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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Love courageously update

I have arrived to day 11 in this love challenge.

As a small update, I have reread the 5 love languages of children and started practising them more with my family. I left a note for my kids in their lunch box, I bought them stuff they needed and wrapped them up as a present, I tell them more that I love them and went on a date with them separately.  We also do special time as much as possible.  It is starting to work - especially with Gregory who is also showing more love back.

In the meantime I had read about the key jar and decided to do it.  Every couple of days during dinner one of us picks a question and everyone answers it.  This is working best with Maya so far but hoping it will catch up with Gregory to.

Appreciation what day 11 is about is sometimes forgotten by me.  So I am making it a point  to show my appreciation possibly daily.  Ways I am showing appreciation is by thanking them for being helpful, for cooperating, for being quiet, for letting me work, for keeping peace..... it makes them feel proud when I tell them this and they are starting to do more of these positive traits.

Tomorrow its day 12 - loving through aggression - this is going to be very interesting as I tend to lean towards aggression myself so I need to learn not just teach.  Possibly so far this will be the most challenging part of loving and I am looking forward to learn and teach and finally get to the best part...being soft and loving 99% of the time :)

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Love courageously day 7

So as part of the love courageously challenge, I will be going through a few weeks where I will focus on the love languages.

the 5 love languages are a very interesting topic I find and while I am pretty sure Maya is a words of affirmation child while Gregory quality time, I still have decided to go through a few weeks going through all the love languages.  Not only will it re confirm that my deductions are correct, but it will also help to teach my children and learn myself how to love in other languages.

I am right now at day 7 and am quite content to stay here for a little bit and fill my days with attention to detail amongst other things.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Love Courageous: critical

Today didn't go as good as yesterday.

My patience wasn't quite there.  Too many things on my mind.

That being said, I was not critical.  And when I thought I could be critical like saying stop whining, I tried saying I know you have a voice there, let me hear it and tell me what you need.

Still, it was really not easy today and I feel a bit of a fail.

I decided to take the kids unexpectedly for a picnic at the new swings near our house.  The idea was greeted enthusiastically but it was a fiasco really.  Gregory didn't enjoy it he said and was quite angry.  It really hurt!  Maya was quite clingy so it was difficult to interact with her older brother.  It was really frustrating!  In the end I realised I picked the wrong day as kids could be seen tired from school- sigh- I still felt like a fail and it still hurt.  But I did acknowledge to them that they seemed tired and I did ask if something was wrong and Gregory did say his school day wasn't quite good and told me a bit about his day which is of course not usual.

Tomorrow will however be a new day and hopefully I will manage to be patient, not critical and kind.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Love Courageously: Patience

Now this can be very tricky.  Since having babies I actually became quite patient.  However I found a lot of triggers for my patience to become short fused in less than a second.

So today I practised patience and well we were all happier as a result.  There were moments where I was getting frustrated and thus impatient and I know it could be heard in my interactions, however, I did manage to keep myself in check and change the situation into a game or something to smile about.

I am really pleased with myself I have to admit and the good start in the challenge gives me more courage to finish it and keep it up.

Mostly  I just saw that the impatience was just me and it didn't really warrant a reaction so I just took that pause first and then let go of my trigger.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I am going to love courageously

I had started The Love Courageously Challenge but then stopped.

Now that baby's born and things are slowly returning to a more normal state, I decided to start again.

Day 1:  I read the original post that prompted this challenge as requested.  I started to cry.

Because it truly takes a lot of courage to break the habit and right now I am not being courageous but a real coward and letting the old habits take over.  I am disgusted by myself and the repeated sorrys to my children feel like sand in my mouth.  I am ready to become courageous again.  I am sorry it took me so long to get hold of myself again.  I am sorry I have let me children down and I am sad to see them afraid of me when I get angry.

I want to see their smiles on all the time and enjoy my company and me theirs.

I am blessed to have a lot of people to help me along the way and I am looking forward to it.


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Love courageously update

I have arrived to day 11 in this love challenge.

As a small update, I have reread the 5 love languages of children and started practising them more with my family. I left a note for my kids in their lunch box, I bought them stuff they needed and wrapped them up as a present, I tell them more that I love them and went on a date with them separately.  We also do special time as much as possible.  It is starting to work - especially with Gregory who is also showing more love back.

In the meantime I had read about the key jar and decided to do it.  Every couple of days during dinner one of us picks a question and everyone answers it.  This is working best with Maya so far but hoping it will catch up with Gregory to.

Appreciation what day 11 is about is sometimes forgotten by me.  So I am making it a point  to show my appreciation possibly daily.  Ways I am showing appreciation is by thanking them for being helpful, for cooperating, for being quiet, for letting me work, for keeping peace..... it makes them feel proud when I tell them this and they are starting to do more of these positive traits.

Tomorrow its day 12 - loving through aggression - this is going to be very interesting as I tend to lean towards aggression myself so I need to learn not just teach.  Possibly so far this will be the most challenging part of loving and I am looking forward to learn and teach and finally get to the best part...being soft and loving 99% of the time :)

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Love courageously day 7

So as part of the love courageously challenge, I will be going through a few weeks where I will focus on the love languages.

the 5 love languages are a very interesting topic I find and while I am pretty sure Maya is a words of affirmation child while Gregory quality time, I still have decided to go through a few weeks going through all the love languages.  Not only will it re confirm that my deductions are correct, but it will also help to teach my children and learn myself how to love in other languages.

I am right now at day 7 and am quite content to stay here for a little bit and fill my days with attention to detail amongst other things.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Love Courageous: critical

Today didn't go as good as yesterday.

My patience wasn't quite there.  Too many things on my mind.

That being said, I was not critical.  And when I thought I could be critical like saying stop whining, I tried saying I know you have a voice there, let me hear it and tell me what you need.

Still, it was really not easy today and I feel a bit of a fail.

I decided to take the kids unexpectedly for a picnic at the new swings near our house.  The idea was greeted enthusiastically but it was a fiasco really.  Gregory didn't enjoy it he said and was quite angry.  It really hurt!  Maya was quite clingy so it was difficult to interact with her older brother.  It was really frustrating!  In the end I realised I picked the wrong day as kids could be seen tired from school- sigh- I still felt like a fail and it still hurt.  But I did acknowledge to them that they seemed tired and I did ask if something was wrong and Gregory did say his school day wasn't quite good and told me a bit about his day which is of course not usual.

Tomorrow will however be a new day and hopefully I will manage to be patient, not critical and kind.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Love Courageously: Patience

Now this can be very tricky.  Since having babies I actually became quite patient.  However I found a lot of triggers for my patience to become short fused in less than a second.

So today I practised patience and well we were all happier as a result.  There were moments where I was getting frustrated and thus impatient and I know it could be heard in my interactions, however, I did manage to keep myself in check and change the situation into a game or something to smile about.

I am really pleased with myself I have to admit and the good start in the challenge gives me more courage to finish it and keep it up.

Mostly  I just saw that the impatience was just me and it didn't really warrant a reaction so I just took that pause first and then let go of my trigger.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I am going to love courageously

I had started The Love Courageously Challenge but then stopped.

Now that baby's born and things are slowly returning to a more normal state, I decided to start again.

Day 1:  I read the original post that prompted this challenge as requested.  I started to cry.

Because it truly takes a lot of courage to break the habit and right now I am not being courageous but a real coward and letting the old habits take over.  I am disgusted by myself and the repeated sorrys to my children feel like sand in my mouth.  I am ready to become courageous again.  I am sorry it took me so long to get hold of myself again.  I am sorry I have let me children down and I am sad to see them afraid of me when I get angry.

I want to see their smiles on all the time and enjoy my company and me theirs.

I am blessed to have a lot of people to help me along the way and I am looking forward to it.