This was Timely

I've been doing some thinking on what to do with Justin and some of his pickiness with eating.

This post I thought timely.

Divisions of Parent-Child Responsibilities When it Comes to Eating:

Parent's responsibilities:

• Respect the child's ability to know when he is hungry and full.
• Make sure to serve small, child-sized portions
• Prepare and serve healthy meals and snacks
• Set regular meal and snack times

As the parent, you decide:

• What food will be given (making sure it is nutritious)
• When it will be given (making sure it is provided every few hours)
• Mealtime rules and where food will be given
  

The child decides:

• What, out of what is given, he or she will eat
• How much, out of what is given, he or she will eat

• 
  

Today in Church

Justin usually goes out of the church service during the hymn before the sermon is preached.

We've been doing sunday school lessons with him.

Today we looked at Genesis three.

The synopsis. God made a nice place for adam and eve to live. Everything was nice to each other. in the middle of the garden God put a tree and said to Adam and Eve...DON'T eat the fruit or you will die. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and had to leave the nice garden and they eventually died.

After we drew pictures and talked about it (amidst a 1000 why questions) Justin's response was...

J- No mommy...shut the bible... it's wrong.

me - Wrong? What do you mean Justin?

J- Why they die? They don't die. That not real. Shut that bible. I don't like that story it's wrong.

me - but Justin they did die because they couldn't be with God.

J- No...see walking away...No being fake. (that's dying to Justin).

(looking at the pictures we drew).
I don't like that snake. That snake not talking with that lady. That lady NOT being bad. That lady stay in nice garden. That snake being bad! and then laughter...SNAKES DON"T TALK Mommy!!!!!

I COULD NOT budge him.
The story was wrong.
The lady was just fine. She was not going to be fake. That man was bad and shouldn't listen to the snake. That man shouldn't talk with that snake in the nice place. and snakes really don't talk.

Children....stretch you sometimes......

So how would you handle this? Because I'm stumped!

On an interesting note though while going through this lesson with Justin I discovered this:
In Genesis three I read this:

He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" 2And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

But in Genesis Two God's actual command was this:

16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

So Eve not only listened to the snake challenging what she thought God said...she actually changed what God had said in the first place. I just found that enlightening.

How to Keep a child happy when struck with a head cold

Put on Frosty the Snowman.

Listen to chuckles from said boy child.

Say to yourself "ah...the child is happy, now I can put my feet up for a bit".

and then promptly do so rather than sit at your computer writing about it. :)

Things one Teaches a child without meaning to

1. to drink out of a pitcher without a glass (in hubby's words...gross!)

2. to have bunnies swim with them (mommy saves them before boy child drowns them)

3. to eat donuts for breakfast when nothing else is available (what? you don't ever??).

4. rabbit pellets taste good (if one is a rabbit) so one boy child mysteriously becomes a rabbit (go figure that one..... ) :)

5. pouring milk from a pitcher into a pop bottle results in a big mess (no I didn't teach that one inadvertently, but he saw me pour something from a pitcher into a glass and thought he could do the same).

Lessons Learned

When one is tired, and is dealing with a tired boy, getting frustrated and angry doesn't help. What helps is redirection of a tired child. :)

Scenario....had a busier day than planned.
Boy had napped but wasn't quite himself as the day was getting on.
HE wanted to "help" mommy do dishes by washing all his trucks in my rinse water.

I was finding that rather inconvenient so removed said child to the living room.
This resulted in angry child and a getting REALLY frustrated and bordering on angry mommy.

I stopped. And it was like God said.. PATIENCE, girl child. THINK!

So... I "accidentally" kicked his cars all over the kitchen and "Oh oh Justin, Look what happened with your cars."
He looked puzzled. Stared hard at those way-ward cars.
"Oh, I think you need to clean them up before you play in the water." As I put his car bucket down with the cars.

Screams of "I no wanna in a bucket. I wanna in a box"! then when I got him a box.... a "No wanna play dough box".
My response was "I don't care Justin.... just put them in something, some where, then you can play in the water".
He looked at me with this sad little face and i said "You can figure it out buddy, what do the cars need to go in"?
He stood quietly so I continued with the dishes.... and then I heard it....
A lawnmower in my house????

Yes...a playdough box was turned into a lawnmower who then gathered up ALL the cars. Every single last one of them which then proceeded to drive all over the kitchen floor.
"I driving lawnmower mommy! I drive it, eat all trucks up mommy!"
I smiled. He smiled.

I finished the dishes, I got us some ice cream for snack and then that lawnmower drove into the living room to become a train truck and all was good in the life of the Vellenga household.

Ah... isn't God good, making us pause and rethink ourselves? :)

Finds!

I found this over at Steve's blog, a post called An Inerrant Scripture. I'll quote part of his post here for you, find the rest over there.

"Superficial inerrancy wants the Bible to sit down in Mrs. Enlightenment's class for an exam, and wants the Bible to get a perfect score. But biblical absolutism says it should go the other way; we want to get Mrs. Enlightenment to enroll in Scripture's class, and take a few tests of her own. Maybe even flunk a few of them. When Scripture is studied as the absolute standard, a lot of these questions and tensions... just disappear. But when Scripture is studied as one-which-takes-tests-administered-by-others, the defenders of the faith always wind up like the nerdy kid who got a 98 percent and is trying to haggle the teacher out of two extra points."

Kerux Noemata (also known as Pastor Paul) had a good post on children in church. How to incorporate them into the full service. I thought it was a good post. It's called Helping Little Ones Learn to Sit in Church. This is one of those "struggles" for me.

See my mom-in-law goes to a church where the littlest ones are included in the service. Parents are STRONGLY encouraged to keep their little ones in church with them. They do have a nursery and they do have a "training" room, but little ones are expected to be in service with everyone else. She keeps telling me they can do it, they just need to be trained to do so. And she keeps telling me stories of how my hubbie never went to the babysit, he was always in church with her. So even though, I am positive she doesn't mean to pressure me, I do feel a pressure that my boyo should be sitting quietly in church with me even now.

Part of my issue is that my boyo is the only wee one in church. Most folks in church are ... somewhat older than I am... so I am hesitant to subject them to the noises of a boyo wanting to run and play.

Silly yes, I know. My boyo is 19 months now. For the past month getting his to sit still for even the first hymn is like pulling teeth. I've just been saying you know what laddie, you can just go to the nursery. My hope is sometime within the next 8 months to get him sitting thru the first part of the service again. So this post by Pastor Paul seems timely to me. Gets me thinking on how I can help my boyo learn that sitting in church is a good thing even if there are fun toys in the babysit! :)

Anyways, there yah go. To good articles. :)