Parenting Hack: You Will Miss the Echoes. Embrace Them Now.

Ever catch yourself saying to your kids to “calm down a little bit” or “inside voices” too much?  Where you feel like you are constantly nagging at them to chill out?

As of lately, I decided to try to take a step back and just see what happens when I don’t chime in the moment their voices get too loud.  Crazy.  It got crazy, y’all. 

Our friend brought their two kids over today and all four of the kids really like to play together-its really quite nice.  And chaotic. 

But you know what?  I’m going to let them be little.  And in the process, I am going to SOAK IT UP.

Trace Adkin’s song “You’re Gonna Miss This” really got me in the feelers.  It is SO TRUE.  I am gonna miss this. 

There will come a day in time where I will miss the noisy house, the handprints on the windows, and telling them to “calm down a little bit.” 

But Jesus has put it on my heart this past month to just BE STILL.

There have been countless things that The Good Lord has shown me recently about being present and just absorbing these priceless days while our girls are young. 

For instance, I sold some fresh eggs to a gentleman today.  As I had our three year old on my hip, he smiled and said, “man, those were the days, my baby is 22 now.”

Thank Jesus for these moments.  Please help me to be still and let them be little. 

Obviously its important to jump in when they’re really getting cray-cray or someone is going to have some bodily injury, but if not, let those imaginations run and the laughter echo throughout the walls of your home. 

Today makes me smile. 

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I picked our daughter up from my mother’s house after a long day at Grandmas and when I arrived I could have sworn she just consumed 42 pounds of sugar.

She was WOUND UP.

Like the kind of wound up where you feel like you are living in a time-lapse video. 

Or a ping pong ball in a glass jar that you shake up.

Hy-per.

Not being destructive by any means, but just dancing around, singing, getting the crowd involved.. ya know, the whole shebang. 

Hilarious.

The reality of it was that she did not just have a ton of sugar, veggies and hummus to be exact.

She was just having a ball being HERSELF.

That girl thrives on being silly and making other people smile.  I bet your baby does too.

It was too much fun just watching this little lady let her true colors shine.

Let them be themselves.

It refreshing, I promise. 

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What other echoes do you crave in your home?

We all know that anyone with children that are able to squeeze out a word or two has the ability to repeat what we say.

Don’t we notice it when a bad word slips and your precious 1 year old says a very colorful word?

OOOOOOPS.

Our three year old heard something on a video the other day and let’s just say that we had a teaching opportunity.

That’ll catch you off guard a bit.

Whether that be those distasteful words, or even feelings of guilt, shame, fear, failure, etc. 

SO, if they catch onto those words and feelings, don’t you think they would catch onto the grace-filled encouraging words that you may exchange?

Absolutely.

Ya’ll, shouldn’t we encourage these little difference-makers and help them to echo the Love of Jesus?!  To help transform their hearts into fierce followers of JC himself?

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

Let’s strive for the exchange of words between us and our children, as well as all other people to be God-breathed and uplifting.

Remember when your mama used to tell you that “Actions speak louder than words?”

They see and hear what we do.  Probably more than we realize.  Act in kindness with the words that you speak.

Maybe this little post is more for me than anyone out there.  I need this reminder too. 

I crave the echo of kindness and love in our home.

What echoes do you hear now?  What echoes might you want to hear?

Keep it up, Mama,
B