knew immediately which paper to read from next as she dictated the dialog for me. The spelling was creative, but the play was complete with a hero, a villain, a quest, and lots of songs to sing.

Please don’t tell her to “act like the other kids.”

She finds wonder in so many things. A lizard hiding in the grass. A crushed acorn. The shape of a cloud. She can’t go for a walk around the block without stopping every few feet to pick up a leaf, pet a neighbor’s cat or point out something interesting. She wants to see everything and go everywhere. And she wants to tell you all about it. Because it’s made such an imprint on her, she believes she should share it.

Please don’t make absentminded comments when she’s talking to you. She’s smart. She knows.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s not wild and undisciplined. She understands that she should whisper in a library, sit quietly attentive and respectfully listen to her teachers in class, and wear her uniform to school. She understands that sometimes she needs to follow directions instead of direct her own elaborate scripts. She knows to share and to take something she finds to lost and found. She knows that if we forget to pay for the case of soda under the grocery cart, that we are going back inside the store to make it right. She knows proper manners for the using the phone, how to handle a laptop computer and how to carry scissors. She understands that she can’t break out of line at school to chase a lizard or twirl. She knows not to run in a parking lot and to look both ways before she crosses the street. She knows to wear shorts under her skirts so no one can see “London” and that she can’t wear makeup to school and church. She even knows the only time her belly button should show in public is when she is wearing a bathing suit.

What she doesn’t know yet is that someday she may be too embarrassed to express herself “out loud” like she does now. She hasn’t spent time with “that” person. You know, the person who will try to convince her that her free and confident self-expression is inappropriate or wrong. The person who will introduce doubt and self-consciousness.

I pray that when faced with that person – that criticism – she is confident enough to stand strong and be herself. I refuse to silence her just because of what other people might think. I refuse to force her to wear what I think she should or tell her that she should only wear two braids, instead of six. I refuse to make her sit down when there’s no reason she can’t run. I refuse to squelch her spirit – just because it’s different than mine.

Sometimes it looks like she is dancing without music. She’s not. The music is in her heart. We can hear it if we just listen.

Not allowing your children to do innocent but different things is the logical outgrowth of a belief system that emphasizes the symbols of faith rather than it’s substance. This shallow religion measures success more by the image than by genuine authenticity.
Dr. Tim Kimmel
Grace Based Parenting

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This devotional, entitled “freedom to be different.” was originally posted on Pragmatic Communion on February 19, 2008. It was inspired by the book, Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel and this little girl.

this is what happy looks like.

Obviously taken BEFORE the “hiccupy tears” post.

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Check out more Wordless Wednesday posts over at 5 Minutes for Mom.

“. . . therefore I quote” Susie Case

The book I’ve been carrying around in my purse is Women, Faith, And Work: How Ten Successful Professionals Blend Belief. I’m reading along, highlighting with my yellow (non-neon) Sharpie Accent marker and then I got to Susie Case, Professional Volunteer:

“Whatever her role is, she’s sure it will relate to the passion she’s had since childhood – helping women realize their dreams. Her friends think so too; whenever she asks them what she’s going to do with the rest of her life, they tell her she’s going to be “Norma Vincent Peale.”

“I know part of that comes out of having grown up with a mom who had a complicated life and a lot of broken dreams, and wishing I could fix her,” Susie says. “Of course I can’t fix her, but I can go out and help other women. My guess is that I’m going to end up doing something that ends up giving women hope in a practical way.“”

“wishing I could fix her.”

“Of course I can’t fix her,”

I hadn’t considered that possibility.

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“. . . therefore I quote” Thursday: If you have a quote to share from something you’ve read recently, feel free to comment and/or include a link to your own “quote” post.

Need help making your link look pretty in the comment? Copy and use this code.

a little commotion

I’ve been lax over at Pragmatic Commotion, but I’ve put up a few posts in the last few days:

549 out of 200

hiccupy tears & Despereaux

It’s funny but each post very clearly represents where we are in our parenting stages with each child.

I like my kids. They make me smile.

p.s.
1. I hated Despereaux – the book – haven’t seen the movie. Hated it. Skipped parts.
2. Any teenage texting/cell phone rule suggestions other than the ones in the Commotion post?

“. . . therefore I quote.” Robinson & Staeheli

I read, therefore I quote.

Today’s quotes come from Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season (I’m quoting the 1982 edition.)

“At first, some people have a hard time explaining exactly what’s wrong with Christmas because on the surface everything looks fine. But when they take a closer look, many of them realize that their celebrations lack depth and meaning. It’s not enough that Christmas be a family birthday party or the biggest social even of the year. They want to be moved by the celebration.

When they decorate, they want the result to be more than a beautiful house. They want to look around them and be filled with an air of expectancy . . .

. . . At Christmas, people want to reach down inside themselves and come up with feelings that are better, bigger, more joyful, more loving and more lasting than their everyday ones . . .

. . . But for most people, the real problem with Christmas isn’t that they’re spiritually bankrupt or that Christmas is devoid of meaning. It’s simply that they haven’t taken the time to define for themselves what’s most important about Christmas . . .

. . . While they have planned the details of their celebrations right down to the kind of cranberry sauce to serve at Christmas dinner, they haven’t stopped to ask themselves the all-important question: Why am I celebrating Christmas? They rely on habit, other people’s priorities, commercial pressures, or random events to determine the quality of their celebrations. But this is rarely successful. People need to make conscious choices, because Christmas offers them so many possibilities. It’s a time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the pleasures of family life, the importance of friendship, the delight of creating a beautiful home environment, the need for world peace, the desire to be charitable, and a host of other important values. When people don’t sort out which of these ideas are most important to them, the celebration can seem fractured and superficial . . .

. . . When people haven’t resolved these larger issues, they find it hard to make the dozens of small decisions that confront them every day of the holiday season . . .

. . . we’ve been encouraged by how quickly and easily people can decide what’s most important to them. All they need to do is to become more aware of the need to make choices, have some sense of what those choices are, and set aside a little time to reflect on them. With just a few minutes of prayer, meditation or conscious decision-making, most people gain a much better sense of how Christmas should be.”

The authors included an exercise at the end of this chapter to help readers take a look at all the values competing for our attention at Christmas. For a print friendly version of this exercise in PDF, CLICK HERE.

“To complete the exercise, read through the following ten value statements . . . cross off those that have no importance to you and add any equally important ones that we have not included. Then decide which of the remaining values is most important to you. Put a 1 beside that sentence. Then find the one that is next important to you and put a 2 beside it. Continue in this manner until each statement has been assigned a different number. Even a value that has a low priority to you can still be important. Remember: 1 is the highest and 10 is the lowest.

Christmas is a time to be a peacemaker, within my family and the world at large.

Christmas is a time to enjoy being with my immediate family.

Christmas is a time to create a beautiful home environment.

Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Christmas is a time to exchange gifts with my family and friends.

Christmas is a time for parties, entertaining and visits with friends.

Christmas is a time to help those who are less fortunate.

Christmas is a time to strengthen bonds with my relatives.

Christmas is a time to strengthen my church community.

Christmas is a time to take a few days off from work and have a good time. “

I’m going to get FirstHusband to work this exercise with me. I’m also going to ask FavoriteSon and PinkGirl to do it too. I think it will be an interesting and helpful process. Hope it helps you too!

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“. . . therefore I quote” Thursday: If you have a quote to share from something you’ve read recently, feel free to comment and/or include a link to your own “quote” post.

Need help making your link look pretty in the comment? Copy and use this code.