Thoughtful Thursday: The Hardest Hurt of All

The theme of this chapter is that raising children teaches us to value character and service over comfort. I think this chapter is particularly applicable is today's world where parents frantically work to spare their children any stress or pain. I love this excerpt from a letter Abigail Adams wrote to her nine-year-old son when he was having second thoughts about going on an overseas trip with his father. She wrote:

It is not in the still calm of life ... that great characters are formed. The
habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great
necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by
scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay
dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

Abigail's son, John Quincy Adams, later became president of the United States.

It is natural for us to want to make life as easy as possible for our children. In doing so, we oftentimes cause them to miss character-building experiences. The main goal of our parenting is praying, working and striving for our children's salvation and that they will become servants of God. If our children never experience emptiness, they will never appreciate their need for God and salvation through Jesus Christ. If our children never hurt, sin or fail, they will never sense their need for a savior and ultimately, they may face God's wrath because of it. See I Samuel 2:25. As parent's, we must accept this important truth: God's kingdom far outweighs the personal comfort of my children.

The honest truth is that by seeking to spare our children from suffering, we are ultimately trying to spare ourselves the hurt of seeing them hurt. With God as our model parent, who allowed his own son to suffer death on the cross, we can certainly expect times when we will have to watch our own children suffer for the greater good. But, God in his goodness promises that suffering is not the end of the story. By suffering and facing hardships, our children will become strong individuals who can make a difference in the world.

Practical application:

(1) I need to develop the courage to allow my children to face some difficulties and even suffering.

(2) Do my kids see me and my husband spending our time and effort focusing on something bigger than ourselves, even bigger than our family?

(3) I need to teach my kids to use challenges, failure, rejection and pain to fuel their sense of mission and to foster their dependence on God.

A parting Word: "We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Romans 5:3.

An Apple a Day ...

Here are some photos of Claire's first day of school. I didn't actually get any of her at school as her mood was a little touch-and-go at drop-off. I had to high-tail it out of there before the tear-fest started. Something about school makes me think of apples and coincidentally, that is the theme of Claire's MDO class for September. So, I thought the title was appropriate.

Claire with Daddy & Mommy at home before we left for school.

Claire's bag and art project (in the center) waiting outside her room for pick-up.

Welcome to school. The teachers had posted photos of each child on the first day outside the room when the parents came for pick-up.

Claire and I went for a special ice cream treat on our way home from school since David was at home with the nanny. Claire loves have her mommy all to herself!

Blog beautification project

Pardon the daily changes around here, but I am trying to update my blog and make it a little easier on the eye. I am still not completely happy with my header, but I have spent too much time on this for now and additional improvements will have to wait for another day. Thanks to my friend Lindsey Lou who tipped me off to a great website with instructions on how to make my blog look pretty. Check out these sites below (the last one also has some great freebies for digital scrapbooking):

http://www.sjhblogdesign.blogspot.com/

http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/

http://shabbyprincess.com/

Happy blogging!

Where does she come up with this stuff?

I just had to post this photo of Claire on the potty from earlier this week. On this particular day, Claire told me she needed to go "poo poo" so we hurried to the potty and got situated on her "airplane potty". (That is what she calls the little potty seat that goes over the big potty so she won't fall in. My niece Evie came up with this name because it does sort of look like an airplane with the handles as wings and the raised part in the back as the tail.) She then pointed behind me and told me that she wanted a book from the magazine basket in the bathroom.

I am just wondering where she got the idea to read a book on the potty. I mean, I have never ever done this before (chuckle, chuckle). It amazes me daily, the little things that she picks up on. The good, the bad and the ugly. In mean, everyone needs their daily dose of Sudoku.

(My mom has an equally embarrassing photo of me reading a book to my big stuffed snoopy dog who I had sat on the potty when I was about 3-4 years old. This will be a good photo to use on her high school graduation or wedding rehearsal dinner video.)

Just call me Ms. Cheap

For those of you who do not live in the area, "Ms. Cheap" writes a bi-weekly column in the Life section of our newspaper sharing local freebies and other tips to save money. She even has a contest every year to proclaim the cheapest of cheapos. Now some of the people that enter this annual contest are pretty extreme in their cheapness and I would never come close to comparison, but I love a good deal just as much as the next gal. (The person who won first prize this year got the flowers for her wedding by collecting live flowers that were thrown out by a local funeral home the day before her wedding. That is just a little too morbid for me.)

Here is the tale of my most recent cheap adventure. We started our shopping trip at Off Broadway (an awesome shoe warehouse) where I had $175 in gift certificates from last Christmas that I still had not used (who wants to buy shoes when they are pregnant?). Anyway, I also had a 20% off one item coupon from my handy Citipass book. All in all, I got 5 pairs of shoes with my gift certificates + $15. Three of the pair of shoes were summer shoes that had been marked down. The other two pairs were full price, but I used the coupon on one pair to save an additional $12.

While I was shoe shopping, Will strolled the kiddos down to Auntie Annie's for a buy-one-get-one free pretzel snack. In the meantime, I stopped at the Disney store where I bought several items for Claire when we go to Disneyworld in a few weeks. That will definitely cut down on our spending while we are at Disneyworld (I hope). They had t-shirts for $5 and stuffed animals 2/$20, which is a steal compared to the prices of similar items at Disneyworld. We finished off our visit with a stop at the Gap Outlet where I got Claire a pair of jeans and David a pair of pajamas (on sale for $8.99) with a $25 gift card I had. We grabbed lunch on the way home at McDonald's with buy-one-get-one free sandwich coupons that we got out of the newspaper a couple of weeks ago.

Sorry to bore you with my shopping saga, but I get pumped up about a great day of savings. I won't bore you further with photos of my loot. Stay cheap!

Sidewalk chalk

Here are few photos of this past Friday when my sister and her kids came to play. Claire was very excited to have them over to play for the morning.

"Eggs" as the girls kept calling them. Evie wanted to hide them after we finished drawing on the sidewalk. These were in Claire's Easter basket in 2007. I guess it is about time we finally got them out to play with them!

Of course, chalk got all over the girls. Evie was showing me her dirty hands.

Claire tried out some body art. See her blue arm. By the time all was said and done, she had colored all 4 limbs.

My little artist!

Claire had lost interest at this point and Evie had collected all the chalk to draw her masterpiece.

The boys, still easily contained, sit and watch.

Stain Removal Emergency

I need your help. I am trying to get a mildew stain out of one of the kid's outfits. So far, these things have NOT worked:

(1) soaking in Oxy-clean (twice) and then scrubbing with a toothbrush.

(2) washing after the Oxy-clean soak.

(3) soaking in ammonia.

(4) treating the stain with salt and lemon juice and letting dry in the sun.

I am currently soaking the outfit in Oxy-clean again. What can I say, I saw an infomercial last night and Billy Mays was very convincing so I thought I would try it again. Please let me know if anyone has any other suggestions!