Convenient or Crazy?

I just visited the "Chronicles of a Babywise Mom" blog for the first time in maybe a year or so. I actually did find some of her information helpful when trying to get the whole sleeping thing down, but I also got really stressed out by her perfection, her attention to detail, her lists, and her "perfect" answer to every possible parenting question you could ever imagine. I learned that the trick is to read her blog with a grain of salt and only take the information you find helpful. If you sit there comparing yourself to her, you will stress out! (And if we actually think we can control everything about our children's lives, we are sorely mistaken... but that, my friends, is for another post).

Well, I am currently on a search for some good discipline books/blogs/information. I just want to make sure that we are consistent and have a plan and aren't always changing it up on Grace and confusing her when it comes to discipline. I honestly think that is what gets me the most distraught during our little episodes... I want to make sure I'm doing the "right" thing to discipline her. But then I also I know that there basically is no right thing. Every book will tell you something different, but I just want to read as much as possible and form my own personal convictions about what I'm doing.

So... along my search I came across Chronicles of a Babywise Mom. I found this as one of her most recent posts:

Planning Your Schedule for Multiple Children

As I'm reading it, I have a mixture of emotions. At first, I'm thinking that it's awesome. I want to start making my list and planning things out to perfection each day of my life for forever.

Then I'm thinking, wait, maybe this is THE most insane thing I've ever read in my life. Did you just tell me to plan my day out in 30 minute intervals? And this is so I can be "flexible" with it? I'm just confused now.

I am sure this idea gets some of you Type A people all excited and giddy and ready to go color coordinate your life in 30 minute intervals.

And then you Type B people are just turned off by the ridiculousness of it all, not even understanding the need for planning more than an hour or two in advance for anything, ever.

Honestly, I think at this point in my life I fall somewhere in between. I used to be pretty Type B and still definitely have some of those B personality traits. I am proud of the fact that I now usually know what is coming up in the week ahead (thanks only to my Cozi app, but still, I know!) :) But becoming a mom has shifted me a little more towards Type A, which I think was probably a good thing for me! It is honestly easier and more enjoyable having some structure to our day (and good for Grace too)! I've always liked structure, but until Grace I wasn't very good at implementing it upon myself. :)

But if I'm being honest, I think the reason her plan/prison schedule is kind of unappealing to me is because I would literally go completely crazy if we got off track. Like, my whole day would be thrown off if I had this laminated, color-coded schedule on the fridge and then we didn't stick to it. ("What!?! We're supposed to be having structured playtime and we're still eating lunch!! Everyone onto structured playtime NOW!!") So maybe that's why I'm turned off by it? Maybe I am more Type A than I think?

So, for now I guess I'll hold my judgment on her "plan," mainly because, well, I don't have multiple children. What if I just shift a little more towards my Type A side with each child? I could be color coding and laminating like a crazy person in a few years... ya never know!

So, I'm curious... what are your initial thoughts on her "plan"... convenient or crazy? And are you typically Type A or Type B?

(Yes, participation required!) :)

My 9 Drafts

I currently have 9, yes, nine blog posts sitting in blogger saved as drafts. I have this issue with starting things and not finishing them. Or with finishing them and thinking they're not perfect enough. So then even though they are finished, they are not actually finished to me because they're not perfect. Usually I see this crazy perfectionism as annoying because I leave a lot of things unfinished, but I think in this case it's actually (kind of) a good thing.

I think blogging is so good for me... as I write and wrestle with different topics, I realize how much I don't know. There are things that I think I get, but as I try to write it out I realize that I'm not sure it's actually biblical. I've really been tested lately with something Matt Chandler said in a podcast of his (I honestly don't remember which one... Colossians maybe?) But he said this...

"I don't care what you think, I care what the Bible says."

That may seem like a simple truth, but I have felt convicted about this because of the way I often approach the Bible. If there is a verse that I don't necessarily like or one that makes God look "mean," I try to find a way to justify it or "explain it away." For some reason I think that God needs me to defend Him, that He needs me to dress Him up and make Him look "nice." I've been really convicted about coming to know the God of the Bible... the FULL character of God... His mercy, His wrath, His love, His grace, His judgment, His kindness, His justice, His peace... His everything.

Do you know that God?

Yes, He did destroy everything on earth with a flood (Genesis 6-7), He sent plagues (Exodus 7-12), He gave the men of Israel over to the men of Judah where 500,000 were killed (2 Chronicles). We could go on and on about stories of the Bible that don't seem "right." "It doesn't seem like a loving God would do those things," we might think.

Well He did. Are you ok with that? Do you understand why? Do you get the big picture of the Bible? And if you don't, can you wrestle through it with Him? Do you know the full nature and character of God? Or do you just know "Easter Bunny Jesus," as Matt Chandler calls him? (Sorry, I steal his phrases left and right!) But basically, do you invent this idea of God in your head that is only "nice" and is what you want Him to be?

We can't make God out to be who we think He should be... otherwise we are worshiping an idol. He is who He is. We can't "enhance" Him as we talk to others about Him... we can't control how people feel about God, we can only talk about who He really is. I'm trying to make sure I only talk about the God of the Bible, and in order to do so, I need to know the God of the Bible. I'm questioning the things that I often assume about God and making sure they are actually Biblical.

And I have a long way to go.

And so I sit, with my 9 blogger drafts... wanting them to be perfectly Biblical, wrestling with what is Biblical, and honestly sometimes just being too lazy to try and figure it out.

I wonder how many drafts we all have going. How many things have we assumed about God... how many things have we held on to about God to make ourselves feel better, to make others feel better or to make God look good. And how many things are we just being lazy about? How much of Him do we not know because we simply have not tried to know?

Let's continue to edit our drafts about God, whatever they might be, so that they conform with the Bible. Let's stop assuming and start reading, so that we actually know Him... and his full character... plagues and floods and wars and all...

And as I said, I have a long way to go.

"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols." - 1 John 5:21-22