The Clark Constitution: Amended

Every household has its own set of rules which its members are expected to follow. Most of them are pretty reasonable expectations that allow the inhabitants to peacefully co-exist with one another. Lately, however, I’ve been feeling like our little Constitution needs some serious amending. Here are just a few of the additions that I think need to be attached to our domestic guidelines:

1. Do not not ride mommy like a horse when she bends over to do laundry.
2. Do not lick people, especially strangers.
3. Do not eat your boogers.
4. Do not pee in the front yard.
5. Do not put your Legos in the oven.

6. Do not shoot your brother .

7. Do not spit on the window.

8. Do not shove Goldfish up your nose.

9. Do not drink your bath water.

10.  Do not wear Mommy's bra on your head.

11. Do not eat M&M’s while taking a dump.

12. Do not stick your head in the trash can.

13. Do not throw balls at the windows.

14. Do not kick your Daddy in the balls.

15. Do not answer the door in your birthday suit.

16. Do not put the milk in the kitchen cabinet.

17. Do not put dead bugs in Mommy’s purse.

18. Do not eat toothpaste.

19. Do not put your underwear on the kitchen table

20. Do not put popcorn in the toilet.
21. Do not pull your "pee pee" out in public.
22. Do not eat dog food.
23. Do not collect rocks in the bathtub.
24. Do not call random strangers "dude" when you meet them.
25. Do not honk Mommy's boobs.

There are so many other things that I would like to add, but because I am outnumbered by the male persuasion in this house, I know that they would be veto'd. I will stick with these and hope for the best.

Once Upon A Tantrum

Both of my boys have always been ecstatic about bathtime. Until they turned two. Whoever named the "terrible twos" obviously had children like mine.  I'm not entirely sure what happened. One day they are splashing around, squirting little boats, and getting their superheroes lost in bubbles, the next day TERROR. One day, right around age two, Stinker simply refused to get in the bathtub. So I didn't force it.  I let him crawl into bed with a days worth of sweat and "boy-ness" and fall fast asleep. Day two rolls around and I run the bathwater. TERROR sets in immediately. First the refusal.  Then the shreiks and tears and wiggling to escape the bathrom entirely. I relented again and just washed the oldest monster, scrubbing the dirt away for the both of them. What's one more day? Maybe tomorrow will be better. . .  On Day three, we began the process again.  Night after night for at least a month we would go through the same motions.  Let me set the stage:  I ask Stinker to get in the bathtub, to which he politely replies, "I no want a bath." In my sweetest Mommy voice I explain that he is two years old and that he doesn't always get what he wants.  I tell him that baths are good for him and everyone has to take a bath.  He simply looks at me, totally taking it all in.

Not to be deterred, I try a new approach, excitedly exclaiming, "Come on honey!  Look at all the bubbles!  Let's play in the bubblebath!"  At this point, big crocodile tears start streaming down his face and the shreiking commences, "No bath, no bath, no bath!!!"

I ignore the tantrum, lift him to his feet and practically drag him down the hallway to the bathtub.  Fright turns to anger and then to infuriation. He makes his best "I hate you, Mom" face, turning beet red as I pick him up, kicking and screaming and eventually get him into the tub.  And then, a funny thing happens.  As he splashes water on himself, he remembers: Hey, I like the bath!  The bath is fun after all!

By the end of the whole process, Stinker likes the bath so much that he doesn't want to get out. After all, the bathtime struggle isn't really about the bath at all. It about obedience. Stinker is two years old and just simply doesn't want to obey. He thinks that he should be the one to decide whether he gets in the tub or not.  He is young and testing the boundaries. He's trying to figure out just how much control he has in his little life.  At this point, that's not much.

It's so hard to discipline him for his disobedience, though I know I'm doing the right thing by forcing him to obey.  It would be so much easier if he would just obey on his own. As I'm reminded nightly of his disobedience, I realize just how much little Stinker reminds me so much of myself.

I hate to think about how much I've dirtied my life up daily because of my disobedience.  I am so thankful that God, in His grace does not always allow me to win.  Because usually the fight is not really about what He is asking me to do.  It is not about the bathtub.  It is about me, trying to figure out just how much control I have over my little life.  At this point, not much.

I would love to say that I am an obedient child of God, but I would be lying to you. I don't always do what He asks of me. Though I am getting better day by day, there are moments that I shreik in TERROR at the unknown of life.  I kick and scream and try to wiggle free and escape his will just like a disobedient two-year-old, because at times, it seems just too much.

So God picks me up, exhausted from struggling and plops me in the center of His will for my life.  And then a funny thing happens. As I kick and scream and wail, I remember:  I like being in the center of God's will for my life. God's plan is usually pretty amazing, and usually a whole lot better than the one that I had planned.  I am so glad that He does not allow me to win. 

And so I will continue to win the nightly bath time struggle. And continue to remember to parent the way God is parenting me. With patience and gentleness and grace. Long live the "terrible twos".

Hi. I'm Your Diary. Write Crazy Things in Me.

I have a slight obsession with journals, notebooks and diaries. If I’m out shopping and happen to see one with even a semi-cute cover, I snatch it up like it’s going outta style.

There’s something fun about the prospect of filling each page with all my thoughts and being able to look back and read it as I grow older. I always imagine sitting down on a bench in a charming little park and being inspired to write all this cool intellectual stuff and being all poetic and deep-thinkerish. And then 60 years down the road, my grandchildren will find a dusty old stack of books up in the attic and curiously open them, read them cover to cover, stopping only to wipe the glistening tears from their eyes as they realize what an amazing woman their grandmother was and how their grandpa should have helped her dust the apartment and let her buy more shoes because she really really wanted another pair of fancy flip-flops and she deserved them for all the whiny crap she put up with, dang it.

That’s what I imagine every time I purchase a new one. I have some meaningful goals in life.

The truth is that when my new journal and I come home from the store, we have great intentions, but aren’t usually able to have our long chat at the park for quite a while. One day when there’s a quiet moment, I’ll realize, “Hey, I haven’t sat down to write with an actual pen in months! This is going to be fun!” Then I find a good pen that writes smoothly, sit down with a latte and practice signing my name in cursive for 3 pages.

When that gets old, I doodle a little.
Michelle + Bryan = true ♥ 4 eva
I ♥ B.C.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Then I’ll perfect my generic 5 petaled flower, draw an intricate cluster of moons and stars and maybe play a game of MASH or two.

I was never a very good doodler.

Next page is usually the grocery list. Then my to-do list for the week. Slowly, but surely, I warm myself up to writing a true, honest-to-goodness sentence.

Somewhere in the middle of the book, I’ll open to a clean page and begin to really write. “I bought this new notebook in an attempt to document my thoughts and feelings and hopefully keep myself a bit sane. Here goes…”

• Recent, life-changing events: “I had two babies! They’re awesome.”
• Smaller events and confessions: Bryan and I went on a date last night and I ate way too much and am still really bloated. It’s gross.”
• Large and quite vague personal goals: “I need to do something meaningful with my life.”
• Deeper, more specific goals: “After this, I’m taking all my clothes to Goodwill and then I’ll do 30 push-ups. Any maybe I’ll stop saying holy crap so much.”
• General Realizations: “There’s not enough time in the day to get everything done.”
• Detailed, passive-aggressive realizations that morph into extremely emotional, aggressive ranting: “Our friends are coming over at 6:00 tonight and I still haven’t cleaned this disgusting place. If only I had just a liiiiiittle help from someone I’m married to. Gah, I don’t get any help around this place. No one appreciates me. I should just stop worrying about it because nothing’s ever going to change. Not to mention, this place is tiny and cramped and small there’s no room to breathe with all this junk piled everywhere and no one helps me clean it! NO ROOM TO BREATHE. CAN’T BREATHE. GASPING. Holy crap, I’m stressed. All I want are a pair of fancy new flip flps and someone to help me dust all my crap every once in a while. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK!?”

Without fail, I become terrified that another pair of eyes might see these crazy rantings. In order to fix their perception of me, I’ll end the entry with something like, “but I’m just PMS-ing or something, haha! I’m usually very chipper and happy, go ask anyone! No really, go ask.”

I close the journal and hide it in a place where no one will be able find it. If one day, my grandchildren happen upon a box of old dusty notebooks, they’re going to think I was one insane woman with some jacked up personality disorder and an unhealthy fancy flip-flop fetish. But at least I ♥’d their grandpa, even if he didn’t help me dust the living room.

How Pinteresting. . .

I know we've all fallen prey to this new website.  It's one of those perpetual "time-sucks" that exhaust ALL of our free time. . .time we should be spending with our family, completing housework, or tackling mountains of laundry.  But in all of our defenses, it DOES qualify as "Family Investment Research"!  There are soooo many awesome ideas as to how to connect with your kids or your signifigant other, new and exciting things to spruce up our dinnertimes, and cheap and easy ways to improve our home space in DIY heaven.  Pinterest should be seen as Life Investment Time. . . .Ha!  Enough with the excuses!  We are addicted and it's OKAY!  This new Thursday series is to satisfy your weekly "fix". Let's take a peek at some of the jewels I found this week that are just TOO AWESOME not to share:

I don't know about your kids, but mine would rather play with rocks and sticks and cardboard boxes rather than all the toys we've spent our hard-earned money on.  We plan to take advantage of this little fetish of theirs this summer and do Rock Crafts! This website gives all the materials and ideas needed to make this a fun time.  Search for random rocks around the neighborhood and make them into animals, artwork, or in our case, superheroes. When do my boys not turn things into superheroes?!

Are your kiddos obsessed with this phenomenon yet? ANGRY BIRDS!  Mr. Grouchy Pants, I'm embarrassed to admit, has been known to spend hours on his IPod propelling birds through the air. This website is where I found a way to take that obsession outside. Gather up some cardboard boxes, paint a bunch of balls, and construct a homemade slingshot and let them go to town in your backyard. Such a creative idea!

How I love crafts that don't require me to sew anything! This is such a wonderful idea for Spring!  A wreath made completely out of cupcake liners! This website shows the whole process!  It's even something that I could do with the dynamic duo, although all the pink might do them in. :) 

Maybe I'm a little overambitious, but I plan on doing this in my boys room.  This link is to an etsy shop where you can purchase these creative bins for $120 a pop. Although they are adorable, I'm thinking I should try to do-it-myself before I fork out the moolah.  I'll let you know how it goes!

This is a hilarious snack that we will be trying soon. Here's the website for the "how-to", but it couldn't be easier with just some apple slices, peanut butter, and marshmellows. The kids will get a kick out of making them with me, I'm sure!  Anything to re-vamp snack time from the normal cheeto puffs and banana!

For the Easter holiday. . .as if my boys didn't already have enough objects to hurl at each other's heads, these Fruity Pebble-Filled Easter Eggs are such a fantastic idea!  This website has all the directions.  This is perfect for an Easter party, or in our case, perfect for when we get together with the cousins.  The parents will be digging fruity pebbles out of the hair for weeks, but the kiddos will have a blast cracking them over each other's heads all day!

Although I could continue this "Pinterest Fest" forever, I will leave you with those fun tidbits for now.  Tune in next week for some more lovely ideas as to how I intend to continue to make my life more Pinteresting. :)  Happy Thursday, ya'll!

Truth

I just recently finished reading "Kisses For Katie" by Katie Davis, a nineteen year old missionary in Uganda.  Missions have always been a HUGE passion of mine, ever since my trip to an orphanage in Ghana, Africa in 2004. Talk about life-changing!  I'll never forget what God showed me in a small schoolroom halfway around the world. Reading "Kisses For Katie" brought all those fond memories about relentless love, compassion, and redemption back to the forefront of my heart and mind. It was such an inspirational book, even for those that may not have a heart natually bent on international missions. Because, honestly, we are all missionaries in various forms. I am a missionary everyday to my two dependant little boys who rely on me to exemplify God's character in every little thing I do every day. We don't have to go halfway around the world to minister. We are responsible now.  Right here. Katie said it best in one of her journal exerts that I will leave you with today:

"Amazima, in Luganda, means 'the truth'. To be honest, it was chosen quickly without much thought, because we had to provide the government with a name for our nonprofit.  God said to me, 'You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.' I opened my Bible to John 8 and it said, 'You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'  I went to church that Sunday and guess what the pastor said?  Yes.  'You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'

Today, about a year after naming this ministry Amazima, I stand in awe of the truth with which God has presented me.  In Uganda, I strive to teach my children and all children in our program and in our villages 'the truth' of Christ.  I know I cannot walk into a village and tell a child that Jesus loves her.  She cannot comprehend that because chances are, she has never been loved.  I have to feed her, clothe her, care for her, and love her unconditionally as I tell her that I love her.  Once she can understand and see my love, I can begin to tell her about a Savior who loves her even more.  That is the truth for these children--that they are loved, that they are valuable, that they will not be left as orphans, but that they have a life and a hope for the future.  What a beautiful truth. 

I have a yound friend named Maria.  The truth is that Maria had never had a bath before I took her home and gave her one.  The truth is that Maria has no one who cares for her.  No one who tells her she is loved.  The truth is that Maria is sent from her home in the slum outside of Jinja to beg on the streets for food, and no one in Uganda wants to touch her or help her or cares that she is sick.  The truth is that Maria is just like you or me.  A person.  Real.  A child of the King.

Meet Rose and Brenda.  The truth is that they are ophans. Abandoned and living in an orphanage.  Now two of 143 million.  The truth is that when they go to bed at night no one tucks their blankets in around them and kisses their foreheads.  The truth is that when they wake up, frieghtened, in the dark, no one runs to comfort them.  The truth is that due to someone else's carelessness, Brenda will die of AIDS.

Meet David and Bashir.  The truth is that these precious little boys were child soldiers, abducted, sold as property, and forced to kill.  Now that the war is winding down, they are not permitted back in their villages because they are seen as traitors, so they beg on the streets.

And the truth is that these are only the children I know, in a very small fraction of a very small country.  The truth is that there are children all over the world, sick, starving, dying, unloved, and uncared for.  The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164. 8 million needy children.  And though at first glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians.

The truth is that if only 8% of the Christians on this earth would care for ONE more child, there would not be any statistics left. 

This is the TRUTH.  I have the freedom to believe it.  The freedom, the opportunity to do something about it.  The truth is that He loves these children just as much as He loves me and now that I know, I am responsible."

And now that you know. . . .so are you.

To read more about Katie's adventures in Uganda, you can visit her blog at www.kissesforkatie.blogspot.com

To Junk or Not To Junk. . .This Is The Question.

I swear, there are soooooooo many surprises of parenting that nobody ever tells you about before you have kids, like all the poop and all the boogers and all the interrupted sex (yours not theirs). There are also the piles upon piles of artwork that continuously bombard your house on a weekly basis. Honest to goodness, just what in the heck are you supposed to do with it all?! The way I see it, you can do one of two things: 1.) You can either save it all up and be buried alive under a mountain of stick figure drawings or 2.) You can toss it in the garbage when the coast is finally clear.

If we’re being really truthful with each other here, I personally tend to pick option 2.) As sentimental as I might be, I REALLY don’t need to preserve every friggin’ piece of paper that my children have touched. Cause sometimes? Well, sometimes, the end result is crap. The trick, however, is trying to get rid of said projects without being detected. It can be quite devastating to a kid if he sees you jamming his so-called “work of art” into an overflowing waste basket. You will no doubt be given the third degree as to why you’d willingly choose to throw out such a fine masterpiece. And good luck trying to think on your toes in that scenario! You’ll be gritting your teeth as you’re scraping coffee grounds and spaghetti sauce off Junior’s horrific-looking fingerpainting.

I’ve lived and learned the hard way that what I need to do is to throw out the awful pictures when the shorties are fast asleep. You see, I make it look like I’m ooing and awwing over their work by setting it on the kitchen counter. And then late at night, when I know for certain that I’m not risking getting busted, I run it out to the garage with the trash, where the kids are forbidden to go. Problem solved!

Now before you go labeling me The Meanest Mommy on the Planet, please be assured that I most certainly do save a decent amount of the “good” projects that come home. Heck, my kitchen even looks like a dang elementary art museum. The really special projects are the ones that I choose to keep. I just cannot possibly save it all (nor do I want to). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some rather crappy-looking St. Paddy's Day collages that I need to run out to the garage real quick….

5 Reasons Why Bedtimes Suck: as told by Mr Grouchy Pants

OK, full disclosure. Bedtime pisses me off. There I said it. If you don’t believe me you can swing by my street any night around 8:30 and easily identify my house. It will be the one emanating the blood curdling screams, the begging and of course the crying.

Bedtime is a huge freaking drag. But apparently the real whiners in the situation are the parents. One cry baby dad even wrote a book about bedtime battles called Go the F**K To Sleep. Real classy.

Parents think the reason kids don’t want to go “nighty-night” is because we’ll be missing out on all the fun. I say: Don’t flatter yourself. You guys aren’t that exciting.

Here are the real reasons you take that one-way ticket to Dozy Land and shove it.

1) It’s freakin’ lonely.
No wonder parents think bedtime is so awesome. For them bedtime means cuddling up next to each other in giant fluffy beds. Bedtime for me means laying alone clutching a synthetic inanimate object for comfort. You do the math.

2) Left with my own thoughts I fear I will plunge into a quagmire of lingering tragedy. What if the world runs out of cake? What if I can’t find my red superhero cape? Is there something going on between Dora and her Cousin Diego? And if so isn’t that a bit creepy?

3) I don’t want to hear the freaky noises from your bedroom. Once a week (OK, to be fair maybe once every two weeks) I detect the most bizarre noises coming from under my parent’s door. A lot of banging around and heavy breathing. What are those two wackos doing in there? Moving furniture?

4) My parents can’t function without me. With me out of the picture my parents will actually have to talk to each other. Seriously. I’ve seen what happens when those two are left to their own devices: A whole lot of nothing. When I’m around they are guaranteed a palethera of entertainment: avant garde puppet shows, impromptu naked dancing are just a small sampling of my repertoire. With me asleep who’s going to distract them from the fact that they’ve stooped themselves to a mundane middle-class existence? It’s the least I can do.

5) My sugar consumption will be cut off for 9+ hours
If I’m sleeping how the heck am I going to con you into giving me more dessert items? Unless I can count on you to feed me cookies and candy intravenously I’m painfully aware that if I go to sleep the sweet shop is closed.