love

Understanding Everyones Love Language

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When my husband and I were first married we read a book that talked about different love languages. Later as I became a mom I realized that love languages don’t just apply to spouses; it applies to children too!

The times when I am frustrated with my kids and don’t want to even think about hugging them is the time when they need it the most.

I feel like every time that I sit down to feed our 9-month-old is the time when my other two kids think it is ok to fight or get themselves in trouble.
This afternoon as I was feeding the baby on the chair, our two older kids decided that it would be fun to climb on the table. I told them that they needed to get off or else they would go to their rooms. Before I knew it our two-year-old girl fell off the chair and it looked like she hit her chin on the table. After seeing that she was fine, I was a little frustrated that she didn’t listen, but seeing the tears in her eyes all I could think about was giving her a hug. She immediately calmed down. If I had raised my voice it would only have caused more frustrating feelings and more tears and screaming.

The other week as I was leaving the park our oldest child decided to not listen to me and would not hold onto the stroller or my hand. He was running towards a busy street. Instead of losing my cool and yelling at him, I picked him up while pushing the stroller and holding onto our daughter’s hand. It was difficult to keep my cool as I had him screaming and hitting me, but I did it! When I got in the car I explained what would have happened if they didn’t listen to me.

Some days I have to remind myself that our children are learning and sometimes it may take a long time for them to understand how to listen or to be kind to one another. But raising my voice does not help any situation. It only causes more stress. Sometimes I may not feel like giving them a hug, but our children’s love language definitely is physical touch and words of affirmation. They respond well to those two things and I have noticed a huge change in how they respond to me when I follow those two love languages.

What I learned from online dating- Part 2

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Here is my continuing blog about “What I learned from online dating” Part 2.

I felt a little bit hurt that my Canadian friend didn’t email me back and was I was mad. I would think to myself “What did I do wrong?” “Was he just pretending to be nice?” I would try to forget him, but I just couldn’t. I talked to one more guy on the dating site, but it just wasn’t the same. Once again the guy just only wanted to talk about himself and rarely asked me questions.
Once my membership came up for renewal on the dating site, I was done.

About six months passed. I was sitting in church during Sunday School and was looking at my phone and I saw an email from my Canadian guy! I have to admit my heart jumped at seeing this, but then that excitement turned to anger. I thought to myself, “How dare this guy think that he can just treat me like this. Was he going to chat with me and then disappear again?”

In his email, he said, “I just wanted to say hi and hope you are doing well. How was your summer?” How did I respond? Not very kindly. This is my response- “So since I am in a crappy mood I have no problem saying “Why are you talking to me?” I didn’t feel bad about sending it until he responded back. Here is his response. “I am very sorry….. for many reasons. First I am sorry to hear that you are in a crappy mood. I only want good things for you. Second I am sorry for bothering you. I am talking to you because I think you are a great person and I enjoyed our conversations and just missed them. I had no intent in leaving you hanging. Things just happened. I understand if you just want to go our separate ways now and I hope all your dreams come true. But know that I mean everything I have said and that I thank you for being a positive influence in my life during a very dark time. Take care and I hope you feel better soon.”

You can imagine how bad I felt after his response. I looked at his response and remembered why I enjoyed this guy and the conversations that we had. I could tell he was being very sincere. I could tell he cared about me and only wanted good things for me. The same day I wrote back and apologized for being so rude in my email. We mended things over and from that day forward we chatted pretty much every day. We sent emails, moved to texting every day, and then we skyped every day.

That’s one more thing that I learned from online dating. It is important to talk a lot with the person that you are building a relationship with. We will always say that the first time we met in person at the airport, we felt like we had known each other forever. Things weren’t awkward between us. It was because we talked and talked a lot! We got to know each other pretty well and that is very important in building a relationship.

-Jelly Jazz

Banana’s and Boys Growing Up

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Our son is at the age where he wants to help with lots of things. He is almost three. He has a morning routine where he wants his milk first and then breakfast. Just recently he has been wanting to help pour the milk in the bottle. He will say “I help, I help!” I have been letting him hold his bottle and then put the lid on. It is the cutest thing and I love that he wants to help me.

The other day he saw me starting to make banana bread. Of course, he wanted to help. This felt way out of my comfort zone. I thought of him sneezing into the batter, or licking the batter. I thought of him tipping the bowl and making a mess. But I just saw how desperate he wanted to help mommy so I let him. He did so well! He listened and stopped when I told him to. He stood on the chair very well and didn’t make a mess. Although if he made a mess, I would have survived. I am glad I didn’t let my fears get in the way of my son’s learning and growing.

I look at other three-year-old’s and worry that he is not advanced as they are. But partly that is because all the three-year-old’s that we know have older siblings so they learn from them. Our son is learning from scratch. But just like our banana batter is made from scratch, it is cooked into something wonderful. I know that my son is developing just fine and is growing into something wonderful.

-Jelly Jazz