Category Archives: Parenting

Be a Five Year Planner

December 30, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

Yesterday, I was inspired by a very interesting blog http://simplemom.net/five-year-plan/

Sexy Neck and I sit down together every January and decide our year plan for home renovations. We also talk about any changes we would like to make. We also make or review our five year plan. Really I do most of the initiating on this, but my husband is always game to come along on the goal setting journey!

Our plan sits on the side of our refrigerator.

In 2010, we decided to avoid using paper towels.

In 2011, we decided to switch from using margarine to butter.

In 2012, we decided to use a reusable mug to get hot drinks at various coffee shops instead of copious amount of paper ones!

Looking back these are kind of random, but they were very meaningful at the time and we haven’t gone back. (How annoying for anyone looking for margarine or paper towels at our house!)

Our five year plan includes:

– replacing all our single pane windows (done!)
– replacing our roof (2013)
– painting the outside of our house (done!)
– save money to take our family of five to Germany, Spain, France and Switzerland for 6 weeks (2015) to visit some old friends.

My favourite thought right now is: A day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day! (Checkout 2 Peter 3:8.)

Goal setting always keeps things in perspective for me as a stay-at-home mom. It is easy to get bogged down in laundry, cooking, cleaning…

Parenting

Be a Breastfeeder

December 29, 2012 Be Enough 4 Comments

The words I heard from a family member sitting at my kitchen table as I sat on a chair ten feet away:

“She is still breast feeding?”

I was not suppose to hear these words, but here is my response, via the blog world, to my dear family member.

Yes, I am still breast feeding my fifteen month old son. I am going to try and breastfeed until he is two years old. I didn’t make it to two years old with my oldest two. One I cut off around 21 months and the other stopped at 23 months. I am the worst breast feeder though- from yeast infections to mastitis to cracked and sore nipples. I have had it all. I am a stubborn breast feeder. I have also just been too lazy to heat up and clean bottles so breast feeding seems like the easier, more convenient option. It is always ready, the right temperature and I don’t have to worry about what some manufacturer had put in. Plus I don’t have to check the recall list fort breadtmilk.

So there’s my two cents! Be a breast feeder if you want to. But more importantly be supportive of people!

Construction, Parenting

Be an Anything Builder

December 16, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

Stop and take a moment to look at your couch, chairs and pillow (and perhaps some books, a strainer and an umbrella?).

Now take a look at these items through the eyes of a three and five year old.

I am always amazed at what my boys can create from around the house. As long as an item is not sharp nor fragile they are allowed to incorporate it into their construction. Actually, I also don’t allow food nor drink, we save that for the kitchen table.

Today’s anything rescuer machine involved dialogue about helping others, a song and a few toooo to doooo noises. They even took a journey in their transformed helicopter to New York!

This reminds me of the Christmas season and the things I WANT to be doing to celebrate: be an anything rescuer, helping others with a song and perhaps a few toooo to dooo’s along the way!

Construction, Parenting

Be a Tree Cutter

December 16, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

I love, love, love having a real Christmas tree in our house. I love opening the front door and the beautiful tree scent whaps you in the face. I love multi-coloured light, twisted branches and ornaments place wherever. (CC, our 3 year old, insisted on placing all his ornaments on two spots. No I won’t be moving them!)

Our tree got put up last night and I hope to keep it up for a long time in January.

We use the old multicoloured strings of lights that were on my tree growing up. Multicoloured, non-LED and beautifully imperfect. Some flash, some are burnt out, others are hard to see! Last Christmas, Sexy Neck went hunting for replacements, 3 big box stores and 2 family-owned stores later he found some!

This year was the very first time that all 3 of our boys were involved in some part of “putting up the tree”! I loved putting up the old ornaments from my childhood, ornaments Sexy Neck and i got pre-kids, having my mom sitting on the couch to talk to and seeing my boys put up the ornaments they had made/been given.

But I think the highlight for my boys was the fact that the tree was to tall and Sexy Neck had to pull out the saw. (We always try to get the tallest tree!)

Here is the action:

We even found a bird’s nest:

But if you want to see a really wild, neighbour-scaring, creative tree, checkout my cousin’s tree in Spain!

http://notsospanish.wordpress.com

Parenting, psychology

Be Proud

December 14, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

My son is almost fifteen months old. He cannot walk, but he sure can climb! He climbs his brothers’ bunk bed ladder, onto kitchen chairs. Today, he climbed up on the couch in between his big brothers. He was so proud!

This proud moment made me think of judgement for some reason and my judgement in particular.

It would be easy to judge the fact that my son isn’t walking as the ‘norm’ is 12 months.

It is easy for me to judge, myself especially. But I need to learn to be proud of the little things and let the other things go! My inner dialogue could probably burn a house down. I am very hard on myself.

My children have become my teachers in many ways. Thank you baby boy for my lesson today,

Joanna be proud!

Flexibility, Parenting, Self-help

Be a Panda in a Heat Gym

December 10, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

Whenever I coach volleyball, my eldest son loves to come with me. He insists on wearing his “coaching” shirt which is a University of Alberta Pandas volleyball shirt. This shirt is precious to him (and me!) as it was given to him by my coach when I played. Her daughter had worn the shirt until she grew out of it.

I love this shirt too! But last week, I was coaching at the University of British Columbia Okanagan Club Volleyball tryouts (Whew, that was a mouthful!). I chose my wardrobe carefully, wearing a Heat shirt of course! He wore his Panda shirt and I must admit that I received a comment from someone on the Heat coaching staff.

It made me realize how immune my son is to doing something simple that made someone else feel uncomfortable.

How often do I do the “comfortable” thing because I don’t want to offend anyone? How often do I do something because I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings?

EVERY SINGLE DAY!

I am so outwardly focused on wondering and worrying about my actions or words and how they are perceived by people outside my immediate circle. My inner circle gets the “real” Joanna, but others get a watered-down “comfortable” version of Joanna.

This simple shirt incident made me realize that I need to be more like my five year old son. Every day, I need to put on my ‘coaching shirt’ of my choice, do my best and have fun! Sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable!

Christianity, Parenting, Self-help

Be Letting Go

November 26, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

Tis the Season of Rushing… I am starting to feel things rev up inside of me as the calendar becomes packed up and the to-do-list gets longer.

Thank God for the insight of children.

We were playing at the playground last week and JC looked across the lake and exclaimed: “There is a piece of heaven!” Here is the photo I took of what JC was looking at:

Amid the storm that often brews for people during this season, the light of God shines through.

I am definitely in the eye of a storm. I need to keep focused on His light and His love and His ways.

Tomorrow is week two of living 60 kilometres down the lake. When our family of five was staying in this lovely basement suite beside the vineyard, I felt calm and relaxed. But this weekend, we stepped back into our life and I feel confused trying to figure “things” out and I feel ‘harried’.

I am reminded of a saying that I heard when I first became a Christian because I definitely can’t figure this one out.

“Let Go and Let God.”

health & fitness, Parenting

Be a Swimmer, Skater and Gymnist

November 24, 2012 Be Enough Leave a comment

Sexy Neck and I both have Physical Education/Human Kinetics degrees, so when our poor first child was born we had lengthy conversations about which activities we felt were essential for a North American lad.

We decided that the athletic skills that are a challenge to learn, but provide a solid foundation for other sports had to be first.

The WINNERS ARE:

swimming (plus we didn’t want our children to drown!)

skating (I used to teach adults to skate – yikes, I saw a few broken bones!)

Gymnastics (Don’t we all wish we could fly and one day flip through the air?)

Every year our children will take a lesson, from a “professional” in each of these pursuits. I realized tonight that the boys did all of these things this week! I love being intentional about something and seeing it happen.

I must admit, besides the lessons, there is also an awful lot of living room skating, bedroom gymnastics and tidal waves in the bathtub! I now completely understand the making of Jackass the Movie.

"Be" ENOUGH