Parenting, Offering

This is yet another photo from our vacation last summer.  The kids have changed so much in a year!  I need to get some new photos soon but this one will suffice tonight.  I'm thinking about a few things so I hope I can find the words that God is giving me, so that I can share the ideas with you.  Parenting.  Offering.  These two.  Words that are bouncing around in my head and heart, in conversations I have had today and thoughts I am turning over and over......

Tonight, we had bible study.  A group of 5-6 couples who have tried hard to keep meeting once a month in spite of life events, busy families, etc.....and we are over a decade now of doing life together.  Praise God for this group!  We decided months ago that if Roger and I can participate in this Sunday evening event, we would need to take the 2 youngest kids along.  Life goes better for our family if Precious and Josiah are with mom and dad in the evening.  One of our couples offered to have their home be the standard meeting place every month instead of rotating.....and they offered to have the kids come along if that would allow us to participate.  With that, we went to bible study tonight with Precious and Josiah.  Joe wore his swim suit because I had just bought it for him today and so of course he wanted to wear it.  Parenting Josiah sometimes means letting him do that.  

Precious offered to help with the 2 year old group during church.  This group is called "Little Lambs" and involves a rowdy bunch of 2 year olds with a "teacher" and a few helpers, during the sermon part of Sunday morning church.  Precious, herself, had trouble sitting through the full service so since she is good with younger children, and since she offered, I let her go and help whenever possible.  She and I have identified a few of the kids in our congregation who need extra attention and one-on-one play time in Little Lambs and she takes this assignment very seriously.  She reports back to me even, after church, on how the rowdies did.  Parenting means empowering Precious to help and bless younger kids who are so much like her.....and giving her permission to love them as they are.  Parenting also means I allow her to leave our row in church bare-foot with her wild braids flying and go to do her job barefoot with a snotty nose.  Sometimes it's more about letting go than holding on, people.  

Jeremiah has been very down in the dumps this week with rainy, cold weather.  He cannot play soccer, or golf......and it's the end of the school year.  School is hard for Jeremiah.  He longs for the summer break. He needs it.  He also needs shoes that don't have holes in them, and a swim suit that fits, and a few other things.  This morning, I offered Jeremiah some "retail therapy" after church.  A spontaneous "Spoil me Sunday" to get what he needed and get through this painful, cloudy, rainy Sunday.  Parenting says, "buddy.....lets get outa here for a few hours.....".  Unfortunately, around mid-day we figured out that Jeremiah is getting sick with strep throat and became more miserable by the hour.  Tonight, I layed with him for a bit and reassured him that we can fix this with some medicine and rest and I offered him the chance to still play rec soccer tomorrow night if he felt better, despite the rule that if you are too sick for school, you are too sick for extra stuff.  Don't even judge me.  Or let your kid swap spit with mine from 6-7pm tomorrow night if he decides he can play.  He lives for soccer.  The forcast says partly sunny.  He will likely be on the field.

Parenting also says that Isaac got to join us for Spoil me Sunday today because he has Eighth Grade Graduation later this month and needs dress pants, a shirt and tie.  I have never.  ever.  shopped in this section.  Neither has he.  It was.  Well.  Painful. He finally found an outfit he felt comfortable with but the "offering" part comes here.  I bought him a $75 dress shirt.  It wasn't scratchy and impossible for my sensory boy.....and it looked so sharp......and Roger about lost it when I came home and told him.  Neither Roger nor I have ever bought a shirt that expensive....but seriously.....I just wanted to end the pain.  And.  He looked so, so handsome.  We will see if he wears this shirt or if we find something cheaper in the next few weeks.   I, for one, will not return to Younkers Men's Dress department anytime soon!  I told Jeremiah to plan on wearing the same shirt in 2 years for his Eighth Grade Graduation.  His response was this, "Fine but I'm picking a different tie!"  Deal buddy.

Shoot.  I hate that this post is so long.  We do have 5 kids, after all.  The next one is really the point of it all.  

Claire.  

I think  I'll hold her section over for a day so that I can just write about parenting and offering separately for her.  If you are interested, tune in for the next post.