I have to say that I’m very proud of my four year old son because he has come a long way toward becoming a good helper to me and to his Daddy as well. He’s still not a perfect helper as he is a young apprentice in training. I just adore his willing spirit to help around the house.

Recently he and his Daddy began a dishwashing routine after dinner every night. Daddy washes and Matthew rinses and stacks them on the dish rack. I am quite amazed that he can do this job well, notwithstanding the occasional water play while on the job.

Several weeks ago when his Daddy mowed the lawn, he also wanted to help. Together, father and son pushed the lawn mower and mowed the front and back lawns. It was so endearing to me to see Matthew’s beaming face, knowing that he can be a help to his big Daddy.

Whenever I make scrambled eggs, pancakes, muffins, or waffles, he asks, “Mommy, may I help you?” How can I say no to such a cordial request? I usually have him take out the ingredients or the utensils. He then pushes a chair or a stool against the counter to stand on. As I add each ingredient into the mixing bowl, he uses his favorite whisk to mix the batter. Of course when we first started this routine his “help” was no help at all. Most of the time the ingredients land outside of the bowl or the batter spills out as a result of his carelessness. It naturally took longer to make anything. His unskillful hands did not deter me from having him help out because I see it as a training session. I want him to be a good helper and no one can be a good helper right off the bat. More importantly, I never want to squash his willing spirit. As I reflect on our earlier days, I realize that he’s a real help to me nowadays. The last time I made waffles, I genuinely thought he was a great help. Yes, there are still occasional spills and mess, but he has greatly improved. He sure can mix that batter well. I am so proud of this boy.

Recently I took him to the store to buy a broom and dust pan that’s more suitable for his size. Even though I haven’t taught him how to properly sweep the floor, I see him grabbing the broom when he sees a mess. He revels in this new chore. I just need to take some time to teach him how to do a good job.

As for laundry, he helps me transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer, and then from the dryer to the basket. Afterwards he helps to sort clothes into four different piles: one for each person. He also helps me stack cloth diapers and fold some clothes.

I think it’s very important to teach children to help out and do chores. Too often I hear parents say their older kids don’t help out and the mom still does everything around the house. However, when asked if they ever trained their kids while they were young, almost all replied that they thought it was more efficient for the parents to do everything than to have their little ones help out. Yes, it’s true that it’s more cumbersome early on, but you’ll need to invest time and energy in your children to teach them and guide them so that they become good helpers.

Many people around me are still in awe that I’m about to have my fourth child. They just cannot imagine the amount of work I have to do to keep up with four little ones. What they fail to see is that as each child grows, our goal is that he/she becomes a contributor to the family rather than simply a consumer. Why? Because we firmly believe that if we don’t teach our children to help out early on, they will continue to be a consumers instead of contributing members of the family at any age.

My almost 4 yr old loves to spell words now. Whenever we’re in the car, he likes to ask me how to spell out objects he sees along the road. We passed by a gas station this evening on the way to dinner, and he asked me how to spell GAS. He actually knows, but as always, he likes to goof around and say it’s spelled as GS. I reminded him that he’s missing a vowel in the middle. All of sudden he blanked. . . . . vowel? What vowel? He had learned his vowels early on so he may have forgotten. As in the past, I sang a modified Old MacDonald song to help him learn the vowels (Old MacDonald had a farm, A-E-I-O-U, etc). To remind him of his vowels, I started singing the song with “Old MacDonald had a farm. . . . . . ” and waited for him to finish the rest. There’s silence.

A couple of seconds later, out of nowhere, his younger brother piped in with a very soft voice and sang the rest “A-E-I-O-U.” I was so shocked! He knew that? He’s not even two yet!! He actually said “A-E-I-O-U” very clearly. I was so impressed. This boy of mine doesn’t even talk yet, just words here and there. He is my more musically inclined child so when I heard him say the vowels tonight, I was truly surprised and impressed. Because he’s younger, I have not been intentional in formally instructing him. However, he sees and hears his bigger brother do school on a daily basis so he picks these up without me knowing. This is what I call second-hand learning. I just love it.

Last night, Matthew asked me how come I was able to do something. I can’t remember what it was, but it was something he didn’t yet know how to do.

I said with a grin and with enthusiasm, “Cuz I ROCK!”

And he came right back, “You DO rock!!!”

That totally surprised me, though it shouldn’t. This nearly four year old boy, as my wife often says, sounds JUST LIKE US! And he thinks his daddy “rocks,” which, I think, is how it should be.

May I continue to merit such praise in the coming years. I love how much he adores me and looks up to me and it makes me long all the more to model for him godly humility and loving faithfulness as a father and husband.

A friend and I discussed the topic of quality vs. quantity time when it comes to spending time with your children. We often hear, “It’s the quality, not the quantity that counts.” When I was younger, this made a lot of sense to me. Well, now I’m older and a mother of three, soon to be four young children. And I now seriously question the validity of this saying.

When it comes to spending time with children, it is really about quantity and quality. They want to know and feel that you are there for them. Every moment counts, even when that moment seems so banal or unimportant. Why? Because quality time is most likely to happen when you spend quantity time with your children. You can’t schedule in “quality” time with children. It is often during the most mundane occurrences that the most fruitful conversation comes about.

For example, this evening our whole family went out to run an errand. On the way back, we decided to buy the boys some cookies as a treat, and as Evers was dispensing the cookies, the following conversation occurred:

Evers: “Matthew, I’m going to give Andrew a cookie first. Are you ok with that?”
Matthew: “Yes. That is like being a gentleman.”
Evers: “That’s right. You’re being a gentleman in letting Andrew have the first cookie. What’s more important is, you’re being loving.”

Where did this concept of being a gentleman come into Matthew’s mind? Well, we’d just come out of Target store (where we bought the cookies). This store had two levels, so we took the elevator to go from one to the other. We each were pushing a shopping cart (three kids split up) and there was another family with a cart in the elevator with us. When we arrived at the destination floor, after I exited (closest to the door), Evers (with Matthew in cart) invited the other family to exit first and then followed. Matthew then asked him why he did that: it made more sense in his mind for both of our carts to exit together followed by the other family (that had entered last). Evers simply said that that was the gentlemanly thing to do: to prefer others and to let them go first, whether in pushing a cart or not trying to rush past people on foot (as Matthew often does).

It’s amazing what can transpire and how much children can glean from such simple interactions if we are intentional. But opportunities like this only happen if we make the time for them. To be blunt, I really believe that if we were typical of so many American dual-income families, where weeknights were spent eating late dinners and putting kids down, we wouldn’t have the opportunities that we have with our current family setup. For which we praise God.

To all you parents reading this blog: please don’t take this as reproof or judgment. Rather, consider it encouragement to make time. No Olympic athlete ever argued that it’s quality practice that matters not quantity. It’s a false dichotomy. Both quality and quantity are essential to the making of an athlete, and both are essential to the forming of a godly generation.

My wife is amazing. So many other friends (esp. other moms) have said that Lois is their “hero” for her perseverance during this difficult season of life. Yet what I see as her husband is how much she strives to be faithful to the Lord even when she herself is weary. This has been an unbelievably challenging time for her with 3 young children and entering her last trimester carrying our fourth child. That she offers to open our home to others in hospitality (as she just did a few moments ago) for building them up in Christ is a credit to the grace of God in her. I was reminded today of an old Twila Paris classic which seems to describe my beloved so well:

The Warrior Is A Child

Lately I’ve been winning battles left and right,
But even winners can get wounded in the fight.
People say that I’m amazing, strong beyond my years,
But they don’t see inside of me, I’m hiding all the tears.

Chorus:
They don’t know that I go running home when I fall down.
They don’t know who picks me up when no one is around.
I drop my sword and cry for just a while,
‘Cause deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child.

Unafraid because His armor is the best.
But even soldiers need a quiet place to rest.
People say that I’m amazing, never face retreat.
But they don’t see the enemies that lay me at His feet.
(chorus)

I drop my sword and look up for His smile
Because deep inside this armour
Deep inside this armour
Deep inside this armour
The warrior is a child.

©1984 Singspiration Music

My prayer for her today, and each day, will be from Numbers 6:24-26:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

In the area where I live, it seems that people are becoming more and more health conscious. Note that I live in California, which is already a relative “health mecca,” so I’m speaking of even more radical lifestyles.

Now, at face value, I believe this is a good thing. Yet more and more often - even among Christians - I hear of and meet people who think that if they can just eat a certain diet or do a certain exercise regimen, they will be cancer free, have better quality of life, live longer, etc. While this isn’t entirely false, it is fundamentally flawed because ultimately it is God who grants us life each day, in sickness or in health. Again, I am not against eating better or exercising more as a generally wise and responsible way to live. But what I often see, and I am speaking of Christians, is people placing trust in their diet & exercise habits instead of in God. This seems the exact opposite of the spirit of Psalm 20:7:

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

The psalmist writes of his expectation to be victorious in battle but makes it very clear that his expectation and trust are in God alone to achieve that victory on their behalf. That doesn’t mean he throws away his weaponry or sends his horses home. But his expectation of victory - and where we ought to put any of our hope for good health - is in the merciful hand of our God.

I know several cancer survivors who have become so health conscious that their devotion to their diet plan effectively makes it their god. I know they don’t realize this but the way they live their lives reflect that. We know a dear friend who is a cancer survivor and has been cancer-free for some time now. When critized by another cancer survivor for having a little sugar in her coffee, she responded with: “God is the one who healed me not because I have a sugar free diet.” I was very encouraged by that because not a lot of people have this perspective. Indeed, it is God who heals, not because we eliminate all sugar and carbohydrates, eat organic food only, have a salad only diet, or ingest a daily truckload of vitamins. In the pursuit of faithful stewardship of our bodies, we must not forget this truth: God is sovereign and He is in control. Let us give thanks to Him who each day mercifully gives us breath. We must never come to a point that we credit our diet for giving us even one more day of life.

One last point: probably the greatest danger of the above thinking on diet & exercise is that our chief end in life rather than “living a life worthy of the gospel” becomes “living a life that is healthful and long.” And that would be a crying shame, for God has not called us to the hope of a healthful life, but “that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). Let us pray with missionary/martyr Jim Elliott who wrote in one of his journals:

God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.

We all trekked out this evening to a favorite Chinese restaurant of ours. We frequently ate at this restaurant on a regular basis even before we had any kids so the waitresses there know us well. Whenever we dine there, we get the familiar greeting of, “Hi, nice to see you again” or “Haven’t seen you for a while!”

Our family size has increased over the past five years from just the two of us to three kids and one in my womb. We have finally reached a point where we get looks and comments from people. They were all quite surprised to see our three young kids there, and with one look at me with my bulging belly, they gasped again. Another one?! Four?! Yup! I’m beginning to get used to these kinds of comments nowadays:

• Wow, you must be tired.
• You sure have your hands full.
• So, you’re having a fourth one?
• You will have four so you shouldn’t have any more. Four is “just right!”
• Certainly you’re not going to have another one after the fourth, are you?
• How old are your kids again?
• Do you have a nanny?
• Surely you must have another helper with so many kids.

Normally I’d be annoyed with these comments but I wasn’t at all tonight. Rather, I found it amusing. It was especially amusing as we became the spectacle of the entire restaurant staff, since we had dinner before the regular rush hour. Many waitresses stopped by at least once to comment and say how cute our kids are. I even noticed that some customers came by to look at our family. We even ended up getting great service from the waitresses because a different one wandered by every five minutes or so. It was interesting to us that they’d often just stand next to our table and look at us and comment—sometimes to us and sometimes to one another. All of them seemed to be in disbelief. We didn’t mind it this time because our dining needs were taken care of about every five minutes. “Oh, you want more rice? I’ll get you more of that.” They also quickly cleared away any empty plates. They even cautioned us when our son’s booster seat began to slip off the chair. (As a sidenote, all of the children were quite well behaved; which I’m sure made a good impression on the staff, which might otherwise have been very critical rather than curious.)

We live in a very affluent area and most people have one or at most two kids. This is especially prevalent in our Chinese community. We realize that we’re quite counter-cultural in this area which is why we were so “popular” tonight. The comment “You sure have your hands full!” has become so ubiquitous that I normally just nod my head. Inwardly, though, I don’t really like this remark and have wished for a better or witty response. A blogger I recently read has a great response to this: “Yes, and my heart is full as well.” I like this. I think I’ll try this next time. Even though it is hard to care for three little ones and soon to be four, my heart is full. One look at God’s many blessings to us, my heart just melts. At the very least, I always have lots of amusing stories to tell each day. Somehow in the midst of distress and discouragement, one of my kids is always able to make me laugh, whether on purpose or not. Why would I trade that for anything?