A weekly list of things accomplished, enjoyed, tried and remembered.
1.Fun with Cardboard. I don’t know when it started, but I seem to have a lot of cardboard in my home these days. I’ll be honest–it drives me crazy, but I’ve learned to live with it for one reason and one reason only. Creativity. My boys will sometimes just randomly have a burst of creativity and cardboard is their preferred medium. In the past they’ve made a Ghostbuster car and proton packs–this time it was Transformers inspired. I love it when they immerse themselves in a world of imagination that only they can see–it’s a lot of fun to watch and it keeps them from spraying down my home with Nerf gun bullets and littering my floor with thousands of Legos (for a few minutes anyway)
2. School Troubles, Work Troubles and A LOT of prayer. The first part of this week was all about survival. My older son, Morgan, has had a lot of trouble at school this year. We discovered that one of the boys in his class has been bullying him all year long. I can’t even begin it tell you–that as a parent–this is HARD. My son, my beautiful boy– has been in tears nearly every week saying and believing horrible things about himself all because of the hurtful words and actions of a kid in his class. To our school’s credit–they have taken swift and pretty strict action. It has been so awesome to see Morgan’s entire mood lighten because not only will he not have to endure an onslaught of hateful words spoken to him, but he is seeing all the grown ups in his life defending him and reminding him that he is valued by so many people. I have been heartbroken about this whole thing, but one of the biggest blessings was that the mother of the bullying child reached out to me. She was so shocked to learn about her son’s behavior and was so apologetic to me. Nothing is more healing than a heartfelt apology.
At the same time–Super Rockstar has been dealing with his own tough situations in his work. It’s been an ongoing dark cloud hanging over us for a long while. As adults we often don’t have someone to advocate for us–speak up on our behalf when being mistreated, overlooked and pushed down. I spent a pretty big part of this week in prayer. I love it that I have a handful of godly women that I can count on to pray with me when life gets hard and answers just aren’t coming. I only know of One who is able to change difficult circumstances and soften even the hardest of hearts. Nothing earth shattering has happened for him yet, but God gave me a huge release over it all as I completely surrendered the situation to Him. I have not felt anxious, stressed or worried over it since.
This verse from Isaiah 43:19 “randomly” showed up in his social media after a particularly difficult day.
3. Valentine’s Day. This holiday has become an all day event for us. It begins with heart shaped pancakes, in the middle is lunch with Super Rockstar (always special and enjoyed) and extra treats and love notes in my boys’ lunchboxes and ends with a special family dinner (STEAK!) and gifts, cards and CANDY, lots and lots of candy.
I admit I always have a bit of anxiety over this holiday (I wrote about it here). I worry over giving and showing love to my loves (did I do enough?), I worry over them feeling loved by others (were the kids kind to my boys at school?) and I worry about them worrying over me. That’s a lot of worrying–ah the life of a self professed worry wart and people pleaser (I’m a real hoot to hang out with). I guess I wish there wasn’t so much pressure on this one particular day, but I love our traditions and this year I think we all were shown and felt sufficiently loved. Whew!
4. Taxes. For the second year in a row–we’ve gotten our taxes done on Valentine’s Day. Isn’t that SO romantic? In years past it’s been good, because we’ve gotten the exact same refund each year. I know, I know–you financial geniuses out there are lecturing me right now about how getting a refund means I’ve been loaning the government money for free.. blah, blah, blah. But, for us–it’s our “get out of jail free” card. Since I’m a stay at home Momma–we don’t really have much of a contingency plan for the “big” stuff that happens financially throughout the year. So, we often have to put some things on credit. Our tax refund has always pretty much gotten us back on track (in the black. Or is it red? I can’t remember). However, this year the tax laws changed. So, we are not getting out of jail free. Sigh. Oh well. Thank you Uncle Sam–not feeling the love this time.
5. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. We took the boys to see the newest Lego movie. If you liked the first one, you will definitely like this one. I LOVED it–great story, awesome catchy but slightly annoying songs (your kids will love them), it’s clean and very family friendly and I love how they always put a few little one liners in there just for the grown ups. Even the credits were entertaining (the song with them is hilarious!) I highly recommend this movie.
Hope you have a great week!