preparation is key

I love how prepared Andrea is for church on Sundays. Can't get easier than that! 

taking a "sick day"

When I was young, I was sick a lot. My dad worked an hour away, and my mom half an hour. I spent a lot of time laying sick in the nurses office at school waiting for my mom to come pick me up.

Every single time she came to get me, I felt terrible that I made her miss work. But I needed my mommy to make me feel better.

Today my poor girl spiked a fever on her field trip to the Nature Center so as she snoozes it off (hopefully) I moved my office to be by her side. Wrigley is sleeping at her feet, and Kirby is at mine.

Being able to work anywhere and completely shut down is an amazing freedom I have because of my coaching job. I don't have to choose between work and her, but if I need to- it's no contest. Being a mom is my #1 priority and always will be. My boss understands that, because I AM my own boss.

The 30 Imperatives of Parenting from Parenting on Purpose

For October I'll be sharing something from my new favorite podcast: Parenting Today, on my Facebook page They did a 30-part series on the Imperatives of Parenting and I really enjoyed it and wanted to share it with you.

This podcast is 15 minutes a day and has opened my eyes into being more intentional as a parent. You can find more info about it online at Parenting On Purpose or Sheridan House Family Ministries.

The first "Imperative of Parenting" is the motivational why:

The first thing that we need to do as we look at the 30 things that we must train our children in before they go out the door, is check our motivations as parents. Where do our priorities truly lie? If our priority is our job or solely providing for our family, then we will spend all of our time, energy and ultimately ourselves on that. When we get home our spouse and children will get the “leftovers”. We need to make the choice, daily sometimes, what our priority is. Our priorities need to be first and foremost our relationship with God, next our marriage, and thirdly our children. Of course we need to provide for our family but that cannot ensnare all of our time and energies.

As you drive home or get up in the morning, pray and make the choice of what your priority is. That way you go into your time with your family intentionally. There is no way to train your children in these thirty areas if we are not intentional and treat training as a priority. Choose, through your relationship with God, to make your relationship with your spouse and children your first priority!

If you'd like to follow along all month long, please head to my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/boeknowscleanliving 

Grow It, Try It, Like It!

My husband went to a health and nutrition education conference a while back and came home with a form from Team Nutrition USDA with all sorts of educational nutrition resources from grades preschool on up through middle school.

Today I got a box of the "Grow it, Try it, Like it!" preschool curriculum in the mail that he ordered for me. It's awesome and my inner teaching nerd is drooling over these things as Addie sleeps nearby. 

It has sight word booklets and a different unit for 6 different fruits and vegetables that features activities like hands on stuff, eating and recipes, learning how they grow (and even planting your own), stories and songs, physical education activities, and even take home materials for the teachers to send home with kids.

I think it's a great curriculum and every school should be teaching about proper nutrition, getting in touch with growing your own food, and staying active. It would work great for homeschooling moms too!

If you'd like more information about this curriculum you can see here: http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/grow-it-try-it-it 

#growittryitlikeit

8 Great Smarts by Dr. Kathy Koch - why parents have a responsibility to teach their children in the way they were created to learn

            I just listened to an amazing another amazing podcast from Dr. Gary Chapman; it’s called Building Relationships. I've only listened to 3 episodes so far but each time there is a different featured speaker/author and topic. Tonight I heard the episode from April 2, 2016 with Dr. Kathy Koch. I saw her speak at the Hearts at Home conference last fall. She's an amazing author and I have another one of her books called “Growing up Social”, but in this podcast she was talking about her book “8 Great Smarts” tells about the 8 different ways that your child can be gifted.

            She explained what each different smart is and different ways that you can connect with your child and foster that giftedness and if they're not strong in one area you can get them interested in it. I totally loved it and I’ve decided that I'm going to be buying a copy of that book for both of Addison's teachers this year. I think that if you take that extra step to really understand your kids as a parent, then you can foster excitement in them for everything around them.

            I really feel like some people may have an issue with helicopter parenting and that sort of thing, but I don't feel like I'm a helicopter parent. Instead, I feel that I am an involved parent because I feel that especially in this age with so much information available, I feel like it's my duty and it's my responsibility not just to hum along and give her clothes, give her food, send her to school. That’s the bare minimum. It's my responsibility to identify the strengths and the uniqueness that God has put in her and help her develop them. It's also my responsibility to find those areas where she is not as strong and to help her identify that and work through those challenges.

            I think some parents just kind of float by with the absolute minimum needed to raise their kids and I think that with all of the knowledge out there  – there's books, there's podcasts, there's so many different things – why not take advantage of all that knowledge and truly pour your heart and your passion into making your children become the best people that they can be?? Our kids are going to be the adults of tomorrow; if we want a better country, if we want a better world as we're getting old and gray, then we better put the work in now to be creating these amazing children that we are blessed with.

            That's one of my passions. I am a stay-at-home mom and I'm blessed with all day to be able to do that with Addie and spend time with her. If I wasn't doing that with my day then I don't think that I would be taking advantage of the gift that I have in being a stay-at-home mom. If our kids’ teachers aren't fully immersed and reading books like 8 Great Smarts on how to foster excitement and intelligence and all sorts of different gifts in the children that they are teaching every single day…then I think that they're in the wrong profession-plain and simple! If you don't have a passion for the kids that you teach every time and wanting to make them the best people possible and leaving an imprint on them, a positive imprint on them, then you need to stop teaching. Because you're sure not in it for the money, so I don't know why you’re there if you're not there for the kids and making them better people.

            I will be listening to this podcast again because it was so full of amazing information, and I’ll be ordering myself a copy from Amazon tonight and also copies for Addison’s teachers this year. I think that this kind of knowledge is something that not only every parent should have but every teacher should have because they are very big influences and our kids as well. So I encourage you to not only look at that book, but also follow Kathy on Facebook. I'm sure she's a wealth of knowledge. It’s bedtime but I just could not go to bed without sharing my excitement for this new book that I'm going to be reading.

            If you're a parent or a teacher or even a volunteer for a kids program (like I do for our church program AWANA), I think if you are involved in kids lives in any way you need to realize what a gift that you're being given: the gift influence on these young kids. You really need to take that seriously and do what you can to leave them better than when you first found them. Can you tell I’m passionate about this? I'm not an official teacher, but I teach my daughter every day so I feel like I'm a teacher!