Learning About Sin

Okay, I admit it...I'm feeling a bit of maternal pride, lately! My four year old son has gotten to that stage where he is really growing as a person. Sometimes I think he is being a better example to me than I am to him.

We often read him religious picture books that we have acquired. These are often kept put up, and taken down on occasion or when we go to Mass. (They are easily torn.) We have them on subjects such as angels, St. Joseph, the Crucifixion, Easter, praying, Bible stories, Mary, and one about a little girl who led a remarkably holy and short life. His favorite by far is the one about "Jesus dying on the Cross", as he says. He sometimes takes it to naptime with him, and will study it for the longest time. He remarks often that "someday I want to be a priest, so I can teach the Roman soldiers a lesson about God, so they won't go to Hell". He says this also about pirates, mean people, and various other "bad guys." Oh, and he also wants to be a firefighter. I suppose it would be a good combination, because then he could save sinner from real fires and the fires of Hell!

He asks me sometimes whether something is a sin or not, and if it is a big sin or a little sin. Naturally I tell him all sin is bad because it offends God very much, Who is perfect and should never be offended. But I also tell him about the differences in sin, and that although all sin is bad, all sin is not equal. I'm glad to see that it is something he wants to learn about, yet is not inordinately preoccupied with it.

Not long ago, he was chastised and sent to his room for some offense. I wasn't there at the time. After a few minutes, he was allowed to come downstairs. Without being asked, he went to my husband and apologized, and said "Daddy, while I was up in my room I kneeled down and told God I sinned and asked Him to forgive me." Awwwww! What a sweetie. I have to give my husband credit for that one--he often has before-bed talks with my son on such subjects as forgiveness and mercy. And of course, it's always good to have Veggie Tales movies for reinforcement of those lessons!

Mommy, I Made a Sacrifice!

Recently, this is what I hear quite often around the house. A while back, while watching the cartoon "The Day the Sun Danced", which is about the story of the children of Fatima, I explained to my four year old son what sacrifice means. In the video, the children were making little "sacrifices" to God for the sake of poor sinners. They would give their meager lunches to poor children, say prayers, and offer up their own sufferings as a sacrifice for the purpose of earning extra grace for sinners, that the sinners might accept God's grace and save their souls. The children did not want sinners go to Hell.

My son asked many questions, and has a pretty good grasp on the concept. When he doesn't feel like sharing his toys, sometimes he will pause thoughtfully, then walk over and give the toy to a sibling. Then he'll run smiling to me and say "Mommy, I made a sacrifice! I gave my toy to my brother, even though I didn't want to." The first time he did this, it brought tears to my eyes. I'm so proud of him!

The funny thing is, he doesn't quite understand that you can only offer up your OWN sacrifices to God. When his sister hurts her foot, he will say "mommy, I'm offering up her pain as a sacrifice for poor sinners." I tell him that is very nice, but since it is her suffering, then she has to be the one to do it. LOL, he still doesn't quite get that part!

The children are very giving towards each other. Although they don't always share, and there are plenty of squabbles over toys, they are learning to be kind to one another. The teaching about sacrifice just makes it easier to do. My son has really taken this to heart, and has made him think more often about the needs and feelings of others.

I am glad that we have that movie to remind the children about sacrifice. Many of the problems of this world could be solved today if people had the proper attitude about love and sacrifice. Love IS sacrifice. If you are not willing to make some sacrifices for the ones you love, then you do not truly love them. This is why so many marriages fail today. People think it is all about the emotion, the passion, and most of all, the fun. Once it isn't fun anymore, once hard times hit, once a sacrifice is required of them, they want to get out of the marriage. Suddenly they are bored, or have "fallen out of love", or it is just "too hard". They act like fourteen year olds with their first summer job: "Gee, it's not fun anymore, I think I want a new job." If we train our young people to understand that true love is sacrifice, then they will know that when marital hard times hit, it's time to roll up their sleeves and do some hard "work" to make the marriage better.

The Bible is filled with examples of love being sacrifice: "For God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son" 1 John 3:16. God sacrificed His Son for love of us. Jesus was willing to suffer severe torture and death for love of us. Mary stood by and watched in agony as her Son was slaughtered, never raising a hand to stop it...because although she loved her Son, she also loved God and wanted to obey Him, and she loved all of us too, and knew that her Son must die so that we might live. All these are examples of true love, with the love of God and Jesus being the only perfect love. Although we are not capable of such depths of love, we should aspire to emulate it.

If we are not willing to make sacrifices for others, then we love ourselves more than anyone else, even more than God. That's not to say that we should make all sacrifices every time. But we should have a general attitude of being willing to sacrifice. This comes more easily in regards to our children...but when it comes to our marriages, to our fellow man? Not always easy.

I'm glad my son has learned this lesson early. He truly loves his younger siblings and (most of the time) has their best interests at heart. If only I could more often follow his sweet example!

Patience is a Virtue...passed on to your children!

As some of you know, patience is something I have struggled with, especially in the area of child raising. I didn't see having four children as all that much harder than three, but I'm entering a stage now where my infant daughter is becoming more demanding. I often find myself with four children demanding my attention at once, with so much going on that I end up snapping at one or more of the children, before I even hear what they are saying. This can produce many problems, including one child feeling like I don't want to hear what he has to say, or another child feeling like he has no way to express himself. That is why I have really been working on this lately.

I've found that being on my new diet has helped. I am rarely depressed anymore, and have a lot more energy and patience. I also have recently realized that the discipline problems I've been having with my two year old have most likely stemmed from a frustration of not being understood. He sees his older siblings talking and being listened to, whereas he is still learning new words, and didn't know how to properly assert himself and be heard. Instead of stating what he wanted, or telling someone how he felt, he would just scream. Or should I say, shriek! He was throwing himself on the floor often throughout the day, and having fits. Believe me, I know the fault is mine. Somehow along the way, he got a little bit spoiled, and adding that to his excitable temperament...well, let's just say it's a bad combination.

My solution? First, I spent a day or two being extremely patient with him, and instead of punishing him on the first offense, I would explain to him that he needed to use his words like a big boy, and tell me what he wanted, or tell his siblings when he wanted them to stop doing something. I might give him one more chance after that, then he would be disciplined. When I saw him use his words instead of screaming, I lavished him with praise and affection. After a few days, he was really getting the hang of it. I also noticed that he went through a maturing process around the same time (I say halleluia when this time comes in every child's life!) and he has not only started talking more and behaving more "grown up", but is also obeying better, wanting to help out more, and learning to be nicer to his siblings. He is even learning to share and make sacrifices for them now, like his older brother does.

Ah, the blessings of a (slightly) quieter house!

Line Training: A Variation of Blanket Training

After hearing the virtues of blanket training a baby on many websites, including the Duggars, I decided to Google it. I found a post on Prarie Frog Blog about a variation of this, called Line Training. I'm having trouble accessing any Homeschoolblogger blogs lately...I'm assuming it is down. So here is a cached version of the post, which is below another post about spoon feeding a baby.

Basically she used strips of webbing (woven strap material) instead of a blanket. She started training with a square made of the webbing and used it in place of a blanket, then after that she just used a line of it across a doorway. I like this idea. Much cheaper and more portable than baby gates, and it gives the baby a lot more room than just a blanket area.

I'll be trying this myself on my nine month old daughter, who is getting more interested in exploration. For some reason, she was OBSESSED with my end table full of remotes, books, etc. But when we put up the Christmas tree...nothing. She didn't even notice the giant, wide, sparkly tree in the corner. After lighting it, she BARELY noticed it. Then suddenly a week later, there she is with an ornament in her mouth. Yikes! Time for some training. Right now I'm just not leaving her unattended with the tree, and saying "No!" if she goes to touch it. She's actually listening about 90% of the time...the other 10% she waits til I'm not looking and makes a second grab for it, lol. I love the idea of line training, because instead of having a big gated off area in front of the tree, I can just tape down a line around it. Hmmm, maybe I need to do this with the two year old who is NOT obeying 90% of the time when I tell him to stop stripping ornaments off of the tree!

Parenting Tip of the Day

I read something recently that made me think. How often does my child see me smile throughout the day? Or frown?

Wow. At first, we're tempted to think "of course I smile more than I frown." But do we? If we are having a bad day, how often will we frown, mumble, complain? How often will we get frustrated with our children...even when they've done nothing wrong? How many complaints, or gossipy conversations, or sarcastic remarks do our children overhear? These things are never so evident than when we have a four year old who listens and understands much more than we realize, and who then repeats every word and tone of voice he or she hears!

So today, let's be aware of what we say and how we say it, and the expressions on our faces, and make sure that our children see and hear far more positive things than negative.

New Mealtime "Chores"

Journey to Homemaker

Although my kids are very young (all under four) I know they need to be learning responsibility and a work ethic now. However, it is easy to say and hard to do. Sometimes it's just easier to do it yourself...or at least it feels that way. In the long run, it's much harder, both on you and your children. I swore I'd never be one of those moms, but...well, then you actually HAVE kids, lol!

One reason my house gets messy is that I'm not sticking to a schedule, then I'm running behind and shooing the kids off to bed, leaving a mess behind. The kitchen and dining area is a particular problem. The other day I bought a little Scunci steam machine. It came with a "bonus" rechargable floor sweeper. It's pretty cheap, but it's very lightweight and cordless. I thought it would be great to have my oldest son sweep the floor with it. He can't sweep well with a broom, he just ends up pushing the dirt around. But with training, he's doing a pretty good job.

The sweeper doesn't get the floor perfectly clean, but it gets it good enough. I try to have my youngest son pick up all the food he threw, and my daughter push the high chairs over to the breakfast bar. Then my oldest sweeps. I've taught him how to unplug it, turn it on and use it, then turn it off and plug it back in. The other kids love it, so sometimes they want a turn too. So far it's working pretty well. It helps that I've got them back on a schedule. They were napping way too late.

I have to mention that I love the steamer so far. It's a little bottle that you fill with water and plug in, and it comes with attachments. So far I used it to get off the stuck-on food on the linoleum (I'm not telling you how long it was there). Being nine months pregnant, I just don't have the energy to scrape that stuff off, and so the floor ends up not getting mopped often enough, because why mop a floor if it's going to have stuff still stuck on it?

I also used the steamer to clean off some calcification around the kitchen faucet, and some nasty stuff stuck inside the kitchen trash can. I noticed that while I was cleaning off the trash can lid, it did a great job. You know how plastic stuff with a textured surface is impossible to keep really clean? The dirt always gets imbedded in the texturing, and it never looks new again. Well, the steam cleaner blew the dirt right out of the tiny pores in the plastic! It looked great!

My next task is to tackle the grime in the bathtub. I've been putting that off because I usually ask my husband to do it when I'm pregnant--I don't like being trapped in a shower with chemicals. But he's been so busy, that when he has free time I have other things that are more important. We'll see how well the steamer works. If I can get up the dirt really well, then I plan on having my husband clean the tub with cleaners, then from then on keeping up with it better and just using vinegar and water to clean it. I have to admit, I was actually having fun cleaning with this thing! I wish I'd gotten it a long time ago.

Anyway, so far the cleaning routine is going well. They like cleaning up most of the time, and it makes me feel good to lay down for a nap, knowing that everything from lunch is cleaned up.