This Moment

A friday ritual. A single photo -no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor, and remember.

sidetracked. . . .

Lets talk about a different kind of love. Ok. Scratch that too. Let's talk about me. Let's talk about the fact that I by nature am a push over and hate conflict. This hasn't changed since becoming a parent and it needs to. Now. Like yesterday.

I love my children. When I became a mother I searched out what parenting philosophy that I thought would be best for my kids. I wanted them to feel love, to know love, and to be love. It was all about love. Love. Love. Love.

I love them. I kiss them. I tell them multiple times a day that I love them from here to the moon. I show them love by taking an extra minute to show them how to do something. I've read and listened to 'The 5 Love Languages for Children'. I buy them things. I teach them. I spend quality time with them. I cry with them and for them. I pray for them and with them.

Until today. Exactly 3 o'clock pm today. I thought I was loving them in the best way possible.

I have a friend. She's become more than a friend and more like a second mother to me. I love this women and respect what she has to say. On Friday she told me point blank that I'm not teaching my children to honor me. *insert the feeling of both me nearly wanting to cry and feeling the Comanche blood in me flair up* I listened to her. I prayed about it. And on our walk home from the library this afternoon as Willow screamed at the top of her lungs that she was "so angry she wanted to hit me"(she didn't) and tried running away. I owned it.

In all honesty this isn't an every day occurrence. Willow has always been quick to say her please's and thank you's and is the most compassionate 4 year old I know. For the last five years I've prescribed to the thought that if I show respect to my child they will respect me. I'm not saying that there is anything false about that. But honor is different. And I'm not feeling it. It's needed. And it's my job as a parent to show them how to honor.

The rest of the day I walked around like a lost child. Where do I even begin. I sat here, trying to numb myself from the tantrum that was happening in the living room and found a blog post. I followed a link that led to another link that led me to this. It may not seem life changing to you. But I'm buying that book tomorrow and calling my friend to learn a little bit more about honor.

Love Day pics

Some pictures of our Love Day decor: Willow's felt heart garland

Baking cupcakes for homeschool group

Making a valentine for Daddy

Recycled crayon valentines for friends at homeschool group.

Willow's X and O

Cedar's watercolor/wood heart garland.

Munchkins' heart handprints

Living room covered in love

True.

Banner Willow and I made last year out of recycled sweaters.

Tomorrow I'm planning on posting a few more things we did to spred the love and happiness in the last few weeks.

Hope you're having a happy day!

Choice

Choice:

1. The act of choosing; selection.

2. The power, right, or liberty to choose; option.

3. One that is chosen.

4. A number or variety from which to choose.

5. Care in choosing.

6. Alternative.

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/)

Inspired by Erin's post and a message by our Pastor this past Sunday, I wanted to share what I'm learning about choice.

Sometime between 4 and 5 a.m. I hear his footsteps; his little grunt as he climbs onto the bed. I feel the cold of our bedroom seep under the sheets as he lifts them; putting his face to mine. His perky voice chirps, "Gikky? Heroes?". I fight the urge to cover my head and roll over, knowing that it's much earlier than I want to be up.

And that's when I get to choose. To choose to mother him whenever he needs it, despite my desire to sleep in past 5 a.m. To choose to greet him with a smile instead of a grumble. To choose to thank God for the blessing of this little boy and not resent the fact that he's an early bird. Choosing kind peaceful words instead of using a cutting, cursing, irritated tongue. In that moment I get to choose the start of our day. I know what the days are like when I choose to grumble, to ignore, to resent, and stew. It's not worth tainting a new day just to stay under warm blankets a few minutes longer.

The power to choose is sometimes overwhelming. I want to choose what seems easy. What seems easy isn't always the best choice.

I'm learning so much about choice in every area of my life. We have recently chosen to try a new church. It took us several months of back and forth before we decided to try. We were nervous about leaving a place we've called home for the larger part of 8 years, we were timid about making new acquaintances, worried about how the kids would do in the nursery/Sunday school. Despite our apprehension we felt the nudge and followed it, making the choice to step out of our comfort zone and we are feeling so blessed by it.

The Pastor shared a message about Herod and how he chose to use his hurt and anger. He asked us to look at our own life and reflect on what makes us angry. He compared our anger with Herod's and it was powerful. He suggested that most of what we get angry about can reveal areas in our life that need work, areas that we don't want to lose control of. Inspired by this I began to look closer at my everyday irritations. And it's true. It's control. I strongly desire control over what happens in my life, it gives me a sense of security and comfort. When that control is challenged or even usurped, I lose it. And by 'it' I mean control of my emotions, my power of choice, my stability and zeal as a follower of Christ.

This week I'm choosing joy. I'm choosing peace, gentleness, forgiveness, mercy, and most importantly self-control.

wow, it's february!

(Tear. I think I cut his hair too short. He now looks more GQ than cute little monster. I want his cute little monster 'do back.)

Really? January went by in a blur! Let me get back to the regulary scheduled programming and not spend too much time catching you up. The Hart family's month of January looked like this:

-snow

-spending lots of time with family

-spending not enough time with friends

-some healing of old relationships and forming of new ones

-a week of trying to completely cut out sugar followed by a

-VACATION! (that was completely induglant in the area of sweets and goodies; blast you BearPaw!) and oh was it wonderful :D

-snow days for Daddy after vacation which were even more wonderful!

-LOTS and LOTS of playing in the snow

-new hair cuts by all (except mama, who is contemplating a new 'do soon)

-Cedar surprising us with. . . . WORDS! He speaks! well, more than "mama", "daddy", "sissy", "ball", and that ever popular "superhero".

-many valentine's day crafts worked on and put up, several knitting projects finished and started, and 6 novels read in a period of 3 weeks.

-jumping head first into teaching Willow to read at her request and filling our heads full of arctic animal facts and burying our heads in stacks of books about polar bears, walruses(our new favorite polar animal), eskimos, and books about building igloos. Willow has declared that we wants to become a "polar biologist" when she grows up. I can't wait to see how she fits that in to her already full future schedule of cheering at football games, helping Santa make presents, keeping her customers happy at her bakeshop and of course headlining her world tour.

Dear January, we loved you, we miss you, and we welcome you to come back in all your awesome glory in 2011. Bring it on February!