Joyful Parenting

This morning, I want to share something that I try to read and pray through every morning as a mom. As I've {been lazy about keeping up with, but} written about before, I am still reading through Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts. It is teaching me a gratitude to God I never knew could exist.

As a free resource on her website, she has offered a printable of the following list: 10 Points of Joyful Parenting. I love each one of them.

{10 Points for Joyful Parenting}

1. Today, I will make our home a house of prayer. I will pray at set times. I will invite our children to come move into an interior space that lives with God.

2. Today, I will transfigure all things into beauty, and I will refuse to see anything else.

All things into beauty = Stopping to photograph my girl going "night-night"
in the laundry hamper instead of griping that I need to put the clothes away.
Look at the smile I could've missed...

3. Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies. Only amateurs hurry.
     *This one is hard for me! If I am not checking off items on my "to-do list", I am rushing to do so. This reminds me to take time to enjoy the moment with my little Allie, and even the little one growing inside.*

4. Today, when stress mounts, I pray to dismount it with gratitude. My stress management plan will be intervention with verbal thanks. I can only feel one feeling at a time, and I choose to give thanks at all times. Fight feeling with feeling!

5. Today, I will pray to speak words that are only strong words. Words that make these children feel strong. Grace words. Grace is the only non-toxic air. All other words I breathe are death words.

Only strong words. Even when Allie is digging in drawers, playing with make-
up, and wearing eye-liner as lipstick.

6. Today, I will pray to be consistently consistent. I will create safe rhythms that our children can find security in. I will create daily ceremonies, because every day we are celebrating the gift of now.

7. Today, the moment when I am most repelled by a child's behavior, that is my sign to draw the very closest to that child. *One of the most challenging - and most rewarding - on the list.*

Allie's "mad moment" the other morning, because I
had to take a shower instead of laying in bed to watch
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with her.

8. Today, I will hug each of my children as many times as I serve them meals. Because children's hearts feed on touch. I'll look for as many opportunities to touch my children today as possible - the taller they are, the more so.

9. Today, my priorities will be all things unseen.

10. Today, I will laugh. And I will let the little children laugh. I will create a culture of joy!

I am going to challenge myself to focus strongly on one of these things each day for the next 10 days. I'd like to think I will blog about my experience daily, but I know that's unlikely. I hope this list encourages your heart as much as it has encouraged and challenged mine.