This one’s for you if:
1.
You want to be an awesome parent
2.
You feel like you’re not an
awesome parent
Options 1 and 2 are true for me every day.
So I have an awesomeness gauge. A checklist
that I run through a couple times a day. It helps me feel less overwhelmed by my
ideals and my failings, and more as if parental awesomeness is within reach. Regardless
of the levels of ordinariness or exhilaration on any given day, I ask myself
four questions about what I’ve done with my boys:
Laughter?
Have they laughed? Like, really laughed.
Contagiously and unstoppably. If not, am I willing to cartwheel out of my
comfort zone to make sure that this day doesn’t end until they have?
Learning?
What have they learned? This could be
anything. Like, ‘God knew he was going to make you before he had even made the
world.’ Or, ‘Don’t put metal in the microwave.’
Adventure?
Has today been fun? Wild? Exciting? Different?
Challenging? Interesting? In even a very small way? Like, did I let them run
naked through the sprinklers? Or, did I say yes to spontaneous pancakes and
trampoline-jumping with their cousins down the road?
Prayer?
Have we prayed? Before school? Before meals?
Before bedtime? Randomly, in the car, on our way to something nerve-wracking or
exciting? Instinctively, mid-chat on the couch?
‘So
commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands
and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Teach them to your children.
Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are
going to bed and when you are getting up. Write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your gates, so that as long as the sky remains above the
earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to
give your ancestors.’ – Deuteronomy 11:18-21
Mr Plod, attending to urgent business…
Murray camped with Cam in the garden
last night (Scott came inside at bedtime)
Discovering the pedals…
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