Interruptions, Delays, Inconveniences

Do you receive Elisabeth Elliot's devotional in your inbox?  It is one of the things I look forward most to receiving each day.  This one in particular seems to speak loudly to us mothers of preschoolers:

 

Daily devotions for 11-02-2006: Title: Interruptions, Delays, Inconveniences Author: Elisabeth Elliot Devotion: Elisabeth Elliot Book: Keep A Quiet Heart Do you enjoy this devotional? Send it on to a friend! ____________________________________________________________ Title: Interruptions, Delays, Inconveniences Emily, wife of America's first foreign missionary, Adoniram Judson, wrote home from Moulmein, Burma, in January 1847: "This taking care of teething babies, and teaching natives to darn stockings and talking English back end foremost . . . in order to get an eatable dinner, is really a very odd sort of business for Fanny Forester [her pen name--she was a well-known New England writer before marrying Judson].... But I begin to get reconciled to my minute cares." She was ambitious for "higher and better things," but was enabled to learn that "the person who would do great things well must practice daily on little ones; and she who would have the assistance of the Almighty in important acts, must be daily and hourly accustomed to consult His will in the minor affairs of life." About eighty years ago, when James 0. Fraser was working as a solitary missionary in Tengyueh, southwest China, his situation was, "in every sense, 'against the grain.'" He did not enjoy housekeeping and looking after premises. He found the houseboy irritable and touchy, constantly quarreling with the cook. Endless small items of business cluttered up the time he wanted for language study, and he was having to learn to be "perpetually inconvenienced" for the sake of the gospel. He wrote after some weeks alone: "I am finding out that it is a mistake to plan to get through a certain amount of work in a certain time. It ends in disappointment, besides not being the right way to go about it, in my judgment. It makes one impatient of interruptions and delay. Just as you are nearly finishing--somebody comes along to sit with you and have a chat! You might hardly think it possible to be impatient and put out where there is such an opportunity for presenting the Gospel--but it is. It may be just on mealtime, or you are writing a letter to catch the mail, or you were just going out for needed exercise before tea. But the visitor has to be welcomed, and I think it is well to cultivate an attitude of mind which will enable one to welcome him from the heart and at any time. 'No admittance except on business' scarcely shows a true missionary spirit." There is nothing like the biographies of great Christians to give us perspective and help us to keep spiritual balance. These two are well worth reading. It was J.O. Fraser who so inspired my husband Jim Elliot with missionary vision that Jim planned to name his first son after him. One more quotation--this from an out-of-print book, The Life and Letters of Janet Erskine Stuart. Says one who was her assistant for some years, "She delighted in seeing her plan upset by unexpected events, saying that it gave her great comfort, and that she looked on such things as an assurance that God was watching over her stewardship, was securing the accomplishment of His will, and working out His own designs. Whether she traced the secondary causes to the prayer of a child, to the imperfection of an individual, to obstacles arising from misunderstandings, or to interference of outside agencies, she was joyfully and graciously ready to recognize the indication of God's ruling hand, and to allow herself to be guided by it." ____________________________________________________________ Did you enjoy this devotional?  Send it on for a friend to enjoy. To receive this e-mail regularly, just go to this page: http://www.backtothebible.org/media/email.htm

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Guest Writers, Life with PreschoolersKendraComment
Getting a Little One Off a Bottle

Recently Heather emailed and asked about getting her 21-month-old off of a bottle at night.  Her email was detailed and so I thought I'd just give the gist and then share my (and my dentist husband's) answer.

♥

Hi Heather- Oh wow!  You have quite a problem on your hands- not your daughter, of course, but the whole reliance on the bottle to go to sleep.  Right up front I will tell you that you simply have to stop giving her anything in her bottle but water.  Juice, gatorade (really high sugar content!), and milk pool in those little mouths, and my husband sees lots of little ones with teeth rotted down to the gumline because they are allowed sugary drinks in bottles after a year or so. But coupled with that I will tell you that my husband and many other pediatric dentists will urge you to get rid of the bottle and/or pacifier past a year of age.  In fact, our three who took pacifiers all had them taken away at a year.  They cried for two days at the most, but then they were done with it.  If you keep on with the bottle and/or pacifier, some orthodontist is going to love you :) So you really have to make a choice, and I know it's not easy.  But you either decide to give in and give her the bottle or you let her cry it out for as long as it takes.  If you choose the first scenario, you will have an easier life now, but you will have big dental and orthodontic bills later, as well as compromised dental health.  Kinda like using a credit card- buy now, pay later :) If you choose to let her cry it out, you'll be miserable for a few days, maybe a week, but you'll be in far better shape long term. Let me know how it goes.  If you lived closer I'd tell you to call me when the screaming gets to you so I could encourage and distract you! Blessings, Kendra
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Life with PreschoolersKendraComment
Pink and Blue

My seven-year-old and five-year-old wear the same size.  Gone are the days of passing clothes down, except to little sister who will receive two of everything.

 

This fall I decided to do something I'd never done before: color code them.  Biggest sister has the majority of her clothes in blue and middle sister is mostly pink.  The hours of laundry sorting this has saved me- I can't begin to tell you!

 

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Home Organization, Life with PreschoolersKendraComment
Laundry

Laundry- ugh!  If you've been reading Preschoolers and Peace for any length of time, you'll know that back in February or so I revamped our laundry system because of my pregnancy then.  I miscarried, life was thrown into a  bit of a tailspin, and long story short, the laundry system failed.

This week I was searching for a new approach.  There were several things I liked about how I was accomplishing laundry so I decided to keep those elements:

- I love the actual washing and drying.  It's the easy part- load the machine, turn the right knobs, and voila!  It's done.  Transferring to the dryer is no biggie, either.  Plus, I can rest assured that no one is putting a red sweatshirt into the bleach load (or handling the bleach in the first place).

-I love having a basket for each child or bedroom on the laundry room counter.  Eliminates unnecessary trips of dirty laundry from bedrooms to laundry room and clean laundry from laundry room to bedroom.  See photo below.

But I HATE to fold.  I hate to fold for a household of eight, soon to be nine, even more.

So duh!  Why was I standing there folding everyone's laundry and placing it in their baskets?  They are all perfectly capable of doing the job themselves, even the two-year-old with help I will gladly offer.

Henceforth, when I grab our current read-aloud, they will all retrieve their laundry baskets and fold, with the following guidelines clearly outlined and posted:

FLETCHER LAUNDRY

Our motto: WE LOVE LAUNDRY!

(OK, not really…)

1. Fold whatever is not folded in your basket

2. Put undies and jammies in the correct places in your bedrooms:

Boys- in your drawers

Girls- in your shelf baskets

3. Put socks away where they belong:

Boys- in the laundry room drawer and basket

Girls- in the laundry room drawer

4. Put items that need to be ironed neatly on the ironing board

5. Hang towels in your bathroom

6. Put sheets away on your closet shelves or directly onto your beds

7. What’s left in your basket? Make sure what’s left is supposed to be there!

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Chores, Home OrganizationKendraComment
When I Had One Child, I Knew it All

When I had one child, I knew it all.  When I had two, I knew even more.  But curiously, with the addition of each child, I find I actually know less and less.  Now with six, I know nothing

I used to be very critical of what I deemed to be unnecessary baby products.  "Marketing!", I would cry.  "Sloppy parenting!", one of my more self-righteous thoughts.  And so items like baby swings, jumpy seats, cupboard door locks, and especially those ridiculous crib tents were only for the weak-willed.

Right.  And then I had four under six.  Oh!  And then five under eight.  Aha!  Six under ten, and a male ten, at that.  A male ten-year-old who couldn't remember where he put his own shoes, let alone remember whether or not we had grabbed the diaper bag on our way out the door.

And so last week when we battled the two-year-old with the new-found freedom at nap and bedtimes, Lisa suggested I try their crib tent.  Oddly, while I would have rolled my eyes years ago, I said as emphatically as I could, "YES!  Bring it over TODAY!"

It's funny.  This little girl who tested us constantly, even when I diligently sat there watching her to see if she put her toe over the edge of the mattress (yes, I've read that parenting book, too) suddenly loves the boundaries that the crib tent provides.  Huh.

She cried the first nap the tent went up, but curiously that night she said, "I go sleep in the tent?"  She loves this tent.  And you know what?  The tent has caused her to cease winning.  The tent has given her and her sisters their much-needed sleep back.  The tent is a tool that we are using for this season in her life.

So again, I will say, I know nothing.

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Life with Preschoolers, Training Little OnesKendraComment
Bearing Burdens Again
What are your responsibilities from day to day? Are there ways you can be helping a friend and vice versa? From the ordinary everyday stuff like grocery shopping and running to the post office to the above-and-beyond stuff like taking all six of a friend's children for the better part of the day (more on that later), how can you and a friend step in for each other and bear the load? This has been a difficult week. Let's face it; the job of educating six children at home while not feeling well (yes, the morning sickness lingers at will) isn't easy, and I'm not talking about the extraordinary stuff. Just producing three meals, keeping abreast of the laundry and homeschooling are the end of my limit these days. And I fell apart, dissolved into tears last night while battling a two-year-old who doesn't want to stay in bed for the second week in a row. My husband was gone at a meeting all night, and while telling Lisa my very ordinary but hormonally-induced struggles, she offered to pick up my children this morning at 10 and keep them until the late afternoon. She bore my burden without holding it over me, condemning me, or expecting anything in return (although I did bring her a Jamba Juice). The Servant Song Sister let me be your servant Let me be as Christ to you Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too. We are pilgrims on a journey We are traveling on the road We are here to help each other Walk a mile and bear the load. I will hold the Christ Light for you In the night time of your fear. I will hold my hand out to you; Speak the peace you long to hear. I will weep when you are weeping When you laugh, I'll laugh with you I will share your joy and sorrow Til we've seen this journey through. When we sing to God in heaven, We shall find such harmony Born of all we've known together Of Christ's love and agony. Won't you let me be your servant? Let me be as Christ to you Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too.
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Nurturing MomsKendraComment