Things to Keep when Your Children are Young

The other night I started pulling out some old notes and cards from when the children where young.

The cards were very encouraging to see what the children (and my wife and parents) had written to me on various birthdays and father's days.

I also found notes where I wrote down some of the things my children said when they were young. One of them I found was that one of the children told their sibling "Santa can't make every kind of toy because some might have patents." Another one wrote "Think about the Guinea Pig, and not just how pretty they look in the store."

I hope to sort these for our children and read them to my grandchildren some day. They'll be worth a laugh!

Garden Back Rub

I'm posting this for all the parents (and maybe grandparents) out there.

I was reminded the other day of the "Garden Back rub" we found in a magazine years ago and gave to our children many times at bedtime.

The idea is to give your children a back rub with various different types of motions based on a bit of a story of how a garden is planted. It also teaches them how a garden grows.

We told our story and gave a Garden Back Rub with each of the following parts:

1. First, ask what the person wants you to plant - this is a good way to find out what they like. Flowers? What type? Vegetables? Fruits?
   
2. Turn over the soil - this was a sort of rotating motion
3. Use the rake and/or hoe to smooth it down - use the fingers spread (like a back scratch) for a rake or the edge of the hand like a hoe.
   
4. Make rows - draw straight lines down the back with a finger
   
5. plant the seeds - use your pointer finger to poke, poke, poke those seeds
   
6. Cover over the seeds - pat it down with the palm
   
7. Water it and let the rains come - gentle taps of the fingers all random, almost like randomly typing keys on a keyboard
   
8. Wait for God to make it grow - sometimes you can let this linger until the person getting the back rub tells you it's been long enough.
   
9. Pull the weeds - gentle grabbing motion
   
10. Pick the garden - gentle pinching motion - you could also ask here what we planted: are they flowers? Vegetables? A little variety?
11. Eat the vegetables and fruits - take an imaginary fruit or vegetable and put it in their mouth. Ask/tell them what you're giving them. This is the part when I had some fun: after they got used to me giving them the fruit, I'd not say anything and "give them something to eat" then I'd say "that was dirt" or "that was a rock" or "I forgot to peel that one" - It added a bit of laughter and joking.
    

The Garden Back Rub is also a good lead-in to a story about some of the parables Jesus told of the seeds and the sower from Matthew 13 or Mark 4.

Enjoy!

For all you fathers out there who have daughters

A good friend of mine sent this video of Michael W. Smith singing a great song.
He sent it because we're preparing for our second daughter's wedding next year.

For all you fathers out there who have daughters, my advice to you is to watch this. Then, go spend the next few years with your wife and children as much as you can.

Your children need to see you setting an example of you spending time with your wife, it's a role model for them.

And, you need to spend time with your children: Quantity time is even more important that Quality time. They grow up so fast! Believe me, I know!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk5K-eTTkfM&feature=related

Note: my advice to those of you with a Daughter who is about to be married is to watch the movie "Father of the Bride" with Steve Martin.

Parenting Tip... waiting up for the children to come home

Last night I was reminded of a tip we learned a few years back when we had more of our children in the teen years. I thought I'd share it for those of you with teens.

We'd set a time when they had to be home by (depending on their age and the amount of trust they earned). Let's just say 11:30pm for this story. Well, we'd be tired and didn't want to wait until then. We wanted a bit of shut-eye.

So, we'd just turn the light on in their room and then we'd fall asleep. Sometimes we'd set the alarm for 11:30pm, but after a while you tend to get used to waking up and checking anyway. When they came home, they'd get ready for bed and turn the light out. When we woke up at 11:30pm, we'd check their light. If it was off, we were assured they were home. If it was still on, it was time to get the phone out and start making calls.

Two other points:

• Set the alarm for 11:15pm, then you can get some shut-eye and be awake when they come home. Many times they like to talk when they get home, so this is a good opportunity for a parent to get to be a part of their lives.
  
• Cell phones are ubiquitous now (more so than when our children were that age) so it makes it easy to contact them. But, what if their cell runs out of battery? What if they're in a cell phone dead-zone? Or what if it's too loud where they are and they don't hear you calling? The point is: make sure you have the numbers of some of their friends and even their friends parents, so you'll always have a fall-back plan if you can't get in touch with them.

Hope it helps!