Motherhood Tips 5

Thursday, 11. February 2010 by Renee Ellison

Please forward this page to other moms who watch over emerging persons, all the way from those darling little ankle biters, to those full blown six foot youth dudes, whose blood currently pumps voluminously into the stomach and hormones, but as of yet, very little of it is reaching the brain.

Parenting Tip: Stick figure eye-openers
Nathan the prophet artfully made King David acknowledge his sin by seeing it clearly on someone else first.  By the time David heard “thou art the man”, his face was on the floor in seconds…no more convincing or explaining needed.

So, too, we can help our children objectively see their own behavior on paper by drawing little stick figures to show them the issue at hand. This is one of the best discipline strategies you’ll ever hear.  It works wonders.

By using a spiral notebook dedicated to this cause or commandeering the backsides of 8 ½ X 11 USED sheets of paper, saved for this purpose, you can frequently shape your child’s behavior through sketches, via showing it to him so visually and concretely. Use an entire sheet, for each concept for clarity’s sake.  If three issues are involved simultaneously, use three sheets of paper.  Draw your figures large, loose and fast. Sketch the scenario, in the heat of battle, at a moment’s notice.

Four simple examples:
One:
When Ted races in declaring that Amy kicked him in the backyard, you quickly grab your paper and say, “well, let’s sit down and look at this awful thing together.”  You sit closely on the couch together, and begin to quickly draw.  Sketch two figures, one whose foot is raised, contacting the shin of the other figure.  Then you say, “Now what do you suppose caused that little guy’s foot to go up like that?  Do you suppose something came out of the MOUTH of the first guy, to cause the FOOT of the second guy to come up so rudely like that? Draw an arrow from the mouth of Ted to the head of Amy.  Then you swirl a big circle between both figures and show that one behavior CAUSES another behavior.  And your little guy will quietly say: “oh.”  End of issue.  Back outside.

Two:
Or sketch a large water barrel filled halfway with water.  (No issue yet, but you want to AVOID an issue with this one.)  Say: “This is mommy.  Normally, mommy has lots of things to do (briskly shade in the half filled water with the side of your pencil).  Normally, the half-filled barrel is empty for Susie to be able to enjoy.  But right now, we have company coming in 20 minutes and mommy’s barrel is totally full.  (Sketch little waves on top of the barrel and shade in the entire barrel.)  If you try to talk with mommy or need something from mommy, you’ll bump my barrel and I’ll slosh all over you.  Stay away from mommy for the next few minutes!!!”

Three:
“Helen has a ring of personal space around her.  Sketch a happy face, with a three inch circle around her.  If you grab Helen’s book, you’ve pierced her circle, her personal space.  You have to stay OUTSIDE her circle, her own private personal space and ask nicely.”  (Then erase a little hole in the circle through which Helen passes the book.)

Four:
Sketch stick figures of ten people at the dinner table, but only Freddie is constantly talking.  Sketch Fred’s big mouth wide open with stars coming out of his mouth, surrounding his entire body.  Then proceed to sketch frowns on all the other faces all around the table.

Conclusion:
I tell you, this cheap art will work wonders.  Save ‘em to use with your next child!!!

Home Management: Mayors of cities
If you view your home just as a place to crash, you’ll move from chaos to chaos, the more years you live and the more children you birth.  But if you’ll view your home as a very important place, a veritable city over which you are the mayor, you’ll move from order to order, and from strength to strength.  You never learn how to manage a home by just existing.  This is a kind of knowledge kept from you only until you buckle down and DO it.  This is knowledge gained ONLY by experience, and lots of it.

In the early 1800’s, pastors used to write letters to their daughters before they married, telling them how to get ready, while they were still adolescents.  They emphasized not depending upon their talents, or their good looks and high fashion, their drawing talent, their beautiful eyes, their agile waltzing, their lilting gorgeous singing voices, but to, instead, begin cultivating the ability to place a TASTY bowl of soup in front of guests, to begin to keep the laundry STEADILY tidy, as a well formed habit, to know which garden tools to use to what purpose, and to begin a little financial log of money personally earned and spent?

These pastors stressed to their daughters that a man of high influence will have many domestic demands placed upon his future home with many guests and much hospitality called for continuously, and he will be carefully looking for a woman who has MANAGEMENT skills, someone who could deftly take over that future home that he would entrust to her.

Seek to prepare your daughters to be fit to be First Ladies, to be able to run the domestic part of the White House, hosting dinners to receive world class dignitaries and you’ll begin to get the picture.  They will really be in charge of much more than that for another better kingdom…even in their own ho-hum humble homes.  You don’t just wake up capable; you practice!

The public schools have failed miserably in this domestic charge.  They taught young girls to dissect frogs for anatomy class (a skill they will never use again), but removed courses in home economics out of the schools, no longer teaching skills those girls will need every day of their lives.  I have known of young mothers, so overwhelmed, so shaken with their domestic duties day in and day out, who have locked themselves in their bedrooms, cars, closets and let their children hang from the chandeliers, they were so ill prepared.  In our day and age, some men come home to houses filled with electronics, with no chairs!  And some children dress themselves off the floor.

Mothers, look at your current daughters.  When they mop up a spill on the floor, do they look and act confidently or do they function listlessly?  When they approach dinner time, do they look as if they’ve never SEEN one before?  Where is the apron, the rolled up sleeves, the confident look in the eye?  Begin today to take hold of yourself and your daughters and reverse this mediocrity that is plummeting countless American homes into chaos.  Say no to outside activities and DVD’s inside the home until you possess your home.  REALLY possess it.

Kitchen Tips: Seven victory meals
Because every job has an infinite dimension to it, we gain mastery in this world only by narrowing our focus.  If you’ll pick out seven good “down-home-meals”, that are suitable for serving to guests and prepare them over and over again, you’ll end your cooking blues… AND your feeling of incompetence.  If you want to become super competent, try cooking these seven meals week after week, steadily, for three months.  Yup, the same things.  This gives you 12 shots at making the same meal!

During these repetitions, purposely IMPROVE.  Deliberately seek to shave your minutes and angle for ways to multitask. WRITE down each of your seven meals in a notebook, one per page, and then continue to write all over that thing EACH time you prepare it.  Function from your notebook.  Which thing did you do first?  What COULD you have done better?  While you are sautéing one thing, you are chopping another, or quickly washing the pan from the thing before.  Write your improvements down, either because you just DID them and they worked our great, or because you WANT to try a different method, or sequence, next time.

Your goal?  To be able to prepare this meal effortlessly, in record time, on the backstroke, mindlessly, WHILE TALKING TO DINNER GUESTS.

Make your 7 day plan around the meals you already do somewhat well, or if you feel bone dry, with no ideas at all, try arranging your meals largely around meats: chili, meat loaf, salmon, chicken, roast, spaghetti, and popcorn and apples, (for your final easy day).

If money is tight, do it with soups: pinto bean soup, wild rice salad meal, split pea soup, black beans, lentil soup, corn soup, vegetable soup.  Let the weekly grocery store loss-leader sales guide you.

(If you are striving to eat mostly raw, you still need to know HOW to prepare these types of meals for others who don’t eat raw…to have conquered them in detail.)

The reason we don’t gain confidence in the kitchen is because we endlessly change plans!  (Translation:  fly by the seat of our pants, night after night!)  Try this 7X12 strategy and you’ll be an expert in three months, the envy of the entire neighborhood, and all your relatives!!!  If you don’t try it, you’ll still be three months older either with the expertise or without it! I know some 80 year olds who STILL don’t know the exact number of minutes it takes to boil a soft boiled egg at their altitude and have it come out just right, or how to make basic old fashioned oatmeal.  It can happen to all of us.  Just keep changin’ plans!!!

Sewing: Set-up
Because you are going to begin with a simple goal of learning how to do basic maintenance sewing, easy alterations, mend holes, etc. sewing for only about five or ten minutes a day, as needed, it is best to have your sewing machine up and your little sewing center all organized and ready to go.  If it takes you an hour and a half to drag out all of your equipment each time, you simply won’t do it at all.  Your family will experience none of the blessings of having a capable seamstress around.

If you’ll go to the trouble NOW to set it all up, somewhere in a little out of the way corner, or down a hallway, then when Charlie tears a hole in his pants, you’ll be able to mend it in five minutes.  Or if your hem just came out, you’ll zoom right to the machine to conquer it before you have to run out the door.  If you look at Lucy and see that the thrift store dress you bought her looks more bedraggled than you had previously thought, at three sizes too big, you’ll be able to quickly get it from her, run a seam up the entire back and in minutes she can have it back on again, looking super tidy just like a King’s kid.

Again, remind yourself that you are the mayor, and this is a part of your city.  Build it up in a corner, and then manage it.  Just like a mayor would build a useful bridge at a busy intersection.

Right next to your machine, on the right, have a flat tray, like a surgeon’s or dentist’s tray with all your tools clearly visible.  Refrain from using a shoebox which you’d have to rummage through each time, costing you extra minutes to dive in there to find each small tool.  Put a thick terry cloth hand towel on the bottom of the tray so that things don’t roll around or clang noisily as you quickly pick them up and set them down.  Lay another dishcloth, super thin, lightweight, over the tray to keep the dust off.  Store the tray in a high place, on top of a bookcase perhaps, so that your child or dog won’t swallow your pins.

Further thoughts on sewing machine strategy from the previous blog (Motherhood Tip 4):
Sew on your current machine until it crashes.  Sew it right into the ground.  But, as a reminder from last week, when it DOES crash, refrain from taking it to a repair guy.  It will cost you $100 a crack, these days.  Instead, put that money toward a used Janome or a used Bernina.  Start saving now, so that the day it crashes, you can march right onto E-Bay and shift vehicles…schmooze right into the big league of Rolls Royce machines.  Prepare for it.

Marriage: The highly flammable headship/submission topic
There is a sharp cliff and huge black abyss off the edges and down both sides of all Biblical truths.  This is why Solomon hollered out for WISDOM…the ability to apply Biblical truth to all situations.  The treacherous thing about biting into that tree of the knowledge of good and evil is that it had some good in it…twisted good…some cactus hidden in the bite.

If we throw headship totally away, like the women’s libbers are hell-bent to do, claiming we don’t need men at all, we’ll all rush headlong like a bunch of lemmings off the cliff of homosexuality and stop procreating the entire human race.

From Isaiah 3:12 we can discern that it isn’t exactly a sparkling moment in history to fill our government offices and our homes with women in leadership over men.  It seems to indicate it is a black night.  Let us realize that we never enter the night by grand leaps.  We get there by believing in the dusk of half truths…one mincing step at a time.  Eve didn’t believe in headship either from God OR her husband, and look where that has gotten us.  Sometimes what is behind a biblical principle doesn’t fully appear until we’ve walked in it for awhile.  The treasures are often hidden, kept only for the penitent, opened sometimes, even by the door of suffering.

But there is a dark abyss off the other side as well.  For a man to have headship without the benefit of any intuitive objectivity from the wife, is a blind headship.  Her helps come from insights, intuitiveness, hunches, social antenna, too, not just the bedroom, or helping him lift the wheelbarrow.  For a woman to have to STUFF all input, year after year, swelling up like an old vinyl balloon, sure as shootin’ it’ll pop someday.  She’ll go from fixing the man dinner, to divorce in one half hour.  No discussion at the end, because there has been none allowed all along the way.

Soooooooooo the upshot?  Submission is about OUTCOMES, not INPUT.  Give your husband the benefit and gift of your wise, loving input, all the time.  Be honest with him.  Don’t stuff it.  Your husband hears you, even if he does not respond right away, or ever.  But do not demand outcomes.  Say it, say it with each new circumstance if you must, say it at an opportune time when things are calm, but then see to it that you habitually return to take up your post of loving him as you would ANY human being, with deference and kindness. Earnestly pray, and pray some more, and leave outcomes to God.  If your husband takes the exact opposite direction (and there is no MORAL wrong in it), entrust yourself to your creator.  1 Peter: 2:13 through the end of chapter 3 is your “centering text” for all that happens.  Read it ALL as if it applies to you only.  (By the way, if there IS moral wrong involved, go get help.)

But for the majority of irritating/maddening moments/cases that all marriages encounter at one time or another, if you pray, you can trust that God will do a far better job of rearranging your husband’s head (as well as yours) than you will ever do.  Remember that God holds over the man (and you) the final judgment.  To learn of God HOW to navigate the current rough patch, pray…cry out for wisdom.  He WILL give you insight AS YOU GO, if you will pray.  Prayer will turn your view of your husband from your (for the moment) vicious enemy, to a beggarly, needy brother.

We can profoundly influence and enlarge each other, but seeking to remake each other will be frustration with no end. There is a place where we stop and our mate begins, just as real as where the land stops and the sea begins.

Devotions: A different sort of people
C. S. Lewis wrote: “We might think that God wanted simple obedience to a set of rules whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.  In heaven “there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here.  The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character:  the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a heaven for them – that is, could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakeable kind of happiness God intends for us (source: Mere Christianity, pages 80-81).