We’re slowly making our way through the Christian Character Traits list we started at the beginning of the year… And it’s time we started thinking about how God wants us to be HELPFUL: ready to serve at any time! ‘They help each other. They say to one another, “Be Strong!” (Isaiah 41:6).’

If you’ve been reading IYK from the beginning, you may have picked up the fact that I’m a bit of a control freak.  I tend to mention it when my boys aren’t doing things the way I want them to… having kids has really helped me step back and try to let go of things that I typically freak out over (finger painting gives me the hives just thinking about it, and I almost always have a fit when we play in the sandbox.  Just some examples.).

I’ve read over and over about having kids help around the house (Raising Godly Tomatoes pops into my mind – I know it’s not just about getting kids to help around the house, but that was one of the big take-aways for me when I read through it).  But in my controlling ways, I rarely have given the boys any opportunities to help me with things around the house.  Sure they pick up their toys.   But otherwise?  It gives me the shivers to think about the kids not doing things my way.

So it is me who needs to be re-trained in this area.  Because you know what? Kids are helpful.  They love to help! I think God put that character trait in them from birth and it is overly-controlling people like me who squash that out of them, saying things like, “No, you can’t do that.  You’re too little. Let me do that for you. You’re not doing it right!” So they start to lose their inherent helpfulness and start sitting around the house playing video games all day long as mom vacuums under their feet.

I’m working hard on my control issues, and I’m learning how extremely helpful my guys are!  Setting the table? Sure, Mom!  Even if Donovan really has no idea what to do with the forks because I never really told him so he runs to the bathroom to show Elias that Mom gave him two forks as a detour to the dining room where I’m standing there wondering where the little forks went… the forks eventually made it to the table and Donovan learned where they needed to go!  Dusting? Oh my goodness, they were so excited you would think I just said they could eat chocolate for the rest of the day!  Vacuuming – even better when I let them use the extension brush or the smaller dust-buster vacuum!

The boys ask me to help with the laundry!  They open doors for me!  They pull weeds with a vengeance!  They would help me pay the bills if they understood what in the world I was doing…  all because I started saying, “Yes!”

Now, we have not started with chores yet – I’m still working that out in my head (have you seen all the chore/responsibility posts over at Positive Parenting 365?  I’m reading through them to formulate my plan for our chores.).  And… things are not always done the way I would do them.  But that’s the part I’m letting go of – for the benefit of us all.

‘They help each other. They say to one another, “Be Strong!” (Isaiah 41:6).’ The “they” in this verse speaks directly to me of my boys… they need to help each other, telling one another to be strong!

To encourage Elias and Donovan to help each other (and others), I’ve just been asking them to help the other.  Elias can help Donovan put on his shoes, and Donovan can help Elias find a special toy.  Donovan can help hold doors open for Elias and others, and Elias can help Donovan get out of whatever situation he’s stuck in with a toy (helpful also to me when I’m up to my elbows in raw beef and can’t drop everything to help stop the crying!).  At church, I ask them to help pick up things for others, hold doors, etc. – whatever situation might arise that they are capable of helping with.  We even play “Help!” – it’s one of Donovan’s favorites.  A toy falls down and we “help” it up. Repeat (over and over and over again).

The bottom line for me is that my boys are helpful – and if I want to keep them being helpful so I’m not vacuuming around them in a couple of years, I need to keep the helpfulness flowing!  And it was as simple as saying, “Yes!”

I, for one, am so thankful that God wants us to be Creative (doing something in a new way).  After all, we were created by a creative God: God saw all He had made, and behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:31).

There are so many ways we can encourage creativity in our children – helping them to “think outside the box,” encouraging imaginative play, reading to them, doing crafts, exploring outdoors – all activities that help grow creativity. My goal is to do something creative with my kids everyday!

But what is something that we do everyday – and can become a boring event (for mom) or even a contentious event (for the kids)?  We eat.  Sometimes it seems my days just revolve around meals – planning them, making them, trying to get the kids to eat them.  If I don’t get a bit creative with planning my dinners, I get bored cooking the same thing over and over again.  And if I get bored making things, wouldn’t others get bored eating the same thing over and over again, too?

We have not gotten too creative with food in the past, though, due to the food allergies in our house.  We’ve stuck to the same ol’ stuff for a while; it was revolutionary to us when we discovered a soynut butter that Elias could eat (we are an official peanut-free zone around here!).  The novelty of just being able to eat soynut butter and jelly sandwiches is wearing off, so to make them fun again, I made sandwich sushi rolls!

They looked a lot like these from Living Locurto, but with soynut butter and jelly instead of turkey, cheese, and cucumber (of course I didn’t get pictures of ours).  But doesn’t that look like a good combo, too?  And look at this beautiful bento box full of sandwich sushi…

Gorgeous, no?  It’s almost too pretty to eat!  To make a sandwich into sushi, roll your bread flat (with a rolling pin or even a drinking glass) before you put any of the fillings on it.  Spread one piece of bread with your nut-butter-of-choice and jelly, then roll the one piece of bread up tightly and cut into small rolls as in the pictures above!  Do the same for the rest of your bread and fillings…  if you want to add things like sticks of cucumber, carrots, or cheese, lay the sticks at one end of your flattened bread and roll everything up around them.

I’m starting to do Fun Food Fridays with the boys – something they can look forward to, something I can get creative with, and something we all will enjoy.  Friday we did Bugs on a Log – simple yet creative, healthy, and delicious!  This was one of the things I lamented that Elias would never be able to eat when we discovered his peanut allergy… but thanks to our soynut butter find, he can now!

They were a hit!  And very messy…

Here are some more Fun Food ideas:

• Our Amanda’s Fruity Shortcakes that she created on her very own!  Way to get creative with the Rice Krispies!
• Look at FamilyFun’s Making Food Fun Gallery – how cool is that pizza caterpillar and the stripey stacked fruits?!?
• Foodie Jr’s Pasta Birds Nests – yum!
• FoodieMama has a healthy recipe for Mini Meatballs – what kid doesn’t like mini food?
• Kabobs and make-your-own pizzas are great for kids, too… and see what else we’ve posted in the past about fun food… Resurrection Rolls, Maple Syrup Snow Candy, Rainbow Toast, Monkey Treats, Banana Berry Smoothies, Dried Fruit, and Parenting Lessons in Cooking.

How are some ways you and your kids get creative with food?  How do you encourage creativity in your kids’ lives in general?

For more of our Christian Character Trait series, take a look at these posts!

God wants us to be Nature Lovers, enjoying His creation. Genesis 1:25 is in the middle of the creation story, and it says, “God made all kinds of wild animals and livestock.  He made all kinds of animals that move along the ground.  And God saw that it was good.”

Of course He wants us to love nature!  And who wouldn’t be a nature lover?  His creation is amazing – full of beauty and splendor, power and mystery.  When I saw this on the Christian Characteristic Traits list that we’re working through, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Except… I have a hard time loving nature at times (late summer comes to mind).  And spring is actually my least favorite time in nature right now.  Isn’t that backwards?  The entire world is bursting forth with new life and beauty, and I prefer to drive through it with my windows up tight.  Because spring in our house = asthma.  All of that yellow pollen swirling around and… pollenating… things causes allergic reactions in my son and brings on weeks of asthma-related breathing problems.

So even setting aside my aversion to all things buggy and my intense dislike of heat, I still want to hole up in my house during the most glorious time of the year to be out in nature.  We are working on some different things that could help change that for us this year, but how do I instill a love of nature in my children when we can’t be outside?

We bring the outside in.  Meet Winnie.

A little duck-thingie purchased on rock-bottom sale in the middle of deep winter – is bringing some of the outside in… cultivating a love of growing things (I hope!)… getting us excited for a spring we may or may not be able to spend a lot of time enjoying outside.  But even if we learn about God’s creation from the “safety” of our pollen-free home, we are still learning to love it and take care of it.

You can make a little grass-seed-head yourself with some potting soil, grass seeds, and some old pantyhose.  Beak and googly eyes are optional.  Place seeds in a portion of pantyhose and cover with soil, tying the  pantyhose shut with a knot.  Leave a length of the pantyhose attached under the knot, to help wick water up into your grass-head-thingy.  The place where the seeds are will become the top of the head of your… creature. Soak the ball of dirt and seeds in a cup of water until soaked through, and place in a small cup/vase of water with the wick-end down, grass seed end up.  Cover for a week with a plastic container (helps create humidity and warmth so seeds will germinate and start to grow).  Peeking is allowed during this time, but be sure to keep it covered when the peeking is done.

In about a week, you will see your first grassy hairs poking through.  And in another week… well, you’ll get something like this:

Poor Winnie, with the sparse hair.  I think he’s the only duck out there with a uni-brow (see the single blade of grass growing up between his eyes?).  Elias and Donovan will be able to give him a hair cut soon, just to get the ends evened up, I think.  He still needs some time to grow and fill in before we do any big styling changes.

So even if weather (the never-ending winter!) or allergies won’t let you outside to enjoy nature, you can bring a bit of God’s creation in to your kids.

Please share… do you have any special ways to help your kids learn to love nature without leaving your house?