Mama and me, circa 2008
Dear Mama,
I somehow managed to send you a package for Mother’s Day without including a card from myself. Silly, I know, that a stationery designer didn’t send her own Mama a mother’s day card, but I hope you’ll forgive me. Micah drew you a picture. I hope you liked it.
She’s a mess these days, Mama, and being Micah’s Mommy helps me appreciate all the things you’ve done for me over the years. How frustrated you must have been with me when I threw all of those terrible tantrums! And even though you left me in the grocery store that one time, you came back to get me. Thanks for that.
Seriously, Mom, I’m more grateful for you now than I ever was then. Being a mom changes things. It really does. Thank you for making sure we were always taken care of. For taking me to the library and teaching me to love reading. For hauling me around to 5,000 different ballgames and practices. For staying up all hours of the night painting for craft shows that funded our Christmas presents. For putting us before yourself. For hand-smocking me dresses and rolling my hair on those pink spongy rollers. For taking me to church and introducing me to the Lord. For creating a home that was always safe and secure and smelled like chocolate chip cookies. For always believing in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. And mostly, mom, for loving me. Always for loving me.
You are quite a special lady, and I love you more than you could ever imagine. Know that you’re appreciated and loved, and all of those things you did for us didn’t go unnoticed. I promise. So Happy Mother’s Day, Mama! I wish I could celebrate it with you in person, but I’m definitely celebrating you in my heart.
Guess what, Mama? Only you know.
Lest you think it’s always roses and sunshine in the Jones household, I’m going to be honest. I don’t want to pretend to be a perfect mommy who has everything together. I don’t. I try my best, but there are times {lots of times} when my little spitfire and I have epic battles. And, as you can tell from the picture above, she’s not always smiling. Today has been one of those days.
It’s been a trying morning…
Yesterday evening, after the storms had finally passed through, Dennis and I headed North to rendezvous with my parents and pick up Micah. We enjoyed a gourmet meal at the Golden Arches in Waynesboro, Tennessee, then we loaded up and headed home. As soon as we walked in the door, I got Micah into her pajamas and into bed. It was well past her bedtime.
This morning, she slept in, so I thought we’d have a pretty low-key morning. I don’t know why I think things like that. It always turns out to be wrong.
At any rate, by the time Micah woke up, I had biscuits {the frozen variety} ready, so after I changed her diaper, we headed to the kitchen. Which is where World War III went down. Seriously. She didn’t like the cup I got out for her milk, and she wanted nothing to do with her highchair. She writhed in the highchair wailing for at least 20 minutes while I sat at the table and ate breakfast. I guess she finally realized that she wasn’t getting another cup, and I wasn’t getting her out of the highchair, because all of a sudden, the wailing stopped, she picked up her biscuit and started eating.
What in the world??
After breakfast, there was more general crankiness, so I thought I’d share it with the rest of Iuka. We went into town and dropped by Caytee Belle’s Closet to visit with Carly, and then we headed next door to dine at the Mexican restaurant. I dined, but Micah mostly sat there. Not much eating on her part, but thankfully, there was no more wailing.
As all of this was going down, I couldn’t help but think of the curriculum series I’m working on at the moment. The lesson that I’m wrestling with this week is on Ephesians 6:1-9, which is about proper relationships in the household, including the parent/child relationship. Specifically, the passage instructs parents “not to provoke [their] children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
As I have meditated on the passage this week, I can’t help but wonder if there are moments when I unnecessarily provoke Micah to anger. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter what cup she drinks out of or whether or not she sits in her highchair to eat. But teaching her to obey does matter. So does teaching her to be grateful for the things that she’s given. To say please and thank you. To show gratitude for the milk, whether you like the cup you’re drinking out of or not.
Part of bringing Micah up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord is giving her a home where there are rules and boundaries. A home where her father and I are in charge and where there are consequences for disobedience. When we set boundaries and expect obedience and discipline her, we reflect our heavenly Father, who also sets boundaries and expects obedience and disciplines us. As one of the commentaries I read yesterday put it:
“The NEB well translates ‘give them the instruction, and the correction, which belong to a Christian upbringing’ … This is the highest duty of Christian parents. As Dale puts it, ‘parents should care more for the loyalty of their children to Christ than for anything besides, more for this than for their health, their intellectual vigour and brilliance, their material prosperity, their social position, their exemption from great sorrows and great misfortunes.’”
Francis Foulkes, The Tyndale NT Commentary on Ephesians
When it comes down to it, I deeply desire for Micah to grow into a young woman who loves and serves the Lord cheerfully. Molding her into that type of woman starts now as we are deep in the throes of toddlerhood. I care more about shaping her character than the crocodile tears she sheds when she doesn’t get her way. Sometimes I feel like a mean mommy, but establishing boundaries is one of the most loving things I can do for her.
That’s what I tell myself anyway.
Until next time, grace and peace.
What a weekend we had! It was filled with egg dyeing, visiting with my parents, celebrating at church, egg hunting, and general fun. It’s no secret that I’m striving to be more intentional this year, and that includes the way we celebrate holidays. More than anything, I want Micah to know that Easter is about more than a fictional bunny that delivers candy in the middle of the night. It’s about more than new clothes and egg hunts and yummy food. It’s about a risen Savior.
That changes the way we approach a lot of things in our home. For one thing, the Easter bunny doesn’t know our address. Micah still received a basket of small gifts, but it came from her daddy and me. We still dyed Easter eggs because we can use them as object lessons for the new life we have in Christ, and yesterday afternoon, Micah hunted plastic eggs in the yard because empty Easter eggs are a great way to convey the message of an empty tomb. We’re trying to be thoughtful about the traditions we practice and honor in our home. For us, it’s worth it to sacrifice the Easter bunny because it allows the cross and subsequent empty tomb to be the center of our Easter reflections.
At any rate, the way we celebrate Easter may be a little different than most American families, but it works for us. Here are some images from the weekend.
Egg dyeing with Micah was a lot of fun. She was patient and interested in the process, and she even “dyed” her own {plastic} egg while I took care of the real eggs.
Since my parents were here to visit, we had someone to take our picture yesterday afternoon after church. Yay for a family portrait!
Micah enjoyed hunting eggs for a little while, but she soon lost interest and preferred hanging out with her Nana and Grampa, who took her home with them yesterday afternoon. It’s a quiet house around here without my little spitfire, but that also means that I have a little uninterrupted time to do a bit more writing and designing.
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! How did you celebrate??
Until next time, grace and peace.
Last week I mentioned that Micah has become quite the chatterbox lately. After I wrote the post, I managed to capture a bit of her chit chat on video to share with you. I hope you’ll pardon the minor distraction that occurs toward the end of the video.
At 19 months old, her vocabulary is growing each and every day. In the past week, she’s learned how to demand request chips, which she does quite often. She mimics almost everything, and though her words may be unrecognizable to some, we know what she’s saying. I always wondered how moms could figure out what unintelligible mishmash that their kids were saying, and it’s a phenomenon that I still can’t explain. Dennis and I are the only ones that know that the grunting noise Micah’s making means truck, and her words for color and car are so similar that they’re only distinguishable by context. There are some words, though, that are unmistakable. Make no doubt about it, when she says poo poo, everyone knows exactly what she means.
Hope you enjoy this video of our little lady as much as we do!
Until next time, grace and peace.
More and more lately, I find myself realizing that I’m the mother of a little girl, not a baby. Every time I blink, it seems, more of the baby falls off of Micah. At 18.9 months old, my little girl is in full-blown toddlerhood. She loves to talk on the phone {or any rectangular shaped object that she can make into a phone}, and she babbles all day long. Her favorite word is bow, but she’s also very fond of plo, which can mean plate or pillow, because obviously, they’re the same thing.
If I tried to list all the words she says, I’m sure that I’d miss some, but she’s getting really good at matching animals with the sounds they make. “Micah, what’s the dog say?” is sure to draw a dog sound from her, and just yesterday, she learned that sheep say baaa.
She’s a mess, that one is, but I wouldn’t trade her for the world. At her 18-month checkup, the doctor was amazed at how much she’s grown in the past six months, and honestly, so am I. At 12 months, Micah still wore 9-month clothes, but she’s grown so quickly that she now wears a 2T in some things. She went from being too tiny to even register on the growth chart to reaching {almost} the 75th percentile in height and the 60th percentile in weight. Now that’s a growth spurt, people.
She sleeps for 12 hours at night and takes one nap a day, and on Sunday, she pooped in the potty for the first time. That same night, we ditched the paci and haven’t looked back. Of course, after she used the potty Sunday, she pooped in her diaper four times on Monday, so we obviously have a long way to go, but still, babies don’t use the potty. Big girls do. I’m telling you people, the baby is disappearing and being replaced by a sassy little lady. And she is definitely sassy. She loves shoes {pronounced shooos}, and she knows where to find them in her room. She demands a hairbow and likes to carry her “purse” around.
At the same time, she is her father’s child. She was intrigued when Dennis changed the oil last week, and she’s certainly not afraid to play in the dirt. If you know Dennis at all, you know that at his core, he’s a hard worker. He can make or fix anything, and Micah’s following in her daddy’s footsteps. At least she knows how to swing a hammer.
Hope you’re all doing well. I’m sure there will be more tales of Micah’s hijinks in the future.
Until next time, grace and peace.
