Joyful Mothering

Growing Out of Childhood and Into Girlhood

Christin — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:52:19 +0000

My eldest daughter is beginning that season of moving from childhood to girlhood. Childhood seems like a long stretch, comparably, but oh it is still so short.

It wasn’t long ago when she was dressing up in frilly tutus and plastic dress up shoes. Now she spends more time pouring over books on writing, learning how to build robots, and writing endless stories.

This growth hasn’t come without some of the more difficult stages of mood swings and a battle of the wills. Last week we found ourselves in such a battle.

(FYI, I asked my daughter for permission to write about our incident and she OK’ed it).

My purpose in writing is not to harm my daughter or tear her down. But to enlighten others who may be going through the same thing and learn from each other. Trust me, I have a lot to learn when it comes to handling this stage of mothering and the tween years.

It started when I asked my daughter (who’s nearly 11) to go clean her room after breakfast. To me, it seems like a simple, straightforward request. But for her, it was overwhelming and unfair. So it exploded into a battle of screaming, crying, and threats.

I don’t handle estrogen well. I’m trying and I’m learning. But off the handle, I can pretty much end up sounding like a grown up tween.

I went to my blog at home mom’s Facebook group, where a group of about 50 of us collaborate daily on all things blogging and mothering. I asked for help, advice, support. These women were amazing and offered me immediate console and council. In fact, I told them all they should write blog posts sharing their wisdom with their readers and beyond. People (like me!) will be looking for it.

Based on their collective wisdom, I decided to take my daughter out that evening on a date to Starbucks. Just her and me and the Beautiful Girlhood book study. We learned about character building and oh how it was so timely in lieu of our little mishap this morning.

There is a lot more involved in shaping a child, than merely behavior modification. (This really goes for boys, too, but since I’m not there yet, I’ll write what I know thus far).

A child who doesn’t understand what she’s going through simply needs to be understood. My daughter, once she gets going, has a hard time stopping, especially if we keep threatening or piling on punishment. It often escalates the issues.

She is human and admits she deals with a selfish heart. She admitted this on her own. This helps me know how to pray for my daughter and really focus in my attentions on what needs help.

A selfish heart is really the root of all our issues, isn’t it? It’s at the root of my heart when I want my children to behave because it’s easier for me.

But easy is not the life God has called me to. Striving for ease only robs me of the rich life God has for me. I must choose to invest. And there are seasons of motherhood when more is required of us–more time, more wisdom, more emotionally and mentally. I am finding that in this season.

So, once per week, my daughter and will head out to Starbucks, do our Beautiful Girlhood study, and then write, side by side, with our laptops. Getting away from everyone allows us to have uninterrupted girl talk. One of the barrista’s overheard us talking last week and glanced a smile at me.

My daughter is worth investing in and rather then spend my one writing day alone at Starbucks, I choose to spend it with her at Starbucks. Yea, the coffee is a mite pricey, but it’s not just about the coffee. It’s the entire experience.

Our children need us to care and they need us to show them we care.

Do you have a tween girl who’s going through some changes that you are both struggling with? Might I suggest the Beautiful Girlhood study and weekly date night? If you can’t go out, lock yourself in a bedroom for an hour with a plate of cookies instead. Make it special, and just for the two of you.

6 Tips to Keep Your Home Smelling Fresh

Christin — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:39:09 +0000

Sometimes we don’t even know our house has a less than pleasant odor coming from it because we are there all the time. Maybe when you leave the house and return, it may hit you like a wave and you begin to search for it’s culprit. Here are six things I have found that can leave your house smelling less like delicious baked goods or sweet smelling flowers and more like getting a whiff from a garbage truck–along with 6 tips on how to keep it that way.

Dirty Laundry.

Laundry that sits and sits can leave a room smelling awful, especially if there are wet items left in the pile. Wet clothes start off with a mildew smell that is hard to remove once it forms. If it continues to sit much longer, that mildew turns to mold. You don’t want moldy laundry stinking up your laundry room, or any other room in the house.

Tip: Lay wet clothes, towels, and wash clothes over the bathtub or laundry tub to dry before tossing them in the dirty laundry.

Dirty Carpets.

The dirt that accumulates in the carpet and put off a dull, stale smell in the home. It won’t be a strong, in-your-face-smell like mildew, but it certainly isn’t pleasant. This happens when we fail to vacuum on a regular basis and/or we don’t wash our carpets with a carpet cleaner, once or twice a year.

Tip: Dust a sprinkling of baking soda on your carpet after you vacuum up the dirt. Let it sit for about 2 hours, and then vacuum. This is something you can do if you’re on your way out to run errands. The baking soda will help absorb the smell without adding chemicals into the air or your carpet. Once you vacuum up the baking powder, your’re left with cleaner smelling carpets and fresher smelling air.

Dirty Dishes.

Dishes left in the sink day after day (even if you’re filling the dishwasher, but leaving certain ones behind), can smell up your kitchen. Food gets old and smelly very quickly. Sometimes we forget about cups with a little milk left in the bottom. We’ll leave the house and notice when we come home when a wave of rotten milk hits our nose. That’s like the worst thing to walk into (except maybe rotten baby formula!)

Tip: Gather all dirty dishes from around the house every evening. If something doesn’t fit in the dishwasher and it has food stuck on it, scrub it off while it’s still easy. At that point, you may as well just hand wash it and put it away.

Dirty Bathroom.

Can someone say gross? I don’t think I need to go into much detail here. A bathroom not cleaned regularly (read: daily) will quickly begin to smell all kinds of disgusting.

Tip: Wipe down surfaces and toilets daily. It only takes a few minutes. Then you don’t need to worry about buying those smelly plugins to cover up the smelly bathroom.

Dirty Stove.

Leaving your stove to clean another day, especially if you have a gas stove, can reek up the house. Gas stoves always have the pilot lit, thus baking on whatever food is left behind. The smell can be an awful, burning stench. Then it’s a pain to scrub off.

Tip: Wipe things as they spill whenever possible. At the very latest, wipe the stove down right after dinner. Keep the kitchen smelling fresh by eliminating the odors, rather than covering them up.

Un-emptied Garbage Cans.

Forgetting to empty the garbage cans, even the little ones in bedrooms or bathrooms, can result in unpleasant smells. We don’t always remember what we throw into these cans, nor we do know what our children throw in them!

Tip: Empty garbage cans daily. Take them straight outside.

A Few Finishing Touches

A delicious smelling candle.

I love food scents, such as hazelnut cream, and I enjoy candles more in the fall and winter months.

Fresh cut flowers.

Lilies are my absolute favorite and I love having them mixed in with a spring or summer bouquet on my kitchen table.

Baked Goods and The Crockpot

Chocolate chip cookies. Fresh baked bread. A winter roast. Mmmm mmmm mm! Need I say more?

What other tips can you offer to keep our homes smelling fresh and clean?

I Don’t Want Rules to Rule Me

Christin — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:51:19 +0000

It’s that legalistic Christianity. Sometimes it sneaks in, even when I don’t want it to. After a while, the grip begins to tighten and life is just slowly sucked away into the striving for perfection and acceptance. It’s not that I try to be legalistic. It’s not that I would outright confess, based on belief, that I need to perform in order to be accepted.

But, I begin to dig a little deeper and wonder why I feel so heavy, constantly. Why do I struggle to enjoy the life God has given me? When did I start believing I had to feel guilty for enjoying life through the mess? Not excuse myself for complacency but learn more about grace and what it means to rest in it.

I’m not interested in being an uptight wife and mother; nor am I keen on being all carefree either. I just want to rest in Christ and be with Him.

I just feel like there is a constant tug-of-war effect going on inside me. I want to be on the side of Jesus, not on the side of Law. I want to be on the side of relationship, not on the side of rules.

I want to enjoy my children and not worry about the mess left behind. I long to keep focused on the read aloud we’re engaged in without having my mind wandering to the mountain of laundry that awaits me. When did so much weight get placed on keeping the home perfect while starving the heart?

Why am I so worried about what everyone sees rather then focusing on maybe those things people won’t see–feeding the heart. Filling my soul with Jesus–filling my kids’ souls with Jesus. I need to train my heart to think on the eternal. To not worry about the mess when I’m in a place of teaching and reaching. The mess isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be there when I’m done.

I struggle so much with the “be all there” concept. And I don’t have an answer for how to change this mindset. I don’t know how I would turn this around, to be honest.

All I know is that I just want Jesus. I want to stop striving and start living. I want to start loving and stop lamenting. Just give me Jesus.

I can’t do it right–and I never will. But I can live a grace-filled life and have it pour over into everything else, transforming what I know. So this I pray,

“Satisfy [me] in the morning with your unfailing love, that [I] may sing for joy and be glad all [my] days.” Psalm 90:14

Get My New eBook “A Gentle Answer” FREE

Christin — Sun, 12 May 2013 04:00:07 +0000

I set out to write a series last October to accompany the popular 31 Days series that Nester hosts each year. But with the Allume conference coming up at the end of the month, I was kept pretty busy, so I wasn’t able to finish the series.

I started the series for myself, because I got tired of always snapping at my children. I thought it might be good to learn a thing or two from Scripture. Then, I thought an eBook of collective thoughts an ideas would make a nice devotional to offer my faithful readers.

So here it is! If you are reading this through your email or in a Reader, you’ll find the download link at the bottom of this post. It will NOT be hyperlinked. So look for a URL, copy it and paste it into your browser. Then save it to your computer.

This file is a PDF file, so you will need to have the free Adobe reader, at the very least, to read it.

PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THIS LINK WITH ANYONE.

But for those of you who are Kindle users or use Kindle apps, this eBook is made to be Kindle friendly! Did you know there is a way to send it to your Kindle or Kindle reader? Did you know you don’t need a Kindle to use the Kindle reader app? I have one on my iPhone that I utilize quite frequently.

If you have an Android, you can still download the app. And if you don’t have a smartphone, no problem! You can download the Kindle app for your PC or your Mac. It’s a really nifty application to have.

So, how do you get the PDF to your Kindle/Kindle reader?

Follow the directions found for the Send to Kindle app. Super easy to use!

This eBook is a gift for mother’s who need help keeping a gentle tone in the midst of frustrations. It offers insights that we often don’t think about on the fly. I hope that it will help us all learn to pause and take a step back before we choose to respond to a child who’s having a difficult day (or many days)!

If you have not yet subscribed and would like to, all you need to do is enter your email address into the box at the bottom of this post or if you prefer to reader via RSS Reader (such as Feedly, which is my reader of choice), you can subscribe here instead.

Tomorrow, when a new post goes live and is delivered to your reader or inbox, you’ll find the link to the eBook at the bottom of the post. It will NOT be hyperlinked. So look for a URL at the very bottom, copy it and paste it into your browser. Then save it to your computer.

If you still have trouble locating the link or getting it to work, please email me at christin at joyfulmothering dot net.

I hope you’ll stick around and allow me to visit your reader or inbox. My goal is to encourage, inspire, and at times challenge you as a mother, as a follower of Christ, as wife, as a woman. You’re something special and you need to know it. This eBook addresses a time when I challenge you as a mother.

Embrace your babes today–they are a great gift.

Some Days I Just Want to Quit Homeschooling

Christin — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:05 +0000

{A more realistic picture would be kids scattered, a toddler screaming, and a complete mess of a house. But I didn’t think it was fair to my kids to post that, so I settled for this.}

Seriously. This couldn’t be more true this week. But I don’t want to scare you off from homeschooling, so please understand these three things before you continue to read this post:

I didn’t choose to homeschool because it was easy
Homeschooling is as rewarding as mothering; to me, they are one in the same (but still, not easy)
See number 1

I have been homeschooling for about seven years. My first five years were solely focused on one child. A girl eager to learn and loved filling out workbooks. Once she was able to fly through the workbooks, we moved onto something more challenging and hands on.

Now I have five children, ranging in age from 11 down to 2. Homeschooling isn’t all that simple anymore. My second oldest, a boy, is not as easy going about structured lessons as my first born, a girl.

Throw an eager and active Kindergartner, a spirited and fierce preschooler, and a toddler (who needs no other introduction) into the mix, and you have the family circus.

Photo Credit

I have come to a place in my homeschooling where I just feel like I’ve hit rock bottom and can’t seem to float back to the top. My biggest efforts go into trying to get everyone in the same place, at the same time, with the same focus. I’ve tried the one-room-schoolhouse idea and it just doesn’t work–or I can’t get it to work for us.

It’s easier to homeschool then it is to try to coordinate everyone to actually sit down and homeschool. Good days are not as consistent as the hard days. Sometimes I wonder how we get anything done at all.

Read Aloud Time

One of my biggest struggles and pet peeves is read aloud time. I love read aloud time with my children. It’s just that, as soon as I want to sit down and read to my older children, my two youngest get into a squabble and at least one starts crying loud enough to reach over my voice. I have tried different things to keep them occupied, but the attention span of a toddler and a spirited 4-year old is not very long, I’m afraid.

Math and Initiative

And if I say the word math out loud, the house fills with groanings beyond comprehension. Some days they’ll fly through their lessons, most days, though, it’s a battle. It doesn’t matter that we do the same thing just about everyday.

Without me telling my children what they are supposed to be doing, it won’t get done. Even if it’s written down for them. My youngest children (under 8), I can understand. Especially because they’re boys. They need direction a little longer. But my 11-year old daughter also still struggles with this, and honestly, this is probably more my fault then hers.

Other than a chastisement for not doing her lessons, she hasn’t been disciplined for skirting away from her responsibilities unnoticed–until I learn it later in the day when I ask to see her work. As the parent, it’s my responsibility to teach her responsibility by holding her responsible for being irresponsible.

So yes, perhaps part of our homeschooling issues are actually my fault. And this is why I love writing/blogging–writing this out helps me organize the issues to see them more clearly.

Small Children and Details

What it comes down to is simply that I have a lot of young children still and it makes getting through our lessons super challenging. I have to keep a consistent amount of interesting activities at hand for the littlest ones so I can get through formal lessons with my eldest ones.

At the end of some days, I realize we forgot to do some of the things we should have done–and I’m an organized person! Which leads to my next imperfection…

…I spend hours planning and I really struggle when we have to constantly throw away the plans because someone gets sick or we never made it to the library to pick up our books to go with our lessons.

And there’s attitudes–theirs and mine; there’s structure that I feel is always getting interrupted with “I’m hungry!”

Not all of our homeschooling consists of structured and formal lessons. That’s probably only 1/3 of our homeschool. But it’s these times I find most difficult getting through–not because of learning styles or methods, but because of the reality of sin nature, personal agendas, and immature attention spans.

But…

Despite the hard days and the feelings of will my kids leave my house knowing anything syndrome, they are learning.

My now six-year old began reading at age 5, full fledged chapter books, too–and I never sat him down with a formal phonics curriculum–or any phonics curriculum. He picked up on what I taught his older brother.

I currently have three readers and they all love to read.

Homeschooling is messy business–and I don’t just mean the crafts. A schedule looks great on paper, but in reality, it’s not that pretty. One day I’ll blog a day in the life of our homeschool — or maybe a week, to give you a more realistic picture, and you can see for yourself.

But I don’t homeschool because it’s easy — even though there are days I just want to quit. I homeschool because it’s the best option for our children. It is something God has equipped me to do, even if I feel completely inadequate.

The fruit of homeschooling may not always be evident right away. But being able to witness my child learn to read right before my eyes encourages and empowers me to keep pressing on.

I invite you to visit some other imperfect homeschoolers from the bloggers at iHomeschool Network.