For He Knows Our Frame

So try to recall a situation in public where you saw the penultimate example of shoddy parenting. We've all been a witness--the poor, disheveled mother at wits end erupts in a fit of anger because her children are, well, being children. It's embarrassing, really, and you're never sure whether to hide from this woman's wrath or call DSS. "Shouldn't people be required to apply for this whole parenting thing?" you wonder to yourself.

But you've also seen, however rarely, those parenting situations that are, as Solomon said, "apples of gold in a setting of silver." These are examples of parenting done right that feed your soul in the sometimes dry and weary land of being a parent. This could be anything from seeing a father speak graciously to his son in public instead of humiliating him, or watching as a mother abandons a cart of groceries because her ill-behaved daughter requires discipline. These are examples of knowing your child's frame, or understanding his constitution.

Psalm 103:13-14 (ESV)

¹³ As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
¹⁴ For he knows our frame;^[a]
he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103:13-14 has resonated with me particularly since we've had children, and it ought to resonate with all parents--how much wisdom can be gained from praying that we would know our children's frame! This text ought to have us ask a number of questions:

• How does the Lord know our frame?

First, He knows our frame intimately. He created us. He knows the number of hairs on our head (Matt. 10:30). He knows what we need before we ask for it (Matt 6:32).

Second, He knows our frame pitifully. I don't mean He does a pitiful job of knowing our frame, but that He has compassionate, gracious pity on us in light of our frail and fallen constitution and in light of our condition as dust. God understands that we are sinners and has pity on us, but what does that look like?

• How does that shape the way He interacts with us?

In His perfect holiness, God deals righteously with sin in His children, but He also has mercy on them in sometimes unexplainable ways. One of the most beautiful pictures of mercy in all of Scripture is that of David, a "man after God's own heart" (Acts 13:22). After rebelling against God in the most unthinkable ways, David was granted the status that only His Son Jesus truly deserved. By knowing our frame, God deals with us in the same way by teaching each of His children holiness in individual ways and through a variety of different means. God sanctifies some of His children by carrying them through tragedy and He sanctifies others by watching those same people go through tragedy. In all of this, God is just and righteous in all He does.

• How are we to transfer that to our formidable task of knowing our children's frame?

In all of this, I have often wondered what it takes to know the frame of our children. How can I be a better mother to Eli (and subsequent children) by knowing his frame? And how does my understanding of Christ as the perfect Parent guide my behavior? Though this is not exhaustive, here are some thoughts.

1. Know that your child is sinful. From day 1, children don't need to be taught how to sin. They are, in their own cute way, demanding absolute authority from the first sleepless night you have. Don't read into this that I let my infant son scream for hours to prove my point that he was NOT getting his way. I held him when he needed to be held, fed him when he needed to be fed, and I'm pretty sure he loves me today. But we will be wiser in our parenting for understanding that as our children get older, they will fight for autonomy and if left unbridled, that will spell out misery for you. This just means that it's necessary to address sin in children when we see it, the same way Christ addresses sin in us. Don't mistake a refusal to look at you when she's angry for "shyness" or inability to hear your command. Don't be so foolish as to think that your son is JUST trying to communicate with you when he throws himself on the floor in a fit of rage. Knowing that children are sinful is key to developing a healthy sense of knowing their frame and responding to sin when necessary.

2. Don't compare! I say this rather sheepishly. I'm the worst offender and perhaps this is what led me to this post. I shudder to think about how much more productive I could've been over the past two years if I had not spent my time trying to perform magic on Eli to get him to sleep. Curtains pulled together tightly, humidifier just close enough to his bed for the noise to soothe him, and trying to get him upstairs at the very second he appeared to be sleepy--all legitimate sleep training methods, but when they failed--oh my word, the distress that would ensue. "Why isn't he like ___________?!" "Why can't my son love naptime?" These are questions that might prove beneficial in ways, but our responses to our children in these situations will be much more gracious if we know their frame. By understanding that Eli clearly does not require two naps into his second year, I pray that I can be a better mother by avoiding the resentment that can arise when, well, you don't get your way with your children. The Lord knows our frame this way--He formed us all differently so that we might complement one another in the communities we're in. No matter what you wish you could change about your children, there will be some behaviors that simply require gracious acceptance. Know that God has given you this child for your good, and that you are required to learn his constitution if you're going to be a faithful parent.

3. Show mercy in the right context. Our culture has largely gotten this backwards. Sinful behavior that ought to be firmly and quickly addressed is excused, and trivial behavior that ought to be excused is blown out of proportion and sometimes punished unnecessarily . In other words, the punishment doesn't fit the crime anymore. This is because the foundation of faithful parenting, the Word of God, is lost on modern culture. In order to know our children's frame effectively, we must know when to show mercy and when to address sin. There's a vast difference between Eli being clumsy and knocking over a drink and Eli knocking over a drink after a command not to touch it. In both cases, the damage has been done. My floor requires a mopping. Again. But in the latter example, disobedience occurred and therefore requires discipline. Of course, it's not always that easy. Lest we think the Bible has explicit instructions about every parenting crisis we'll encounter, we ought to approach parenting with gratitude and a great amount of prayer that our understanding of Scripture will make us discerning in all the "gray areas."

All in all, learning our children's frame largely requires dying to self. What greater institution is there to teach sacrificial living than parenting? If we are to know our children's frame, we will be forced to let the RIGHT things go (beans scattered everywhere on the kitchen floor after you let your child transfer them from pot to pot) and address the sins that need attention. We will be forced to let go of selfish expectations about our children and love them regardless of their quirks. But isn't this what the Christian life is all about, anyway? It's only through dying to self that we can come to know Him better. And in the meantime, we get to learn those lessons through relationships with the cutest, most adorable people ever--our children!

My little climber.

As I write, I'm huddled up in the nursery, lamenting the fact that we have no video monitor. Yes, I know mothers for hundreds of years have survived without video monitors, but they also survived without air conditioning and I'm the first to admit I couldn't live without that. Admit it, neither could you.

The way I see it, transitioning Eli from a crib to a bed would be much easier if I could catch the little stinker in action, slithering out of his bed to play with his toys, without having to sit outside the door like a creepy stalker. BUT, on this, his first official day in his new bed, I feel I have no choice. He'll learn, I tell myself. Obssesively.

Michael and I debated when to make the transition and once we saw baby #2's boy parts on the ultrasound, we decided to do the bunk bed thing and get Eli used to it before the baby arrives. The beds were scheduled to be delivered yesterday, which is funny because...

Eli's a little monkey and finds great fulfillment out of climbing on, scaling, or jumping off of anything with an elevation greater than 6 inches or so. That's why I was befuddled that he had never gotten out of his crib. Isn't that the ultimate toddler--and more specificially, male toddler--challenge? I figured it was largely out of fear and figured hey, maybe we'll wait a few more weeks before we make the switch--he's clearly content in his crib and there's no need to rush it.

Well yesterday, after putting Eli down and turning on his rain machine (complete with 4 other noise settings, one of which includes a heartbeat straight out of a kitsch horror film), I went downstairs and turned the (non-video) monitor on in case he put his foot through the crib slats again. About 20 minutes into what should have been peaceful slumber, I hear the heartbeat on the monitor, loud and clear. That only means one thing: he's escaped, and on the day we're expecting to get the new bed! I crept upstairs and shot this video of him caught in action. Yesterday's nap was a bust, obviously, as he was high on the thrill of figuring out how to escape.

This, I told myself, is clearly a sign from God that it's the fullness of time for little man to be in a big boy bed. The Lord knew my mind was wavering, and He put me at ease by graciously giving me the machinations of this sweet boy at just the right moment, on just the right day.

And so it begins... in the last hour Eli has had 3 (maybe 4?) failures to resist the temptation to get out of bed. And consequences to boot... But he'll catch on, and he and I will be none the worse for all this training! Oh, and also, how did I get to this point of having a near two year old who is in a bunk bed? Where does the time go?

Fall Craft Night!

Like millions of other people in this world, I have been made craftier with the help of Pinterest. Some ideas are so unique and do-able that I never would have thought of them, not even if I had had all day in isolation to brainstorm new ways to craft, store, or cook. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

I've also been made craftier with the help of my friend Tara, who has a great eye for cute crafts. Our most recent (and nearly only) dual project was making book page pumpkins. We didn't take process pictures because we were both diligently determined to finish three pumpkins apiece, which apparently takes a bit longer than originally expected. In all, the project (three pumpkins) took about 3.5 hours but we were also gabbing and munching. We had tons of fun but it's definitely a labor of love. These are our very own book page pumpkins...

Here's the blog tutorial--and the pictures BELOW are from her blog, as well, but my additional commentary is in red.

Book Page Pumpkin Tutorial

1- Make a pumpkin shape out of a piece of paper. I roughly drew one, then folded the paper in half and cut it so it would be symmetrical. Try to make sure the pumpkin shape has a relatively flat bottom. Consider, too, whether you want a taller or shorter pumpkin when you cut your "template." If you don't like it, try again!

2-Take the cover off of your book and place the pumpkin pattern with the fold on the binding edge. If it doesn't fit, trim it a little.

 


3-Trace around the pattern with a pencil.



4-Now it's time to cut out your pumpkin. You can use an exacto knife, but I found that it was easier just to use scissors.  I could cut through 5-6 pages at a time pretty easily. If you don't have fine tipped scissors to cut all the way to the edge of the binding, you can use an exacto knife there. The exacto knift caused us some problems because it frayed the edges of the pages. It takes longer, but the result is better if you use scissors.

 



5-After you cut all the way around, pull the excess pages over to the binding and they should tear right off.

 



6-Now trace around the pumpkin shape and cut through a few more pages. Tip: cut slightly inside the pencil mark, or your pumpkin will keep getting bigger. Yep, I learned that the hard way. Danggit. Especially when you reach the binding, it's important to keep it as clean as possible. We used what *I think* was some sort of apocalyptic knife weapon to "fix" all the small edges once we cut through the entire book.





7-Keep tracing and cutting until you have all the pages done.





8-Now put a thin strip of glue on the very edge. I'm the impatient type, so I used hot glue. Before you hot glue, get rid of any excess paper at the top and bottom of the pumpkin. Tara and I used hot glue as well. Definitely the way to go.

 


9-Now bring that back page around and attach it to the hot glue, keeping the outside edges as even as possible. Then add a stip of hot glue to that page, and glue the next page to it, just on the inside edges. I sure hope that makes sense.

 


10-When you stand your pumpkin up, it will probably look something like this:



11-Don't panic! It just needs to be "fluffed". Just go around pulling the pages apart and arranging them how you want them. If I had a space where the pages just refused to come together, I added a little hot glue right at the inside seam. When you are done, it should look more like this. It's OK that there are some spaces. We'll fix them later. This took a while, and don't expect it to look perfectly "fluffed." Almost DOES count here.





12- At this point I decided my pumpkin needed a little color. I could have inked all the edges with my orange ink pad. But I knew that would take awhile. So I turned to my best friend Krylon. Spray paint that is. Yep, you can totally spray paint book pages. Just use a very light touch, you don't want it drenched or anything. One light spritz is all you need. We probably used more than a "light touch," but not much more.... maybe three coats of lightly spraying areas that needed it.





13-Now it's time to add the stem. I just used a stick from my yard. If you have any stubborn pages, now you can bend them to your will. Bwaahaha! I used a bunch of hot glue, then forced the pages where I wanted them and held the stem in place till the glue dried. Voila! We used cinnamon sticks bought at Hobby Lobby. That way you get both the look and aroma of fall!







14-Next I tied a ribbon around the stem. Not only does it look cute and add some color, but it hides all the gobs of hot glue. Yay! And just because I love it so, here is another shot of it sitting on my entry table. We hot glued the ribbon to the pumpkin, just to keep it in place.

 

Baby Time

Okay, so now that my vocabulary can more readily include the words "pregnancy" or "baby" without sending me into fits of nausea, I wanted to include a blog from the author of Loving the Little Years, Rachel Jankovic, about welcoming a new little one into your household. If it doesn't apply to you now, tuck it away and pull it out later. It's a great practical read--and who doesn't like practicality?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From http://www.feminagirls.com/    (totally worth the visit, especially for my female friends, with or without children)

 

 

It’s true! Baby number six has been making its tiny presence known in this house for the last many weeks. I just read the other day that hormone is the Greek word for impact. SO insightful. I mean, I try to be a pretty mellow person. But give me one whiff of a pregnancy-related hormone, and my body goes off like a bottle rocket of over-reactions. Luckily for me, there is a houseful of children here to sprinkle humor all over life. Blaire pretends to puke, rushing off to the bathroom, making everyone else howl with laughter. The bigger kids love to hush each other up whenever some kind of food is mentioned, “DON’T TALK ABOUT FOOD OR MOM WILL PUKE!!!” And we are old enough now to know that we forget about this phase later. We know that the baby at the end is worth anything in the middle, and more than anything we know that this baby is a gift. So, happy times all around!

 

But I am not the only one growing a baby these days, it seems to be quite the trend. I’ve been thinking back on having the other kids, about being a first-time mom, about being new to the world of nursing sagas. Thinking about welcoming babies, about things that could have been easier. Thinking of things that I’ve learned now, but wish I had known the first time. Terribly incomplete, but I can’t focus for very long these days, so you will have to forgive that!

 

Ways to Ease the Welcoming of Babies

 

1) Buy some new make-up, get a haircut, paint your toenails, and get some cozy new stretchy lounge clothes that are cheerful and fresh before you have the baby. It makes you feel so much better, and the pictures will thank you. With my first baby, I gained 22 pounds. She was almost 9 pounds. I figured with the placenta, the water, and everything else (besides the fact that you feel super skinny right after delivering), I could at least get into a few of my old clothes. Pulling out what I had deemed a loose button up shirt, I was unable to button any button but the neck. Nice. Don’t do this. Just wait until you are in a mentally and spiritually stable place before trying on your pre-pregnancy clothes! Now I have a pile of fat pants and fat-chance pants, proving that I have traveled this road before.

 

 

2) In the very beginning, trust your instincts, and look to your baby for answers. Do not let other people tell you what your baby needs, figure it out yourself. Of course I am not meaning to disregard medical advice or serious situations. I mean, in the normal scheme of “Is she hungry? Is she gassy? Is she wet? Is she tired?” Try to figure it out with your baby. Don’t stress about the baby crying and run look somewhere else for answers. Stay calm, look to your baby and work on figuring it out. And then, don’t take this too seriously. If you can’t figure it out, and you are sleep deprived and desperate, get help! Ask for ideas from people you trust.

 

3) About worry. I’m sure every mother remembers the first baby worry. Little burbles in the night, squeaks, choking while nursing, etc. Just remember that your baby is a gift, not a statistic. God created and sustained that life inside you. He gave you this child, open your hands to Him, and trust Him to protect what He has given you. I can remember specific times when I had to think, “Do not cling to this baby like it belongs to you. Open your hands to God, and trust Him to protect and preserve this little life.” Your protective instincts are good, but don’t let them rule over your heart.

 

4) Take advantage of the help you hopefully have in the first week or so. Everyone tells you this, but sleep when the baby sleeps! I did not do this the first couple times. Now, I know well that the help will end, the days will come when you cannot snooze in the middle of the day. Sleep when you can! It pays off when you are up in the night.

 

5) If you have other kids – especially little ones, put a baby gate in your bedroom door. I did this with Blaire, and it really helped. She slept in our room, so first thing in the morning I would clean our room, make the bed, etc. Then step over the gate into the real world. When I needed to nurse her, or change a blowout, I would go into our room. The little kids could come to the door, ask questions, and shout observations about how cute she was. It enabled me to not spend all the nursing time saying, “No, don’t climb on my lap. Don’t lean on the baby! Back off!” The gate was a simple way to enforce a boundary that everyone would have forgotten to obey in the excitement of a diaper change.

 

6) I used gallon ziploc bags to make what we called “blowout kits.” They smashed flat easily in a purse or diaper bag, and came in excessively handy more times than I could easily tabulate. I included a one-piece outfit (usually pajamas), a cloth diaper or two (the cheap kind – in lieu of a changing pad). Diapers and wipes we always have in my purse, in the glove compartment, and in my husband’s back pocket, so I don’t include those. The best part is that you simply insert all the soiled goods right back into the ziploc, later to be plunged into oxyclean. If your child is a blowout hobbyist, you might want to keep one in the car too. And a stack of cheap cloth diapers kept me from always having to change the changing pad, or sanitize the diaper bag.

 

7) Do not mind telling people who want to hold your baby, “No thanks.” If you don’t feel like passing your baby around, don’t. This is a great reason to have a baby carrier of some description. It keeps people from just trying to take the baby away from you, and might make you feel less awkward about saying no. Especially when the baby is new, and when a lot of people are around, feel totally free to say “I’m gonna take her back now, thanks!” or “I’m gonna keep him right now.” Babies are not public domain, it’s ok to say no. You and your husband are the only people who have rights, everyone else is just asking.

 

Enjoy yourself. You know babies- they don’t stay that way long!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

A Bit of Catching Up...

 

 

This is the best I could do with the sentimental "Let's get our son to wear a Big Brother shirt and look all excited that he's going to be a big brother!" 

 

 

Let's face it--boys are difficult subjects for photographs, which is why I thank my lucky stars for talented photography friends like Tara Molles. It's like there's a jumping bean inside his little body that's hostile to both looking at and smiling for the camera. But I did my best. Speaking of little beans inside bodies, it's true--Lord willing, Eli IS going to be a big brother on or around March 8. He seems pretty stoked, if you disregard the protest that comes after I ask him, "Guess what's in mommy's tummy?" But I'm going to give it time and hope he'll warm up to the idea, especially since his warming up to the idea matters very little in the grand scheme of things.

 

And also speaking of hostility, that's a fitting word for the past 13 weeks in regards to the toll our little bean is having on me--the Lord must know I need particular reminders that while children are the greatest of life's blessings, childbirth (and the plethora of joys that accompany it) is a result of the curse. Otherwise I might shout from the hilltops how glorious and energizing and FUN this is. I could enumerate some of the ways in which that's true, but the fact that I've gone without blogging all summer or even feeling the urge to type one word should suffice. There is a great degree of sarcasm in all this, but truthfully we are grateful that God would see fit to make us parents again. All the puking, heartburn, fatigue, and psychotic dreams? I'll forget about it.

 

I have often wished that God had designated an entire book of the Bible for pregnant women, full of wise council about how to survive during these tumultuous months that test the mettle of anyone, especially Christian women. How do I show grace to others when I feel so rotten? How do I feed my child when the idea of any food could send me straight to the bathroom in a fit of nausea? How do I reconcile how physically awful I feel with the spiritual blessings of a child?

 

In short, I think there'd be one verse peppered somewhere throughout that would first say,"Laugh about it. Find the humor in the situation." Then it might say, "Get over it. Millions of people are worse off than you." And when I'm being pitiful, I forget that the Word of God is sufficient as is. There is no verse about how to act when you're pregnant, but there are plenty of passages that instruct us how to act all the time, no matter what our physical state. I'm no more exempt from obeying God's law than a homeless man dying of starvation. We pregnant women are in a delicate state in all kinds of ways, but since when does that exempt us from obedience? Pregnant women need still be gracious, and thoughtful, and patient. But we should also be that much more aware of how gracious, thoughtful, and patient God is with us when we fail--and I have failed miserably in the past 13 weeks. We should be reminded of how good God has been to us, and consequently how good we ought to be to those we live with. It is a looking outward that He's after, not a morbid introspection of our own feelings and woes. If nothing else, I have felt pushed to the limit, dragged to a place where I am no longer dependent on my own ability or strength. God is faithful to His people and has provided plenty glimpses of mercy to me in my most desperate moments.

 

We welcome our March (perhaps February) baby and pray often for his/her health and safety. We also hope he/she will share his/her brother's love for the movie Cars, because I'm not sure we'll be able to convince Eli to watch anything else for a while. But that's for a different blog post altogether!

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is from our first doctor's appointment. No doctor pic, just Eli and Michael passing the time while we waited..

 



Talking Rocks

Recently completed from my summer book list was N.D. Wilson's Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, a staggeringly beautiful yet sober look at human nature, God's existence, and our place in this carnival of a world. Wilson speaks the truth with clarity and interest. As a former English teacher, I was struck most by Wilson's image of Christ as a perfect Shakespeare, the author of a grand story who decides the course of man and has ordained an ending to each man--and to take it further, how balmy it is that the Author actually lowered Himself to become part of that story--so low, in fact, that He slumbered with pigs and horses on the night He was born. Crazy? YES. But wondrous.

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl is Wilson's attempt to capture just a snapshot of what the Psalmist David speaks of here, in Psalm 104: 24-30:

24 O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
25 This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great.
26 There the ships sail about;
There is that Leviathan
Which You have made to play there.

27 These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.
28 What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good.
29 You hide Your face, they are troubled;
You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
30 You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the earth.

~~~~~

Read it, and enjoy.

Best Marriage Proposal Ever.

I have to share. Watch every minute of this.  A bit of joy for your Thursday evening.