Very mild vent here....
Maybe I'm crazy, but when someone asks advice on wanting to buy a version of a particular object that doesn't cost "an arm and a leg", people shouldn't suggest the highest end version of that item that costs an arm and a leg!!!!!!!!! That's my opinion anyway. I'd pretty pretty mad if I was looking for a cheap plastic tupperware cup and people kept directing me toward the Swarovski Crystal champagne flutes.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
9/11 Remembered
It was a normal school day for me. I woke up at five thirty, showered, got dressed, left my house at six thirty. I picked up my friend Sarah. I can’t remember what we talked about as we drove to Eastview High School, but I’m pretty sure that it was normal teenage stuff. As we drove we listened to the morning show on the local top forty radio station. School starts at seven thirty. It was no different that day. Funny, I can’t even remember what my first hour class was. None of those details were important to me then, they are lost in the fog of time.
It’s interesting how some things are burned into our minds. There are moments when time slows down and you have all the time in the world to log each detail away so that you can remember it all your life. Those who remember Pearl Harbor know what I’m talking about. Those who remember President Kennedy’s assassination know what I’m talking about. During those moments you rarely know that your mind is actually locking those things into your memory. Usually the moment happens and you remember it forever without even realizing why.
I remember that my second hour class was AP Literature and Composition. I remember that my teacher’s name was Mr. Bayer and that he had a really casual teaching style that made his English class the most enjoyable English class I had ever taken in high school. I remember that the girl who sat next to me was named Katie, and that she was in color guard for the marching band. I remember that her boyfriend’s name was Cody because she talked about him all the time. I remember that I sat in the second row on the left hand side of the classroom as you look at it from the back. I remember that we were supposed to watch “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.”
My dad is an airline pilot. That has always made my life a little different. He was gone a lot when I was younger. People always looked at me with the same look that you would give a kid whose dad is in the military.
“Oh, that must have been hard for you.” People would say to me as I got older. The truth is that I never really thought about it. My dad was a pilot before I was born. I have never known anything different. Northwest Airlines, whom my father flies for, has their world headquarters in Eagan Minnesota which is, not coincidentally, where I grew up. That whole area is chuck full of airline families. All my friends in high school with the exception of two were from airline families. When I went off to college people would say things like “Oh wow, your dad’s a pilot?! That’s so cool! So do you, like get to fly for free?” Nobody said things like that in high school. They were all in the same boat as me. There was a mutual understanding among us. We talked smack about Northwest management when the pilots went on strike in 1998, and every time the mechanics went on strike we griped about how the CEO really didn’t know anything about his company. We talked about a lot of things having to do with the airline industry, but we never, ever talked about plane crashes. There is a solidarity among airline families. The same kind of solidarity you find among military families, and NASA families. The thing that airline families have in common with military families and NASA families is that we all know that at any moment, tragedy can strike. It never matters how safe flying is supposed to be, or how few accidents they’ve actually had in the space program, or whether your spouse was supposed to be a non combatant, there is always the knowledge in the back of your head that there is a possibility that when your family member leaves for work, he or she may not come home. You never talk about that possibility. You never think about that possibility. When I was in tenth grade I really, really liked this boy. I was convinced that I was going to marry him someday, as soon as he realized he loved me back. There was nothing that boy could do to make me stop liking him. At least, so I thought. When we were discussing flight plans for our summer missions trip with church, I asked what airline we would be flying. He cracked a joke about flying on Egypt Air. Earlier that month an Egypt Air flight had crashed shortly after take off. It was determined that it was pilot suicide. I hated that boy. I hated him with everything I had for that moment. (And for a while afterwards, until he finally apologized to me.) When TWA flight 800 blew up over the Atlantic, we were glued to the television. The reason is simple, we are a community, and we feel it when we lose a member of that community. The thing about the airline community is that when a plane goes down we don’t just lose one member of the community, we lose several. After it leaves the news, we never talk about it again. It’s not something we want to remember over and over again.
Everything that happened after that second hour class is vivid in my memory. I remember third hour Spanish and calling my mom and telling her that I wanted to go home. I remember Eastview High School going on lock down. I remember a girl named Maggie hysterically telling people that her mom was being forced to evacuate the IDS tower in downtown Minneapolis because “it was next.” I remember a fellow pilot’s daughter huddling next to her locker and telling me that her father was flying that day. I remember there being so much we didn’t know. I remember going home.
I wrote a poem for a scholarship about it. It was really good. It was too good. I never submitted it. I think I wanted to keep it especially for me. Every person had something about that day that they kept to themselves. I think everyone had to keep at least one thing to themselves because there were so many things we shared. American flags lined the streets of suburbia and every car had a “united we stand” bumper sticker. There were candlelight vigils and tributes to the heroic firefighters and police force members. There were bulletin boards covered in pictures of missing people and pictures on the news of their families crying as they pleaded for information about their loved one.
I remember Mr. Bayer turning on the television and turning off the lights in the classroom. I remember that in the split second it took for the video tape to register in the VCR we caught a glimpse of two buildings on fire. I remember thinking it was just a made for TV movie. Then, I remember seeing the CNN logo in the bottom corner. I remember the class shouting in unison, the same two words “GO BACK!!” I remember Mr. Bayer sinking into his chair as we watched unbelieving what was unfolding on the TV in front of us. I remember seeing the buildings fall. I remember the principal talking over the loudspeaker saying that school would remain in session, although teachers would be free to abandon their lessons and just watch the news all day. I remember the airline kids shooting terrified glances at each other. I remember thinking where is my dad? Is he flying? I remember calling my mom and finding out that he was safe at home. I remember waiting anxiously for the newscasters to tell us what airlines had been involved.
There were tributes to the pilots and flight attendants that died that day. But not until later. They seemed to us to be the forgotten victims. Then, we received stickers in the mail from the Airline Pilot Association. They said “we will not forget.” They are right. We won’t forget. I read in the newspaper about the husband of one of the flight attendants and how he rode his bike across the country to commemorate the life of his wife and the lives of her co-workers. There was a memorial put up to venerate the crew of United flight 93.
And me? I joined the ranks of those who would go on to be called the 9/11 generation. We now know what it’s like to be someone who remembers Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination. We know what it is to have a single moment in history burned into our eyes and ears, and for some of us, our noses as well. We know what it is to suddenly worry about our safety when we’ve never had to before. And, like two generations before us we know what it is like to feel overwhelmed with uncertainty about the future. We all know that someday, our children will ask us about that Tuesday morning, and we will help them write their history papers and projects about it. We will show them newspapers and video tapes of CNN and NBC broadcasts. They will ask us how it feels to remember such a pivotal event in our nation’s history. We will respond that we are not the first to experience it, and we will not be the last. Because, after all, history has a way of repeating itself.
It’s interesting how some things are burned into our minds. There are moments when time slows down and you have all the time in the world to log each detail away so that you can remember it all your life. Those who remember Pearl Harbor know what I’m talking about. Those who remember President Kennedy’s assassination know what I’m talking about. During those moments you rarely know that your mind is actually locking those things into your memory. Usually the moment happens and you remember it forever without even realizing why.
I remember that my second hour class was AP Literature and Composition. I remember that my teacher’s name was Mr. Bayer and that he had a really casual teaching style that made his English class the most enjoyable English class I had ever taken in high school. I remember that the girl who sat next to me was named Katie, and that she was in color guard for the marching band. I remember that her boyfriend’s name was Cody because she talked about him all the time. I remember that I sat in the second row on the left hand side of the classroom as you look at it from the back. I remember that we were supposed to watch “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.”
My dad is an airline pilot. That has always made my life a little different. He was gone a lot when I was younger. People always looked at me with the same look that you would give a kid whose dad is in the military.
“Oh, that must have been hard for you.” People would say to me as I got older. The truth is that I never really thought about it. My dad was a pilot before I was born. I have never known anything different. Northwest Airlines, whom my father flies for, has their world headquarters in Eagan Minnesota which is, not coincidentally, where I grew up. That whole area is chuck full of airline families. All my friends in high school with the exception of two were from airline families. When I went off to college people would say things like “Oh wow, your dad’s a pilot?! That’s so cool! So do you, like get to fly for free?” Nobody said things like that in high school. They were all in the same boat as me. There was a mutual understanding among us. We talked smack about Northwest management when the pilots went on strike in 1998, and every time the mechanics went on strike we griped about how the CEO really didn’t know anything about his company. We talked about a lot of things having to do with the airline industry, but we never, ever talked about plane crashes. There is a solidarity among airline families. The same kind of solidarity you find among military families, and NASA families. The thing that airline families have in common with military families and NASA families is that we all know that at any moment, tragedy can strike. It never matters how safe flying is supposed to be, or how few accidents they’ve actually had in the space program, or whether your spouse was supposed to be a non combatant, there is always the knowledge in the back of your head that there is a possibility that when your family member leaves for work, he or she may not come home. You never talk about that possibility. You never think about that possibility. When I was in tenth grade I really, really liked this boy. I was convinced that I was going to marry him someday, as soon as he realized he loved me back. There was nothing that boy could do to make me stop liking him. At least, so I thought. When we were discussing flight plans for our summer missions trip with church, I asked what airline we would be flying. He cracked a joke about flying on Egypt Air. Earlier that month an Egypt Air flight had crashed shortly after take off. It was determined that it was pilot suicide. I hated that boy. I hated him with everything I had for that moment. (And for a while afterwards, until he finally apologized to me.) When TWA flight 800 blew up over the Atlantic, we were glued to the television. The reason is simple, we are a community, and we feel it when we lose a member of that community. The thing about the airline community is that when a plane goes down we don’t just lose one member of the community, we lose several. After it leaves the news, we never talk about it again. It’s not something we want to remember over and over again.
Everything that happened after that second hour class is vivid in my memory. I remember third hour Spanish and calling my mom and telling her that I wanted to go home. I remember Eastview High School going on lock down. I remember a girl named Maggie hysterically telling people that her mom was being forced to evacuate the IDS tower in downtown Minneapolis because “it was next.” I remember a fellow pilot’s daughter huddling next to her locker and telling me that her father was flying that day. I remember there being so much we didn’t know. I remember going home.
I wrote a poem for a scholarship about it. It was really good. It was too good. I never submitted it. I think I wanted to keep it especially for me. Every person had something about that day that they kept to themselves. I think everyone had to keep at least one thing to themselves because there were so many things we shared. American flags lined the streets of suburbia and every car had a “united we stand” bumper sticker. There were candlelight vigils and tributes to the heroic firefighters and police force members. There were bulletin boards covered in pictures of missing people and pictures on the news of their families crying as they pleaded for information about their loved one.
I remember Mr. Bayer turning on the television and turning off the lights in the classroom. I remember that in the split second it took for the video tape to register in the VCR we caught a glimpse of two buildings on fire. I remember thinking it was just a made for TV movie. Then, I remember seeing the CNN logo in the bottom corner. I remember the class shouting in unison, the same two words “GO BACK!!” I remember Mr. Bayer sinking into his chair as we watched unbelieving what was unfolding on the TV in front of us. I remember seeing the buildings fall. I remember the principal talking over the loudspeaker saying that school would remain in session, although teachers would be free to abandon their lessons and just watch the news all day. I remember the airline kids shooting terrified glances at each other. I remember thinking where is my dad? Is he flying? I remember calling my mom and finding out that he was safe at home. I remember waiting anxiously for the newscasters to tell us what airlines had been involved.
There were tributes to the pilots and flight attendants that died that day. But not until later. They seemed to us to be the forgotten victims. Then, we received stickers in the mail from the Airline Pilot Association. They said “we will not forget.” They are right. We won’t forget. I read in the newspaper about the husband of one of the flight attendants and how he rode his bike across the country to commemorate the life of his wife and the lives of her co-workers. There was a memorial put up to venerate the crew of United flight 93.
And me? I joined the ranks of those who would go on to be called the 9/11 generation. We now know what it’s like to be someone who remembers Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination. We know what it is to have a single moment in history burned into our eyes and ears, and for some of us, our noses as well. We know what it is to suddenly worry about our safety when we’ve never had to before. And, like two generations before us we know what it is like to feel overwhelmed with uncertainty about the future. We all know that someday, our children will ask us about that Tuesday morning, and we will help them write their history papers and projects about it. We will show them newspapers and video tapes of CNN and NBC broadcasts. They will ask us how it feels to remember such a pivotal event in our nation’s history. We will respond that we are not the first to experience it, and we will not be the last. Because, after all, history has a way of repeating itself.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Vacation!!!!
Three weeks ago Nathan and I dropped Derek off with my parents for "Camp Grandparents" and ran away to Hawaii for a week! It was fantastic to reconnect with each other, and to not have to be parents for a week. We spent a lot of time at the beach, went to Pearl Harbor, climbed up Diamond Head, and visited the Dole Plantation! The best part about being there (besides it being a tropical island of course) was the hustle and bustle of Waikiki. Nathan would not agree with me on that, but I LOVE places like that. There were interesting people to watch, high end retail stores to look at (only pretending to be actually serious about buying that $500 belt), and plenty of restaurants to eat at! Every night everyone gets dressed up to go out to dinner. The nights are warm and dark, but Waikiki is brightly lit. There’s a soft glow of torchlight amongst the brightness of the lights in the stores. Every restaurant has live music and a gorgeous patio to sit on. Everything is open air. The malls, hotel lobbies and even the airport have a gorgeous tropical breeze blowing through them. There are palm trees everywhere and the Pacific Ocean is a beautiful opal blue. Everything about Hawaii is perfect.
The day we got there we FINALLY landed (after a grueling 8 hour flight) and we had thought we would be able to do so much stuff that day! We landed at 3:30pm Hawaii time which is 8:30pm our body time. Then we waited forever for our luggage, and waited for a shuttle bus. Then spent an hour and a half on the shuttle bus. We checked into our hotel and finally got to our room and discovered we were exhausted. We were undeterred. We were determined to stay up until 9pm Hawaii time so that we could get acclimated. We took showers and got dressed up a little to go out for dinner. By the time dinner came I was so tired that I was sick to my stomach. The food looked fantastic, but I just couldn’t eat it. I couldn’t even muster the energy to pick up a fork! I made it until 8:30 that night before I crashed. Then we were up at 4:30 in the morning (which was of course 9:30am central time). Since we were up so early we decided to go to Pearl Harbor that day. So we got dressed ate breakfast and hopped a city bus. I love Pearl Harbor. There’s so much history there. It’s like discovering that this place really exists and these things really happened. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been there (3 now) the feeling is the same each time. (Ok, the last two times because the first time all I remember is getting my picture taken in front of the Arizona’s anchor. I was 4 years old.) The Arizona Memorial is such a powerful place. Knowing you are standing in the very spot, over the very ship where over 1700 men died is a very sobering thing. Seeing their names on a wall is even more sobering. This visit I took the time to really read each of the names. Two stand out to me. W.H. Hurd (Hurd is my mother’s maiden name) and A.F. Power (Power is my maiden name). It’s crazy to see your own last name up on that wall, even if the person had no close relation to you, somewhere down the line they are your kin. It’s a bit freakish to see that. There was even a Metcalf on the survivors list. I guess he got lucky. We also made our way over to see the battleship Missouri. That was pretty cool! We spent our second day on the beach. The whole day. It was great! Our third day we hiked up Diamond Head and went out to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We did the big pineapple maze and saw some of the pineapple plants. We shopped a lot there. They have everything pineapple you can imagine! Of course we had some straight from the source Dole Whip (pineapple ice cream). I was sooooooooooo good! As a matter of fact, I can’t wait to have more when we go back to Minnesota next week for the State Fair! We spent all day the next day shopping, and then hit the beach, and out last day we literally rented a cabana and sat on the beach from breakfast until dinner! I have seriously never relaxed so much on a vacation! It was great!!!!!
Since we got back I’ve been going stir crazy. Life has just been too slow in our little town. I’m really not used to the slow paced life of small town America yet. Coming from a relatively large metropolitan area and moving here was a bit of a culture shock. Not welcome culture shock. Going on vacation reminded me of how much I liked my old hustle and bustle life, and coming back to the slow life has been difficult. I miss being able to run out and do things. I used to think, gee I really need to run over to Old Navy. I’ll go, it’ll only take 20 minutes. Now it’s a whole day trip to go because I’m not going to drive an hour to Old Navy for a 20 minute errand, so I have to be planning to do multiple things while I’m “in the city”. I know that eventually I will get used to the pace of life here, but I also battle with not wanting to slow down. I like a fast paced daily life. Fortunately, I have an 18 month old, so life won’t slow down for a while!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
So, tonight I'm going to do something I have never done on my blog. I'm going to complain for a minute. I'm going to complain because it will make me feel better. There is a purpose, it's not just complaining for the sake of complaining. Once I get this off my mind I will feel better and be able to go on with life.
Ok, here goes...
I was rear ended yesterday. And, frankly, I'm mad about it. Here's what I'm mad about, it should have never happened! I was doing everything right. I was at an intersection where the light was green. I was turning left so I was stopped, yielding to oncoming traffic. I had my blinker on. The pick up truck behind me just simply didn't see me, or so he said. Chances are he was texting or messing with his phone or the radio or reading something. Something distracted him because he had been behind me at the previous stoplight. He knew I was there, but he didn't see me slow down and stop to turn left?? Anyway, The car is crunched, and the appraiser hasn't been out to look at it yet, so we are in limbo with the car, and Derek's $300 Britax Advocate car seat is junk now because any time you get in an accident you have to toss the car seat. So today we trekked down to Wichita to buy a new car seat. (we borrowed one from a friend for the trip down there.) Only to find, of course, that we would be unable to purchase the same car seat as a replacement. Apparently the Advocates are only sold online, well we don't have time to wait around for them to ship one to us because we need it in 3 days to drive to the airport. We couldn't keep the one we borrowed for 2 weeks, so we were stuck. So, we bought a Boulevard instead. I'm mad about that too. Here's the deal, I did a lot of research on car seats before I bought the Advocate. The reason I chose the Advocate over the Boulevard is because of the side impact cushions. The Advocate has them, the Boulevard doesn't. I'm mad because I feel like now my son isn't as safe as he was in the other car seat. And, while this may seem petty, I'm mad that they didn't even have a good fabric pattern in the Boulevard. They had this color that they said was "tan" but it looked like newborn baby poop. And then they had this kinda navy blue colored one with beige designs on it, and trust me it's not as nice as it sounds. It's kinda strange looking actually. But, this one was definitely the lesser of the two evils. So, now we have an ugly car seat that doesn't have the same safety features as our last one all because some moron was too busy with something else to concentrate on driving. Lastly, I'm mad at him. He was nice at the scene (he better have been) he took the tongue lashing I gave him pretty well. The police gave him a couple tickets, which was nice. But I'm still mad. I have a crunched car and an ugly car seat and a ruined weekend, and he wasn't even in his own car. It was a company car! Grrrrr.
Ok, thanks for putting up with that. I'm done complaining now.
Ok, here goes...
I was rear ended yesterday. And, frankly, I'm mad about it. Here's what I'm mad about, it should have never happened! I was doing everything right. I was at an intersection where the light was green. I was turning left so I was stopped, yielding to oncoming traffic. I had my blinker on. The pick up truck behind me just simply didn't see me, or so he said. Chances are he was texting or messing with his phone or the radio or reading something. Something distracted him because he had been behind me at the previous stoplight. He knew I was there, but he didn't see me slow down and stop to turn left?? Anyway, The car is crunched, and the appraiser hasn't been out to look at it yet, so we are in limbo with the car, and Derek's $300 Britax Advocate car seat is junk now because any time you get in an accident you have to toss the car seat. So today we trekked down to Wichita to buy a new car seat. (we borrowed one from a friend for the trip down there.) Only to find, of course, that we would be unable to purchase the same car seat as a replacement. Apparently the Advocates are only sold online, well we don't have time to wait around for them to ship one to us because we need it in 3 days to drive to the airport. We couldn't keep the one we borrowed for 2 weeks, so we were stuck. So, we bought a Boulevard instead. I'm mad about that too. Here's the deal, I did a lot of research on car seats before I bought the Advocate. The reason I chose the Advocate over the Boulevard is because of the side impact cushions. The Advocate has them, the Boulevard doesn't. I'm mad because I feel like now my son isn't as safe as he was in the other car seat. And, while this may seem petty, I'm mad that they didn't even have a good fabric pattern in the Boulevard. They had this color that they said was "tan" but it looked like newborn baby poop. And then they had this kinda navy blue colored one with beige designs on it, and trust me it's not as nice as it sounds. It's kinda strange looking actually. But, this one was definitely the lesser of the two evils. So, now we have an ugly car seat that doesn't have the same safety features as our last one all because some moron was too busy with something else to concentrate on driving. Lastly, I'm mad at him. He was nice at the scene (he better have been) he took the tongue lashing I gave him pretty well. The police gave him a couple tickets, which was nice. But I'm still mad. I have a crunched car and an ugly car seat and a ruined weekend, and he wasn't even in his own car. It was a company car! Grrrrr.
Ok, thanks for putting up with that. I'm done complaining now.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
This Past Week
We've had a doozy of a week! Nathan left last Monday for a trip to Colorado with the youth group. I thought that the week he was gone would be a breeze. I had a full day of work on Monday (which I hadn't had in over a year!) and it made the day go by quickly. Then Tuesday I had planned to take Derek to the pool, we have a standing play date on Mondays that we were going to move to a different day, I was planning to take Derek to the children's museum and we were going to have a really fun week. All my plans were shot to heck on Tuesday morning when Derek woke up with a fever. I figured no problem, so we would spend the day (which was rainy anyway) inside letting Derek rest. He sometimes gets low grade fevers when teething and they're always gone the next day. It wasn't gone on Wednesday. So we spent another day inside (gorgeous day this time). His fever was still sticking around on Thursday so we were inside again. I made a doctor's appointment for Friday since by now I knew it wasn't just teething. Nathan finally got home Thursday night, but he was exhausted. I took Derek to the doctor on Friday morning and discovered he had a "virus". Nothing specific, just a virus. So, he slept all day on Friday. Yesterday he finally felt better, but we took him to the all church picnic and today he is absolutely exhausted. He has been taking only one nap a day since he was 12 months old, and today he is on his second nap!! Continued prayers for his recovery would be appreciated!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Scripture Memory for Babies??
Nathan and I were discussing the other day an idea that has been on my mind for a while. I started thinking about it months ago when I ran across a friend of mine's child, about 3 years old, who could sing every single word to a popular secular song that was on the radio. My friend (who is a Christian) was very proud of her child. There was a video that went viral not long ago of a toddler boy singing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" (you know the one where he melts down when his father tells him "you're not a single lady buddy"). And these experiences got me thinking. If our two and three year olds can sing the words to the secular songs we hear on the radio in the car (I'll talk about my opinion on that in a minute) why do we think they are too young to start memorizing Scripture?
Here's the deal. If you want your young child(ren) to learn Scripture from a young age, the key is music!! So, turn off the GARBAGE that is on secular radio (trust me on this guys. There is nothing good on it anyway. Any of you heard Usher's "OMG"? Case and Point.) just turn it off. Why are we pumping our kids' heads full of this crap? Why are they learning the lyrics to "Single Ladies"? Good grief people! Have you ever listened to the lyrics of these songs yourself? I'll tell you what, there is no way my son is gonna hear this stuff at his age or any other age that I control what is listened to in the car. Yuck. Instead, find some Scripture memory program that puts Scripture to music. I grew up listening to G.T. and the Halo Express. It's a series of 7 CD's (now a days. Back then they were cassette tapes!) that have a story and verses set to music to go with the story. I hadn't listened to G.T in years (up until Christmas of last year) and I could still sing you the verses I learned listening to it. I want that for my son. I want my son to learn Scripture and hide it in his heart. I want my son to get to be an adult and still know all the Scripture he learned as a little child. I want to be the kind of parent that points him toward God this way. So it's settled. Who's with me on this? Let's abandon the music of the world and trade it for Christ Centered music. Let's pump our children full of Scripture so that they can grow up wielding the Word of God which is sharper than a double edged sword. And while we're at it, let's learn some Scripture ourselves.
Here are a couple resources if you are interested in helping your children memorize Scripture:
G.T. and the Halo Express- www.gthalo.com
Children Desiring God, Fighter Verse Program- www.childrendesiringgod.org/resources/resource.php?id=2
Here's the deal. If you want your young child(ren) to learn Scripture from a young age, the key is music!! So, turn off the GARBAGE that is on secular radio (trust me on this guys. There is nothing good on it anyway. Any of you heard Usher's "OMG"? Case and Point.) just turn it off. Why are we pumping our kids' heads full of this crap? Why are they learning the lyrics to "Single Ladies"? Good grief people! Have you ever listened to the lyrics of these songs yourself? I'll tell you what, there is no way my son is gonna hear this stuff at his age or any other age that I control what is listened to in the car. Yuck. Instead, find some Scripture memory program that puts Scripture to music. I grew up listening to G.T. and the Halo Express. It's a series of 7 CD's (now a days. Back then they were cassette tapes!) that have a story and verses set to music to go with the story. I hadn't listened to G.T in years (up until Christmas of last year) and I could still sing you the verses I learned listening to it. I want that for my son. I want my son to learn Scripture and hide it in his heart. I want my son to get to be an adult and still know all the Scripture he learned as a little child. I want to be the kind of parent that points him toward God this way. So it's settled. Who's with me on this? Let's abandon the music of the world and trade it for Christ Centered music. Let's pump our children full of Scripture so that they can grow up wielding the Word of God which is sharper than a double edged sword. And while we're at it, let's learn some Scripture ourselves.
Here are a couple resources if you are interested in helping your children memorize Scripture:
G.T. and the Halo Express- www.gthalo.com
Children Desiring God, Fighter Verse Program- www.childrendesiringgod.org/resources/resource.php?id=2
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
A Bunch of Thoughts
I need to blog, but I don't have any one particular topic rolling around in my head, so I guess I'll just write down all the little snippets.
-I bought Derek a leash today. We are headed to an amusement park on Monday with the youth group, and after Derek threw fits about sitting in the stroller in the mall I figured he's not going to be any more inclined to sit in a stroller at an amusement park. Today I read on Facebook that leashes are "for lazy parents who don't exercise and can't keep up with their children." I walk 5 miles every single day. Believe me, I can keep up with my child. What I don't like are shrill screaming fits because he doesn't want to sit in the stroller, or him dropping to his knees every foot and a half because he's ticked that he has to hold my hand. Besides, when he holds my hand he has to hold his arm way up to reach me, and would you want to walk around with your arm in the air all day? I think not. So, I bought a leash. I think it makes me a responsible mother who wants to start teaching her son about freedom with limits. If you think it makes me lazy then I will gladly accept your criticism and say sweetly to my son right in front of you, "Awwwww Derek, look at the judgy lady(/man). Isn't she cute when she's being condescending? I can be adorable when I'm being condescending too!" Ok, I won't really say that, but I'll think it!
-We are going to Hawaii soon. I am so excited!!! I have a lot to do to get ready to go. Yikes!
-I read an article today from a natural parenting source (that I do respect mostly actually) about glucose testing. It said that glucose testing is ridiculous and that Gestational Diabetes is a crock of crap. Tell that to my two close friends who have had GD. Tell that to the one of them for whom it didn't go away after pregnancy. Tell her that GD is a load of nonsense. Sometimes I have to shake my head and move on to the next topic on that site.
-I love the Liberty Mutual Insurance commercials that show strangers doing random acts of kindness for each other. There should be more of that in the world, especially from Christians.
Ok, I'm out of thoughts for the night, but at least I put something on the page right? :)
-I bought Derek a leash today. We are headed to an amusement park on Monday with the youth group, and after Derek threw fits about sitting in the stroller in the mall I figured he's not going to be any more inclined to sit in a stroller at an amusement park. Today I read on Facebook that leashes are "for lazy parents who don't exercise and can't keep up with their children." I walk 5 miles every single day. Believe me, I can keep up with my child. What I don't like are shrill screaming fits because he doesn't want to sit in the stroller, or him dropping to his knees every foot and a half because he's ticked that he has to hold my hand. Besides, when he holds my hand he has to hold his arm way up to reach me, and would you want to walk around with your arm in the air all day? I think not. So, I bought a leash. I think it makes me a responsible mother who wants to start teaching her son about freedom with limits. If you think it makes me lazy then I will gladly accept your criticism and say sweetly to my son right in front of you, "Awwwww Derek, look at the judgy lady(/man). Isn't she cute when she's being condescending? I can be adorable when I'm being condescending too!" Ok, I won't really say that, but I'll think it!
-We are going to Hawaii soon. I am so excited!!! I have a lot to do to get ready to go. Yikes!
-I read an article today from a natural parenting source (that I do respect mostly actually) about glucose testing. It said that glucose testing is ridiculous and that Gestational Diabetes is a crock of crap. Tell that to my two close friends who have had GD. Tell that to the one of them for whom it didn't go away after pregnancy. Tell her that GD is a load of nonsense. Sometimes I have to shake my head and move on to the next topic on that site.
-I love the Liberty Mutual Insurance commercials that show strangers doing random acts of kindness for each other. There should be more of that in the world, especially from Christians.
Ok, I'm out of thoughts for the night, but at least I put something on the page right? :)
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