My Precious.....

Okay so I am NOT a fan of those movies with that creepy dude who totally hisswhispers "My Precious" through the entire thing, his wispy hair clinging to his scary face. I have friends who LOVE these movies. I have a husband who loves these movies. I even have friends who proudly purchased their own personal creepy dude figurine to live on their movie shelf. The word precious is one that I could barely utter without conjuring up the face of Gollum.

So let me tell you how Jeremy and I have been spending our Sunday evenings for the past several weeks. No, we are not marathon movie watching we are a taking a parenting class. I almost feel like I need to start with "Hi my name is Kamryn and I'm taking a parenting class." In my world, for whatever reason, parenting classes were taboo. It meant I were failing. Now I have taken cake decorating classes because I wanted to better my cake makin' skills, and I've taken lots of training classes for jobs I've held in order to improve my ability and none ever made me feel like I had failed. Actually, they each made me feel more accomplished and able. Somehow in my mind the thought of taking a parenting class didn't equate like that. I never thought that I could simply become a better parent. Thankfully, for the most part I've gotten over myself enough to get over that mentality.

We are following a class called "Growing Kids God's Way" and so far I'm really enjoying it. It's challenged me to rethink the "why" in our parenting plan. Jeremy and I struggled with infertility for a number of years before we had Kaity and in that time we would armchair parent. We watched what we liked, what we thought worked, what we didn't like, what we totally wanted to copy. We had a really strong purposeful parenting plan long before we had a child. It has served us well. We also knew how we wanted to raise our children from a spiritual perspective. Never ever did it occur to us that these were really 2 sides of the same coin.


One of the main concepts so far that has really resonated with me is honoring others for their "preciousness". Every person is precious because they are created by God and are precious to Him. We should treat people preciously because we love Him and want to honor what He has created. That leads me up to the actual point of this whole blathering message. Yesterday the schilldren and I were driving home from our home schooling group and I attempted to explain to them the concept of preciousness. We've never used that term in explaining how to treat one another. We said to be 'nice' or 'kind' but never explained why they should beyond the basic 'because you should' of it all. They understood preciousness. They got it, they embraced it. We talked about it for probably about 10 minutes and then moved on to other topics of conversation.

When we got home I got out and was cleaning up some ice on the drive way. Usually, they scatter the moment we pull in and run into the house to play while I am left bellowing for help to carry bags in or empty the van from whatever errands we've been running. Instead, I hear Joshua calling out to ask me if the tea glass in the van was from today. I looked up and there he stood w/the drivers side door open getting out my drink to take into the house for me. Because I am precious. Kaity carried her brothers school bag in when she collected hers. Because he is precious. Joshua made a second trip to get a few odds and ends out of the van and even held the door open for me. All in the name of preciousness. When they were getting ready to play a video game Kaity knocked something out of Joshua's hand and it fell to the floor and games were scattered. Typically that would have been dramatic and fuss filled. Yesterday she apologized but he was already down helping her pick up what had spilled and he even said "it's okay I know it was an accident".
So now when I say my precious it won't be w/that creepy clingy haired freakfest in my mind it will instead by my sweet babies treating each other with kindness. Because they are precious.