It's my own fault I suppose...

For living in this ridiculous state.

I'm old enough by now to know that a forecast of up to 14" of snow isn't an unlikely event at the end of March in Minnesota. Pfft.

See Kai Run

Hop on over to this* blog and enter to win a pair of See Kai Run shoes!!

*For those that don't know you can move your cursor over the word "this" and click on it, taking you directly to the blog. :)

Perspective

I always tend to post about Emeric when I'm feeling discouraged and never when it's the other way around so I thought I'd write about how I'm feeling now!

There are times when I start thinking about all the little things with him and feel really overwhelmed. And then there are times when other situations in life really put things into perspective. I think it's so easy to make a big deal out of something that may seem like a huge trial at the time but really is not.

When I look at Emeric's situation and think, "He's going to be so behind in school and get left out and kids are going to make fun of him and...." then I feel sad. But if I look at it and think in the realm of eternity than my perspective changes. Since this world is not our home I know that all of these struggles are temporary. When I look at the situations that other people find themselves in it too puts things into perspective. My friend Lesley, who lost her daughter is one that always comes to mind. There really isn't much that compares to that loss, if anything and it reminds me to be thankful and not to feel sorry for myself.

Stellan's situation keeps my worry, my fear, my anxiety in perspective.

Gracyn, Reese, Landon, and many others remind me to be thankful.

It's easy for me, and I'm sure others, to get caught up in my own struggles and feel like no one understands and then when I try to stop and really think about where Emeric is at, how good his health really is and that while his prognosis is not known it doesn't necessarily make it bad then my anxiety decreases.

Isaiah 40:28-31, " Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

2 Corinthians 4:17, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

Flooding in ND...

Kylie was supposed to have her Awana Olympics tomorrow up in Fargo but needless to say they switched it to Park Rapids. They raised the projected crest of the river last night and it's already reached record levels.

Discipline vs. Punishment

It's very easy as parents to use these two terms interchangeably and to assume that disciplining our kids means punishing them.

From Dictionary.com:

To punish means:
to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault, to inflict a penalty for, to handly severely or roughly.

Discipline means:
training to act in accordance with rules, activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training

Let's look at the definition of another word, manipulation: to adapt or change to suit one's purpose or advantage.

I'm not suggesting that punishment cannot be effective or appropriate in certain circumstances but as a primary source of discipline I believe punishment is manipulation. Essentially we are trying to adapt or change our children's behavior to suit a purpose, usually ours.

When my daughter is yelling at me because she is angry I can choose to do a few things. I could yell back at her and send her to her room, I could calmly send her to her room, or I could sit down and talk with her about being respectful, expressing her anger in a better way, etc. Yelling back is the instinctive thing to do because I'm irritated with her behavior and sending her to her room gets her out of my hair. But what does it teach her? Essentially that she is not allowed to be angry but I am. That I will not allow her to yell but I am free to.

If I choose to sit her down, find out why she's angry and talk calmly about respecting others she learns that I respect her feelings, she learns how to treat others and we can hopefully fix the issue of why she was angry in the first place.

It's very easy to tell our kids what NOT to do but discipline comes in teaching them what we DO expect. The goal of discipline is not to control our kids but to teach them to grow up into respectful, caring, confident adults. We want them to do the right thing because it feels right to them, not because they might get sent to their room, get a spanking or a time out, or lose a privilege.

Typically if my kids aren't listening, are being disrespectful, whining, etc. I can usually pin point it to two things. My own behavior and the time I've spent, or haven't with them. Children learn how to act from what they're taught. If I reprimand them for yelling or talking back I better make sure I haven't taught them to act that way by responding that way to them. And usually, that's the case. I always find my kids are much better behaved when I've really invested in the day. If I haven't then they're constantly seeking my attention in anyway possible and whining, yelling, fighting all get my attention.

Most people I know use either spankings or time outs as a form of punishment. I used to spank but stopped nearly 2 years ago because I realized it was nearly impossible for me not to spank in anger. I also didn't feel like it was teaching my kids anything. At least not anything I wanted to instill in them. I felt like for me, it was lazy parenting. It was the quickest thing to do and I didn't have to spend anytime thinking of a different solution to curb their behavior. Did it really teach them not to commit the offense again? Well, with as many times as they were spanked for the same things, obviously not. It did help in curbing the offense while I was around but was being secretive and sneaky what I really wanted them to learn from it? No.

There have still been a few times since then the girls have been spanked and mostly that's because it was so deeply ingrained in me it was hard to break the habit but I really do believe it was not something that was ever affective. The biggest thing I could see is that it created resentment. I know there are people that follow the "spare the rod, spoil the child" mentality but I believe that verse, which does not state it that way, is misused. I do not believe my children will be spoiled by choosing not to spank them. Let's remember that "rod" is also used in Psalm 23. That's another post though, right? :)

I am not perfect BY ANY MEANS. I yell too much, I'm short with them and sometimes it's easy to just say, "because I said so" but I am really striving to be a better parent and find more positive ways of dealing with them. I wrote on here a while back a quote from a book I read called, "How to Really Parent Your Child, Anticipating what a child needs instead of reacting to what a child does" by Ross Campbell and I remind myself of it frequently.

He says, "There is ultimately nothing strong or leaderlike about imposing authority on a child. Rather, it takes a great deal more self discipline and momentary wisdom to recognize the child's need and help him or her meet it."

I have to consciously remind myself of these things or I find myself slipping back into familiar ways. I can't say old ways because I still find myself using punishment frequently instead of exhausting other positive forms of discipline first. Something I read yesterday said to use I Corinthians 13 and the verses on love and replace the word "love" with "I". Makes a huge difference thinking of it that way. To really be able to say, I am patient, I am kind... in dealing with my kids.

Waiting for warmer weather!

It's supposed to be cold the rest of the week. Which is disappointing because when it was actually warm enough to go outside most of last week we were sick. The kids and I have been looking forward to getting out and going for a walk! In the summer we walk everyday and our neighbor(Jake's uncle) has all sorts of unique birds like a peacock, doves, birds that flip in the air, chickens, ducks, etc... He also has bunnies, pigs and a couple dogs. The kids love going over there and can't wait for summer to be here so they can see the "birds that flip in the air again". We're also really close to a public access and like to walk down there and go swimming.

There are things about living in the country that I don't like but in the summertime there are a lot of things I know I'd miss if we didn't. Privacy, having a bon fire in the backyard, fields and nearby ponds, bunnies, running through the woods to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

For now though it's supposed to be in the 20's for at least the next few days so I guess we'll continue to hole up inside. Thankfully we're all mostly well now and I don't have to feel like I'm breathing sick air.

On another note I also wanted to ask you to keep these families in your prayers:

http://www.mycharmingkids.net
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/gracyndenbesten

I hate March.

Last March is when we were all deathly ill with Influenza. Emeric was sick for 8 days and finally today is better. Kylie was sick over the weekend but seems better and now I'm sick with a cold & not better.

No huge plans for the week. I bought some herbs and some other vegetables to start indoors so I'm going to get some potting soil and plant those. Emeric has an ECHO and EKG on Wednesday and will have to be sedated again for that so hopefully that all goes well. The girls start swimming lessons on Friday and Emeric's new stroller was ordered and should be here in the next week or two!