“Parents today want their children to have the best opportunities to learn- so they enroll them in school programs almost from birth, put them in umpteen after-school lessons, or put them in day care so Mom and Dad can work for the goodies they believe are in their child’s best interest. This seemingly well meaning behavior is destructive to the psychological health of youngsters.
The kids are busy, busy, busy, but they lack the closeness of a parent. Instead they are surrounded by other children and end up bonding with them. As the approval and attention of peers becomes more significant and powerful than that of adults, behavior problems inevitably appear. Studies show that the worst-behaved kids are those who spend the most time with other kids.”  -Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Parenthood by proxy… don’t have them if you won’t raise them)

Tonight at church I got to thinking about something that people say to me all the time I don’t really know how to reply to.

What I’m referring to is the “wow, you have your hands full” when they see me with either just the two boys or better yet all three of the little ones!

Do I say “yes I do” and give one of those sighs you hear that make you wonder whether the mama resents the little ones? Or do I say “yes I do but we have a lot of fun!”…

I have made a point to say the latter, mainly to maintain a good attitude about being a mama to little ones BUT also to be a good testimony. Let me explain…

My children are some of the biggest blessings God has ever bestowed upon me. The devil tried to steal that blessing from me and the Lord didn’t allow it. I am eternally grateful.

I like who I am better now that I’m a mama. The scripture that talks about women being saved through childbirth I never really understood, but now I’m wondering if it might mean that I am being sanctified through the dying of myself as I’m raising these little blessings.

Don’t get me wrong… we have our days here. We have alot of ‘those kind of days’. You know what I’m talking about! And I don’t ever want to give the impression that I’ve got it all together, because I most certainly do not. But I do want to give the people I come into contact with a different view of children and motherhood if I can.

I really desire for people to see the Lord in the way I interact with my children,and especially in the way I REact to them. I don’t ever want my children or anyone else to see meanness on my face when I’m correcting or disciplining them. I am training my children because I love them and because my desire is to see them learn to be obedient and have that carry over into their adult lives. I want them to see love on my face, I want them to see Jesus!
It’s so important that we keep an eternal perspective as well as a 10 years out kind of perspective.

First of all the eternal… I don’t want to feed more “self” into my children. The more they can learn to be obedient to their daddy and I, the better off they’ll be in their relationship with the Lord later on.

Second of all ten years down the road, I’m going to have lost the opportunity to be training. When my kids are teenagers I BETTER have EARNED their respect and gained their hearts, if not I will have lost them.

At the present moment I demand respect and I expect obedience and so on and so forth. But, I’m believing a day will come when those things are voluntary and the respect mutual.

I just try to keep reminding myself that these moments pass so quickly and I sure would hate to waste them on the little things. My little ones that are so time consuming now soon enough will be ready to spread their wings and fly. My job now is to make sure I’m helping them build their wings with the right stuff. One of the ways I know of in this season to thrive instead of just surviving is to be thankful and not allow any self pity about my circumstances or allow others comments to illicit pity either.

Remind yourself everyday (some days might require minute by minute reminders!) that these little ones are blessings and the devil is trying to turn them into a curse. DO NOT allow him to do that!

Do the job that is required of you as the parent and train them in the way they should go.

So the verdict is in with Elijah’s speech diagnosis and I’m pretty mad about it.

He has been diagnosed with a severe phonological delay

Phonological Delay:

Phonology is the science of speech sounds and speech patterns. It is a rule-based system. A phonological delay occurs when a child has not learned the rules for combining sounds in words and creates their own. This affects classes of sounds rather than individual sounds. For example, a child may voice all voiceless consonants (i.e. “p”, “t”, “k” are pronounced as “b”, “d”, “g”) or produce “back” sounds in the front of the mouth (i.e. saying “tup” for “cup” or “tat” for “cat”). Phonological disorders may significantly impede speech intelligibility and can place children at risk for future reading and learning disabilities.

The reason I’m mad is this…

I feel like his very life has been threatened from the moment he was conceived. I had severe bleeding and thought he had died so many times.

Then the labor process was traumatic for both of us.

I also feel like the devil had a hand in him getting sent home from the hospital so early. He wasn’t even eating and they sent him home with me! It took 2 SOLID weeks of a “try to nurse, pump, syringe feed 60+ min. process” every two hours before he figured out what to do. Even then until he ate solid food he just never thrived.

This is Elijah at home under the bili lights hooked up to an apnea monitor- April 2006

I think every mom feels like the Lord has something for their child to accomplish and I’m no exception. I can’t help but feel that confirmed every time there is an attempt on his livelihood.

This may seem like a small issue to some people and it may have been to me if I hadn’t of had a brother deal with some speech issues/learning disability type issues (which were never really taken care of and have gotten worse over the years). I want a different life than that for my son! He is so smart and I don’t want him to lose confidence in himself because no one can understand what he’s saying.

It breaks my heart to know something so basic that we all take for granted (our ability to speak) is going to be a long tough road for him. I just really ask for you to pray that I am given the power from the Lord to step up and help him right now.

I remember trying to get Elijah to eat when he was so tiny and feeling so incompetent. I definitely feel like that right now. I assumed when we started homeschooling I would feel overwhelmed but I honestly thought I had a few years before I felt like I wasn’t qualified. To feel like that when he is barely two doesn’t seem like a good forecast of the future.

Before this post seems too gloom and doom… I know that the God I serve still is in the miracle business, I also know that He has used other people mightily with speech impediments.

I’ve heard the phrase don’t pray for tasks equal to your powers but to pray for power equal to my task, this is what I’m begging God for right now. I just ask that those of you who know me and my son would join me in that.

It doesn’t help that right now getting this diagnosis my husband is 1,000 miles away and has been for 3 days. I miss him.

Thank you for your prayers, I’ll keep you all updated.