Bibliophily and Illness

I come from a family of book lovers. We read often, quickly, out loud, everything. We recommend books to each other (although we each have distinct taste, it overlaps) and passionately discuss them. If you get either one of my parents to talk for any length of time about education you will discover that they are big believers in self-educating and I'll bet a lot of money that the words, "Just read books!" will escape their lips at least once.

My family of origin has also always been really... dorky and embarrassing in a lot of ways (please, nobody find any pictures from the 80's or 90's!) but I was never, ever ashamed of our book habit. Nothing in me has ever thought, "I just wish my family didn't read so much!" I love it. And, especially in the years since Jeff and I killed our TV, I carry on the family tradition with gusto. And my influence is spreading. Jeff is reading Harry Potter and many, many days Lilia wakes up signing "book" and saying, "BUH! BUH!!!" over and over until we give her one or read her one or both. Mwahahahaha.

Poor little Miss Lilia has been a little under the weather for most of the week, and I have hated to watch her not feel good. But imagine my joy when her relaxation of choice was to sit with Mommy and read a book! She got her own little spot and her own little book and seriously and very quietly turned the pages, just like me. Oh Lord, please let me bottle just a little bit of this and keep it forever!




For books I love and can't get enough of myself, please see the list to the right of the blog.

Balance

Balance is a big thing for a lot of people. For parents of small children, I think it's one of the most important things in the world. And one of the hardest.

We're constantly balancing: nutrition, budget, personal care, fun, sleep, routines, the list goes on and on. Mostly I think what we're doing is trying to be sure that every member of our family is healthy and cared for -- spiritually, emotionally, physically, etc. Before you have children, a lot of building your family consists of learning to recognize and care for your own needs and your spouse's needs. But when children come, the balancing act begins! Everyone needs sleep, everyone needs fun, everyone needs independent time and interaction and good food and a prayer life and exercise. Everyone needs to feel loved and cared for. The kids are important, the parents are important, the marriage is important.

We've found that the vast majority of parenting advice/literature falls into two categories: ignoring the children's needs in favor of the parents or ignoring the parents' needs in favor of the children! It's hard out there for a family that wants to walk a middle ground and recognize that everyone is important.

This last month has been difficult in terms of balance, and we kind of hit bottom before we started to change our ways. We've been struggling to get ready for baby #2 while balancing the needs of baby #1, a pregnant mommy, and a daddy who is having to take up a lot of slack at home while holding down a job with 10-hour shifts. Here are a few things that are working for us right now:

• Putting first things (literally) first. I've been doing whatever it takes to start my day by eating a good breakfast, reading my Bible and putting Pandora worship on first thing in the morning. Changing my life.
• Talking. Jeff and I frequently ask each other, "How are you doing? What do you need right now?" and even, "What can I do that will make you feel loved?" It helps so much to stay on the same page and feel like real partners.
• Setting aside time to do nothing. Doing nothing was really missing in our lives. We were constantly going. It almost killed us. Now rather than waiting until everything is finished in order to relax, we're just setting aside time without everything being done. Because it will never all be done!
• Changing scenery. We've found a little money here and there to go grab dinner as a family at Costco, or just time to leave the house for a while. It's really nice.
• Investing in long-term time savings. This is a hard thing to fit in and I'm not sure we've got it right, but we've been thinking of ways to simplify things longer term. Getting an in-house water filtration system so we don't have to keep going to buy water at the store, cooking for the freezer in large quantities so we don't have to make dinner every night, organizing things so they're easier to get to, use, put away properly.
  

What's working for you? Let's share ideas! Here's to balancing and nurturing everyone in our families!