Family | Marriage Confessions Family | Laugh. Fight. Stay Married.

On Sunday mornings, Bean and Gracie go to their own nurseries while Chris and I go to “big church.” Up until Gracie was five or six months old, we brought her to church with us because I was nervous about leaving her with the nursery girls. She was just so tiny! But since then, she’s been in the nursery on Sundays. We’ve brought Bean to “big church” on special occasions before, like holidays or when we have family visiting with us at church or if the choir was doing a major performance. Anything that we thought would keep his attention. But, for the most part, the kids are in the nursery.

Today, though, our church served Communion and so right before they started that part of the service, I slipped out and went to get Bean from the nursery. Chris and I have talked before about how we thought he was old enough to start receiving Communion with us and today just seemed like the right time to start.

At our church, Communion is given once a month and everyone is invited to attend. Growing up, I remember my parents letting me have Communion from as early as I can remember. As a Christian, it is a very important symbolic act to me. It makes me feel connected to God through his son’s sacrifice and, while I want Bean to come into a relationship with God on his own terms and in his own heart, I want to give him the opportunity to feel at home and comfortable in the church by showing him the customs and traditions we practice. That was how it was in my family. Religion was never forced on me. It wasn’t a requirement. It was just an environment that my parents continually exposed me to so that I came to feel comfortable and at home in the church. Years later, in college, when I began to simultaneously grow in my faith and question my faith, I could go through those thoughts and struggles within the context of a place that I felt comfortable and safe in. As a parent, I think that’s the best we can do for our children. I want Bean to know that Christ and the church are where I find my strength, and I want him to see the importance of that in my life. But then I want him to make that commitment to faith for himself.

I pray every single day that both my children make that commitment for themselves.

We haven’t really done too much up to this point to introduce God and Christ to Bean. We sing the blessing before we eat, we say prayers together at night, we watch Veggie Tales, and occasionally we talk about Bible stories.

Actually, when I write it out, I guess that’s not too bad. But what we haven’t really gotten into with him is the Christian doctrine (to the extent that you could do that with a two-and-a-half year old). We haven’t really talked about what we believe. I just don’t feel like Bean can understand the abstract ideas of religion yet. So, instead, we focus on things that he CAN understand.

Communion this morning was a perfect example. When I brought Bean into the “big church,” we stood in the narthex while the minister prayed over the bread and grape juice. While he prayed, I held Bean and whispered in his ear what was happening. I said things like, “Do you see that man in the robe? That is one of God’s best friends and he is going to give us a snack today.” I told him that the snack was a gift from God because “God loves Michael.”

I told Bean what it was he would be eating – bread and juice – because I wanted him to know what would happen when we went up front. Then I pointed to the Communion rail (where we kneel in our church to receive the Sacrament) and told him that we were going to go up front there to the rail and then we would sing our blessing before we had our snack. When Bean understood what we were going to do, we went to the pew and sat down until our row was able to go up front. He does better in situations when he knows what’s going on and what he is supposed to do next.

When we got up to the Communion rail, I knelt and Bean stood in front of me with my arms around him. I held my hands out for the bread in front of Bean and he copied me. When our minister came along (who, by the way, is one of the sweetest men I have ever met), he put bread in my hands and then a little piece in Bean’s. I whispered into Bean’s ear while we waited for the juice to come down the rail, “This is our snack that God is giving us because God loves Michael and God loves mommy.”

“And God loves Daddy and God loves Gracie,” Bean whispered back.

“Exactly!” I whispered.

When the juice came, Bean was super excited when I gave him his own little cup, but I told him we had to sing our blessing first. Normally, before I take Communion, I pray a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of his son and for his presence in my life. For Bean, that equates to a blessing. So, that’s what we did. Very quietly, Bean and I sang our family blessing right there at the Communion rail. Then, we both took Communion together.

When we stood up from the rail to go back to our pew, Bean happily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then announced very loudly to me, “Mommy, I want more snack!”

I’m sure I turned three shades of red in front of the laughing congregation, but inside I was praying, “Dear Lord, please keep his heart hungry for you.”

28 comments | posted in Family, Growing Bean, Milestones, parenting, Parenting Ideas, The Romper Room, Toddlerhood | tags: Christianity, faith, Family, parenting, toddlers

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So, the title of this post is a little misleading. It should really say, “B-E-A-N can M-E-M-O-R-I-Z-E,” but that doesn’t fit into my header bar. Plus, I figure that first sight words are really all about memorization, but people consider that reading. So, I’m going to count this as Bean reading.

Kind of.

Sort of.

Regardless of if it’s reading or not, it’s pretty darn cute and I was pretty darn impressed.

It’s these minor, tiny little things that he does every day that I don’t want to forget. On that list would also be the following unforgettable forgettable moments:

- This afternoon on the way home from school, Bean was wailing in the backseat because I was making him wait his turn for listening to his choice of music (side note: we take turns in the car with music, Bean gets one song and I get one song). He’s usually pretty good with this rule, but today he was not having it and so he was sobbing in the backseat while I sang along with Adele. After about five minutes of sobbing, Bean suddenly lifted his head up and said happily, “Mom! Look at my eyeball!” I busted out laughing and we talked about eyeballs all the way home.

- Bean is learning how to have conversations with people and one of his latest key phrases is, “What did you say?” He acts like he didn’t hear what you said when he’s run out of things to talk about but wants to keep the conversation going. He also says it when I ask him to pick up his toys, eat his green beans, or put his clothes in his hamper. “Mom, what did you say?” he’ll ask over and over again. And then just when I’m about to kill him, he’ll explode laughing like it’s the funniest trick to play on Mom. It’s not. But it is pretty darn adorable and I love to see him learning how to be conversational…even if it means learning how to manipulate conversations.

- He calls sneezes “snoozes.” He’ll say, “Mom, I snoozed!” Cracks me up every time. I’m laughing right now as I type.

- Bean is highly uncomfortable with me and Chris kissing. He gets really mad when Chris kisses me. He puts his hands on his hips and yells out, “DADDY! STOP KISSING MOMMY!” The other morning at breakfast, he was trying to tell Chris something while Chris kissed me good morning. Bean yelled out, “DADDY! STOP KISSING MOMMY FOR ONE SECOND AND LISTEN TO ME!” We about wet our pants over that one.

- Every night after their baths, Bean comes into Gracie’s room where I am usually reading her a book or two and he kisses us both goodnight. He gives me a big hug and kiss and then he grabs Gracie’s face and gives her a big kiss, too. It makes my heart melt.

- Bean loves hugs right now. He loves giving them and getting them. Sometimes you’ll be in the middle of playing with him and he’ll just announce, “Mom, I need a hug.” Or, he’ll be playing outside on the playground and he’ll stop and come running over because he needs a hug. My favorite though is when he is going to bed and he’s all tired and cuddly (well, relatively speaking…Bean’s about as cuddly as a cactus) and as I turn out the light and leave, he’ll say, “Mom, I need a hug first!” Even if I’ve given him ten hugs already. It’s probably just a trick to keep from going to bed, but I take the bait every time.

It seems that with two kids, they grow up exponentially faster. I can’t believe Gracie is already 10 months old and that this summer Bean will be three. Where has the time gone? How have they gotten so old? How have I gotten so old?!?!? When you look back, you remember the big things – first words, first steps, things like that. But it’s the small glimpses of our lives every day that I will really cherish. I’m so glad I have a blog that lets me chronicle the insignificant. Life is made of insignificant moments. Thanks for reading about all of mine.

27 comments | posted in About Beanie, Conversations w/ Beanie, Family, Growing Bean, Milestones, parenting, Sweet Bean, The Romper Room, Toddlerhood | tags: Family, humor, parenting, toddlers

Bean and Gracie are at a great stage right now. Bean’s two and a half and Gracie is almost ten months old. Up until this point, both of them have been interested in the other, but they haven’t really been able to interact or play together.

Now, Gracie is getting interested in the toys and activities that Bean has. She doesn’t always know what to do when she finally gets her hands on something, but she spends most of her time trying to figure out how to do whatever Bean is doing.

Bean is just as infatuated with Gracie as she is with him. He loves to bring her things to play with and he’s really good about sharing his toys with her. He starts each day by asking where Gracie is and he goes to bed each night asking to give Gracie a night-night kiss.

They just like each other. Now, they are learning how to play together. We still have to remind Bean that Grace doesn’t know how to play with his toys and that he needs to show her. The other day, Bean and I were playing with his wooden train set. We had just put the entire track together and were ready to start playing with the trains. Gracie had been sitting next to us, quietly, for 10 minutes or so, just watching what we were doing. She sat there for a while, watching us work, and then without warning, she lunged! She grabbed two chubby handfuls of train tracks, sending the entire set up flying.

Bean just about lost it, yelling out, “NOOOOOO, GRACIE!!!” And just as he was about to flip out on her, I calmed him down and explained that she is just a baby and she doesn’t know how to play with big boy toys, and that maybe he could show her how. He calmed down a little and then spent the next 15 minutes trying to get her to hold on to a train piece while he pushed it around the track.

I have found with Bean that just telling him he has to share doesn’t always go over so well. But if I give him a job to do when he’s sharing, that gives him a sense of importance and he doesn’t seem to mind sharing with Gracie so much. He also does much better with sharing when I give him the choice of which toy to share. So, if he has a bunch of toys that he’s hoarding, I don’t just tell him he has to share everything. Instead, I’ll ask him to pick two toys to share. Giving him ownership over the sharing really seems to help.

I’m sure that over the next…oh…eighteen years, we’ll deal with sibling rivalry in all different forms, but at this point in time, I am really enjoying seeing my two babies grow and play together. When I was pregnant with Gracie, some people told me that it would be challenging to have two little ones so close in age. Maybe that will cause some issues as they grow up. For now, I have been pleasantly surprised so far that not only do my children bring so much joy to me and Chris, but they also bring so much joy to each other.

20 comments | posted in Family, parenting, Playing, Siblings, The Romper Room | tags: babies, Family, parenting, siblings, toddlers