Parenting Archives - Page 41 of 43

(In)courage

June 19, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

"“Where two or more get together in My name I’m there too,” promised Jesus.

And I don’t think cyberspace is excluded." - incourage.me

One of the blog sites I love to ready almost daily is incourage. Today, their post was How can we pray for you? Amazing! As Christian's in blogging communities, shouldn't we be offering this opportunity more often?!? Thank you women of incourage for challenging me today as well as giving me the chance to seek partnership in praying for my thorns!

~~~

Many of you already know how you can be praying for me and my family this week but just incase you don't, this is our request at the moment:

This week my husband and I are struggling through making 2 out of what God has made one. No, we are not getting divorce! My hubby is a youth pastor and is away at summer camp for a little over a week leaving me in my failed attempt at being a single parent. I do have great loving support and help but it’s just not the same as having your literal other half there for that steady routine and irreplaceable hugs at the end of the day.
My 3 babes are all under 3, the oldest will be 3 Wednesday during camp, the next is almost 1.5 year old, and the youngest is 5 month old. At this age they almost all require, desire 1 on 1 time (at least at some point during the day). We made an hour and 1/2 trip today to see him for Father's Day and will again for Maggie's birthday. TOUGH all the way around!
I’m assuming most of you reading this totally understand what kinds of stresses come with this situation and know how to pray for me (probably better than I do myself).
Thanks for this opportunity to share this request and in advance for lifting me and my family up to The Father on Father’s Day!

~~~

Leave your prayer request as a comment. Before you do, please take a moment to read, pray for, and respond to the prayer request before yours. Let’s love on each other, friends.

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, Parenting, The Ones about Jules Life {Randomness}, The ones about the Rothacher Home Tagged With: 3 under 3, blogging communities, christians, Father's Day, incourage.me, prayer, routine, summer camp, super summer, The Father, youth pastor

Crumbs in Our Bed

June 18, 2011 by Jules 5 Comments

Chitter chatter from to cradle and crib down the hall wakes me,
I'd like to say with a smile on my face but instead,
with a grumpy spirit.
Morning snuggles, diaper changes,
turn on the antenna powered tv, super why entertains my child with lessons on letters while I run down stairs,
pop a couple frozen waffles in the toaster along with a poptart,
grab sippy cups 1/2 full of milk, then head back upstairs
to find the toddler is yanking at the baby safety gate and the baby is chill'n in the middle of the king size bed
only to be greeted moments later by the preschooler all sleepy-eyed and full of grins to see that the tv is on.

~~~

Yep, this is a habit we've avoided for YEARS. Our bed is our bed but his morning Our Bed is full of Smiles, cartoons, and crumbs!

My husband is a youth pastor. We started our married life joyfully chasing after students for Jesus. As we've grown our family of 2 up to 5 in the past 3 years we are still attempting the chase but it seems to have become this triathlon rather than our former well oiled machine whose pace was perfectly in sync. As an irreplaceable, crazy 5-some we are butterfly'n it across the lake, 3 kids in floaties attached to our wastes, looping back to retrace the route around the correct bogies. We then jump'n from the water onto our double seater bike with a baby trailer and seat attached busting through barricades make of hay-bails getting dirtier and more roughed up as the journey continues only to muster up all our strength for the 3-legged-potatoe sack-race, baby harnesses in-toe, toward the goal with our skinned hearts, browsed egos, and wore down bodies, minds, and souls.

If anyone reading has mastered this "help-mate" thing as an involved youth pastor's wife while being an active mommy at the same time as maintaining her home, let me in on the secret!

I haven't trained for this kind of feet. I don't even know where to seek out this kind of training. But I believe, with all that is in me, I wouldn't continue to have these desires {to help serve alongside my husband in ministry, raise my children wholeheartedly, and maintain a home of order and peace all for the glory of God} if that wasn't what The One was calling me to do. I'm a work in progress daily remembering- all I have is through His blessing and all I am lacking is coming in His timing. Change me oh Lord!

So, for today while I can't be right beside my creative hubs at Super Summer AR chasing after students for Jesus, I will attempt to maintain peace and order in my home while loving my babes wholeheartedly, even if that means Our Bed is full of Smiles, cartoons, and crumbs for today!

*leave a thought in the way of comments, inboxes, or tweets!

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, Parenting Tagged With: crums, family bed

Awe, the memories they made

June 13, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Memories...good, bad, awkward, fun, silly, painful, deep- all have a special place in God's perfect, absolute, complete, flawless plan!
This past weekend, my family and I took a trek up to Fayetteville to hang out with my parents, niece and nephew for a couple of days. After the tasking of simply (hehe) getting packed and out-of-town the adventure began! Traveling with a potty training (almost) 3-year-old, a napping 1.5-year-old and nursing 5 month old while was a task; attempting to keep everyone from melting down by stopping for 3 potty breaks, grab a snack which was then tossed with happy meal toy (that had been collecting in a bucket) to the back of the van over our bags, stroller, and stuff- 4 hours later we arrived right on time for their bed time. But we still needed to eat dinner and get in some Much needed play time with the cousins! We all met the chicken's and ducks the grandparents bought at Easter time in honor of all the grandkids. The girls played with naked barbies and chased remote control trucks. We attempted to set up camp with our three little ones who are very set in a routine. Maggie's sharing a bed with someone for the 1st time. Izzie was scared to sleep in a room with her cousin in a strange new place. Jamin passed smooth out from exhaustion never to be heard from again until 6:30 a.m. Poppie ran to get a pillow to lay with Izzie until she went to sleep. And night 1 was over.

After a long night of trying to keep everyone in their beds we woke up EARLY. The day was packed with tons more playing, grocery shopping, lunch at Chick-fil-A (AMAZING every time!) and my mom and I got ready for the party (that's what we call any gathering with food and friends).

Party'n with family was fun. Catching up, telling stories, eating steaks, mac-n-cheese, and duck booty cupcakes, snapping pictures, and laughing!

(these pics of the girls were captured by my cousin Lisa- THX!)

El Shaddai showed up this weekend- my God is all-sufficient!

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, Parenting, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: chickens, cousins, dinner, ducks, El Shaddai, exhaustion, kids, memories, perfect plan, sleep, sleepover, travel, trucks

1st Story Time

June 8, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Tuesday this summer we will be going to the public library for story time with Ms Mary! We choose the early time due to Maggie and Izzie's nap schedule so we will end up going with several local daycares. There were ~100 kids 3-years-old to about 6th grade. This class is open to toddlers but already 3s were probably the youngest in this group.
Maggie and Izzie did fairly well; even through Ms Mary explaining the rules, schedule, and expectations for the entire summer. By the time the story reading actually began it had already been about 30 min of me trying to get Iz to sit down. She is usually pretty loud so I was proud that she never had a melt down even though she stood the majority of the time. Thank goodness she was only as tall as most of the kids while seated. Maggie really enjoyed her self once the story started. She tried inching her way to the front (we were sandwiched between daycares). Both girls being around so many other children and attempted to make new friends the whole time.

Intrigued!Notice the blur...not sitting very stillOur friend, Emily from church is wondering what Mags is doingCrawling, non-stop moving Izzie RuGet'n comfy

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: books, daycare, preschool, reading, rules, squirmy, story time, toddler

Kid’s Book Club

June 7, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Yesterday, the kiddos and I went to the White Hall (or any) public library for the 1st time! A friend from our amazing Sunday school class met me there with her 3 kids and showed me the ropes. While her 3 and Mags ran into the children's section and peered of rows and rows of books, Leann and I signed up our kids for the summer book club where you read 10 books with your toddler/preschooler per week to get their name in a drawing and I got my 1st library card. Don't get me wrong, I've used my mom's as a child but after heading to college there was no need, hello- college campus library. After a full card of info, a failed attempt at using my driver's licence as a form or ID/verification of where I live, another failed attempt at using junk mail for verification, and 3 references later, I had my card! After all the paper work the adventure began.
I'd forgotten how much fun a library can be. Endless amounts of books. Shelves of movies. Desks full of computers. My reader (loves to look at and have books read to her), Maggie was in HEAVEN! My non-reader (squirmy worm, look at the book when I feel like it), Izzie loved it because their were bigger kids there, a riser for children to sit and read on (she climbed) and a Giant Clifford dog for hugging! Great place! Angel, my friend's oldest, had been walking Mags up and down the ales of books telling her all about them and showing her just a few favs. I then got to show Maggie her section trying to give a simple explanation of how all of this world of wonder worked. She then got to get a 'shopping' basket from the front desk and select 10 books to check out for the week. What books did she pick you ask? 9 Curious George books and 1 called Aaron's Hair. She has been a huge fan of that "silly little monkey" for a long while now but these books are a little different from the movies and small board books we have at home.
When we got home and began reading them I noticed a basic plot in every one of the CG books- George disobeys the Man in the Yellow hat, makes some really bad choices followed by one good choise, and ends up walking home a hero with no repercussions. WHAT? I'm sorry but that's the opposite of what I'm trying to teach my children day in and day out. If that wasn't snareled-nose enough; Aaron's Hair is about a boy who has hard to manage hair which leads him to one day tell it, "HAIR! I HATE YOU!" HUH? I continued reading after trying to skim past that part attempting to excuse it. The hair jumps off the boy's head and proceeds to run all over town where it tries to grown on other people in random places on their body. Aaron, in an attempt to get his hair back, keeps instructing these individuals, "tell the hair you don't like it" which leads the people to yell, HAIR! I HATE YOU!" When I realized this would be the theme of each encounter I no longer read the words I just quickly went through each page talking about where the hair was going/doing. The only reason I kept reading was to get to the end where there would obviously be a moral...you guessed it- NOPE!
This adventure (which we will continue to journey through despite this rough week of book selection) has taught me once again that no matter how beneficial, fun, memorable an activity with my child it will always demand my discernment as a Christian parent. I let my guard down. This is such a "good" place and reading is such a healthy thing, I thought to myself. You should never expect godly behavior, ideals, or basic lifestyle out of something/someone who is not a Christ follower (and even more scary, some who hold the name Christian). God has entrusted me with these amazing little blessings. I am responsible for what they are exposed to, taught, and even their actions at this age. It's a high calling; with blessings, fun, laughs, miracles, joy, but not without tears, exhaustion, aches, stress, and LOTS of mistakes hopefully followed by learning. We will check out all kinds of books and use each one to have discussions about the chooses, language, attitudes, etc good or bad, that comes up in that time.