July 31, 2010 10:18 a.m.

Yup.  That's us all the way.

As you know, life in the 21st century calls for an endless supply of batteries, especially AA and AAA batteries.  At our home, we charge our kids 25 cents a battery (or about half of what we had to pay for them).  In this way, they are more careful about turning off things to conserve battery power, about using the rechargeables, and waiting for them to recharge again before using the device (instead of just putting in four fresh new batteries in the meantime).  Batteries are a controlled commodity in our house.

Recently, Chips has gotten into the hobby of collecting and rehabilitating digital watches.  He gets them mostly from thrift stores for a couple of dollars each, although he is currently saving money to buy a special new one.  All of these watches consume batteries, and these batteries are expensive.  But since the cheapskate parents haven't been ponying up for new batteries, he has had to be resourceful about watch batteries.  This has caused Chips to be on the lookout for potential batteries around the house.  He has removed batteries from old Happy Meal toys.  He has removed batteries from old musical greeting cards.  When he is interested in wearing one watch, he will steal the battery from another for the day.  As a result, for months he has never needed to purchase a new watch battery.

Chips is learning ways to be economical and resourceful, all because we are too cheap to supply him with free batteries.  It certainly makes toys that don't require batteries more attractive.  He says it is "fun" to find new ways to power up his watches.  I say it is a good thing, too.

January 9, 2010 10:50 p.m.

It didn't snow here, today. The forecasters teased us all. Thousands of Florida children had visions of snowflakes dancing in their heads last night, but precious few around here actually got to see them.

I think my kids were disappointed, a little, but I think I was disappointed a lot. Now mind you, it was an unusual day here. In all my 17-1/2 years here, this was the coldest Florida day I have ever experienced. It never got above 36 degrees here all day. That's one for my personal record book. And yes, indeed, we did get sleet here. And the children ran outside and rode their bikes through it, and collected ice pellets in their inverted umbrellas.

And the local radar showed the familiar blue color oh, so close by, to the north of us, but where we lived it was pink, so we had to settle for sleet. So close, yet so far.

The failure for snow to materialize triggered emotions in me that I had forgotten. Emotions related to the loss of earlier parts of my life, when I was younger and when I lived where it did snow. I always was a lover of things cold; I was the kind of person who would travel to Canada in the winter months, who couldn't get enough of the cold and snow, with all its beauty and all its inconveniences.

Marriage brought me here to the land of only two seasons and no snow, and I regretfully left my four seasons behind. I truly did, although I was simultaneously gaining a new and wonderful life. Were Self-Reliant Man and I to have settled down where I once lived, life would have been very different for us. Probably more difficult. Perhaps we would have had to remain a two income family, and we may not have been able to afford to homeschool. Who knows? The Lord has us here for his perfect reasons.

But on a day like today, I admit I found myself briefly pining for something different, and as I worked to pack away all of our Christmas decorations, I found myself thinking deeply about life issues, like the matter of contentment, and of the fragility of our own hearts.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. PROVERBS 4:23 We are warned here to guard our hearts, and it is our duty to do so, and to do the same for our childrens' hearts. I thought, today, that if we were able to see the complete spiritual scenery of our lives, we would realize that we are each traveling on a narrow, rocky trail to our destination. Not only is the trail narrow and the footing difficult, but our path is flanked on one side by a steep drop off. So fragile are our hearts. We are helpless wanderers, dependent on the wavering affections of our hearts. If our hearts go astray, so do we. Go astray a few inches too far and off the edge we go.

Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path. PROVERBS 23:19 We need to protect the hearts of our kids, too. For me, that means being very careful about what sort of things they are exposed to in their young years. Too much too soon and they become jaded and bored with life. Train them to find joys in the simple things, most especially in the beauty of God's creation, which is forever renewed, day by day. Show them how the Lord can be their portion, day after day. Don't roll out the fun experiences of life too quickly.

I had lunch with a dear friend this week, and we talked a bit about friends we each know who "have more". These friends have more money, they travel more, they go places that we only dream about going to. They have healthy, active, willing and available parents to further enrich their adult lives. We all have these kinds of people in our lives. You know who they are. They are the friends who send out Christmas letters every year detailing their world travels. And when we read them, it affects us. It affects our children. Makes us envious. Makes us discontent, even for a moment.

If anybody were to ask me on a typical day if I am happy -- if I am content -- I would quickly answer "yes!", for indeed I am. It is so easy to compare ourselves with those people who mail out those Christmas letters. But also this year, I am aware of friends who are thinking about far more than their annual vacations. They fear for their jobs; fear for their health. They wonder how they are going to make it through that next chemo treatment. They wonder if their husband will come home from active duty on the expected date. They wonder if they need a home health aide for their elderly parents. They wonder how their mother is handling life in the nursing home.

These friends have caused me to think nearly every day of how blessed and precious our lives really are. How thankful we are to have our health. I am thankful that I feel pretty good most of the time, even though I have my off days. I am thankful that we are able to homeschool our children. I am thankful that my kids are so healthy, happy, and easy to please. I am thankful that we are not actively worried about my husband's job security. I am thankful that our biggest problem right now is dealing with our rotten home insurance company, and that we can happily make plans and preparations for our next camping trip fifty miles from home.

Contentment is all about trusting the Lord to provide the things he know we need most of all. He knows our hearts better than we do. He is most concerned with our heart "health". He knows what is coming down the pike for us. He protects us from our own foolishness and poor judgment. He knows how easily we can be bored with our precious lives, and he sees all the cliffs and drop offs -- all the spiritual dangers that lurk around the bend that we cannot see or anticipate.

Contentment is about trusting the Lord. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. PSALM 27:4

No, maybe it didn't snow today. But this winter is far from over.

I saw the symptoms before affluenza became a known buzzword. Before I was a mom myself. I saw kids who were never satisfied, and the older they got, the bigger the thrills they needed. I spoke to a dad of a 3 year old in my neighborhood who said to me one day "If you think it is hard to keep them happy when they are babies, just wait. It gets really hard when they're three!" Hmmm. I tucked that comment in my brain for pondering. We live near the world's biggest tourist attraction. I mean 42 square miles of ultimate entertainment -- the biggest mouse-related theme park and vacation kingdom there is. I knew kids in my neighborhood who, at age 10 or 12, had gotten bored with going there. Didn't want to "do D*SN*Y" anymore. Boring.

This is insane!! What is going on here? I have since learned it is called affluenza. A disease that is bred by the affluence we enjoy here in our country. We have the resources, so lets give all we've got to the kids. For better or for worse. So I thought about what effect this overstimulation of kids with entertainment and activities would have on them. It bothered me so much, that at some point when my oldest was still a toddler, I saw the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, and decided to change our path. My dh understood the problem immediately, and he was on board as well.

Since then, we have made a deliberate decision not to overstimulate our kids. Keep life simple and natural. Toys we chose were simpler, we tried to avoid logos and name brands, we shyed away from characters of all sorts (which are just ways of getting kids to recognize a brand at an early age). We stopped watching TV, and therefore, TV commercials. We tried to eliminate every aspect of commercialism that we could from our home. We minimized electronic toys and gadgets, for ourselves as well as the kids. We dish out computer game time in very sparing doses.

Now the kids don't know what they are supposed to want for Christmas. They just know what they like.

We heard of a family that gave their kids three gifts per child for Christmas. After all, Jesus himeself received three gifts. We did this each Christmas, and found that they still ended up with too much stuff. (this past Christmas, we loosened this rule to allow for stocking items and educational items as extras. Since we don't buy them gifts all year round, except birthday and Christmas, we find we need to stock up a bit on those educational items).

I know. By now you think we are very odd. Just keep reading. Horror of horrors -- we never take the children to any of the world famous theme parks that we are "privileged" to live nearby. We tried it once, when my oldest was 4. He couldn't handle the stimulation, and had repeated meltdowns in the park. We decided we wouldn't do it again for years to come, and we haven't.

Theme parks are like Fr*tos or L*y's Potato Chips to a child's sensibilities. Once they get a couple of experiences of them, it grays out all other more subtle life experiences. Especially when you live right near those theme parks. No other place quite measures up. We want to avoid that. There is plenty of time for them, when they are older.

We approach every event, every vacation trip, from the point of view of how much it could overstimulate our children. Because when you overstimulate, and overstimulate, and overstimulate, pretty soon it takes more, and more, and more to provide the same thrill anymore. Life itself gets duller and duller. We human beings are made that way.

We talk to the kids about being wise consumers, and avoiding the pitfalls that advertising set up. Recognizing a gimmick when you see one. Does this toy really look like it did on the cover of the box? Isn't it just a bunch of little plastic pieces and stickers to put on? Where does the fun come from? YOU! You can make your own fun.

I hear parents comment often in amazement about how their youngest children were alway initially more enthralled with the box than they were with the toy the box contained. We parents (and grandparents) are the ones who teach them to crave the toys. This doesn't have to be. They really can make their own fun, and should be required to, now and them. It is so good for them to be understimulated more. This is the classic case of less is better.

So, we remain low key in every area of the children's lives. Lives as commercial free as possible. As a result, they really do know how to make their own fun. They have a blast playing with blankets hanging over things. Exploring nature in our yard. Pretending together for hours. We read so many family read aloud books, so they have the ideas they need to create pretend play. Now that the door of reading is being unlocked to our younger child, I have caught them in the same room both reading their own books. It is a very rare time when they report that they are bored. Maybe once every couple of months.

Vacations are getting simpler and more frequent. We have stopped the nice hotels, and integrated camping into our lives. It took some getting used to, and we had to build up some new planning, packing and camping skills, but now we really love it. Vacation destinations are nature-based now. Mountains, scenery, state parks. The kids love it because they love nature.

Did I mention that my kids almost never have nightmares? (if I could just say the same about nosebleeds!)

Now, if you can find a down side, it is this. My kids are very sensitive to stimulation. Sometimes, we are watching a DVD, and if the movie is less than, say, 20 or 25 years old, it can be very stimulating. The scene changes at a frenetic pace, the action is non-stop, and it is difficult to always know what is happening. My kids, especially the 5 year old, don't care for this. My youngest has had a couple of nightmares in her life, and they have always (always!) occurred after a movie that I later regretted letting them watch. Yes, these are G-rated movies. They are just very stimulating, because folks demand that nowadays.

Tonight, we are going to do something that is unusual for us. My husband's work group has provided a fun night out. There will be S*nny's Bar-B-Q served for supper(yum!) and then a minor league baseball game, topped off with fireworks. We've never done anything like this before. We are looking forward to it, because it is such a rare experience, a big deal for our family. I'll post about how it goes.