Happiness Is...a Half-Birthday

Ethan Samuel turned 3 1/2 today.

3.5

42 months old.

...nearly 4.

That's what he tells people when they ask him how old he is.

"I'm three-and-a-half. But I'm working on 4."

Warms your heart, huh?

The Marriage Secret...

Shhh....

Don't tell anyone this...

But I'm about to tell you the secret of a good marriage......

..................

I don't believe that we possess any secret to a good marriage.

When Stuart and I did our premarital counselling, the pastor said that there would be ups and downs...topics that were hard to deal with and kids and time issues...and...and...

It was enough to make a person second-guess the idea of getting married.

But if you can face all that (and more), then you're on your way to a good marriage, right?

Wrong.

God is what makes a good marriage, our pastor went on to say.  If He is the center of it all then the rest will "fall into place."

Easy, right?

Wrong.

One of the studies we participated in while at our old church was on the Gary Smalley book, Love Is a Decision. (Awesome book if you've never read it!)

Love and marriage take work. There's never a moment when you can just slack off and say, "Forget it. He (or she) can love me now. I'm so finished." It's tempting at times...but very damaging.

Smalley said that love is a decision that we must make moment by moment. Sometimes we'll make the right choice...sometimes we won't.

But it's a choice.

Love is more than just saying "I love you."

It's choosing to make time for each other...as hard as that is sometimes. It's not being satisfied with the status quo.

But it's also the giving of time.

Sometimes we need those moments to be alone, especially after a grueling day of work or with the kids. It's allowing that person some space to regroup and "rejuice" away from the hubbub of family life.

And it's building specialness into the ordinary, seeing the beauty where it might not be visible in a flashy neon way and finding the fun in the simple stuff.

Stuart and I decided before we ever had kids that we would try to make time for each other after they went to bed. That meant that they needed to go to bed at a slightly earlier hour than most of their peers -- ie. what our parents would have considered the normal bedtime hour. It didn't always happen (especially if sleep claimed us soon after they went to bed), and it took some practice as we incorporated each one of them into our families' routine.

Sometimes it even meant that we had to change around our own routine... do "our time" while they were still awake, chat over a cup of coffee and a special "adult dessert" while they played together upstairs.

It was never that we didn't want to spend the time with them. We've made family dinnertimes a priority since Day 1.  But we knew we needed that time together...alone.

Easy?

Nope.

Over the nearly 16 years that we've been married, we've had many times when MDT (Mommy-Daddy Time) got thrown out the window. We were too busy, too tired, too whatever.

But we always come back to the idea that we have to find, no, make the time to be together.

In recent years, it started again with the show, 24.  That became our Monday night time together after the kids went to bed. But as the seasons wrapped up, we realized that we would no longer have that time together. So Stuart suggested a "movie night" for us. We would take turns each week to choose a movie that we wanted to share with the other. Fun times, especially when Redbox sent us free movie rentals!

Then came another blessing.

Emily turned 13 and took a babysitting course. We realized that a great way for her to practice was to "babysit" her brothers for us for an hour or so each week. We made that our "game night" at Starbucks. So now she's 14, and she earns a bit of money, and we have some more fun MDT. Sometimes she even does it twice a week.

Win-win, right?

Love is what we all crave.  It's how God created us.

And I, for one, am really glad!!

A Disservice to a Service...

When we think that kids in a youth group setting are a-okay because they come from a stable Christian home, we do them a tremendous disservice and make them feel unworthy of being in the group. We're saying: "You're okay. You don't need our help. So just join us in helping this poor person over here."

These kinds of kids don't have needs? They don't have hurts or stresses or requests that are worthy of our prayers?

Why? Because they seem to have it all together?

Hmm...

I had a professor in university once who said that we are all on the edge of insanity. Some are probably closer than others. But he's right. Everything -- good and bad -- that we encounter every day goes into our psyches. The news, the people around us, a book we're reading, a movie we recently viewed, the argument of a neighbor....

When we focus all our energies on the seemingly "bad and needy" kids in the group, we may actually be ignoring those who are more needy. When we love the "popular" and more lovable kids and ignore the quiet and "less lovable" kids, in essence, we've pushed the latter away, telling them that they don't matter.

Our service is to God. He sent His Son to love the unpopular and unlovable, and yet he didn't ignore anyone.

He calls us to do the same: LOVE EVERYONE.

Everyone deserves attention.

When a young person asks for prayer at youth group, that's a huge thing. It means making him/herself vulnerable to the thoughts and opinions of the others. It's not an easy task to do it, and yet it builds a foundation for future occasions when prayer might be needed. If she is rejected as a kid why would she ever make herself vulnerable as an adult?

How many of these kinds of students are now among the "walking wounded" adults in our churches? How many left and never came back?  If the place where God tells us to seek out help from fellow sinful men and women can reject us, ignore us, scoff at us, where can we go to find that kind of help and how can we ever trust mankind again?

Of course, we are told not to place our trust in man. God says to trust in Him and He will never let us down. But He does exhort us to "not give up meeting together." The old "spark and fire" story you heard in Sunday School.

Easy enough to do, right? How much harder that is to do in reality.

Challenge yourself to look for one seemingly normal soul at church and introduce yourself. Send a note of encouragement to someone you haven't seen in awhile. Ask someone who looks down if you can pray for them.

Become the people of GOD again...not the cheerleaders of the popular.

Saturday Sweetheart

While perusing the photo files on my computer, I came across this one. 

It has to be one of my all-time favorite photos of Ethan, taken last July 4th by a photographer from our local newspaper. It was Ethan's first parade that he understood, and the rapt attention she caught -- all the way down to his little fists clutching the flag and candy he was given -- such a treasure to me!

Comma, Comma, Comma Here

Here's a handy tip to remember:

What a difference a comma makes, right?

Wordless Wednesday

Time 4 Reviewing

Starting today, I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review.  (We're considering our options for next year's schooling so this should be really helpful and fun.) My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience.

Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Nothing Personal

There are some things in life that I wish I could spare my kids from experiencing. One of the biggest is loneliness.

Everyone feels it at some point. The sadness of not being chosen until last. The pang of sorrow at not having someone to "pair off" with. The welling of the eyes when you read about someone doing something special with a "bestest-ever friend" and not including you.

Sure, it's life. Sure, it's normal. Sure, "it's just something that all kids have to deal with at some point in their life." I know that. Believe me.

"What hurts the most makes us stronger," right?

I grew up hearing those phrases. I knew that there was always a reason I wasn't chosen until last. I understood that it was "just one of those things" that I shouldn't worry about it when my friends paired off with others. I was told to just accept it and move on. One day, I'd meet a best friend. I just hadn't met her yet. Like there was some kind of fairy godmother out there who would come floating down and magically make my friend who'd liked me yesterday suddenly like me again today.

Hmm...

It doesn't matter so much to me now. I married my best friend.

But how much that hurt comes back when I hear my daughter whisper her own sadness through her tears, wondering why no one seems to like her, asking me if she isn't likable, if there's something wrong with her. She tries to be nice, she says. She's always kind.

Of course, all the platitudes spring to my lips, and I have to try to catch them before they slip out.

I don't know why she's having these troubles...why she keeps having these troubles...why we can go to all sorts of organizations, including church, and have kids who are actually mean to her...  I wish I understood. I wish my magical "mommy kiss" could fix this.

I've examined it from all angles, trying to help her to see what she can do differently, how she can act differently, dress differently, talk differently....

But why? Why shouldn't they like her for who she is? Why can't they?

And then my heart breaks again as my son recounts his first night of Spring soccer and says that he volunteered to be goalie only to have all the other boys say, "Oh, no! Not Edward! He's not good."

I try to hide my own sadness and ask him how he handled it, trying to get the gist of his feelings.

He smiles sadly and says that he just played better. He prayed and stood strong to their disapproval of him. I'm proud, but I know he hurts from it.

These are the times that no parenting book really prepares you for. There are no words to describe the pain this creates inside a person...especially a person who is still so young and tender. I want to move away, run away, hide away, put some kind of protective bubble around all of us and just hug these precious kids tightly.

So I beg all of you, parents -- and it's nothing personal -- to talk to your kids. Tell them to be kind and loving towards ALL people, not to shun those who might seem different in any way. Expect them to be inclusive. Tell them you'll "hurt their little hineys" if they don't, and I'll do the same to mine.

There's no reason ANY child should feel sad and left out.

Kindness begins at home.

Intentional Slowness

I've crowed long and hard on here about how quickly time is going. Hours spin into days and then weeks and before you know it you're in a new month. Sigh.

But it wasn't always this way.

Um, Susie, you might want to rethink that, you say. Time has always been moving at the same speed...

Well, yes, but I've concluded that the amount of time you've already lived determines the speed, based on how much "life" has been in each day.

Wha'cha mean? you ask.

Well, when you're young -- say a mere 3 or 4 years old -- time is very slow because your experiences are very limited at that point. You don't have a lot in your mind yet -- active imagination or not.  Add in a bunch of years worth of memories and thoughts and experiences, and it begins to speed up a bit...i.e. through a crowded cranium.

Okay. Okay. So it's not necessarily scientific or completely logical, but it's there, even if I can't put my thoughts in exact words.

So I'm sitting in my living room this morning -- long before the world of "Feete" has begun to pitter-pat -- and I begin to think about it. How much unnecessary stuff crowds our lives? What are we doing that I didn't do when I was young?

The first thought that came to mind was technology.

While I grew up with a computer -- a Commodore 64 to start with -- from about 14 years old onward, we didn't have the Internet yet. We certainly didn't have the World Wide Web or streaming television or YouTube or Facebook or...or...or... Heck, we didn't even have e-mail yet.  I know my dad got a CompuServe account (it was a number back then), and he could post on "bulletin boards." Since I didn't do any of that, I have no idea what it was like.

So there was no pull from that arena when we were younger.

We played board games and yard games and went bicycling and listened to music and read books and wrote books and drew and colored and gardened and...and...and...

It was fun, and life felt...well, it felt slower.

So now I'm left wondering. Can we do the same for our children? Can we intentionally slow down life for them?

We've purposely kept them from doing too many extra-curricular activities to help preserve our family time during this short period of life called "childhood." They learn at home so there's no real homework...apart from, well, their actual schoolwork. But still the days fly by...so much so that we hit the ground running in the morning and don't stop until we 'round the bend at bedtime.

Sigh.

I know a few changes are on the horizon. It's just a matter of having the strength to follow through... I think it will prove to be the best of intentions.

Sweet Sunday

Since we moved to a new church a few years ago, we've had to learn quite a few new songs. It's fun but can be frustrating when you can join in right away. So to make it easier I begain buying the songs so we could sing along with that at home.

This one -- with its profound words -- has become a fast-favorite, even with the 3-year-old who can't read the words in church but belts it out with the rest of us.

Enjoy! And hope you've had a sweet Sunday!

Saturday Sweetheart

Who could help but love this little guy?

Edward (now 11) at 4 years old. Pre-kindergarten on his first day of "school." (Had to be like his big sister.)

The "Rebel"

Mommying a 3-year-old definitely has some funny moments.

Recently, Ethan was getting undressed before bedtime, and he still had on his "wife beater" undershirt and some blue jeans. Stuart laughed and said he reminded him of James Dean in the movie Rebel Without a Cause.

I decided to try to capture a photo of him "being a rebel."

The following is the progression of shots I was able to take with my iPod's camera.

Quite the "rebel," huh?

A Thursday Thought...

Oh, Blog!

I'm so sorry for how I've neglected you.

I've been trying to get back in the groove, but it can be difficult trying to juggle all the other things I should be doing with my keen desire to write and "chat" with my fingers.

I could blame the infamous Facebook for stealing my thunder...but it is all my doing, since I seem to be lacking in the self-control department.

So I am back (again) and vow to stay put and....

I know. I know. You've heard it all before, and the silence has hurt you terribly.

In all honesty, it's hurt me, too. My head hurts from trying to keep all my thoughts in their places. (They get quite unruly sometimes.)

But can you give me one more chance? One more?

Yes?

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

.....

Okay. I'll stop now.....

(Yay!)