On Wednesday, February 4, our church had a guest speaker, the author Dr. Mary Manz Simon. Dr. Simon wrote a book that I purchased when Joey was a baby. This book is well used and well loved in our home. Some of the pages have had to be taped back in. The book is called "Little Visits for Toddlers" and it is short devotions to do with toddlers. What I really like about this book is that most of the devotions require some kind of action (jumping, twirling, etc) while you are reading it, and it keeps my kids interested.
Mike and I were laughing because this is the ONLY children's book we own that the kids fight over! We let each of them pick a devotion before bed and sometimes arguing and crying ensues over who gets to pick first.
Dr. Simon gave a talk on "Parenting in Pop Culture" and it was very interesting. One of the comments she made was this: Children read emotions even before they read books. She talked about how children are growing up faster in today's society. Even though a preschooler can operate a computer, does that mean that same child will not throw a tantrum? Sometimes, we, as parents, forget that children still go through developmental stages. Dr. Simon stated: Children are not in a race to the finish line. We cannot rush God's timeline for child development.
If you would like to know more about Dr. Simon, her website is http://www.marymanzsimon.com/ and she has a blog http://marymanzsimon.wordpress.com/ . She also has a radio show called Front Porch Parenting.
After the lecture, I had Mike run to childcare and get Joey so that he could meet Dr. Simon who wrote the book that he calls "Toddler Stories". We had brought our copy so that she could autograph it. Below is a picture of Joey and Dr. Simon.
At the end of January, our church started a new service called "Family Live". We went to the pilot service and it was awesome! Think VBS type worship service. The music was all kid oriented and there were about 10-15 preteens and teens on stage dancing. There were also skits and a message by one of our pastors. This service has really stuck in my head and I am looking forward to the next one at the end of February. This service was on gratitude and Pastor Ryan talked about keeping a gratitude journal. We have implemented this at our house and at dinner time, we write down one thing we are thankful for that day. Joey understands the concepts and is thankful for friends, Jesus, God, etc. Dani doesn't always have something to contribute, but her submissions have been those of an almost 2 yr old: her baby, her pacifier... I hope this is a tradition that we can keep up for many years. I think it will be fun to look back later and see what we were thankful for when the kids were small.
The only other thing that has happened recently is Joey woke up Tuesday around midnight vomiting. He was out of commission all day Wednesday. He couldn't believe that he had gotten the flu again. The poor kid is on about his third round since fall. Today, we skipped MOPS because I wasn't sure how healthy he would be. He woke up and was wanting to get out. So it was nice enough we spent some time at the park and grocery shopping. I am keeping fingers crossed that it passes by the rest of us.
I want to leave you with a quote, out of the mouth of babes:
We are sitting at the table getting ready to eat dinner and Danielle farts. Joey says to her, "Did you backfire?"
I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. The things kids come up with!
Until next time, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we are doing the same for you.
