Markers.

Kids love ‘em.

I don’t.

I really, really dislike markers.

Seasoned moms know why I dislike markers without much explanation. For the rest of my readers, note that markers are meant to be used on paper to create art. But when they’re in the hands of little ones, markers are suddenly a tool for art work on furniture, self, clothes, siblings, wall, and any other surface that is not pre-approved.

Yes, even the “washable” markers; because it’s not so easy to take your drywall and put it in the washing machine.

In short, markers + little people = homemade vandalism.

Yes, I’m being a tad dramatic. But note the title of this post, and sympathize with me for a bit longer.

After initially purchasing markers and discovering firsthand their destructive potential, I banished them from our house for a while until recently when my 6 year old became more artistically inclined in a constructive way. He began drawing some lovely drawings on some newly purchased paper on an easel. No problemo! Even applause and praise and joy.

Until today… when my two year old daughter, unsupervised, grabbed hold of a nice purple marker and in a matter of seconds drew some big concentric circles on a chair and a rocker glider cushion.

Remember: for two years we’ve had no such incidents (though pencils and pens have made occasional appearances on walls). But that was only because I hid the markers until recently. As soon as they came out into plain view, our furniture suffered. And my desire for a neat immaculate appearing home suffered.

Second story, though related: I was at a friend’s house for a BBQ this weekend and she told me that earlier that morning she had allowed her twin three year old girls to play in the mud. The girls had a blast and by the time they were done playing, they were covered with mud from head to toe. I told my friend that she’s a good mom and then confessed that I’m such a clean freak that I would never allow my kids to do that. In addition, I’d hate to clean the kids up afterwards.

Markers and mud. These two topics got me thinking. It’s true that I dislike having my furniture marked on, but I need to accept that this as a fact of life when I have four little ones, ages 6 and under. I need to loosen up a little because after all, furniture is replaceable. I should be happy that my two year old can draw perfectly round circles and that she picked her favorite color of purple.

However, this does not mean that the children can have a hay day with the markers and draw wherever they please. As much as I need to let go of my preference for neatness, I need to teach the children to properly use the markers. I have instructed the oldest one to be responsible for his markers and not to leave them out so that the younger ones can grab hold of them. As for the younger children, the solution is not to hide the markers like I did until now. The key is to use the markers with them with a lot of supervision. In the end, using markers and having a non-marked up furniture can co-exist.

As for mud. . . . . I’m still working on it. Even though I’m not fond of letting the kids play in the mud, I know rolling in the mud is what great memories are made of. My neat-freak tendency hinders the innocent and pure enjoyment of mud play. I am sure that my children would enjoy rolling in the mud and decorating themselves with it.

In the end, having little ones around means I can’t have a neat and clean house as I’d prefer, but the joy of having the little ones around take priority over my personal preferences. Rather than being freaked out by the messes, I’m learning that I need to laugh a little and enjoy their artwork even if it’s drawn on a medium that is not to my liking.

Our whole family is very excited about our baby who is still growing inside mommy’s tummy. He/she is so well loved right now and the love will even be more pronounced once he/she is born. I’ve been getting lots of requests from the children to kiss the baby inside my tummy. My eldest often asks, “Mommy, after I’m done eating, can I kiss the baby in your tummy?” Naturally, the rest of the children want to have a turn too. I’m so happy that they’re excited about having a baby.

The children’s love for the unborn baby got me thinking. Where did they get the idea to love this unseen baby? None of the children ever attended a “New Sibling” class to learn how to love the new baby. I believe children learn from their parents. If the parents have the attitude of welcoming another baby into the family, then the children will see the new baby as a blessing. If the parents have the mentality that “two is enough” or that “children are just a lot of hassle and work,” then the children don’t see themselves as someone mommy and daddy treasure. Consequently, any subsequent child the parents have isn’t viewed as a blessing. When my eldest said, “Mommy, I want to kiss your baby in your tummy,” I said to him that it’s not my baby, it’s our baby. This baby is a member of our family.

As much as we dislike it, anger springs up very easily in the world of parenting. Inevitably our children will do the most irritating things throughout the day which make us want to pull our hair out.

Of course, anger can happen not just in parenting, but I’ve found that parenting has a way of bringing out problems with anger.  Yet I also believe that every good parent doesn’t like it this recurring problem.  How then do we resolve not to get angry when the children seem to excel at pushing our buttons?

I’m currently reading Raising Godly Tomatoes by L. Elizabeth Krueger, and in the last chapter she touched upon the subject of parental anger. On how to stop the cycle of anger, Mrs. Krueger explains from her own experience:

I decided to view my irritability as a serious sin, not just an unfortunate personality flaw. I decided to view losing my temper as totally unacceptable and completely forbidden. Instead of seeking to “improve,” I determined to “quit.” I changed to viewing anger as poison, not just as a small bothersome bad habit. Big difference.

. . . You must cultivate and ponder a HATRED for anger, be vigilantly on guard for its earliest signs of emergence, and be prepared to immediately overcome evil with good by replacing angry reactions with calmness and godly, right thoughts.

Watch yourself closely, raise your standards, and train yourself to be godly, just as you want your children to be godly.

I believe Mrs. Krueger’s advice is right on. In order to mortify anger, we must view anger as sin and have an intense hatred for it. We may feel justified in getting angry because after all, it was the children who cause us to sin. We need to first acknowledge that when we lash out in anger, it is our own sin, not our children’s. We have to own up to our sin and resolve to hate our sin because the God we serve is godly and detests sin. Sanctification is a process so stay vigilant in praying and in training ourselves to rid the problem of anger.

I love my children. But even as my children are different, I’ve come to learn that they need to be loved differently.

For example, my second son, Andrew, is arguably the most huggable and the most affectionate of our four children. He’s the first to offer a hug, or ask for one; and is the most likely to spontaneously tell me he loves me.

In contrast, our eldest, Matthew, is much more typical “boy” — some have remarked 200% boy — and is more squirmy and fidgety, especially when I tell him to come over so I can give him a hug or other show of affection.

For me, it’s been a real challenge to learn how to love Matthew (and feel loved by him). While Andrew expresses himself in ways that are altogether obvious and compatible with my personality, Matthew is whole different creature with a very different personality from me. So his boyishness has often seemed a hurdle in our relationship, and as much so with respect to learning his “love language,” in giving and receiving love, as anything else.

I’ve come to learn that while Matthew enjoys hugs and kisses from me, the impact of such physical affection isn’t as strong as Andrew. Over the years I learned what makes Matthew feel loved is by chasing him around the house, tackle him, and be wild with him. This type of rough housing is the door to his heart. Even though it’s lot easier for me to dispense hugs and kisses, I have to remind myself that the door to his affections is through being wild with him.

The lesson is simple: all children are different and they need to be loved differently. One of our tasks as parents is to find out what makes each of our children tick, and how to make them feel loved.  This is simply a specific application of a general tenet in parenting: that each child is uniquely made by God, and our job is to help nurture each child into a unique person fully realizing his/her potential by God’s grace.

It saddens me that how commonly I hear comments which reflect a viewpoint that children are primarily obstacles, trials, challenges, or difficulties to be overcome. When our children are young, we are told by experts how to “survive” the so-called “terrible twos.” And we are warned that before long, once they hit the dreaded teen years, what we will have to “endure” and “negotiate” the troubled waters. And lastly, we are encouraged, that when our children finally turn eighteen, we can breathe a sigh of relief as we kick them out of the house!

Almost never do I hear parents or experts talk about the blessing of children or the joy of raising children. This kind of attitude does not make sense to me. If children are such a difficult obstacle, why have them?

I am not a starry-eyed, stuck in the cloud nine mother who doesn’t understand the difficulties of raising children. I’d be the first to admit that parenting is hard and it takes a lot of patience, endurance, and love. There have been plenty of days I’ve wanted to throw in the towel! Yet while I recognize these challenges, I’m also seeing the joy in the journey of parenting. The Bible, in Psalm 127, tells us — it does not “suggest” to us — that children are a blessing. I see my children as blessings from God and as difficult as they can be to raise, they bring me so much joy and fulfillment.

Let’s not lose sight of such blessings from God when we face challenges along the way. Let’s not merely focus on the trials, but count our blessings. Lastly, we must remember that these children have souls and we have the primary responsibility of shaping their souls. What an immense privilege to be doing something of such incredible eternal lasting value!

Today, after we got home from church & lunch, I didn’t feel like being a parent.

Scratch that. I didn’t feel like parenting!

We got home after 2:30 pm. Lois and the three younger ones then went to take naps, but Matthew, my oldest (he’ll be six years old in just 12 days!), didn’t want to nap. He wanted me to play with him, but I was tired, so I told him to play very quietly downstairs, and I would try to nap in my office on a beanbag (since our other son was napping with Mommy, to both of their delights). I was only mildly successful in actually falling asleep. To Matthew’s credit, he did play quietly by himself, even building cleverly a clever family of giraffes feeding off a tree, all made of Duplo blocks.

An hour and a half later, with only a few brief interruptions from Matthew, including showing off his giraffe family (that was my first clue, he was so proud to show me!); our youngest woke up bawling. No one had heard her crying after waking up, and her bawling only made me grumpier.

During this entire time, I just wanted to “veg.” As in, be a vegetable, free from any cares or responsibility.

That mood of wanting to veg continued for several hours, even into the dinner hour, when we just warmed up leftovers for the kids to eat. Lois wasn’t feeling well, so that left me to nag the kids to eat, eat, eat. Which, of course, made me more unhappy, feeling “forced” to mind the kids.

After they finally ate, I returned to my computer, doing some stuff that needed to be done; and a bunch of stuff like web surfing and chatting online that didn’t! When Matthew (and the others) started coming ’round my desk, I kinda treated them bothersome flies, “swatting them away” and distractedly playing hangman with Matthew.

He didn’t buy it.

And neither did I, really.

Which is why he gave up trying 20 minutes later and played with Lois instead.

So when bedtime came around, and I told Matthew to head to his room to get changed, he started to cry, even as he started heading that way. “All you’ve been doing is stuff on your computer! We didn’t spend any time together at all!”

Wow, the stuff of conviction. Especially since the same thought had been nagging me since before dinner time.

So a few minutes later, after he came down in his jammies, I said to him somewhat repentantly, “What would you like to do?”

He told me he wanted to play tic-tac-toe. So with all the other kids in bed,, he and I went downstairs to the whiteboard and played tic-tac-toe for 15 minutes. He even cheerfully helped me to clean the whiteboard with paper towels & cleaning solution! He was clearly happy to be spending quality, one-on-one time with his daddy.

As we finished up and we were about to head upstairs for me to tuck him in, I apologized to him for not paying attention to him earlier. He cheerfully accepted with a content smile, saying, “That’s okay, Daddy.” I’m so thankful he accepts me in spite of my imperfections as a dad, and grateful that he does so want to spend time with me.

In the future, may I be more faithful to obey the calls of my conscience and beckoning of my children sooner, and enjoy the blessings that God has given me in them.

Emmie had a bad case of bloody nose this evening and after repeated rounds of wiping and stuffing her nose, we decided it was time to have her lie down with a cold compress on her head. At the mere mention of this, Matthew hopped to the task though we didn’t ask him. He led her to the couch, laid her down, put the compress on her. When I went to check up on her, I saw Matthew sitting next to her and reading to her. He even laid one of his hands on her head to make sure the cold compress doesn’t slip. I was so touched. He’s such a good big brother to her. It really warmed my heart to see him caring for her without me asking.

Matthew’s act of kindness is exactly what we’ve been teaching him for a while. Just when I thought it would never come or that he doesn’t care for his siblings, God shows me otherwise. This is a great encouragement to me because there is hope. I hope and pray that those who are struggling and are wondering when if ever your children will be kind towards one another, take heart and press on. If we persist in our training and teaching, our children will learn.