we've got a lot of stuff coming our way right now and could use mucho prayer-o. (that's about as good as my spanish gets) firstly, there's contemplating moving back to intentional parties on a much more regular basis.
then there is the fact that our son zaavan started kindergarten this year and he has to be up at the butt-crack of dawn. this is new to our 2nd shift family. i have been getting to sleep around 1-2am only to have to get up at 7am for the past 6 weeks and i am fried. we need to find a new routine that works for our family.
and with the holidays rapidly approaching, it brings up another problem i have. i had a messy ordeal leaving the IC. not a surprise, more than a few of us here stumbled upon some dark secret of our IC and subsequently found things out about our leaders that we didn't want to know. and experieced some horrible emotional and mental and spiritual pain at their hands that we would have preferred not to. the bigger problem in my situation is that the pastor of the church where this happened is also my brother-in-law. so instead of being able to completely leave it in the past and move on, it keeps coming back every major holiday. i would like to be able to heal and move on with my heart and life and stop having it be such a major issue internally.
and finally, toddler issues! our daughter, rowyn, is now 17 months and into EVERYTHING. no surprise there for most of you i'm sure. but as zaavan was never like this, we are not sure how to draw boundaries properly and know which battles to choose. we can be hard-asses over everything (which i don't think is completely right) or we can be soft about everything (which i don't think is entirely right either) or we can find a balance. but how? is it always like this? are they always so crazy and obstinant? does this ever fade? or does it just become less frequent? or is it different with every kid? prayers and advice welcome.
thank you guys for just being here. you are very much loved and appreciated.
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21 comments:
oh man, WILL BE PRAYING...Thanks for sharing. I have more to comment but my daughter DESPERATELY needs me (see, I can relate : ) and also about the holiday pressure crap! ugh!)
lots of love and try to get some more rest. I'll pray for that too!
2 thoughts, unrelated. One--I feel for you on the family dynamics . . . remember, God isn't nearly as in a hurry as we are to get things resolved. In my own extended family, I seen wounds that finally seem to be healing after 20 years . . . but the fact that they weren't falsely hurried, means that they're actually healing right, it's just taken this long. but at least it's only this long and not longer because some tried to mess with it ahead of schedule.
toddlers. ack. you're on the right track. it sounds like you've got good instincts. child proof as much as physically possible--everything they can't reach or get at is something that you don't have to be a hard ass about. pick a few things that are most important to you and enforce those boundaries. for my nephew, the battles my brother and sister-in-law choose to fight on a multiple times daily basis are no playing in the toilet and no feet on the dinner table. and then as much as possible, let everything else go. my thoughts anyway.
Wow, with the family thing, that's hard. I will pray peace for you, but have no tangible advice. I believe reconciliation will come, with time.
With Rowyn...in a nutshell, yes, all toddlers are like that. Into everything, especially the things they shouldn't be in. ;-) The best advice I have as far as safety is prevention and supervision, but even the best parent can't think of every possible safety hazard. My son severed his finger when he was 3. He stuck his finger in a counter-sunk screw-hole on the underside of our kitchen table, then he fell off the chair and his finger was stuck. Yanked it right off. Who'd have thought THAT would happen? (And yes, they reattached it and all is well. Thank God.)
Anyhow, obstinacy seems to vary from child to child. I had one of each extreme...I agree with Sara...find the things that are most important to you and be hard on those things. Let the rest go, as much as possible.
Hi, jON. Intentional parties are something that we do, but have fallen back a little bit and really need to start doing more often. It's a great way to get our different groups of friends mixing, and for our 'unchurched' friends to meet christians and realise they're not a bunch of three-headed monsters or old women or crazies.
Re. the church thing - I am praying for your healing. I know it's really difficult. I have some very good friends IRL who are also unable to move on from a damaging church (the same one I was in).
Toddlers! I love toddlers, but I am soooo glad our daughters are past that stage. Now we are getting the pre-teen tantrums from our eldest - the second tantrum phase! Who knew they had two of them???
There is a fantastic book that I bought about a year ago that I really wish was around when my kids were little. It's by a New Zealand author named Nigel Latta, and it's called Before Your Kids Drive You Crazy Read This. I have read oodles of parenting books, and found them all pretty lame - except this one. Everything in it makes so much sense! You'd probably have to get a bookstore to import it for you from Australia or New Zealand, but honestly, how it's helped us deal with our kids is worth any price, and we thought we were pretty reasonable parents to start with. We will be buying the teenager version of it soon, since our girls are rapidly heading in that direction. Oh, and BTW it's not a "christian" book, for once, which is rather refreshing in itself.
Oh Jon! I feel your pain in both the "no sleep" and in the "toddler craziness"...and I don't know if it's advice you're asking for there or not...and I'm not the type of person that really likes to receive advice...and I'm probably not really qualified to give it. With that said, I do have a 2 yr old daughter!!! All I can say is don't get caught up in what the world says you are supposed to do...bedtime, bathtime, clothing, rules...you just have to find out what works for your family. Even if it's crazy. Right now our 2 yr old watches cartoons until midnight every night because that is the only way she falls asleep and my husband and I can have alone time. It works because she doesn't have to be up for anything in the morning...our kids only have a bath if we can smell them...and we are about to hang a baby swing in the kitchen! Mayah is naked unless we go somewhere...that is a battle I just cannot fight, and it doesn't matter...so, try to concentrate on what really matters to your family and your sanity and focus on those things, and forget the rest. No need to be normal here. With my VERY VERY obstinate daughter...and it DID start at about 18 months when I was pregnant...it seemed like if she was bored or really needed my attention, she was the worst behaved. FAMTEC (focused attention, meaningful touch, eye contact) and Dr. Sears have been my lifesavers. And even then...well, you've read my blog, so you know how crazy and angry and lost I still am!
And there I went with the parenting advice! Sorry!
And, with the extended family/holiday issue. Man...that sounds tough. What if you just did Christmas with your immediate family? Maybe you need the time apart from others to heal...I mean, why do your relatives have to be your family? My relatives live on the other side of the country, so it's easy for me to say/do that. But seriously, some of our best holidays were just us...doing our own thing...
I hope you have a really restful weekend, a peaceful next week, and I bless you with being delighted by both of your children at least once every day!
Papa, send the boy some double sleep portions, puhlease :)
I love the male way. Asking for prayer but having to slap some "not to sound too needy or anything" on the heading ;)
I will be praying too, Jon, but I really think it's all gonna work out :)
Asking Papa to help you guys out. ;-)
Hey Jon, Mom kind of talked to me about some of the things that were bothering you when you got together with the fam. But said that last time when little bro was around that it did not bother you. I got some theories on why. Call me.
jON. Seriously praying for you man. Oh yeah, the toddler thing, I think that maybe you'll figure out which battles to fight and which aren't worth fighting but man do I feel for you. Morgan is now figuring out that his toy bins give him an extra eight to nine inches of lift to reach those higher places.
*sheesh*
Forgive him ...
He has to deal with what he has stood for all these years, reaping a living from a business with standards that the Lord has never required of any of us.
Your sweet little Rowyn
I wish I could say that there was a certain way to make it easy ... but this helped me ...
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from her. Proverbs 22:15
Jon, this is a yucky, unhelpful answer but all kids are different and you just have to keep trying new things until something works. There is no set formula.
Some of it will be a learning experience as you decide what actually does need to be controlled and what does not. That, for me, was the hardest. Being a hard ass was the easiest for me, and in my case it was a total cop out because I didn't have to treat them like human beings, i just went into control everything mode. rofl, but then the scriptures also tell us not to exasperate our children, which is what controlling everything does so I had to learn to stop that.
You have to find out what makes her tick. A swat works with some but not with others, time outs work with some and not with others, removal of privileges, etc.... learn what makes her tick, and then relearn it when it changes.
Parenting isn't for cowards :)
As for the other issue. all I can do is pray. can't imagine how hard this must be :(
Amen to that TD
It is seriously the most challenging and important task in the whole entire world !!!!
thanks everyone, we appreciate all the prayers and advice. strangely enough, having a typically-abled child has been much more emotionally trying than zaavan ever has been. so it's been tough going. we're not used to the whole "watch her every second" kind of thing. and it makes it tough to get anything done. which would be fine if zaavan's cares didn't require so much prep time as well as execution. for example: when you're feeding him through his tube, you're kind of stuck to him for about 20 minutes with no way to jump up quickly if necessary!
as far as the "family thing." val, i have wondered if it is unforgiveness in my heart. and if it is, pray it becomes clear. but when i pray, it doesn't seem like it. what becomes the problem for me is that he was willing to use the things i told him in vulnerable confidence to hurt me. and was also willing to keep going until i was suicidal. so it's not the past things so much anymore as anxiety over the future. i don't really have anything to say to him when we're together for fear of what he would do, or arguments i might have to have in sharing the things that are going on with me now. i guess in a nutshell i'm simply fearful of being vulnerable and intimate with him again based on past experience. so instead of being able to be my regular self sharing everything, i just sit in a corner and share nothing. which does not make for a very good time. which, then, makes me wonder about the whole point of the gathering. it takes a shitload of har work to get a toddler and 6 year-old wheelchair bound, tube fed kid packed up and ready to go to an utterly non-accessible home. only to sit in a corner and not say a whole lot. as you have hinted kari, i would just rather stay home with my own family.
but, as my dad passed away less than a year ago and my mom is now living alone for the first time in her life at age 65, it is important to her that we gather together as a family.
i tried about a year and a half ago to just put it all behind me, start fresh, and let them get to know who i am now. but, i found out that by being who i am now, i am being disrespectful to my sister and her family. because they are a pastor, a pastor's wife, and pastor's kids, and everything about me is pretty much offensive to the common evangelical christian community. i don't live my life by the same rules of conduct or even acknowledge those rules as having any sort of authority over me whatsoever. and this creates problems. i feel like i have to completely censor myself and change myself in order to spend time with them. and that's not very fun for me. but i don't necessarily want it to always be about me. *sigh* sorry to spill that tension all over. thanks for listening. someone pass the vegemite...
i didn't want to sound "too needy" becuase i was cramming 3 requests into one post. and i still have about 3 or 4 more, but they pertain to zaavan so i thought i'd post them separately one of these days.
oh, and SUE!!!!!!!! (ahem) the chicken has flown the coop and should be landing in 6-10 business days...
I see where you are at now.
Broken trust is one of the most difficult of life's snares.
I'm glad you have the love in your heart to keep your Mom happy.
Go with grace ... go with peace ...
You have cultural differences with your family ... just pretend you are in a different country and follow the customs ... it isn't for a long time.
AND
We want to hear the rest of the needs you have now, not later ;-)
K
Vegemite - ugh... we keep that here? :) ah, well, at least it's not marmite... lol. That stuff is... well. Unusual.
It sounds to me like what would really be ideal, Jon, is if God would enable the rest of your family to extend a little more grace and acceptance to you - to maybe think outside their boxes of how life as a follower of Christ "should" be done...
what comes to mind is what Paul talks about with the whole "food sacrificed to idols" thing - and I know it's not the same thing, but maybe it's a general principle - that when we're with people to whom our freedom is a hindrance, we can adjust - not to change who we are or what we believe, but to maybe adjust our behaviour/speech a bit out of love and compassion for them? - and then when we're with people to whom our freedom isn't a problem, to just live in it joyfully... I don't know. Not trying to be preachy or anything, just thinking out loud... there are whole pieces of my life that some of my family have no clue about, because I don't know how to explain it in a way that will make any sense to them... and sometimes it feels like not being me to "hide" that - and sometimes it just seems wiser... sigh. Yay for heaven and the day when everything's illuminated and light-filled and not-so-complicated... :) In the meantime, tho, I will be praying for wisdom, peace, freedom, and total relational reconciliation for all of you...
I think you're right - it doesn't *sound* like unforgiveness - more just natural consequences of the previous events. I will pray that whatever healing may need to happen still for any of you will come... and that God will simply help you to be at rest in Him, and to act and speak out of that centeredness while you are hanging out with the family.
Toddlers - be consistent. That's the best advice I can give. A rule is a rule: "don't touch" is always true of what it applies to, and the consequence is always the same. Follow thru on what you issue as a consequence (so be careful what you say it will be!). A lot of what toddlers are doing when they're into everything like that is testing the boundaries to make sure they are still there and haven't changed - it's part of how they establish to themselves emotionally that they are safe. Good luck. :) (been there, many times.) You will all survive it. And it's a STAGE - which means there'll be something equally interesting later. :)
peace be with you. and thanks for the opportunity to pray. it's a privilege.
Jon -
Toddlers are a lot of work that's for sure. It's probably just the uphill climb toward "terrible two"s. You'll think it'll break you both at least once or twice through the phase but you'll all come through it intact. :-)
Michelle
--just a thought about toddlers. I think my biggest advice is to keep your sense of humor. My husband was always better at this than me. If the little one was throwing a temper tantrum, he would call out, "Louder!". It did frustrate the toddler, and they would scream louder, but it gave us a chuckle. :)
Hey
I will pray for you and yours of course.
We have a 4 yr old which sounds just like your little one and it isnt easy. But you and your hubby need to set boundries that are right for you and ignore everyone else (even me if you wish)I have decided that Tilly is going to be the first Asutralian Woman Priminister and that she needs to be strong willed to achieve that
She has a naughty spot (the laundry) where she goes when she chucks a wobbly and she stays there till she stops which has been 30 mins but now only takes 5. Also I really beleive that kids pick up on the stress we try not to show them. We to have been through an awful church situation which 2 1/2 year on still casues me to cry alot. All my kids sufffered during tis time even though we tried our best to hide the pain we were in from them. I wonder sometimes if this is partially why Tilly is the way she is.
I read a book called "the stong willed child" by James Dobson and it helped me to see that I was not alone and did not cause Tilly to be the way she was maybe it will help you to
thanks you for the additional thoughts. erin(mrs. peres) and i have been talking over all of them. it just helps to get different input and perspective outside of ourselves. so thank you once again for all you thoughts and prayers.
and i will try to be more diligent in sharing our current needs. how much time do you have? :-)
I think everyone has given the kinds of comments I would also throw in. I cannot comment on the family thing, because honestly, I wouldn't know how to handle that myself but you obviously have a strength about you that can handle this because I believe that we are never given difficulties that we cannot handle!
As for the toddler.. aaah toddlers are extremely cute and they are also the little ones that draw whatever ounce of energy you may have left. This will pass. it did for me..
What I did when he got his fingers into everything, instead of saying no.. I just removed the object and placed it higher.. unfortunately the cat wasn't so lucky.. he would get his tail pulled regularly by my son. In general I think all toddlers are busy and inquisitive and it does pass :)
Jon, the chicken got here on Monday night, the 20th. So it took, like, 2 days to get here. Wow :)
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