Kindness DOES matter

I had a wonderful lunch today with a friend and one of our many topics was around people and how they treat others. Is it just amazing to me how we, as a society, can still treat people the way that we do. The way that we talk to each other, the words we use, the way we look at each other. It’s no wonder why we have young children with self-worth issues, people in corporate settings who are struggling and we have people who feel the need to conduct such vicious acts like what took place in Boston a few weeks ago. I mean, who are we kidding?


Ok, this is going to get deep …. So consider yourself warned.


Where did Love go? Where did respect go? Do we lead our lives in a way that we can be proud of? That God can be proud of? Do we teach our children what it means to be loved and HOW to love? Do we teach them not to judge, not to call people awful things, not to talk to them in a tone that reflects anger/hatred.
 Do I remember that we are all MORE! In the words of Tenth Avenue North “We are more than the choices that we’ve made, we are more than the sum of our past mistakes, we are more than the problems you create, you’ve been remade! “

Do I teach them to be themselves. To love who they are and who God has created them to be. With God’s love we can be who we are and in that image there is perfection.   In the words of Francesca Battistelli “Cause I got a couple dents in my fender, couple rips in my jeans tried to fit the pieces together, but perfection is my enemy. On my own, I’m so clumsy, but on your shoulders I can see … I’m free to be me.”

So treat each and every person you encounter today with the love that they deserve. For they are walking on this earth the same way that we all are. Searching, reaching and desiring the love of our Great God. “Your love never fails and never gives us … and never runs out on me…. YOUR LOVE……… and I never ever have to be afraid … because this ONE THING REMAINS! “

Likes and Dislikes

As I reflect on the fact that I wanted my kids to someday come back to this blog and read about their childhood, see pictures and learn things about themselves that I will likely forget with my advancing age I thought I’d put a post out here about their likes and dislikes right now in their lives (at age 4).


So, let’s start with Birk.

Birk LOVES the Cyclones. He loves anything to do with a ball, especially baseball. He will be starting Blast Ball in a week and he is ExCYted to say the least! He love wrestling with his dad on the living room floor. Being the pool is now become one of his favorite past times. He loves Cars, Toy Story, and Wreck it Ralph. Birk’s favorite foods are; cheeseburgers, pizza, mac-n-cheese, apples, candy and flavored water.

Now Addy.

Addy LOVES pink. Anything pink is her favorite. It goes so far that she loves pink meat (?). Addy loves to play school, house, with babies. She is bubbly and loves to use her imagination, however she can keep up with the boys. She loves to run, play hide n seek, tag and play on the play set in the backyard. Addy loves to snuggle and watch a movie. She loves to read books and could listen to someone read to her for hours. She loves singing, and playing her keyboard… until she notices anyone is watching her. She loves sunglasses and owns about 100 pairs. She will even own that one and tell anyone how many pairs she has.

On the opposite side…

Birk does not like; BUTTONS. Don’t ask that kid to wear buttons. He has some strange aversion to them. He does not like sweatshirts that have a ½ zipper. A full zipper is acceptable, but that ½ zip is out of the question. He dislikes when he can’t wear shorts. He doesn’t typically want help getting dressed, or using the restroom (which to Mom and Dad is nice and a bit alarming….in case it isn’t done properly). Birk doesn’t like dry meat. Ok, so let me explain as you may be thinking I’m crazy. Birk doesn’t care for chicken breasts that take a lot of chewing or pork. He is very particular about that. He will keep that meat in his mouth until it has liquefied and then choke it down. So I just choose not to force him to eat that. Now if chicken comes in the form of nuggets …. Whole new ballgame! Birk doesn’t like saying goodbye, he doesn’t like endings and he completely falls apart when he has to stop running after church is over.

Addy dislikes anything that is not pink. She is a bit more of a picky eater, but not bad. She doesn’t care for mac-n-cheese and won’t feed herself pasta noodles. She will eat them if I feed them to her, but the work to poke your folk into the noodle and put it into her mouth is just over the top. Addy doesn’t care to pick out her own clothes (Birk is my clothes kid…Adds could care less). She doesn’t even really care to dress herself (although she will). Addy doesn’t like to be told no, TO ANYTHING.

While the twins have very strong likes and very strong dislikes it makes me beyond proud of the people they are turning out to be. They have individual personalities that are unique to each other and it just makes my heart happy.

Confessional

Life is busy. I suck at blogging these days. I was doing so good for a while there, then I just fell apart. For my 3 loyal followers … I’m sorry I’ve left you hanging.

Although who am I kidding? I know a lot of working moms who still have clean houses, folded and ironed clothes, kids that are bathed daily and still manage to maintain their blog. I, however, am not one of those moms.

So this post is my confessional. I can no longer hide behind some of these things.

1. I suck at housekeeping. I am so dang tired at the end of the day that picking up a dust rag or the vacuum just seems impossible. Don’t even get me started on getting on my hands and knees to clean the toilets and scrub floors. My best housekeeping comes about 30-45 minutes before we have company. The only reason my house has any sort of “clean” feel is because we love to entertain.

2. I do not bathe my kids daily. My ultimate goal is every other day, but that is a pipe dream some weeks. I gauge when my kids need to be cleaned up based on the greasy look and feel of their hair. There I said it, I own it.

3. I am not Paula Dean in the kitchen. Despite what my wonderful husband might say about my cooking … I cook to survive. I do enjoy cooking, but planning out meals, sticking to my plans and then cleaning up after a nightly cooking session is not my cup of tea. If we had grilled cheese and tomato soup every night I’d be thrilled.

4. Laundry is the hardest thing for me to follow through with. I’m great about starting it, but seeing this task all the way through is ridiculous for me. Ok, here is a big whopper of a confession. If I don’t get the laundry out of the washer and/or dryer in time I usually just re-wash it. I know I’m wasteful, I should just see the task all the way though. But dang it… I’m not good at it.

5. I would prefer to play with my kids, read books, color pictures, watch movies in perfectly un-cleaned, unlaundered, haven’t bathed kids in 2 days type of house. Because it’s our home. It’s our life and it’s a good one.


The smiles on their faces is more important and that is what they will remember for years to come.