Jump

My son is constantly jumping...on everything. He is a boy and he is 9, I suppose it comes with the territory but it drives me completely batty!!! He jumps on his bed and I fell like he will come through the ceiling when I am in the room below. So I make him stop. He jumps from the recliner to the couch to the other recliner and back again. He is pretending to be some jungle animal. But "we don't jump on the furniture" so I make him stop. Yesterday, we got a ton of April snow here in Minnesota so he went out to play. He didn't wear his snow pants but he was jumping and rolling in the snow. My instinct was to march right out there and tell him to stop. But I didn't. Instead I went out and played with him. We built a snowman, complete with easter egg eyes, an angry birds hat, a highlighter for a nose and my bright red scarf. We had a blast! Sometimes I just need to remember to take a deep breath and just jump, have fun, enjoy this gift of life we've been given. And my boy is the best one to remind me of this!

Today I am linking up with LisaJo for Five Minute Friday! Click here to find out what it's all about! Join in and be blessed!

Home

Home.  I'm sitting home. Alone.

This never happens. It is so quiet I can hear the ringing in my ears. 

My son is having a sleepover at a friends house tonight. Thus my reprieve. It seems blissful at first. Heavenly silence. I long for it all the time. But now that I've got it, it seems a bit lonely. 

Home is made up of all the wonderful sounds of childhood. Running up and down steps, giggling over tickles. Cuddles and pleas to stay up "just 5 more minutes". 

The sounds of home are so precious. I hope to never take them for granted and to enjoy each minute of noisy boy racket, remote control engines revving at my feet, requests for cookies and string cheese....... 

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Today I'm joining Lisa-Jo for 5 Minute Friday......

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Join in and be blessed!!!!!

Ordinary

The beauty of an ordinary day

He was recovering from a week of being sick and slept a good 2 hours longer than on a normal Saturday.

When he finally roused, we cuddled on the couch and watched old Godzilla cartoons from the '90's that I didn't even know existed.

It is still winter, but the sun was shining and it was exceptionally warm for a February in Minnesota so we took a walk, splashing in the puddles and crunching the crusty, frozen snow.

We ate peanut butter sandwiches and yogurt for lunch washing it all down with pink lemonade.

We searched Pinterest for a project that we actually had the supplies for. The upside of never emptying the bathroom garbage is an abundance of toilet paper rolls. We settled on a toilet-paper tube snake!

We talked and laughed and even did a little housework.

We ended the day with dinner at mom's (all the way across the street) a blessing for sure.

We ended the day where we started, cuddling on the couch watching more episodes of Godzilla.

It was an ordinary day that was anything but.

I wish that all Saturdays could be this "ordinary".

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I'm linking up with LisaJo today for 5 Minute Fridays!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

AGAIN

AGAIN - 5 MINUTE FRIDAY

It's Friday (YAY!) and I'm linking up with LisaJo Baker for 5 Minute Fridays. It's a wonderful writing exercise and an even better community! Come join us and be blessed! This weeks word is "Again."

Here are the "rules":

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.


2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..



Again.........

I drag myself out of bed, again.
I pick out his clothes and go wake him up, my sweet son.
I tell him to comb his hair and brush his teeth.....again. (and again and again!)
I pull myself together and hopefully remember to brush my own teeth.
I go to work, make the money to pay the bills and put the food on the table.
I run home and settle into the hectic evening.
I make dinner, do laundry, pick up the house.....again.
We struggle through homework and practice the spelling words.
We splash through bath time and get everything ready for morning, again.

He asks me to tuck him in and give him another kiss and hug.
I snuggle in and cuddle him and love him.
I am so blessed that I get to do it again.
I love this boy of mine more than any words and I'd do it all again
Every. single. minute.

For When Being a Mom is Hard

Sometimes being a Mom is hard work. Ok, to be honest, it's hard MOST of the time. And sometimes I am REALLY bad at it. Last night was a good example of my lack of greatness in the parenting department.

I have one child to deal with. One sheet of math homework. It shouldn't be that hard, right? (How those of you with lots of kids make it through the night, I have no idea, but my hat is off to you!) The homework consisted of finding 3 labels from the kitchen and copying the measurements onto the worksheet and 2 practice problems, one addition and one subtraction. I am ashamed to say that this homework took nearly TWO HOURS to complete. There was yelling, crying, tantrum throwing, and walking away all involved. It was horrendus to say the least. We finally got it done. Fortunately for me, he must have been worn out from fighting about homework because he didn't give much resistance to the shower.

After he washed all of his anger down the drain in the shower, he came downstairs, cuddled next to me and in his little boy voice asked if we could start over. Of course, I cuddled him back, agreed and silently overflowed with thoughts of guilt and self-loathing. We talked a bit about how we both could have acted differently and then went to bed.

I often use a Bible app on my smartphone. So when I laid down in bed and opened the app it was on Isaiah 41 and the version was The Message. The title at the top? "Do you feel like a lowly worm?" How appropriate!?! That is pretty much exactly how I was feeling, except possibly lower. I'm supposed to be the grown up and I was acting just as childish as the 8 year old. I was feeling terrible and like a horrible mother. Afraid. Afraid of the impact my parenting is having on my precious son.

I read the chapter and then read it again in the NIV version.

Isaiah 41:9-10 (NIV)

⁹ I took you from the ends of the earth,
    from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
    I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
¹⁰ So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:14 (NIV)

Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
    little Israel, do not fear,
for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord,
    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

 

God is so awesome. I love how He is there for us all the time. I don't even know why my bible app was in Isaiah as I was reading Romans last time I used it. But there it was. Exactly what I needed. Encouragement from the Father and a reminder that He is always there for me to lean on and ask for help.

 

I'm feeling much better about homework time tonight.

 

FMF: RACE

The Rules.......

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Link up here.

This weeks topic: RACE

The very first thing that comes to my mind when I see the word "race" is how, since my son was old enough to walk, we've been "racing". Racing to the bathtub, racing to brush our teeth, racing to the car. You get the idea. In his nearly nine years of life, I'm fairly sure it is the most brilliant parenting strategy I've come up with. Whenever he would argue with me about not wanting to do something I would challenge him to a race to that very thing and he was instantly taken over by his competitive nature and before he knew what happened he was in the bathtub. ;)


We haven't raced in awhile. Maybe it's because our new house has an upstairs and I'm clutzy, or possibly it's because he is actually fast now and I don't have much of a chance anymore. But the other night he was complaining about the shower and things were about to escalate and I remembered the race. It worked. We raced to the top of the stairs. He won. And he took a shower.