Life in a Nutshell
I really like what this Catholic Mom has been saying on her blog. It helps to remember that all of our little actions mean so much, especially if they are done well, with the right spirit. No matter what your state in life, her words of wisdom can be applied.
It's so hard to just breathe, concentrate, and do things for the glory of God, and not just to get it done. To be fully "engaged", and not constantly distracted. To not have an agenda over and above the duties of the day, including being present to your little ones. My mother once told me that the most convicting thing my littlest sister said to her (at the tender age of 4, I believe) was "Mom, listen to me with your eyes!"
Suzanne Baars' dad, Conrad Baars, was a pioneer in this type of active listening....afffirmation therapy. It's not that pop-psychology feel good affirmation of "you're ok. I'm ok" stuff. It's the real deal. And it's awesome, a true weapon to keep our kids our own in the world today. It's a well-known fact that sex offenders and cults prey on children who feel distant from their parents. It's the easiest, yet hardest thing to do, to just listen. And be. For our kids.
I need to be reminded of this constantly. I am so glad someone is!!
5 comments:
I am totally going to pull "sister of blogger" rank here, and re-relate that story of "my littlest sister" and Mom, that one night when I'd been jerking her chain as only a 17-year-old-no-one-understands-me poop can, and T had been obnoxious and Sephora was away at TAC and KT was still too little to help and the littlest sister was too little to know any better and Dad was working late and, because it'd been a bad day with Me and T and whatever else, Mom was upset and at the end of her rope and we all knew it so no one dared to say a word...except for littlest sister at the dinner table. We are all (except for you and Sephora) sitting at our places, not daring to breathe because we'd all been poops all day long and we were trying to delay our comeuppance as long as possible, and Mom was serving up dinner in _silence_ and she put the last dish down and sat at her spot, and we all just kind of paused and looked at each other, gripping our forks, except for littlest sister, who was on Mom's left, who looked her in the face, crossed her eyes and said, in her best Donald Duck voice: "Hiya, Toots."
She was two years old.
(Pandemonium of the best kind ensued, and everything was great after that.)
Heh. I just realized how optimistic I sound when I say "that one night"...emphasis on "one"...
Well.
I forgot littlest sis' Donald Duck impression! I have tears in my eyes from laughing!!
Thanks!
Remember when she would say:
"Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the parakeet"
(I think that was littlest sis)
I think T started that, actually, with the Bennets and their birds...remember?
:)
But I'm sure they all did it...I don't think I did, though, I didn't know what a parakeet was until the Bennets. I may have even thought that they had pet paracletes for a while. What a pious child I was.
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