Hallelujah 4!

He's 4. 
We made it.
Something happens between 4 and 5 that is glorious and magically and much anticipated. 
At least it has with the other kids, but very little about other kids have applied to THIS kid!

Happy Birthday to the little guy who keeps us all on the edge of our seats!

First time, every time

This is parenting gold here, people. 
Clearly, I'm an expert, so you better take this and run with it.It's this magical little phrase: "First time. Every time."
It was implemented initially with stubborn 3 year old Elijah and has been used extremely inconsistantly ever since.
We brought it out frequently with Cory who had a nasty streak of destruction for a good part of his toddler years.
Then somehow the fourth child sucked every available brain cell out of my soul and made me forget this gem.
By God's grace, we remembered this past week that it had worked magic on the other boys so we decided to give it a shot with the sweet, dear, quiet, obedient baby of the family.
And yes, I know, if we had taken this stance from the get go and not ever let it slide, I would quite possibly not have a uber disobedient, defiant toddler in my house.  But maintaining this high level of involvement is hard and I'm lazy.  Bad combo.

I imagine trauma made me remember this little phrase.  The trauma being Caleb and his little friend removing the screen from an upstairs window and throwing every available item out.  The items may or may not include: shoes, large toys, a mattress pad, articles of clothing, etc, etc...  This all while I was having a lovely conversation with my friend Alex with my back to the downstairs window that these items were flying by.  I, of course, handled it with poise and dignity.
After reining in the absolute FEAR that my child and his friend could have fallen out of that window and DIED, I decided to do what any rational person would do and be super pissed for a few days about what a terror I'm raising.

And then I remembered!!  "First time. Every time."  I explained to dear, sweet Caleb that when I told him to do ANYTHING, he had to hop to it the very first time, every single time or there would be trouble.  Basically I'm going for robotic obedience.  We'll work out the whole independence/personal choice thing later.  As of now, he has no choice in a matter.
I also decided to throw in that he could not scream, "FINE!!" at me whenever I told him to do something.  His response was, "FINE!!"
So about 5 days in, we're going strong.  He's WAY, WAY better.  More often then not when I ask him to do something, it's a cheery, "OK!"  This makes me happy, which is way better then pissed.

Puberty

Scene: Kitchen. Making pizza...

Elijah: So, I think I've hit puberty.
Me:  Hahaha!  Why?  Do you have armpit hair or something?  Hahaha!
Elijah: Hahaha!  Yeah!  Hahaha!
Me: closely examining each of his armpits...WHAT??!?!  YOU TOTALLY DO!!!!  WWWAAAAA!!!!
Elijah: Hahahahahahahahaha!!!

Go and make

So, I saw Jen Hatmaker speak last night.  Really fun night.  She is as funny and moving as anyone who has read her books would imagine her to be.  She pretty much nailed what we've been going through the past few months.  The tension, the change of perspective, the desire to act, move, do. 
I've been thinking/reading/praying (wash, rinse, repeat) things that make me go, "Como se WHAT?!?" the past few months.  I have known and read the Bible my ENTIRE life.  The whole time.  Birth til present.  I've heard the token passages about Law and Gospel way mucho.  (Apparently, I'm having trouble writing without using English/Spanish psuedo phrases...sorry.)  ANYway,  what I'm getting at is that for the most part, I've felt very comfortable being Christian, but living in my current Christian state has made me uncomfortable lately.  It's crazy stuff, like "Go and MAKE disciples..."  Not stay at home and hang out with Christian folk all the time. Well, shoot.  It's "feed my sheep."  Not talk about how sad it is that there are hungry people in this world.  It's "Whatever you DO for the LEAST of these, you do for Me."  Not, you should keep talking about all those poor people and how much help they need.
Bah!  Do, Make, Go, Feed.  For those English peeps out there, those are action verbs. 
So, my current area of consternation is how this looks for us as a family.  How does my life need to be structured to be able to Do, Make, Go, Feed?  Where can I put my heart and soul into action?  I'm settled on the place, of course.  Haiti has tied my heart up and won't let it go.  So, now what?  What will this look like?  What decisions can I make in the next few months and years to live these action words?
I pray on a daily basis that our trip in a month will answer some of those questions. 

Haiti love

Watch this, please.  Grab some tissues, first.

http://vimeo.com/mksmith/marathoningformamba

Hold on for the ride!

We've pretty much always existed on the brink of financial problems.  Never in poverty or even close to what I would consider poverty, but there have been many payments made late or deferred, cupboards running bare for a few days, debt added to.  Some things were out of our control and other times we made poor choices. 
I'm not sure I'm even sad for these years.  I have serious appreciation for people who work hard to make ends meet and a good amount of empathy for those who just flat out don't make ends meet.  Honestly, I'm comfortable here with  just barely enough.
I'm about to get a little uncomfortable...Chad was hired at Williams Energy last week.  We're beyond excited.  It's a good job with a great company that gives incredible benefits.  We're going to have a little more then enough. 
It makes me anxious, kinda nervous.  I don't want to be a poor steward of what we've been given.  There are BIG ticket things that we've always lived without and we've been FINE.  I don't want to all of the sudden think we "need" these things just because we can buy them.
We're a long way from rollin' in the dough, but some breathing room will be welcomed. 
I was joking with my sister last night about not wanting to buy a boat. (Disclaimer: If you are a friend of mine with a boat, I hold no ill feelings towards you.)  I was laughing about how people with money always buy a boat and I really don't want a boat, but it just seems like one of those things you buy if you have money so I told her not to let me buy a boat!!  Anyway, with the job change comes some big changes for us besides finances.  We're buying an old, used truck for Chad to drive to work.  We'll pay for insurance through his company.  We'll have investments! Ah!  We're refinancing the house.  New cell phone plans.  No more shorts and tshirts for Chad's job. 
AND...Chad still gets to go to Haiti!  Big, big huge deal!
It's quite the ride so far.

Media

I do not like TV.  There I said it.
It's been an evolution to get to this point, but the other day I was running on a treadmill at the Y and there were 4 TVs in front of me all with something different on.  It was making me crazy.  Even when I just watched one of the TVs it was overstimulating, excessive, obnoxious, annoying. 
I use to watch it all the time.  Wake up, turn the news on and keep it on til lunch.  Catch a few talk shows/soap operas in the afternoon and then again at night for a few hours.  I did that for years. 
When we moved into this house a few years ago, we decided to not hook up any cable.  It took some getting use to, but overall it's been great.  My kids are big movie watchers and I'm an internet junkie so it's not like we're starving for some media fix.  I still use the TV to "babysit" at times or we veg out on really hot or really cold days.  We just get to be more selective. 
I'll watch TV episodes of different shows occasionally and the kids watch ALOT of movies from the library(except this week during the media fast).
I like the silence.  And now when I actually do see some TV, it's annoying.  Too much banter, nastiness, overproduced versions of society.   Its all so fake.  The reality shows (disclaimer: I watch at least a few of the Bachelor/Bachelorette episodes every season :-)! ), the talk shows, the news is even fake most of the time. 
So, I don't like TV. I'm sure that puts me in the minority of the American population.  No worries, America, I'll still be spending hours a day trolling the internet so I'll be sufficiently bombarded anyway!