Tag: teaching kids what is important

April Showers Bring May Flowers

April showers bring May flowers. Seems like a perfect time to focus on this thought. I wanted, better yet, needed to change the tone of our home life since being in a shelter-in-place status. The moods of our children and my husband and I have not been the best. (Embarrassed to admit that.)

Last night, after taping a paper petal-less flower that I created to the wall, I called the kids together and had them sit down in front of it.

“You know this is a difficult time for everyone and I haven’t been in the best of moods, lately. But God reminded me today that there we can always find things to be thankful for even in hard times. You may not know this, but you are living in a major historical event.”

“Really?!”

“When I worked in a nursing home, I got to talk to an elderly man who was a child during the 1918 Spanish flu. What we’re going through right now is like it because this virus is happening right now around the world. Do you know what the man remembered about it? How his mom and dad kept him and his siblings safe and alive because they had to stay indoors all of the time.” (I didn’t tell them about how his mom used whiskey as medicine. They don’t need that idea.)

I went on to tell them that even though this older man remembered how bad the flu was, he also remembered the good things that happened while being kept safe in his house.

“I know it’s hard to be in the home all of the time, but we can always find things to be thankful for. April showers bring May flowers and what we’re going through right now is similar to a storm. But, guess what? There are things each day that we can be happy about and hopefully, in May, there will be lots of flowers.”

I then pointed to the giant flower on the wall. “I made a lot of petals out of paper. Each day when you wake up or throughout the day if you think of something you are thankful for, write it down, put your name on it and give it to me to tape up. When this is over, we can look at our flower in full bloom!”

Each kid grabbed a petal and wrote something they’re thankful for today. My husband and I did as well.

April showers bring May flowers. My hope is my kids will learn that even when things seem uncertain, we can always find a reason to be thankful.

“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” – Psalm 9:1

to love what family is {this is what matters}

brothers

Here is a pic of my two cutie-patootie boys.  Oh my, how the time goes by.  Our ten-year-old is insanely protective and in love with his little brother.  In turn, our four-year-old just adores his big Bubby.  This right here is what adoption is all about.

They both came to us with similar characteristics in their stories, but completely different set of circumstances.  Both have those chocolate eyes that melt your heart, a strong will, a little disenchantment (at times) regarding their sister and curiosity about the world surrounding them.

I could not imagine life without them, and I don’t think they would want to imagine life without each other.  Before we decided to take in our little guy, our children asked a ton of questions.  “Why does he need to come stay here?”  “Will he be able to stay forever?” Questions like these are super normal for children whose parents decide to bring in other children.  We answered with age-appropriate honesty, and our kids completely accepted our little guy as he was – as his situation was.  They just wanted to love on him.

These boys are six years apart in age and are not related biologically, but let me tell you, there’s a whole lot of love and life when it comes to adoption.  There are so many things that we parents can determine our success by, but my hope is that I’m measured by what our children view family and love to be.  You don’t have to look the same, share genetics, or be there from the very beginning to know what family is; to love what family is.

Friends, this is what matters.