The Church's One Foundation

If you know me well, you may know that I don't like to repeat, say, or sing things if I don't know what they mean. When I was little my mom sometimes would ask me to deliver a message to my dad for her. She would tell me exactly what to say, and I would ask her a bunch of questions trying to figure out what she meant, then I would go find my dad and tell him what I thought she wanted to say in my own words. It drove her crazy. But I just didn't like to say things unless I understood them. And I still don't.

I'm not a very sentimental person. I like things to have purpose and meaning. I never started singing my children lullabies because I was never sure exactly what the words were about, or what the point of singing them was. As adults we all know from experience that songs we have heard hundreds of times stay with us - stuck in our heads forever for better or worse. Before my daughter was born I remember thinking about what I would sing to her. I never really sang before having kids, and I didn't know many lullabies anyway, so I knew I would have to learn some songs. I figured if I was going to start singing to my babies, I should sing something that would benefit them to have in their minds.

My Favorite Time of Day

Funny, isn't it, how even though we love our children more than we can describe, even though we think they're so sweet, funny, clever and delightful, even though we look at them with such awe and wonder as they grow bigger and smarter each day, despite all that... Sometimes "nap time" is still our favorite time of day.

Maybe I don't speak for you, but that's where I am right now. I have a beautiful and smart little girl who is one of my all-time favorite people to be around and I have a cuddly, sweet baby boy who is so sweet and laid back and is starting to smile and interact with me more and more. They are my favorites and I love spending each day with them, but the peace and quiet of nap time is the time of day that I live for. Sometimes I just need an hour to myself.

Embracing Uncertainty

There is so much we can't know or anticipate about the future. We can always make plans, and as a planner, I always do. We can create lists, family goals for how many children we hope to have, financial goals for how much money we hope to make or save or spend on a house, career goals for what we want to do and where we want to live... Plans for how we will raise and educate our children. Plans for what parenting mistakes we will be sure never to make. Plans for where and how our next birth experience will go... The list goes on forever. We all like to plan, and we all like to feel control and autonomy over our future. But the more we plan, the more opportunities we have to learn about what happens when life doesn't go according to our plans.

Raising Children Without Clutter

I have always been drawn to big, open, clean and simply decorated spaces. I have a strong dislike for knick knacks. If something hasn't been used in a few months I start to daydream about getting rid of it. I don't want to own any kitchen gadgets that have only one special, rare use. I like basics, things that I can use regularly and that can be used for everyday tasks.

Although we have been married for almost five years now, I haven't gotten to really decorate a home yet. We have moved three times already and will move two more times in the next year and a half. That combined with renting means that I live wherever I am placed happily without painting a single wall or buying any new furniture. Our interior design style is currently, "eclectic free stuff that still functions" and we are happy with that for now. So while I don't know what color palette I prefer to decorate in or what furniture style is "me", I do know that my signature design preference is "less is more."

Loving simplicity and open clean spaces typically doesn't mesh well with having kids. Anyone who has children knows that they come with a lot of stuff. And not pretty stuff. Bright, primary colored, loud, plastic, many-tiny-pieces toys, endless stacks of board books, and lots of other useful and necessary essentials like diapers, lotions, soaps, blankets, sippy cups, bibs, and the like. It just goes on and on!

Treasuring the Child Instead of the Childhood

If you've had young children then you know what it is like to feel invisible. You've been in the grocery store when a stranger comes up to your baby or toddler and strikes up a conversation with them, completely ignoring you. After a few moments they look up awkwardly, see you there  and either politely smile and walk away or ask how old your child is, because they need something to say...

Babies, Prayers, and Sunday Mornings

A couple weeks ago I looked at my daughter as we sat down for dinner and had an idea. She had been imitating a lot of things we did recently, intentionally trying to do what we were doing and be like Mommy and Daddy. So I looked at her and said, "Sweetie, can you fold your hands like this? Let's fold our hands and pray" and I folded my hands so she could see. Jonathan caught on right away and made a big exaggerated hand folding gesture too. We both sat there and watched her with our hands folded. She looked back and forth between the two of us for a few minutes and then she smiled really big and folded her hands too! We praised her, then bowed our heads and said the before-dinner prayer.

Now she has the routine down. She even bows her head, and when we say "amen" she applauds and smiles. It melts my heart! It makes me think she could have learned this even earlier. Several times she has even folded her hands and looked at me when I put her in her high chair, reminding me that it is time to pray. She is barely 1, and already, she can learn about Jesus!

One Year Later - 6 Ways Having a Baby Changed My Life

A few days ago we celebrated my daughter's first birthday. I cannot believe the way this little girl has changed my life. She is so sweet, so smart, so beautiful. It is an honor and privilege to be her parent.

I look back over the past year, and it has flown by. There have been hard times, many sleepless nights, and so much to do! But the thing that stands out for me is the joy. The smiles, the cuddles, the laughter and delight watching my little girl learn, grow, and do new clever and funny things every day.

Being a parent really does change your life. In some ways (okay, a lot of ways) it makes things more challenging, but it also brings blessings, both expected and unexpected. All those things I have read and heard (think, those listicle Huffington Post articles) about how being a parent changes everything and makes your life harder have elements of truth in them, but they are not the whole picture.

I thought about some of the ways that having a baby changed my life, and here is what I have to say about a few big ones I hear parents mention a lot.

4 Reasons Not to Worry about Your Child's Future Spouse

Raising a little one, I think about her future a lot. Today she is just a little girl, working on the skills of standing, walking, and learning words. Before I know it, these years will be gone and she will be a young woman, an adult, working on learning a profession, balancing her own budget, and maybe dating and marrying a young man.

So often I hear parents, grandparents, and other concerned adults expressing concern over the future of our children. Fellow Christians seem to be the most concerned group, but everyone has these worries. How will they find "good spouses," or "good Christian spouses" when the world is such a bad place and "good" men or women are so hard to find? Well, I know for sure my daughter will never come across a "perfect man" because there aren't any. (Except Jesus, that is, and she already knows Him.) I do, however, believe that she will be just fine. After all, the world has been a "bad place" ever since the fall. I found a great husband, my parents found each other, my grandparents found each other, other family members have found wonderful spouses so far. Even if the world isn't getting better, it isn't getting worse either.

I'm not worried about my daughter finding a good, kind, Christ-following husband at all. Of all the things that I worry about, that isn't one of them. I understand that the world is a bad place. I know that there will be plenty of poor choices out there when she is ready to get married some day. But I believe that if she does marry, she will marry a good man. Here are a few of the reasons why I'm not worried:

How Do You Discipline a Baby?

I sense that I am entering a whole new realm of parenting. This past week or so it is like a switch has gone off with our little lady. She strikes me each day as being so much more grown up! She understands so much of what I say, knows what she is and is not supposed to do to a large extent, problem solves and plays with her toys so intelligently... Watching her go through her day I keep getting the feeling that my baby is less and less of a baby and more of a... child? Toddler? Kid? While she still has plenty of "baby" moments, I feel like the word no longer accurately describes her.

Back in June I wrote about the easy phase - the early days of increasing independence but she was still not crawling. She was keeping to a routine but still hadn't learned about her boundaries. She was easy. Simple to parent. All she needed was love, food, cuddles, sleep, diaper changes... 

As I said, a switch has gone off. All of a sudden I feel the need for discipline. She is starting to test her limits. She knows what things she is not allowed to play with, and intentionally seeks them out when she knows I cannot see her. Sometimes she drops food off the side of her high chair just to get attention. She knows that I don't want her to do that, and I know she knows, because if I look at her and say, "Sweetie, don't drop your cup please. We don't drop our cups," she will usually pull it back up onto her tray. She knows that "We don't stand up in the bathtub" and that "We don't chew on cords." Sometimes she does what she knows she should, and sometimes she doesn't. And I know that this is just the beginning. 

Parenting at 60 Decisions Per Minute

I have never been good at making decisions. I always agonize over any set of options. From the seemingly easy choices like which ice cream flavor I should go with to the harder things like trying to decide how to spend vacation time or how many hours a week to commit to working, decision making has always caused me stress. Anyone who has shopped with me in Vera Bradley knows this - I will go into the store knowing exactly what I want and be there for an hour trying to decide if that's what I really want to do.

People who are decisive make me envious. I have no idea what it would feel like to just know what I wanted to do all the time and do it without having to deliberate, discuss, sleep on it, and repeat.

I have made a discovery over the past year that will probably come as a surprise to no one - parenting is all about making decisions. All day long, all the time. As my daughter gets older, I find myself making more decisions and having to make them faster. It can be overwhelming!

There's the obvious, big decisions. Vaccines? What to feed her? Sleep training or co-sleeping or both? Very soon we'll be making decisions about disciplining methods, and eventually schooling, and it goes on and on. At least with those decisions you see them coming. You plan them in advance, do research, have conversations, pray about it, and then continually review and revise your decision as time goes on. Those decisions are hard, but they don't take you too much by surprise.

Bright, Colorful, Wonderful Messes

It happened today. I always secretly hoped that it wouldn't be me, that somehow I would end up being the one wife and mother that always succeeded in having a clean home without baskets of unfolded laundry sitting out and plastic toys covering the floor in every room. I really do try. I have a basket in the living room where all the baby toys go when they're not being used... hypothetically. Generally speaking, it isn't too bad around here.

Today I thought I was having a particularly good day home with my baby girl. She had played nicely by herself for little half hour segments of time here and there that had allowed me to do some work for my work-from-home job. We had taken a morning walk together despite the crushing humidity of a St. Louis summer day so I felt like I had exercised. We ate the same thing for lunch - Cheerios and yogurt - which just makes me realize how fast my baby is growing up. She took a decent afternoon nap, again I was able to get a thing or two done, though somehow not as much as I felt I "needed" to do. Then about a half hour before my husband got home from work I pulled out the cookbook and actually made dinner. I was able to utter the phrase, "Dinner is in the oven" when he came home, which always makes me feel like a huge success.

Do You Ever Wish You Were a More "Attached" or "Crunchier" Parent?

Sometimes I find myself wishing there was a parenting philosophy out there that I completely identified with. I know I am not alone in this, but for some reason, I love to label myself. I always want to know exactly where I fit, who I am like, and whose advice is going to most closely meld with my own way of thinking. There is a sense of comfort in knowing where you belong, in having others out there to identify with. It is natural to want to fit in with some group or another.

Everyone has different ones I'm sure, but for me, "attachment parenting" and "crunchy mama" are two examples of labels I have found myself wishing I could identify with more from time to time.

Let me pause and just define my understanding of those "labels."  Attachment parenting is a parenting philosophy that is gaining a lot of popularity. The three main components as far as I can tell are breastfeeding, baby wearing, and co-sleeping, and the main idea is that keeping your baby close to you helps you respond quickly and easily to your baby's needs. And as for being "crunchy," I think the idea is being natural, environmentally friendly, simple and down-to-earth in your lifestyle choices.

I feel like these identities are almost seen as status symbols sometimes - I know I am tempted to see them that way. I find myself thinking that I should cloth diaper or garden or wear my baby in a carrier, but secretly, on the inside, I don't want to do any of those things. I tried gardening and it was hard to stick with. I do want to be an attachment parent. I want to live a natural, simple life. I want to do what is healthiest for my family. But when I listen to the hard core attachment parents or crunchy mothers out there, I always feel like I don't quite belong. And yet I know I'm not "mainstream," right?

I continually need to remind myself of several things. I need to remind myself that -

Dads Are Not Second-String Parents (Or, How Great My Husband Is)

There seems to be an idea in society, (and I think mothers perpetuate it without meaning to sometimes), that moms are the first-string parent and dads are the back-up. I guess maybe it comes from the fact that moms are more likely to be the stay-at-home parent than dads are, although that isn't always the case. Or maybe it comes from the way dads are portrayed in sit coms and pop culture, as blundering fellows who have no clue what's going on. Or perhaps it just comes from the fact that moms and wives make mistakes, are sinful, and sometimes sit around and complain to each other about the inadequacies of their husbands. I don't know exactly where the negativity about fathers came from, but I'd like to stand up against it. In my life at least, it's just not true. 

Yes, I happen to be better at doing laundry than my husband. I am a better cook. I notice when things are messy and have a compulsive urge to clean them (this instant!) that he doesn't seem to posess. I like doing research, I interviewed the pediatrician, I figured out when to start our daughter on solids, and other decisions like that. But since when does any of that have anything to do with real, hands-on parenting? Okay, I also breastfeed. He can't do that. Fair enough. And my daughter does prefer me in the moments right after she hits her head on something. But other than that, my husband is an awesome dad. 

A Simple Mother's Day

Yesterday was my first Mother's Day, and it was simple and perfect. Simply perfect.

Someone had breakfast in bed... but it wasn't me. I started my Sunday snuggling and feeding my baby girl in bed, and after getting ready for church, I even had about ten minutes to eat breakfast. For a Sunday morning, that was quite a treat! In the afternoon we went to the mall and I ran some errands and treated myself and Jonathan to one slice of Cheesecake Factory Godiva chocolate cheesecake. It was delicious.

How Not To Talk About Kids Online

A few nights ago as I was scrolling through my Facebook Newsfeed, another one caught my eye. Another meme/picture post describing some specific method for disciplining children. It may have been a chore chart, a way to handle grounded kids, or some other list of rules. Those things aren't bad things in and of themselves. Parents like to talk about their kids and parents like to share parenting ideas and resources. That's probably okay. But seeing that post brought to mind for me all the posts I've seen by parents about disciplining kids. From statements about "sparing the rod and spoiling the child" to more specific complaints about people's own children, I see way more information on Facebook about disciplining kids than I ever want to.

This post sparked a passionate conversation between my husband and I about why we will choose not to discuss our children's discipline on Facebook (or indeed in any public place, on the internet or otherwise). Here are a few of the reasons we discussed:

Six Months of Joy

A week from tomorrow my baby girl turns 6 months old. Jonathan and I looked down at her feet the other day and were shocked by how big they were! I remember when she was born, if there was a fluff between her toes I couldn't do anything about it, because even my pinky finger couldn't fit between her tiny toes. But now I can easily clean out the fluffs. That may be a weird way to notice that your baby is growing up, but it really struck me when I realized that. She's going to be half a year old! It's not fair. She's growing into a child and out of a baby!

Now, at 6 months old, she is definitely still a baby. Which I remind myself when she chooses not to sleep through the night. But I am so afraid that she is going to grow up and leave and I will be baby-less! I simultaneously love watching her grow and hit milestones and dread it. It is just happening too fast! I need time to process. And time to cuddle. And time to enjoy her babyhood. But time goes as fast as it ever did, and she is going to keep growing. And I guess that's a good thing! 

These past six months have been tricky. The first few weeks and months with a newborn were very challenging, and although it has gotten easier and better, parenting is hard! It's hard work. It's long hours. It's late nights. But I have never been happier. Because through the challenges, there is the joy. Every day. 

It's Not About Baby Wearing

The other day I was out for a walk with my daughter. She was in the stroller, was content, and was happy to look around her at everything. Being an October baby, she hadn't had much of an opportunity to see the outdoors until the past week or so. After what seemed like a winter that lasted forever, it has finally been warm enough to get outdoors comfortably, and we were both enjoying the sunshine.

I walked past another mom, out with her baby, and she was wearing her baby in a carrier. I am almost ashamed to admit that the first thoughts that ran through  my head went something like this, "Oh no, I'm sure she's judging me for having my baby in a stroller and not wearing her! She probably thinks I'm a horrible mother. I wish she knew that I love having my daughter in a carrier, but it hurts my back too much. I wish I could tell her about my back surgery when I was a teenager." And then of course I realized how ridiculous I was being... she was a stranger. She surely doesn't really care about my stroller or my baby-wearing woes, and I'll bet it never occurred to her to judge me either.

Whew! When did I get so insecure and defensive?

"When I'm a Mom I'll Do Better..."

I think every mom (or parent for that matter) has a picture in their head of the ideal parent they want to be. For me, Ideal Christa gets up every morning at the same time each day, grabs a cup of coffee, reads her Bible and has some quiet prayer time, gets her daughter out of bed, feeds her, eats breakfast, and then starts the day. In the course of the day, Ideal Christa gets a healthy, delicious dinner prepared with at least two or three side-dishes, does a couple loads of laundry, maybe puts in a few hours of work from home, but still manages to read to her daughter, spend lots of time playing together, has time to snuggle on the couch, and takes a 45 minute walk with her little girl in the stroller.  Oh, and the house is always clean. I have discovered that sadly, Ideal Christa is as fictitious as Frodo Baggins, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or my favorite characters from Grey's Anatomy. She just doesn't exist. I keep trying to find her though. Sometimes I find pieces of her, but then other parts go.

Before I was pregnant or had a daughter I had a mental list of habits that I was going to quit before I had kids. Mostly these were habits I developed in college, things I knew I didn't want to have be central to my family, but things that were just too easy and natural to do at the time. I always consoled myself by thinking I would cut back on TV, stop watching so much Netflix, only listen to 100% wholesome music, cut certain words out of my vocabulary, start exercising regularly, and of course, never eat junk food again, when I was a mom. Wow, was I crazy!

9 Reasons Why I Can't Wait to Homeschool My Kids

I was homeschooled through 10th grade, and I loved every year. I know not everyone who was homeschooled can say that, and I know it may not be for everyone, but I treasure my childhood, and I am passionate about homeschooling and passing that blessing along to my children. When my mother started homeschooling it was even less common than it is today, and it was somewhat untested. Today, my generation of homeschool kids have grown up, and we can now tell our story with perspective.

If you are considering homeschooling, here are some reasons why I can't wait to homeschool my kids, from the perspective of a grown-up homeschool kid:

How Much Does Money Really Matter?

As I was sitting in my living room, looking around my 2 bedroom apartment, contemplating the past 3.5 years of my life the other day (the time since my wedding), I realized something: the amount of money that I have really doesn't matter. At all. Now, the fact that I have some money and can afford what I need to survive, yes, that matters, but beyond that, it really doesn't. This really was a new revelation for me.

I was sitting there, holding my adorable daughter, reminiscing about our first two years of marriage in our first apartment in Wisconsin. That was a cute apartment! It was sunny, bright, had a great closet or two, and the memories that I have from those days are priceless. So many sleepy Saturday mornings, just the two of us, the sun streaming into our living room/dining room/kitchen, enjoying French toast and coffee together.