Choosing to Cheat
I’ve been reading a book called “Choosing To Cheat: Who Wins When Family and Work Collide” by Andy Stanley. It’s a realistic look at how your priorities in life are demonstrated by your actions — how many hours you spend at work, how many family obligations you miss, and so on. And that there will never be enough time to do all of the things you want to do, you need to do, or that you are obligated to do. As Stanley puts so succinctly in the title, you need to choose who you’re going to cheat out of your time and energy. Will you cheat your children out of time with their mom or dad, or will you cheat your boss out of an employee that works overtime anytime he or she needs it?
Thing is, I haven’t had time to finish the book, even though I bought it at Blossom Women’s Conference … way back in October. I chose to cheat myself out of finishing the book.
But I’ve still learned the lessons Stanley has for us, perhaps in a more concrete way, and especially during this week in particular.
I offered to work 3 weeks of overtime for a family in a bind. Yes, it involved more money, but not enough that I would drop everything else to do it. I offered primarily to be of service to this family. The overtime cut into the kids’ evening activities, our weekly family devotions, my errand-running time, and our Valentine’s Day plans. It meant that as soon as I was done work, our youngest would head straight to the bathtub and then to bed, which left very little time to actually spend with her.
But my family has always been very accommodating of my business decisions (perhaps not by choice …), and no one offered an argument when I told everyone this overtime work would be happening. Although at the time, I understood it to be two weeks, not three. But still, no one objected. I chose to cheat my family.
And I worked merrily along, as did my family, until one day this week I was hit with an awful realization. The overtime I was working was not being used completely out of necessity. I was working overtime and sacrificing my family’s space, time and activities, for the enjoyment of someone else. 
I hadn’t been clear with my client. I hadn’t explained to them that I was offering my services for a specific reason. I had assumed that they would understand what my working overtime entailed. I assumed that they would behave similarly to other clients had in the past. But there’s no reason they should have. They were paying me to provide a service. What they did with that service was no business of mine. The gas station attendant doesn’t care what you do with the gas as long as you pay for it. The waitress doesn’t care if you eat your food, as long as you pay for it. Why should it matter to me? And why should it matter to my client?
And I realized that it does matter to me, because my family is being cheated. So I made a big, huge business decision.
I made a business decision to always put my own family first. I made a business decision to never work overtime again. And I made a business decision to always do what is best for MY family, not anyone else’s family.
This all sounds incredibly cynical and not at all Christ-like, and it really cuts me to have to put it in black and white like that. I feel terribly guilty for having to stop offering to help my clients out, especially when I know some of them really do need help and extra services. But if my priority list is God first, husband second, children third, there’s just no room in the top three for work. And here’s the thing — God’s blessed me with a waiting list, with families that lurk on my website, checking for a chance to get an interview, and with a sellers’ market in this little town. My job is relatively secure. So I’ve chosen to cheat. To cheat my business and my clients out of extra time, extra work and extra services, while still giving as much as I can during my regular work hours.
And so, I’m choosing to cheat. I’m choosing to cheat the good things, to give to the better things.
And maybe one day I’ll find enough time to finish that book …
Some of the Stuff My Momma Taught Me
#1) You’ll understand when you’re 21.
#2) Don’t depend on anyone but God, and maybe yourself.
#3) There is NO good reason to not go to church. Unless you’re dead or actively throwing up.
#4) If you have a problem with your husband, don’t take it up with him. Take it up with God.
#5) A house is meant to be lived in, not lived for.
#6) The more people around the table, the better.
#7) Investing your money in spending time with your family is far more important than buying big expensive stuff that your family won’t be able to use because you’re afraid it will get wrecked.
#8) There is NO good reason not to serve God at church. NONE.
#9) If you can’t play, sing. If you can’t sing, do it anyway.
#10) Eat everything on your plate. Even if it looks like lizard tongues. (Which came in handy when I had to eat cow tongues … and pretend I liked them.)
#11) Before you’re married, you’re your own person. After you’re married, follow your husband to the ends of the earth.
#12) Menstrual cramps prepare you for childbirth.
#12 a) Demerol is God’s gift to women.
#13) You CAN feed 4 people at McDonald’s for $10.
#14) Be prepared to be unprepared. Always.
#15) The menfolk all need man-time — so back off and let them be.
#16) Life IS black and white.
#17) Second-hand is frugal AND environmentally friendly.
#18) A chocolate bar in the afternoon makes everyone’s life better.
#19) Stay current on everything so that you always have something to discuss with anyone.
#20) There’s NO good reason not to make a mudslide on the front lawn in a rain storm.
#21) When you get knocked down, have a good cry and then get right back up again.
#22) A home is a HOME when anyone who enters feels comfortable enough to put their feet on the furniture or take a nap on the couch.
#23) Your life should never be completely wrapped up in your children’s lives or in the life of your husband. You always need to have your own space to go to. But when you’re not in your space, you need to be 100% there for your husband or children.
#24) There is far too much to do for a stay-at-home-mom to be bored.
#25) Letting your teenage sons give you noogies is okay.
#26) Everyone needs an afternoon nap more often than they think.
#27) It’s okay to discuss the Birds & the Bees at the breakfast table.
#28) If you’re busy, it had better be for God.
#29) ALWAYS save a plate when someone isn’t there for dinner.
#30) Your Bible should look like it’s been rifled through, spilt on, dropped in a snow bank, walked on, rained on and coloured in. That means you’re using it.
#31) There is very rarely a good reason to buy a brand-new vehicle.
#32) How you carry yourself is far more important than how you’re dressed.
#32 a) But when you’re visiting God’s house, you need to dress like you’re VISITING GOD’S HOUSE!
#33) Don’t ever let anyone dismiss you because you’re a woman. Get in their face if you need to.
#34) There’s women’s work and there’s men’s work. Do the women’s work the best that you can, and let your husband do the men’s work the best that he can.
#35) Respect your husband. RESPECT YOUR HUSBAND! Even if you don’t agree with him, respect him.
#36) Every kid needs long amounts of uninterrupted time to just play.
#37) When you have them, enjoy your grandkids — especially when it means that every surface in your kitchen is covered with flour … and you haven’t been doing any baking.
#38) When the car won’t start, pray. When the washer doesn’t work, pray. When you’re about to slide off a bridge into the icy water below, pray. When you can’t find a textbook, pray. When you’re not going to make it there in time, pray. Seriously, just pray. God’s got it under control.
#39) Everyone needs an adventure to call their own.
#40) The ONLY thing that really matters in life is where you stand with Jesus.
12 Things Daycare Providers Wish Parents Knew
I have amazing clients. They are wonderful parents that love their kids to pieces. They spend extra time with them, they miss them when they’re at work, and they show appreciation for what I do. They pay for stats and don’t complain about my vacation time. They bring me TimCards and Thank You cards and flowers and Mother’s Day gifts and Christmas gifts. They back me up when I need to discipline their children, and they respect my home, my time, my children, my property and my business. In a word, they’re awesome!
In the past however, I’ve had some parents that don’t always get it. And I’ve heard crazy stories from lots of other daycare providers about just how clueless parents can be. But here’s the thing: if I was a parent taking my child to daycare everyday, I might not understand the provider’s side of things either. So, in the interests of everyone involved, I thought I’d do a litte PSA, just so parents can understand where home daycare providers are coming from.
#12 – If you are at a good Home Daycare, your spot is likely in high demand. Do everything you can to follow the Provider’s policies, because there is a good chance she can replace you very quickly.
#11 – If your child starts daycare before the age of about 2, he or she will call your Provider “Mommy”. As much as she reminds them of her name, they will still default to the name “Mommy”.
#10 – There is a direct relationship between how many hours a child spends in daycare and their behaviour. In general, the fewer hours a child spends in the care of someone other than Mommy or Daddy, the better behaved they are. Which means that just because your Home Daycare is open 12 hours a day, doesn’t mean you should leave your child there 12 hours a day (which is 60 hours a week!). Children benefit from spending the most waking hours possible at home with parents.
#9 – Most Home Daycare Providers can’t imagine taking time off without spending at least some of that time with their own kids. So it blows their minds when parents take a week off of work and still bring their children to daycare the same hours as every other week. You’d be surprised how excited your child gets when you show up early — they love it! And children even as young as 18 months will brag to the others about how their Mommy or Daddy is picking up first. So if you have the day off, why not spend a little of it with Junior and show up an hour or two early.
#8 – Kids do not have more fun at daycare than they would at home with their own toys and with their own Mommy and Daddy. As much as they enjoy playing with their friends, doing crafts and circle time, and going for walks, most kids would MUCH rather spend a day playing at home with their own toys, reading books with Mommy and wrestling with Daddy.
#7 – Sick kids need to be at home. When 
you get sick, I’m sure the first thing on your mind is getting home to your own bed. When your child gets sick at daycare, they would much rather be picked up as soon as possible, rather than have to continue to go through the daycare routine (which may involve a bus run, playing outside, meal & snack times, etc). Your daycare provider does have other children in her care, and quite often can’t sit with just one child without adequately supervising the others.
#6 – If your child throws up on your Home Daycare Provider, there is a very good chance she will not be able to change until closing, because there is simply no one else to watch the kids while she does. Please, please keep that in mind when your child does throws up at daycare. An “I’m so sorry this happened” goes a LONG way!
#5 – Daycare Providers are in it for the money. Yes, Home Daycare Providers do this job because they love children. But would you do your job if you couldn’t pay the bills with it? And Home Daycare Providers are not “raking it in”. Yes, I’ve seen parents do the mental math when they think about what they’re paying and multiply it by the number of kids in my care. Yes, we do make that amount, but then we deduct taxes (about 15%), daycare groceries and cleaning supplies (about 14%), extra insurance and utilities (about 10%), and any new toys, furniture, or outdoor equipment or repairs to our homes caused by running the daycare (5% – 20%). If you really do the math, you’ll see that we’re making much less than minimum wage.
#4 – You are paying for a daycare spot, in addition to the actual care your child receives. So if your child visits with Auntie Sue for the week and doesn’t come to daycare, you still need to pay for the week. Home Daycare Providers need to be able to depend on a steady income. If they can’t, they will either find a family that comes more regularly, or close the daycare because they need a job that pays the bills.
#3 – When you “forget” to pay your Daycare Provider, she quite often will not be able to pay her own bills. Her bills include food for your child, heat for your child, water for your child, electricity for your child, insurance for your child, … well, you get the idea. She will need to remind you to pay (have you ever had to beg, nag and plead for YOUR paycheque?) and that won’t be a enjoyable job for anyone.
#2 – Your Daycare Provider loves your child, but she loves her own more. So, if your daycare is open from 6:30 to 4:30, respect that. Don’t show up at 6:25 to drop your child off and then leave them in care til 4:45. Your daycare provider has a life, and wants to spend it with her own children, not yours. Sure, she may be up at 5:30, shovelling the driveway so that you can get in, or getting breakfast set up, or showering, or having some quiet time before the day starts. But please respect that that is her personal time — not time for you to use as you please.
#1 - If your daycare provider closes because she is sick, she does NOT want to watch your kids! Yes, I’ve been asked.
The most important thing that yo
ur Home Daycare Provider wants you to know is this: She would LOVE to hear how much you appreciate how hard she works! She takes care of the most important thing in your life, she does it without breaks or meal times, and quite often she needs to run to the bathroom at close because she hasn’t had a chance to pee during the day. She gets “I love you’s”, hugs and kisses from the kids, but when you say “Thank you” at the end of a crazy day, it makes it all worth while!
2011: My Favourite Pictures
Our family has our own personal paparazzi. And he’s really hard to shake, since he’s our ride. As a result, we’ve got some really amazing pictures of everything (and I really do mean EVERYTHING) we’ve done this year.
Here are my favourites:
The Great Outdoors
Craigleith Provincial Park
Dad & Jill's Wedding
Warsaw Caves
The Atkinsons' Trailer at MBC: our new favourite weekend spot
Chaos
Paparazzi-Man
What a crazy busy year! We’re already making plans for 2012!
True Religion
We had an amazing Christmas. Surrounded by family, enjoying good company, good food and LOTS of gifts, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, we sang carols at church, and we had a great time. I’m betting you had a pretty good time too.
I wonder what it’s like though, to not have a family to spend the holidays with. To not have someone to invite you to spend Christmas with them, exchange gifts and eat turkey with. What about for birthdays or other special days? What do you do when you have no family? No family to call or Skype with if you can’t actually be with them? Is it like those sitcoms where the character’s family is their friends, friends that change when their contract runs out or when the series is cancelled?
Sure, having a close family can have it’s issues, or for many people, having more than one family can make things dicey. But what if you have no one? Or what if, through no choice of your own, you spend most Christmases with a different family each year?
And what if you never know when you’re going to move? And since we’re speaking hypothetically, what if you were a kid in all of this, with no control over where you sleep, where you go to school, or who your family even is?
In Ontario in 2008, 9% of the children in foster care, that were available for adoption, were actually adopted. That leaves 91% of the kids still in foster care. That’s a crazy high number! And then how many kids were added to that in 2009, 2010 and 2011? And how many will be added in 2012? All across Canada, there’s something like 30,000 adoptable children in foster care. The foster families they’re with are, for the most part, loving families that care for each child in their care deeply — but they’re not permanent. Once each child hits 18, the foster family no longer has any obligation to them. We do know of foster families that have gone above and beyond, and who consider their foster kids “theirs”, even after they’ve left the nest. But for many kids that have passed their 18th birthday, they don’t have a family to spend Christmases with, to invite to their graduation, to their weddings, to the birth of their children.
As Christians, we say every life is important to God, we say kids shouldn’t be abused, abortion should be illegal, we say we should love like God loves. And we have huge houses with extra beds and two cars in the garage and a table big enough for 3 extra people. We have so much food we need to stop ourselves from eating it all, and we have so many clothes, we have to give them away when we’re tired of them. We give money to people on the other side of the world to feed and clothe them, and pat ourselves on the back for the good we’re doing in this world.
But what are we doing in Canada, in Ontario, in Angus (or Barrie, or Alliston, or wherever)?
It’s one thing to give $20 to the kid on the street corner holding up a sign. It’s a good thing, but it’s a non-committal kind of thing. What about the kids that have parents that can’t take care of them because of poverty, abuse or neglect? What about the ones that don’t have a functioning family to call their own?
As Christians, quite a few of us have healthy, well-functioning families, with room to spare. Sure, an extra kid costs money, and energy, and time. But what you’d be giving him or her, is priceless. And you may be providing that child with the only chance to experience the love of Christ that he or she will ever have. Yes, not everyone is called to adopt, but I’m thinking that a lot more Christians are called to adopt than actually do.
Foster care adoption is something that the Christian community needs to take and run with. What better way to demonstrate the relationship each of us has with our Heavenly Father? Romans 8:15b says “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” “ — we’ve been adopted by God into His family.
And did you know that foster care adoption is free? The training, homestudy and legal costs are absolutely free through the Children’s Aid Society.
Whether God calls us to add to our family through adoption, or simply by supporting those who do, this is one thing that all of us need to seriously consider.
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1:27
6 Great Reasons to Marry Young
1. You’re young enough to think that living as newlyweds with 11 college guys and an East Indian family of 5 is a great adventure.
2. You’re broke enough to think that the $200 in your brand new joint bank account is a ton of money.
3. You have enough energy for late nights, early mornings, 3 a.m.-ers, “lunch breaks” and “Oh, did I forget my coat in the bedroom (living room, shower, kitchen, etc)? Can you help me find it?”.
4. You have so little to start off with that you don’t bother registering for wedding gifts, because you need everything anyway.
5. You have no career or kid ties to keep you in one place, meaning you can move out west, up north, or down east at the drop of a hat and with $30 in your pocket.
6. You appreciate everything — the $700 Chevette that took you a year to pay off (after it was scrapped), the 500 square foot apartm
ent that’s ALL yours, the $160 paycheck that you worked hard for all week, the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want to (as long as it’s free, which generally means one thing …), and the fact that you’re sharing all of this with the one person that you’ve chosen to spend your life, money, and home with, have babies with, fight with, and to grow old with.
Marrying young — it’s not for everyone, but I would humbly suggest that it’s something many more Christians should consider 
Backwards Angel
I’ve always wanted to have one of those perfect Christmas trees like you see in magazine layouts, or on Martha Stewart Live, or in the homes of those amazingly gracious, talented and hospitable women that went to our church when we were kids.
It’s always been a symbol of a good housewife to me — someone who has the organizational skills to collect and store all of those colour-coordinated ornaments year after year, who has the eye to display it all beautifully, who has the parenting skills to keep little hands from rearranging, and who has the housekeeping abilities to keep the never-ending cascade of pine needles from ever actually showing.
Growing up, our tree was never like that. We would trudge out to one of the mostly abandoned railroad tracks outside of Cannington, and search for the perfect tree top. Yes, the top — because if it’s got enough branches to be a good Christmas tree, it’s been around long enough to be too big to fit in most people’s living rooms. Once we found the perfect one, one of my brothers would climb it and cut off the top 6 or 7 feet. After dragging it up onto the tracks and then loading it onto the car, we would head home for an afternoon of tree decorating, accompanied by hot chocolate and Christmas carols.
With our hodgepodge of ancient handmade glass balls, school-made cut-and-paste ornaments, and tinsel, our tree was anything but coordinated. And to make matters worse, trees that grow wild alongside the railroad tracks are never … how shall I put it? Well, they’re never symmetrical, they’re never bushy, they’re always lopsided, and the bottom branches are always way too long. In short, they aren’t the kind of tree you’d choose to be the subject of a magazine layout.
I couldn’t stand it. The decorations were placed with no forethought, and everything was just a mass of Christmas colours and fallen needles. It was so … disorganized. Everyone else in my family loved it, and I could never understand why.
I’ve spent the last 15 years as a wife, and for 14 of those years, I’ve tried very, VERY hard to keep my Christmas tree looking as nice as possible. There were the silver and blue years and the red and gold years, when every ornament was carefully chosen to maintain the colour scheme. And we’ve only had a real tree one or two of those years. It had to be artificial (albeit cheap), because that’s the only real way I could control the bushiness and the symmetry of my tree. But this year, we opted for a real live tree. Dropping needles and all.
Throwing everything to the wind, the kids decorated it. Although I WAS pretty strict about the fact that the lights had to go on first, then the ribbon, and THEN the ornaments. But after that, they had complete control.
And it shows.
So today as I was sitting beside a drowsy toddler as she drifted off mesmerized by the twinkling lights on our Christmas tree, I found myself wondering how it came to look so good. With a string of lights that twinkles while another stays on continually, a crepe paper wreath hanging on one branch, and a series of broken branches on one side (which may have fallen victim to an unsteady child), really, our tree looks amazing! It may be because it’s a real pine, it may be because of the sugar cookie buzz that’s lingering from our baking spree this morning, but whatever it is, it looks BEAUTIFUL!
And so I start to think that maybe I had a hand in making it look so wonderful, so colourful, and so Christmasy. That is, until my eyes wander to the top of the tree.
At the top of the tree sits a porecelin angel, who came all the way home with us from Calgary. With her flowing gown and golden wings, she looks positively majestic sitting atop our little tree. Well, she did yesterday, anyway.
Today she sits backwards. Huh. 
I mentally calculate logistics and the physics of climbing up on the couch, or of leaning over the railing to move the angel, assuming a 4.5 foot stature of the potential perpetrator, but I come up with nothing. How did our angel come to have her back to the room? Could those broken branches have something to do with it?
However it happened, I think I’ll leave her that way, at least for a little while. Because our Christmas tree isn’t perfect. The year it is perfect, is the year that we no longer have little ones around to rearrange ornaments, to lick sugar cookie icing from the whisk, or to wake up 3 hours before dawn on Christmas morning to sneak back to bed with a mysteriously full stocking.
That year will come soon enough, but I’m glad it’s not here yet. Until then, I’m happy with my imperfect Christmas tree and my backwards angels.
Before ANYTHING Else??
If I had a catchphrase with the church kids I’ve worked with over the years, it would be this:
“What do we do before we do ANYTHING else?”
And 10 to 15 to 30 little voices yell “PRAY!!”
So if it’s gotten into their little heads, why hasn’t it sunk into my grown-up head? Why is it the last thing I think of? Why do I have to schedule prayer into my day just to remind myself to do it?
If I were God, I’d get annoyed with myself, then offended, and then I’d just stop talking to myself. I’d give up on the whole relationship. I mean, if it’s that much trouble, I must not be very invested in it.
But instead, I see little reminders of Him all around at the craziest times.
Walking at toddler-speed through the neighbourhood, inspecting the types of dead grass along the sidewalk with two little charges, I glance up to see a beautiful rainbow stretching over our house. It was barely there, and a was backdropped by a cloudy, grey sky — I don’t know where the sunlight was coming from to create it.
And just now, as 4 sleepyheads sleep in at least an hour later than usual (oops, is that a creaking step I hear?).
And when I do remember to pray, and spend the entire conversation asking that God would remind one child to keep her pants dry at school today, and to help another child to remember not to let certain kids get to him, and to help another child deal with the tougher course load in class, and to help the Sunday School kids learn their lines for play practice — He answers those silly, little prayers like they actually matter to Him. Because they do.
Even on the days I’m not invested, He always is, more so than we’ll ever understand.
So today, a Saturday, when I need to get one kid in the bath, assemble all of the props and supplies for play practice, get 4 kids and one husband fed and dressed (and remember to take a shower myself), and hustle them past the freshly fallen snow into the van within the next hour –
God said: “What do we need to do before we do ANYTHING else?”
And so I prayed.
