Sometimes I Crack Me Up...

My sweetie and I are intentional about the way we parent. In fact, we call it "intentional parenting." What does this mean? So glad you asked. It means that we choose what we say, the activities we participate in, the books we read, what we watch, etc. with the goal in mind of equipping our children well for their lives. It also means that we find ways to weave truth into conversations about everyday things and try not to miss opportunities to connect with the little stinkers.

Take, for example, our dinner conversation tonight. I made waffles and bacon. Who doesn't like to come home at the end of the day and, instead of finding a nice casserole or a hearty stew, finding the table set for breakfast? Back to the conversation. Since there is an excessive, and I do mean excessive, amount of candy in our home at the moment, somehow the topic of taking care of your body and putting good things into it came up (which, of course, is why I chose to reinforce the point with waffles and syrup because everyone knows that syrup isn't your regular kind of sugar, it's breakfast sugar which is altogether different...). Back to the conversation. The kids started to ask why people don't always take care of their bodies, take pride in their appearance, etc. My sweetie told them that if someone doesn't feel good about themselves, they might give up on some of the external stuff and then feel bad about that, which leads to a vicious cycle of self-deprecating thoughts and a twisted view of being made in God's image and all this perfectly lovely stuff that you should say when you are intentional about your parenting. Never missing an opportunity to make a point, I piped in with this knee-slapper:

...and if you ever look in the mirror and not find anything you like about yourself, that's the time to look yourself square in the face and say this out loud: "Hey, at least I've got really great parents."

Okay, it was a good one. Even Miss O had a chuckle and that is a rarity when it's a response to her own mother's ramblings.