Loving the Little Years -

- Motherhood in the Trenches is a book that I read last week. My best friend told me about it back in October, she said that she saw it was coming out and thought, "I'm going to get that for Amy!" I felt a little convicted when she said that, thinking that a book titled, "Loving the Little Years" would get her attention about me!! Do I really complain about this season of life so much that a book like that would grab her attention regarding me?! Thankfully, because she is my best friend, I can trust her heart toward me and know that when I do complain and cry and moan I know that she hears my heart, how I'm truly doing and "with a gentle breath, can blow the rest away."

So anyway, she bought this book for me and I received it in the mail the day after Christmas. Joel brought the mail in just as the kids had gone down for naps...all three in one day that day. Oh the joy! : ) So I grabbed a cup of coffee, two mini chocolate bars and I was off and reading! I had to stop to get a pencil, there were so many great things to underline and take note of! Forty-five minutes into it, my coffee was cold, only one candy bar was gone and I was 1/3 of the way through the book! So much for my quiet, relaxing reading time. I was being schooled!! : )

There are so many great nuggets in this book! I laughed--out loud! I cried, I was convicted and still need to repent to both Abigail and Elijah (mostly Elijah) about some things, I laughed some more and cried some more. The book was so captivating and validating and funny and engaging, that I wanted to just read it as fast as I could, so now I need to go back and re-read it and take some time with myself and the Lord, Joel and the kids and do some rearranging in my heart so I can really love these little years.

Some of the things I clung onto the most in the book are the following ideas:

She has a chapter about helping your young girl learn to control her emotions. She says that they tell their girls, (of which they have 4!), that every little girl is born with a horse. That horse is their emotions and they are the rider. God sets them on a beautiful path that goes up and down, through valleys and over mountains. Their horse will want to run off the path but their job is to control it, to keep it on the path. I thought that was a great picture for me and for Abigail and one that I will be start using!

Another chapter is about the "bulk effect" --which is something that I feel quite often! : ) It's when there are so many things happening at one time, something little for each person, but in total it feels like a giant ordeal...for me it's when we're trying to get out the door, usually to run errands after Caleb's morning nap and before  lunch. Not very good timing on my part, it gives us about an hour and 10 minutes. Probably need to do some thinking about that scheduling nightmare! The recent post about the sleep issues is an example of feeling the bulk effect. Taking every little thing in it's occurrence isn't bad, but when it's compounded by all the little occurrences together, it feels overwhelming.

One area that I'm going to be examining is my vocabulary. She talks about using little words or phrases like, "overwhelming" to give ourselves allowances to become that and sort-of relish in it. Right away, I knew that "overwhelmed" is one of my words that I use. I'm pretty sure that I use the word, "tired" a lot. Both of these words are good words, and are true a lot of the time, it's just in how I use these words that I want to be careful of. I tend to use those words to justify my behavior and for not controlling my emotions. How do I expect our kids to control theirs if I'm out of control with my own? In the book, she encourages scratching those words out of your vocabulary and telling your husband, mom, best friend, etc. So that is something I'll be working on very soon.

One other thing that I'm considering doing is something she mentioned in one of the last chapters of the book. That is unplugging your alarm clock, especially when you have a newborn. It was advice from her sister-in-law, saying that you don't need to keep track of the minutes that you spend nursing your little one in the middle of the night, or holding a fussy baby--you're only doing what you should be doing for that amount of time. Don't keep track of it. I know I would and do, and then keep account of it in my head, knowing that I can use it as a trump card for Joel any given night that I don't want to be the one to get up with one or all of the kids. It's not healthy. I don't know yet if I need to unplug the clock or just choose to not keep track anymore. So I'm going to do some thinking about that too.

All throughout the book, she, very graciously, points back to you--the Mom--as the key piece to having a loving, gracious and peaceful home. I love that and want that so there are many more areas where I'm going to be examining my heart and the ways I'm leading our children.

So this is my "thumbs-up" for this book! I encourage you to buy a copy and read it for yourself! Would love to chat more with anyone who does! Oh! And one thing I wanted to say about the author is that she has 5 kids, age 5 and under and has written this book in the midst of it all. So it's very fresh!