Profound Responsibility

A few weeks ago, just before her half birthday, Kenly discovered my shoes in the living room. Seeing them in a whole new light, Kenly sat down and decided to wear "Mama shoes." She spent nearly half and hour walking around in my shoes. At first, I just saw it as cute, and then the symbolism near took my breath away. Here I was laughing at her stumbling around in my shoes, at her clumsy resolve to be just like mama, when the profound responsibly of that statement nearly brought on a panic attack. I want to be a woman worthy of imitation, a woman who blazes a trail through life's darkest places with the light of God's grace. But oh the failure I've faced so many times. Since that day, a Steve Green song has been ever present in my mind, a soundbite on a repeating loop.

The song is call Find Us Faithful. Someone a LRBC sang is religiously when I was a mere babe.
The words are powerful. Read a few of them for yourself.

Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
May the fire of our devotion light their way
May the footprints that we leave
Lead them to believe
And the lives we live inspire them to obey
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful

After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone
And our children sift through all we've left behind
May the clues that they discover
And the memories they uncover
Become the light that leads them
To the road we each must find

As I watched her try to be like me, I had to whisper a silent prayer to be a woman worthy of imitation. Then scripture started coming to mind.

Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way she should go, and when she is old she will not turn from it." So I started thinking about what it meant to train Kenly. Sure, I'll potty train her. I'll teach her the ABC and her 123's. But to truly train a child is a daily battle. The dictionary say that to train a person is "to develop or form the habits, thoughts, or behavior by discipline and instruction." With training comes discipline, and with discipline comes frustration and sometimes anger. Little Kenly Shae is a cherub most of the time, but when she digs her heels in, we go to war. I pick important battle that involve safety and respect, but sometimes I feel as if I'm always training, or nagging to use a less positive word. The nagging aspect of parenthood brings me to another verse that keeps bouncing around in the recesses of my mind like an out of control rubber ball. Remember Ephesians 6:4? If not, it says, "Fathers (mothers), do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Where is the line between training and exasperating?
I know that I'm going to be praying without ceasing to keep the balance between training and exasperating. The last few verses that have been "after me" the past few weeks are Deuteronomy 6:6-8--These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. I want my faith to be evident to Kenly. Not just on Sundays. I want it to be a part of my daily fiber. My heart thrills to hear her sing Jesus Loves Me. I love that she wants to hear more of Jesus Loves the Little Children. I smile when she says, "More chillrun." When we sit down for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I find it precious that she tries with all her might to sing God Our Father. I love to hear her mimic my amen when I'm praying over her during a bad night, but I want more. I want her to feel God's power and presence when she can't wrap her arms around Him. I want her faith to surpass anything I could imagine. But I fear that my example will keep her from great faith. How often do I snatch things back from God? How often do I rely on my own strength?


So watching her walk around made me realize that I want to be a better person. I want to blaze a trail I'd be proud for Kenly to follow. So, Deuteronomy 4:9 is going to be my prayer.
"Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them."

Father,

Help me to be careful. Help me to teach Kenly about the amazing things I've seen you do in my life. Help me to a good example to follow. Help me to lean on you for the strength to train without exasperating. Thank you for the awesome privilege of carrying the weight of responsibility that comes with the title of mama.

Amen

Adventures in Dating

Adam has a way of making my birthdays memorable. Since we've been dating, he's managed to make it snow on almost every one of my birthdays. He's powerful like that. On my 30th birthday, we slid off a mountain trying to go sledding. We should have listened to Chance; he was whining in the back seat. He know it was a bad idea. So I guess I should have know that taking off on Friday, February 12, my 34th birthday, while snow was falling was not a good idea. But hey, I live for adventure.

Adam's school closed two hours early on the 12th, but he couldn't get home until a little after three. We couldn't leave any earlier anyways because the Brands couldn't get here until around 4:00, and lets face it, Kenly is not responsible enough to watch herself. Chance is a good big brother, but he's a bit inattentive, so we needed to wait for our loving childcare to arrive. Adam pulled into our treacherous ice-rink--I mean driveway--so that we could pack up. As he did, he got stuck. It took him about 20 minutes to free the truck from the icy grip of the driveway. Mops and Pops pulled in, and we loving tossed the child in their direction so we could get on the road. Seeing as we live up a knoll/mountain, we knew if we made it out of the neighborhood we'd be safe. Well, we nearly plummeted to our death (okay, I'm being dramatic) three times as we ventured down the hill. We decided we'd try to make it all the way to Blowing Rock, NC, but we need to be realistic. Road conditions were iffy, it was slowly getting dark, and snow was still blowing around. We traveled slowly and in 4-wheel drive to try and avoid an incidents. Because we are older and wiser than we once were, we decided to stop in Hickory for the night. We wanted to live through our romantic get-a-way. We got off on what we thought would be a busy highway only to find nothing, and I mean NOTHING. After driving about 5 miles we came to our first major intersection with buildings and lights, and THEN.....

....BAM. We were rear-ended by a sweet teenage girl trying to keep a package from falling off her passenger seat. If you think I'm joking, here's a picture of the police cruiser to prove it.
Adam is such a good sport....he's smiling through it all. I didn't realize it until later, but the police officer's name was Officer Pain. Is that not funny?
We have to wait 45 minutes for the cop to arrive, issue a citation, and write an accident report. B this time the road conditions have gone from iffy to downright nasty. So, we set off for Lenoir, NC. We never go above 30 MPH for the 12-15 miles we had to travel. We stop at the first hotel we come to, a Days Inn. Room 103 never looked so good. Night one of our romantic getaway was spent eating Papa John's pizza and watching the opening ceremonies to the winter Olympics. At about 10:00PM, Adam and I both took a Vicodin and went to sleep. Before you think we are druggies, you should know that Adam's back was still funky, and I had a root canal the day before. Joy oh joy!
We woke up, ate at Bojangles and headed to Blowing Rock. Pops set us up with a condo at Chetola Resort. It was beautiful. See for yourself....


Jacuzzi tub...need I say more?
We went sledding...believe it or not, this is the only picture I have of both of us from the weekend.


We went sledding for about an hour. We split a yummy lunch at Glidewell's. We had an amazing dinner at the Manor House. Adam bought me awesome chocolates, chocolate covered strawberries, and a bottle of wine for my birthday. We watched more Olympics. On Sunday we had to be home by 4:00, so we took time to sled again (without the baby and a dog who goes psycho trying to save us from the sled) and then ate a yummy lunch at Storie Street Grille. Adam took me home using the scenic routes. It turned out to be an awesome, relaxing weekend full of romance and adventure, despite the rocky start. Awesome Adam and Radical Rhonda made the most of their time away.

Wordless Wednesday--Happy and I KNOW it!

If you can ignore my singing, this video is just precious.

Touching

Adam just keeps leaving me little surprises. This morning I woke up to a haiku. I wish I could write haiku, but I can live through my husband's talent.

Tylenol droppers
make the pain go away but
kisses remedy.

Isn't that cool? Oh how I dread the day when my kisses can't make it better.

Off to a Great Start

Monday got off to a GREAT start. Kenly slept in until about 7:30. She woke we up with beautiful singing. I could tell right away that she was singing Frere Jacques because the tune was perfect. I listened closely through the monitor and this is what I heard:

Era Locka
Era Locka
Hiney Moo
Hiney Moo

Can you imagine a better way to start a Monday morning? She has been singing loudly and proudly all week long. While Nana and Papa were up last weekend, she learned to "wink" (or blink rapidly with both eyes). She walks around saying, "I winking."

Nana also sang Isn't He Wonderful? to her quit a bit. We'll be riding down the road and I'll hear her singing Isn't He Wonderful? in a very high pitched soprano. I just have to grin.

Nana and Papa also taught her to say "uh-oh spaghettio." It sound more like "uh-oh skettio." She said it when she dropped a toy the other day, and Adam and I were really confused. Neither one of us use that phrase, so we really thought we had a genius on our hands.

Adam, my wonderful husband, also started Monday off with a surprise that warmed my heart. After rescuing my performing artist from bed, I went to fix a cup of coffee and found this poem on the table. (Adam is an amazing poet)

More powerful than
My morning cup of coffee
My girls lift me up

My bad days vanish
chewed up and digested by
my girls' stair top smiles.

Now tell me, can you top my Monday morning start? Didn't think so.

Because Baths Bring Bliss

While I was on bath duty, I wanted to take a few updated bath pictures. I think taking a bath makes Kenly's Top 10 Things to Do list. She loves bubble baths. She loves when Adam or I blow bubbles while she is taking a bath. She splashes. She squeals. She pours water on her belly. She's even trying to bath herself a little now. These are my favorite from Tuesday night.

I formed her hair into a funky style with her shampoo. I handed her a mirror, and this was her adorable reaction. As Kenly would say, "I lub it!"

Flowing Creativity

After confessing to taping crayons together on my last Not Me Monday post, a reader suggested I use those broken crayons. She got my creative juices flowing, and I took her advice. Kenly and I made "muffins" with them. At least that's what Kenly calls her new crayons. I think they look like colorful Reese's peanut butter cups myself, but hey, to each his own. Here's the process...


First, you have to peel all of those broken crayons. I even peeled some from my days in teaching that were just well worn.
Then, you need to put the crayons in muffin papers or just in your pan with a nice coat of cooking spray. I decided to do like colors and one rainbow mix (See it in the top right hand corner?).
After that, stick your muffin pan in your oven. I preheated the oven to about 225 degrees. I watched the crayons carefully. It took about 12-15 minutes for them to melt completely.
After taking them out of the over, I cooled them for about 5 minutes. Then I peeled the papers off and allowed the new toddler-friendly crayons to cool completely on a wire rack. Needless to say, the new "color-colors" were a huge hit. Last night Kenly had a difficult time sharing with Adam when they were coloring.
The cool thing about these crayons is that they also double as blocks for building towers.
There is one draw back to using muffin papers. When the crayons are dropped, stepped on, or rolled, the little edges break off and make quite a mess. I have streaks of color all over the kitchen floor as a result. Totally worth the mess, but next time I will be making them without the papers. I rather have a few hard minutes of cleaning a pan than months of cleaning floors and other surfaces. So, thank for the suggestion Kris, a creative mommy that I may never meet. I love it.

Taste How Sweet

Me: Kenly, what do you have?
Kenly: Apple. Holding out a plastic apple for me to see. Ta'se it.
Me: Feigning incredible enthusiasm. For me? How nice of you to share. Pretending to eat the plastic apple.
Kenly: With great conviction and a head nob to boot. 'licious.

Not Me Monday

Are you embarrassed because your kitchen floor now requires 50 grit sandpaper in order to be truly clean? Do you frequently take your child out in public with a syrup cowlick? Well, celebrate those imperfections with me and over on MckMama's blog.

I did not take my child out into 10 inches of snow wearing a creative redneck snowsuit consisting of about three layers, two plastic bags, and a few rubber bands. Not me. I'm always prepared for snowy days with downy snowsuits that keep my child toasty warm.




I do not allow Kenly to wear yellow and purple bows with everything simply because I'm trying to encourage her to like bows. My daughter always matches perfectly.

I do NOT laugh every time my 17 month old announces her toots. I'm way more mature.

I did NOT have to interrupt a tender kiss my husband was giving me because I heard the unmistakable sound of crayon on wall. My precious daughter did not decide to liven up our living room walls with a yellow crayon. She did not smile proudly and say, "llellow" to announce her handiwork.

My daughter did not call my feminine products stickers while visiting the toilet with me last week. I was not impressed with the connection she made.

I do not keep repairing the crayons Kenly breaks with Scotch tape. I'm not that cheap.

I am not guilty of shamelessly bragging about my daughter's growing vocabulary. I'm not that mom. I would never tell you she knows over 200 words. Not me.

What have you not been up to?