Boy Imagination

 Mom, I have a boat!  And when I use my imagination it's a real boat!

My heart stopped.  Stopped because he's so stinkin' beautiful, with his brilliant boy imagination, splashing around our pool at 9:56 in the morning!  My heart stopped as I watched his boy body strain under the pressure of paddling.  Then up came his "spear" and he slayed the eels that swarmed 'round his boat.  His face contorted and I knew it was all real.

My heart stopped, because I had committed to not give in when they begged for a TV show after breakfast.  I didn't crumble when they cried for my intercession.   I didn't rob them of their own brilliance by saying Yes to a trip to Target - even though they wanted to spend their own money.

Boredom Breeds Brilliance.

I remember the forts of my youth, and the friends who met me deep within their leafy rooms.  Some friends were real, others imaginary.  And I'd ride my pink bike with the white basket to Kerry's house three blocks away.  I don't have one memory with her inside one of our homes until we were 12 and started watching her mother's soap operas.  Life was lived outside in our youth, with change in our pockets in case we came across the jingling song of an ice-cream truck.

Then there was the  "dump" down the street, where our local school discarded old desks, pieces of machinery, and the deflated red rubber balls I played handball with over the course of the previous school year.   Michael and I would squeeze through the chain linked fence and gather what we could for our summertime inventions.  We'd throw cardboard boxes over the fence before squeezing back through and carrying our loot home to his house or mine.

It was a successful day, a memorable day, the day we made our first "Crap-Mobile."  Using blue painting tape and silver duct tape, yellow masking tape and clear scotch tape, we strapped boxes to our skateboards, decorated them with markers, and pushed one another down the middle of the street.

But the day I count even more a success, even more memorable, was the day my boys pushed through the discomfort of their boredom and constructed their own cardboard fun.

When we let our children work through

the discomfort of not being entertained,

they have a shot at brilliance.

When we let them explore

an ordinary card board box,

they begin thinking outside of the box -

And the ordinary becomes extraordinary!

Sally Clarkson talks about our children's need to be bored time and time again on her blog and at her annual MomHeart Conference.

She Writes:

Children need to be outdoors. They need time to be bored so that they will have to figure out how to occupy their time creatively...  They need to be around books and have lots and lots of imaginative stories read to them and then have time to pretend the stories.

Here w are on the other side of childhood, trying to orchestrate our children's turn at this magical season. But they don't need us to fill their time with activities and entertainment, what they need is a safe place to build a fort, dream dreams, and become brilliant one long summer day at a time.  They do not need us to act the director of their play, simply build them a stage, shout action and offer our applause as the street lamps turn on and the fireflies come out.

Our generation lived outside in our youth, but now we fill our own kids' summers with one camp after another, short breaks for vacations, then back again to camp.  We've  taken the oxygen out of our children's atmosphere, by planning away each morning, noon and night.  And when a moment is unplanned, on go the TV and video screens.

Boredom Breeds Brilliance.

Our children need quiet spaces where minds must become creative to conjure fun.  Quiet spaces, bored spaces, without the flicker of video screens, or the hurried pace of camp activities.  Long, uncomfortable hours give way to a duel between Peter Pan and Captain Hook.  And when their Dad comes home, they take him on a treasure hunt and dig up the chest they'd hid earlier that day... with a line of ants leading the way to their bubble gum booty.

I dare you to let them be bored this summer.  I double dog dare you!

Slow Down and Say YES to Summer

When I catch myself mid-morning saying, "No", for no good reason, I practice Slow Motion.  I slow it down and listen to what they are asking for.  

Mama, can you sit with me?

Let's play this together.

Mama, can we have another popsicle?

Mama, will you swim with us?

Mama, want to shoot hoops?

Mama, come look at our blanket fort!

Can we eat our cookies in here?

It is summertime, the season of "Yes" in the sunshine of their youth… but the winter of my age casts shadows on their joy. And it's sad, not just because the dark cloud of "No" steals joy, but it darkens the Gospel of Christ's "YES."  So I slow down, and count and breath, and ask myself if I might say YES, one more time, to this too.

 A mother's "No" darkens the Gospel of Christ's "Yes!"

It's easier to Say Yes, if we're willing to slow down and Live Yes.  Yes to life in our home.  Yes to surrendering our attention.  Yes to crumbs inside the blanket fort.  Yes to squeezing into the damp bathing suit you already put on as an offering today.  Yes to homemade lemonade.  Yes to making every meal today into a picnic in your backyard.  Yes to the face paint.

Mama, would you make me The Lone Ranger?

Yes

Mama, Can we paint each other too?

um... er... yes?

It's odd to me that this Yes-Life is hard.  But it is... when we blaze through it with our agenda, and need to keep it clean.  But when we slow it down, to the slow motion rhythms of summertime, there is time to redirect our answers.  As we redirect our Yes-Heart, we direct the hearts in our home toward the Yes-Gospel of Christ.

Caution:  This is not about giving into whining, and this is not about permissive parenting... this is about relationship.  This is about joining our children in their joy;  joining them in the sunshine, chlorinated glory of their youth.

If I had this life to live over again

I'd run barefoot, relax a bit more.

And I'd talk with more children

and I'd learn how they laugh,

and I'd teach them how I've learned to fly.

(I'm Gonna Fly, Amy Grant)

Two night's ago I held my sick child, weary from the tummy bug.  It was 10:30pm and his body was weak from vomitting.  With face flushed and speech slurred he said, "There's one thing I love about being sick, Mama."  "What's that?" I asked as I mopped his brow.  "You sit with me and listen to me.  You stay with me longer than you do when I'm well."

Yes, I do.  And Yes, I don't.  And Yes, I want to slow things down and sit with you today.  Today when you are well and the sun is shining.  Yes, today when the slow motion rhythm of summertime bids us all slow down.  As Ann Voskamp encourages, "Everyday take time."

Everyday take time. Everyday take time to feel the sun and the wind and the rain and feel that you are loved -- and then let your life overflow with that love so that a thousand others feel that love. Everyday take time to live loved -- and live so others feel loved. Everyday take time. Time is there for the taking. For the unwrapping.

There are only so many summers in a life.

Run through water sprinklers and touch someone and learn how to belly laugh -- practice belly laughing every day. This is a way to practice your faith."

(Ann Voskamp, What Our Boys Need In This Economy Their Dads Work In)

Take time to say Yes today.  Yes to love.  Yes to the belly laugh.  Yes to the crumbs.  Yes to the facepaint.  Yes to sprinklers and sunshine.  Yes to life, today.

Enjoy this short video message from me, on the power of saying yes to our kids.

Child Rearing - A Continual Feast

Mother’s of young, I know how wearying it can be, this continual feasting our children do. I recognize those exhausted sighs and the droop of your shoulders when the sink is full… again. You'd be happy to miss a meal, put your feet up with a simple bowl of cereal and read a book.  Instead, your fingers get chapped from the constant scrub, scrubbing of pots under steaming water. We heat it up nearly to boiling in hopes of sanitizing germs away, but we sanitize joy away too. Down the drain. All day long it feels.  

Turning around once,

we find the sink full again.

This continual feasting is exhausting.

But might I suggest we purpose to see these continual disturbances today as invitations to change our perspective. As we open up the refrigerator and stoop to find the sandwich meat, back aching from the repetition, let’s redirect our thinking:

Each meal nourishes healthy children,

Who are growing strong.

They are maturing.

They are learning to say thank you;

You are setting them up for a life of gratitude.

They are sitting together;

And there is the Living Word on the table.

Purpose to serve joyfully, thankfully,

Do not correct all meal long,

Then nitpick as they load the dishwasher.

Do not scowl at their youthfulness,

As I've been known to do,

Then slam the Bible shut when they giggle.

Slamming Bibles, crush hearts,

Closing hearts to the Gospel.

Each meal is a training session,

Yours and theirs.

It is not just Hard Work, this continual feasting. But it is Heart Work.

We didn't comprehend the job set before us when we were growing them, birthing, even nursing, them. Now here they are eating their way through our solitude, always leaving messes and asking for more or different. Yes, they ask for different, whine for different, but even that is an invitation for perspective changing, life giving mothering.

Instead of letting their whining and complaining at the table zap the joy from your servant heart, remember what is true. Our blessed charges have afforded us another opportunity to train, disciple, and lovingly direct them.  It feels continual, perpetual, constant, and unceasing, as their swinging feet kick our shins beneath the table.  But it does end.  The sink won’t always be full and glasses won't always spill, and the quiet of your days will stretch out long before you.

New seasons will come, and memories of table times together will fade into something beautiful.  If we purpose them as things of beauty today.

Their continual feasting, dear Mamas, is your invitation to consider what you are feasting on. Not the nourishment of breakfast, lunch and dinner, but the heart within your breast. Does it feed on cheer, or grumbling? Does it nourish itself with thanksgiving, or bitterness? Does it ingest cheer and joy, or swallow hard each morsel you bring to the table?

A cheerful heart has a continual feast. (Proverbs 15:15)

There is still cleaning up and training to be done. Shoulders still ache and tears still come hot when you are up too late.  Which is why I will turn my computer off now...  To get the rest I need tonight...  That I might have the cheer I need tomorrow... To keep up with this continual feast!

Feast Well.

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