Inspiration

As most mothers can attest, sometimes you need some inspiration. Or you'll go insane. Quickly. I recently found inspiration from another blogger; she blogs in a number of places, but the one I found funniest was www.crappypictures.typepad.com. She writes another one but I can't find the URL for it right now. It's about their homeschooling voyage. A few things really stood out to me.
1) She wrote a post about Living Time instead of Killing Time. My time as a mother of young kids is limited & I should chose to treasure my time with them rather than counting down the time until dinner... and bed time (I know, I know, easier said than done, but convicting nonetheless).
2) She made a number of good points about Homeschooling which is continuing to spark a mental debate in me. I have lots of pros & cons about it & would love to chat with you if you have ever thought about it.
3) She had a "Yes Day" with her kids. Rather than saying "no" to things over and over that are inconvenient, she said "yes". I think we all do this. We want to avoid making messes (really, cleaning up the mess) or we're impatient to get somewhere so we hurry past teaching opportunities.

I didn't have a "Yes Day" today... but I did decide that I would make an effort to say "yes" to things even when they're inconvenient to me. That I would begin to take advantage of teaching opportunities & also allow the Lord to foster more patience in me.

Today Nathan met me at work with the boys so that I could take them home and he could start work (I'll post about work later... I'm super excited about it). On our one-block walk to the van Liam was in a stroller & James was "helping" push. For some reason, he thought it'd be funny to stop every 5 steps and sit down on the sidewalk. "Whoa!" he'd say, as if his act was utterly convincing. It wasn't. But it was utterly adorable.

I was tempted to hurry him along, but instead I let him stop to smell the "flowuhs" (flowers.... they were really weeds, but hey). We stopped so that he could touch the trashcan (gross).




Then we stopped to look in the shop fronts & identify the store front numbers.




Finally, we stopped to dig in a small hole in the pavement.

Well, that wasn't really the last time we stopped. That was just the last time I took a picture. We also stopped & talked to a nice man who was sitting outside a coffee shop. James was excited to try to climb into a chair at one of the tables but by that time I was feeling a rather... ahem pressing urge to use the facilities & I decided at that point that I needed to say "let's go" rather than "yes" to his wanderings.

Around the house...

James has been feeling a little under the weather lately. READ: James has a runny nose & has been super cranky the past few days. Today I was talking to Nathan on the phone (he's been out of town for a friend's wedding) and James decided he needed a snack.

He goes over to our metal pantry shelf & finds a few empty beer bottles waiting to be recycled. "James, don't drink out of the beer bottles. Yucky! Yucky! Yucky!" Oh my. I attempt to coax him into the living room & he's distracted by an appetizing bowl of bananas. Let me tell you, if you're a banana, you do not want James to find you in a dark lonely alley. He will mess you up. I've caught James (on more than one occasion) with a banana... the tip has been bitten off & he's second-knuckle deep with his finger through the peel.

I managed to get to the bananas before they suffered any bodily harm but of course that infuriated James. At this point, my conversation with Nathan is down the toilet. There's just no point continuing over all the snot & sobbing. So we say goodbye & agree that Nathan will call after his plane lands. James is inconsolable. I keep pleading with him, "Use your words! Do you want a snack, say 'snack please'", etc. I make a number of suggestions & he mumbles "milk", "muwus" (muffins), & "wa wa" (water). Finally he calms down, looks around the room & declares "TAINS" aka "trains". Then "pay tains" (Play trains). He has now been quietly playing with his trains for 5-10 minutes.

I guess he just needed some inspiration.