I'm a Boxwood and Pine

The title (Un)Natural Mom by Hettie Brittz is a little mis-leading (for me) in that I believe this book is for ANY PARENT, GRANDPARENT.The subtitle, however, hits the nail on the head. Why You Are the Perfect Mom for Your Kids. During the past decade, I have had my nose in books, sought counsel from olders and wisers, joined classes on parenting, but possibly the most learning has taken place after I've made mistakes and sought my kids' forgiveness. I've learned much ABOUT MYSELF on this mom shindig. "Teach me and I forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn", right? Ah how the Lord has revealed my need for HIM in this process of mom-hood. The author shares with us four personalities and relates them to trees. Boxwood, Palm, Rosebush, and Pine. I took the freebie test online and scored Box-Pine. Because I am a Boxwood, I ordered this book after hearing the author on Focus on the Family, and read it in one sitting. Because that is what we boxwood's do. We can teach ourselves just about anything, ha! Is this good or bad? Read the book and you'll find out. Because I am a Pine, I related to the part about the mom who kept her children home from school about once a year if they were especially sad or stressed. The author (a Rosebush) remembers this because she "thought is was profound to realize that sometimes a broken heart is a better reason to take a day off than a fever." I also relate to feeling like maybe I've been dealt my exact opposite, "a feisty one, dramatic, on the stage, out there, loud." God is humorous. Purposeful. This book affirmed for me how I am hard wired. My kids are also hard wired. She encourages me that the One responsible for the hard-wiring intends to use all of me for His glory.

What I see as flaws can actually be strengths. Brittz writes, "God gives us a call, a vision and a dream by His Holy Spirit, a map in the form of a conscience, and a compass in the form of our temperaments. A fulfilling motherhood journey is somewhere close to our magnetic north, and by God's sovereign grace that journey can't be copied and pasted from a book or someone else's life." We don't need to wonder why God made me one way, and her another. In fact, its dangerous to do so. The questions at the end of each chapter help it make an option for group study. My favorite thing about the book is how encouraging it is. Although it does make me want to do better, it somehow does so without leaving me wanting to pick and choose personality traits, like some other books do. I get why God gave me, with my temperament, the kids He gave me, with their temperament. Not because we are just one happy family and we all get along all the time(NOPE), but because they are part of my sanctification process and I am part of theirs. God knew us all. His ways are perfect.

Unscheduled Time

I want to be better at giving myself unscheduled time. I am not good at this. It is definitely not without effort. I can walk into a room and immediately start picking up and not notice the child in the room. Especially with another baby in our home my time is like gold! It can Seem like someone always needs something, and physical needs come first. Keeping clean clothes sounds so easy, doesn't it? But often it's the non-obvious needs that get second rank. The boy that wants you to fix his toy, mend his pillowcase, tape the book, re-paint his kendama because his is scratched. Moms are repair women. Our kids need us to be repair women. "Margin is important for de-stressing our days, but it’s also needed for our relationships. We can schedule time with the Lord and our families, but we also need UNSCHEDULED TIME to nurture those relationships. We can’t predict and schedule when people are going to NEED US or when the best time for conversations will be. We need margin." -Hearts at Home Ahhhh. We can't schedule when people are going to NEED US. When I quit my dream teaching job, my mentor shared a story with me of a time when she was doing carpool with another teacher. One morning she got into the car, disheveled and obviously crossed-eyed from dealing with her 14 year old daughter. (When more than one female has to get ready for something, in the same house? Good gracious, what happens??) Anyway she got her seatbelt on, and let out a sigh of relief. Before they pulled away, the older teacher turned to her and said, "Ya know, the best time to talk with your 14 year old daughter...........is when she's 14." Meaning, DON'T WAIT. The best time to deal with things that come up is RIGHT THEN and THERE. Ahhhh. You guys, isn't that so inconvenient?!!! It just interrupts my life, my thoughts (I am living proof that we cannot truly do more than one thing at a time.. and do it WELL). Kids are little interrupters. People are interrupters. And I don't like to be interrupted! Seems like the more I "schedule" and plan, more "unexpected" comes my way. When you schedule your day, is there room for the "unscheduled"? How flexible are you?

Talking spot

For my mom, it was her kitchen. And the car (on those long trips back home after a volleyball game or track meet). I could talk and talk and talk. She would listen. I needed to talk and she needed to listen. As a teen girl I had a lot to say. Stuff that was important to me at the time. Stuff about my day, about my friends' days, about assignments, about feelings, about.................what DID I talk about?? No one knows. Except my mom. I needed to talk because it helped me formulate into words all the teen-ager awkwardness. To get it out there! To be heard! She needed to listen because it helped her get the inside scoop on what might be going on in my head and heart. But do you know what kept me talking? I knew that what I said wouldn't go beyond the walls of our house. Sure my dad would know but only him. Also I never felt like she pried, she just listened hoping I would continue, sometime. Other times hoping it would end because she had laundry to do. My favorite idea my husband has had is this "hammock park". This picture I took this morning shows it still and quiet. Just waiting for some boys and a mom to sway in the sunny breeze and just talk. I find out so much in this place. I find out what they are scared of, I find out what is hilarious to them right now, I find out what is important to them, what is irritating them, what intimidates them, what they are confident in, what they feel about the world around them and their place in it, what is influencing them, what they are influencing. I find this stuff out not because I ask them. It's listening 'in between the lines'. I find out these things but it comes in the form of "Flat Stanley, do you know what size he is, Mom?", it comes in the form of "when we line up at recess..."

Let them talk about the small stuff (although to them its not small stuff) and they'll feel not threatened to come to you with the big stuff. Here's my plan: If they can talk now when they are young then maybe they'll feel good about talking later. On these nice Spring days I encourage you to go outside. Go on a walk and listen. Go to the driveway, sit down, and listen. Get in the car with just one kid and listen. They'll have a story to tell. My grandma Lura would say, "After school, kids have a story to tell". Do you have a talking spot? A listening spot? A spot where you can focus on nothing but that voice?

Just chill

This is one of my favorite children's books. I have many. While this is not a classic or an award-winning piece of literature, I just like the message. Don't make a big deal out of nothing. Sometimes I wish I could parent more like a man, you know, just more laid back (as most men are more laid-back, although I know some that aren't laid back at all and are even more high strung and would call themselves worriers)...I need to be reminded to just chill. It's gonna be ok. There is a unsaid standard I set for myself in lots of situations, especially when my kids are playing with other kids and their mom is there. Sometimes when my boys do something that embarrasses me, I can start to feel ashamed like it was me that did it. Why do I do this? Its like I am taking the blame for their behavior, like their poor choice is a reflection of me. This is not good. I don't take responsibility (or I shouldn't) when they act kind, help a friend, etc. so who am I to take responsibility when they sin? I want to be a friend like Bear in the book Little Big Sneeze, who in the end says please don't try to bandage places that aren't cut, put green salve on my belly that doesn't hurt, or throw me in the pond to cool down my fever that you THOUGHT I had. Just chill and listen to me, sit beside me and let me be me. And let's laugh together, because laughter is the best medicine!

The Ever Changing Name

I have a bag, or sack, really, hanging on a hook right next to my washer. Before we moved it was the same bag that I had hanging on the back of the laundry room door. It needed to be someplace I found myself often, somewhere easy to get to, easy to stick a note that I had jotted down on whatever I saw at the moment it happened.....something cute, that is. You see, when I had my sweet little baby boy at home all day, there would be times when he'd do something I thought was "cute". You know, that NO other baby had done before, Ever. At least that i was aware of. I had read and been told by many that this time when my kids are young will fly by, how i would be so busy, and to remember the little things because one day i will look back and realize they were the big things. So I took a paper bag with handles, wrote "cute things our kids do" with black pen on it. Hahahahahaha. I will have to snap a picture to show you. That title has been edited. It now reads "cute (and not-so-cute) things our kids have done/said". Since that day, I am chuckling, I have written "and things our kids have done that I never want to remember. Ever". I notice 2 things. One, that the 2nd change indicates that I never want to remember some of the things they do or say, yet it is a "remember bag". Ironic and funny to me. And two, how experiences change your perspective. What will the next name change be?

Overhearing

Today I overheard some things. I was downtown at an antique store. It was quite. No music playing. It was 9:02, so the store had just opened. I was without child. My oldest was at preschool for a couple hours and my younger 2 were at a play date at church for about an hour and a half. Precious time of solitude. Anyway, while I was wandering from booth to booth, lingering at some and just glancing at others, I overheard two things. Two conversations. The first was a lady talking to the store owner..."we'll, how'd we do this weekend? Ahhhh, fifty dollars. Hey, I'll take a fifty dollar day. I know other people might not like to see fifty, but that is good for me". The owner is apparently just listening because there is no response. The lady continues, "My son is in Germany....he sent me a text this morning. It said "Are you there? Meaning, are you awake." Then I looked at where the text came from, and it was Germany. Oh, thank goodness, he's made it, I thought. And then he proceeded to tell me about the bombs that had been going off 300 kilometers away from where he was. But that he was ok. I just, you know.....hate that. But I am glad he let me know where he was." The store owner, obviously a friend, too, said, "you just wish he would have left that part out, right?" "Right", she answered. That Mom did not come into the store only to check her earnings. She came in for some support. From a friend. she got a text that was both comforting and unsettling and she isn't sure how she feels, but talking about it helped her. I think. Don't you think? How often do I just listen? Not often enough. Still meandering the aisles, picking up a huge basket, turning it over, looking to see if it would have a long or short life (at my house), living amongst basket predators. Did you know that if was once in pieces and it has been put together to serve a purpose, but then enters a house where boys reside for 3.2 seconds then it will, once again, in that amount of time, be in pieces. Just because. Just a tidbit for you. Anyway, back to walking around the antique store. Why buy new, right? I am walking around a corner, and I hear "John, did you see those? Those aren't really old, they're just made to look that way". He has me interested. Yes. I should walk the other way. I did, I enter the skinny hallway to another part of the store. The two men follow. "John, does this go to more of the same store?" "Yes, just another part, looks like" "Ok. All right, then. John, I think I'm gonna use this bathroom" "Ok" I keep walking, looking for a specific booth I wanted to revisit, since i had visited with the gal that rented the booth while she was there earlier. She was adding items and situating them, so I told her I would come check it out after she was done. I found the booth. I enter it. I hear a groan through the wall, then some words I will spare. It is quiet. Then I hear the hand dryer, another set of similar words. I hear a door open, then "John?" The man who I now know goes by John says, "ya." "I just wanted to make sure you were over here." The man I have been hearing the last few minutes rounds the corner, walks past the booths down to his friend."well, look at that. You know what that is? He leans in a booth to get a closer look. He groans. More choice words. "I don't know what is going on with me. I nearly fell over in the bathroom." "Really?" John asks. "Well look at that, I haven't seen one of those in....., you know what that was used for, don't ?.......ahhhh. I don't know what just happened." John must have asked something about medicine. "No, I didn't take anything. Just a vitamin. I just don't know. I almost feel like I got a trimmer. You know? Shaky." Both men then walked on as if nothing was wrong, shopping, and their conversation was out of my range. Thank heavens, you might be thinking. Yes, I was eavesdropping. I really thought the next few minutes of our lives would change very quickly. I had a vision of performing CPR, calling 911. I felt in my pocket for my phone. Looked at the clock on the wall of the store, I know, funny right? Clock on phone.(Maybe it was because I was taken back in time in the antique store.) it was almost time to pick up the babes at the church, so I looked at the men one more time. Side by side. I thought it was ok to leave. If something terrible had happened to him in the bathroom (mini stroke, heart attack) he was going to need his friend. Now that I am writing this from the comfort of my home I am kicking myself for not mentioning what I had witnessed to at least the store clerk, so that if something happened after I left she would have a little background on the situation. I regret not. He did seem fine and he did have someone along side him. What (do you think) you would you have done? My walking around continued, I began thinking about what i had heard. How helpless she must have felt the first time her son stepped away from her side, the first time he spent the night away from home, the first time she heard the word "bye, mom" like I heard from Henry for the first time EVER on his first day at preschool. No tears. None from him, for the first time. Lots from me, for the first time. I can't imagine how she felt when she heard the words "army (or whichever branch), stationed, Germany, overseas, bombs, etc" and how "bye, mom" made her react. And while I enjoyed every minute of my hour and a half to myself, I made a purchase, got back in my messy, messy minivan with stickers all over the windows, and a smell I just can't figure out at the moment, and drove the 2 miles down the road and waited to see my boys again. And I am reminded, once again, that I have been blessed by our God, not burdened.

Crosswalk.com - The Devotional

Crosswalk.com - The Devotional