Thursday, December 17, 2009
Disneyland Family Fun
On Tuesday we spent the whole day in Disneyland and around noon we were joined by our cousins, aunt, uncle, nieces and nephew. And in the the evening we were joined by papa and yaya. It was a great day...quite long for me because I did not get a decent nights sleep the night before. However, we lived to talk about it :o) Gabriela Zoe thoroughly enjoyed Disneyland and it is so fun to see her understanding more and more. When it was nap time she would not go to sleep, and Stephen and I kept telling her that we would still be in Dland when she woke up. Well eventually she was convinced and allowed herself to sleep for an hour. On of the highlights is that she got to shake Mary Poppins hand and take a picture with her. She was in AWE!!! I would say that she is her favorite 'princess' at the moment :o)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Boundaries
As I am writing this I can hear GZ playing in her room! I consider myself a babywise mom even though I do not follow everything to the T and maybe some other babywise moms would not think that I am :o) However, I understand the principle behind the method and as I understand it is : 'The parents makes the shots and not the baby/toddler/kid' I do have to keep going back and be reminded of some specific ways to make that applicable. Like I said I don't follow everything and I cannot be 'blamed' for having read the book cover to cover several times...but i have leafed through it multiple times for specific issues. I was reading the blog Chronicles of a Babywise Mom and I found a lot of similarities in the approach I took in potty training my daughter. For one thing I don't expect my 18 month old at the time to tell me when she needs to go to the bathroom I take her (learned that the hard way :o) every 30 min. then 45 etc and now she can go for longer periods of time without needing to use the restroom and almost always is able to ask before the issue is urgent to the NOW!
As I was reading through her blog I came to face with this reality, one thing that I have not been consistent with in the past is alone playtime. I have not been against it, but maybe I got a little lazy in training my daughter to be able to do that. After I read that blog I was thinking through the idea of alone playtime. The reason why it is important is to teach the child to be able to entertain herself. In parenthesis let me add that in my specific circumstance that is not a problem. GZ has always been able to occupy herself when I can't give her face to face time. This may be the reason why I did not push 'alone playtime' However, this last week I realized there is another even more important purpose and that is the teaching of boundaries. I thought about when she is a teenager and she wants to do something that I do not allow or I need her to do something, I believes it goes beyond the understanding of parent/child relationship to the built in frame of mind that the parent is the one that sets the boundaries of what is allowable and what is not and for how long etc. Yes if that boundary is set by the parent from the time the child is young the battle agains boundaries set in the future I believe will be at least more mild. And yes my daughter is about 11 years away from even beginning to be a teenager so I have a lot to learn still. However, this is what I believe is a glimpse of the future in light of what I am doing NOW as a parent. My part is to pray and seek God fervently, read/seek/ask for advice and the outcome is up to God.
As I was reading through her blog I came to face with this reality, one thing that I have not been consistent with in the past is alone playtime. I have not been against it, but maybe I got a little lazy in training my daughter to be able to do that. After I read that blog I was thinking through the idea of alone playtime. The reason why it is important is to teach the child to be able to entertain herself. In parenthesis let me add that in my specific circumstance that is not a problem. GZ has always been able to occupy herself when I can't give her face to face time. This may be the reason why I did not push 'alone playtime' However, this last week I realized there is another even more important purpose and that is the teaching of boundaries. I thought about when she is a teenager and she wants to do something that I do not allow or I need her to do something, I believes it goes beyond the understanding of parent/child relationship to the built in frame of mind that the parent is the one that sets the boundaries of what is allowable and what is not and for how long etc. Yes if that boundary is set by the parent from the time the child is young the battle agains boundaries set in the future I believe will be at least more mild. And yes my daughter is about 11 years away from even beginning to be a teenager so I have a lot to learn still. However, this is what I believe is a glimpse of the future in light of what I am doing NOW as a parent. My part is to pray and seek God fervently, read/seek/ask for advice and the outcome is up to God.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Again???
Yes again regarding discipline :o) I just finished watching Supernanny, the episode before the last one... http://abc.go.com/watch/supernanny/153459/240535/phelps-family#sl-0 (if you are not residing in the U.S. you will not be able to watch it...sorry not my rules)
I think it was a great episode that touched on some very important issues in the family unit. In fact I had never spent too much time on watching the show before, but my mom suggested that I watch it, and it has given me some great ideas on parenting.
Understanding the premise of the show I know they go to families that are facing some problems, I also understand that the show does not condone 'spanking' as a valid form of discipline. However, it is unfortunate that what parents saw nationwide...and probably will see eventually internationally was a bad model on spanking.
If you watch the show the testimonial of the mother (who was the most avid advocate in the family for spanking) at the end said "I learned that I can discipline without losing my temper and getting angry" (a loose quote) Well then that means that she was not using spanking properly as a discipline tool.
One of our pastors in his teaching on discipline cautions the parents "Do Not spank when you are angry" Spanking is not a way to vent your anger...what is unfortunate that what people see most often is parents acting out of anger and spanking gets a bad rep.
I cannot tell you exactly in what circumstances I will spank my child, and that's because it is not set on stone, however, as her understanding grows I use time-out more often and spanking less. Really that is the goal...after a certain time the child should not need to be spanked any more.
Another statement in the show that made my head turn a little sideways :o) The dad said "if there is a way to teach my children without causing them pain I want that way. Any loving parent would prefer it that way" Can I just say that when I spank my daughter my hand feels it too and what feels it even more is my heart. I do not get any satisfaction out of spanking my daughter, in fact my heart hurts that it had to come down to that. When I am finished spanking I just hold her and let her cry and when she is done crying I kiss her and she gives me a hug because she knows how much I love her. May I add to that also that in life the wrong choices we make hurt...they hurt us and they hurt others too. I just hope in the quest of teaching my child right from wrong, cause and effect, that somehow she will learn, that she will gain wisdom and lose foolishness and just maybe she, like me, one day will be grateful for her parent's steadfastness in teaching her those things. God bless you and goodnight :o)
I think it was a great episode that touched on some very important issues in the family unit. In fact I had never spent too much time on watching the show before, but my mom suggested that I watch it, and it has given me some great ideas on parenting.
Understanding the premise of the show I know they go to families that are facing some problems, I also understand that the show does not condone 'spanking' as a valid form of discipline. However, it is unfortunate that what parents saw nationwide...and probably will see eventually internationally was a bad model on spanking.
If you watch the show the testimonial of the mother (who was the most avid advocate in the family for spanking) at the end said "I learned that I can discipline without losing my temper and getting angry" (a loose quote) Well then that means that she was not using spanking properly as a discipline tool.
One of our pastors in his teaching on discipline cautions the parents "Do Not spank when you are angry" Spanking is not a way to vent your anger...what is unfortunate that what people see most often is parents acting out of anger and spanking gets a bad rep.
I cannot tell you exactly in what circumstances I will spank my child, and that's because it is not set on stone, however, as her understanding grows I use time-out more often and spanking less. Really that is the goal...after a certain time the child should not need to be spanked any more.
Another statement in the show that made my head turn a little sideways :o) The dad said "if there is a way to teach my children without causing them pain I want that way. Any loving parent would prefer it that way" Can I just say that when I spank my daughter my hand feels it too and what feels it even more is my heart. I do not get any satisfaction out of spanking my daughter, in fact my heart hurts that it had to come down to that. When I am finished spanking I just hold her and let her cry and when she is done crying I kiss her and she gives me a hug because she knows how much I love her. May I add to that also that in life the wrong choices we make hurt...they hurt us and they hurt others too. I just hope in the quest of teaching my child right from wrong, cause and effect, that somehow she will learn, that she will gain wisdom and lose foolishness and just maybe she, like me, one day will be grateful for her parent's steadfastness in teaching her those things. God bless you and goodnight :o)
Monday, November 16, 2009
Weekend
I always feel like I have to update our family happenings and I always find myself not having time to upload pictures or not feeling like writting. I guess now because of smilebox I uploaded a bunch of pictures and now I feel like writing :o) what are the odds?
We decided that Saturday was going to be an 'in' day...in our home we have a constant 'struggle' should we call it with 'in' and 'out'. Stephen works very hard all week long and gets to sepnd only 4 hours max in our home every day...that is awake hours. So he really craves to be home. I on the other hand I spend maybe about the same time outside of the home as he does in...so I want to go out :o) We have learned to plan it so that we are both satisfied. Back to Saturday being an 'in' day...that meant we kinda did nothing :o) Stephen and the baby took a nap, we had all our meals together and had a late run to costco. So that is how our exciting Saturday went :o)
On Sunday I serve with the nursery at the 9a.m. service...I am a mini worship leader! I just started and it is so much fun to do what I do with GZ with the other kids too. I'm also sort of a backup teacher...if a class has too many kids and not enought volunteers I go to keep the ratio good :o) It is not often needed because our church is so rich with all the people who are sooo willing to serve in everyway they can.
We did get home a little later than usual and after sitting down for a few brief moments we started getting ready for our Fireproof group. The topic was forgiveness and I think that all of us were overwhelmed at how God loves us and forgives us. Moreover, how we fall short so many times in the forgiving part...It is only throught God's grace that we can forgive the way that He does!! One of our groupees was talking how easy it is to forgive their own children because they are childres...they don't understand what they are doing and the consequences of their actions. When that person said that it lighted a light in my head in relation to the verse he had read earlier. (While Jesus was crucified he cried out) "forgive them for they do not know what they do" Really that is how God see us...as His children (duh) and He knows that we don't understand everything and that's how He wants us to view other people that try to hurt us. They really do not understand the consequences of their actions and the words that the speak. It really sheds a new light, for me, into the "see people as God sees them".
I cannot give a full view of that night if I do not include the craziness of three children under the age of four going wild and trying to have a discussion over their noises and our insane laughter of sharing stories that only portray the true struggles pretty much every new nuclear family faces...the comic twist was just awesome :o)
So today is Monday! We will be partially atteniding the Autumn Leadership Conference...since there is no childcare we cannot really dive into it like in the past :o) But I am looking forward to the great things God has in store for us as we invite the Holy Spirit to instruct and guide us! Warning: you many not hear an update on this since I'm a slow processor and watch and see and wait kind of approach to life :o) But I'm sure that as some point what I share with have been impacted by the next few days!
For now I'm home...enjoying time to myself while Stephen took GZ for a little bit of work and our bi-yearly cleaning of our rings....since on Thursday is going to be our FIVE year anniversary since we got engaged! So long...I'm going to take a nap now :o)
We decided that Saturday was going to be an 'in' day...in our home we have a constant 'struggle' should we call it with 'in' and 'out'. Stephen works very hard all week long and gets to sepnd only 4 hours max in our home every day...that is awake hours. So he really craves to be home. I on the other hand I spend maybe about the same time outside of the home as he does in...so I want to go out :o) We have learned to plan it so that we are both satisfied. Back to Saturday being an 'in' day...that meant we kinda did nothing :o) Stephen and the baby took a nap, we had all our meals together and had a late run to costco. So that is how our exciting Saturday went :o)
On Sunday I serve with the nursery at the 9a.m. service...I am a mini worship leader! I just started and it is so much fun to do what I do with GZ with the other kids too. I'm also sort of a backup teacher...if a class has too many kids and not enought volunteers I go to keep the ratio good :o) It is not often needed because our church is so rich with all the people who are sooo willing to serve in everyway they can.
We did get home a little later than usual and after sitting down for a few brief moments we started getting ready for our Fireproof group. The topic was forgiveness and I think that all of us were overwhelmed at how God loves us and forgives us. Moreover, how we fall short so many times in the forgiving part...It is only throught God's grace that we can forgive the way that He does!! One of our groupees was talking how easy it is to forgive their own children because they are childres...they don't understand what they are doing and the consequences of their actions. When that person said that it lighted a light in my head in relation to the verse he had read earlier. (While Jesus was crucified he cried out) "forgive them for they do not know what they do" Really that is how God see us...as His children (duh) and He knows that we don't understand everything and that's how He wants us to view other people that try to hurt us. They really do not understand the consequences of their actions and the words that the speak. It really sheds a new light, for me, into the "see people as God sees them".
I cannot give a full view of that night if I do not include the craziness of three children under the age of four going wild and trying to have a discussion over their noises and our insane laughter of sharing stories that only portray the true struggles pretty much every new nuclear family faces...the comic twist was just awesome :o)
So today is Monday! We will be partially atteniding the Autumn Leadership Conference...since there is no childcare we cannot really dive into it like in the past :o) But I am looking forward to the great things God has in store for us as we invite the Holy Spirit to instruct and guide us! Warning: you many not hear an update on this since I'm a slow processor and watch and see and wait kind of approach to life :o) But I'm sure that as some point what I share with have been impacted by the next few days!
For now I'm home...enjoying time to myself while Stephen took GZ for a little bit of work and our bi-yearly cleaning of our rings....since on Thursday is going to be our FIVE year anniversary since we got engaged! So long...I'm going to take a nap now :o)
Saturday, November 14, 2009
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