Project 52: Weeks 14 and 15

Posted by novelmama on April 15, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Been a busy bee!

FINALLY finished this for Dan. Not my best work.

Made another one of these. This one is for Abby. About five minutes after I finished it someone got blueberry on it. I’m afraid to wash it.

This is the one I finished for Brighton:

And here is the prayer shawl, all finished and HUGE. Misread the pattern. Oops.

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Project 52: Week 13

Posted by novelmama on April 1, 2011 · Leave a Comment

After the prayer shawl that seemed to take forever, it’s been nice working on something that comes together so much more quickly. This is an Easter gift for my 5 month old niece. Now that the girls have seen it, however, they each want one, too. Luckily they go quick.

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Project 52: Weeks 8-12

Posted by novelmama on March 25, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Okay, so I suck at keeping blogs updated. Sorry. Though I’ve slacked on my entries, I haven’t slacked on my crocheting–I will likely finish the body of the shawl tonight and start the edging, meaning I will almost certainly reach my goal of completing this project by the end of the month.

A closeup so you can see the weave and color a little better:

I don’t know what happened to my brain after I started working on this project, but I have made SO many mistakes. Thank heavens for such an open-weave pattern–unless one was really looking for them I don’t think they’ll be obvious. I still feel badly, though, that the quality isn’t better. Oh well. Live and learn.

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Project 52: Week 5-7

Posted by novelmama on February 18, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Life here in the Novelmama home has been pretty sucky as of late. Since the middle of week 3 we’ve been sick. Yes, basically an entire month has been spent with either horrific headaches, pink eye, laryngitis, congestion, a sore throat…the list goes on. Needless to say, not a lot of crafting has been going on here. Just tonight I finally got back into it, working some more on the friendship bracelet for the hubs. I made it too large, so I’m pulling out over an inch of stitches–the second time I’ve done something like this. Oh well, live and learn. I have the jump rings and clasp ready to go, and one of them already attached. Another night in front of mindless TV should be enough for me to get it done.

In other creative news, I’ve got my novel back to do edits on, and those are due back the 28th. I’d post a pic of the cover but I don’t have one yet.

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Project 52: Week 4

Posted by novelmama on January 29, 2011 · Leave a Comment

So the shawl has been set aside for now so I can make, of all things, a friendship bracelet. Remember those, back in the 80′s? Hubby wants one as a memory-jogging device, so I’m obliging, although it turns out my 20+ year hiatus hasn’t improved my skills any. I actually ended up going online to try to find some help because the dumb thing keeps pulling to the right. Turns out my knots are too tight. I frogged three stripes’ worth of rows (think about that–three stripes’ worth of those tiny little knots. Had to use a straight pin to pick them out!) and loosened how I knot and you can already see a difference!

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Project 52: Week 3

Posted by novelmama on January 22, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Worked on two different projects this week:

First, I started this prayer shawl for a friend. Haven’t gotten real far, as you can see, but it’s a start.

The reason I haven’t gotten very far on the shawl is because I’ve been under the gun working on the edits for my April release, The Heart of Memory.

I was going to post a picture of the galleys but that’s not particularly interesting. The cover is much prettier. Anyway, I finished those last night at 10:30 and mailed ‘em off this morning. Yeehaw! Back to crocheting!

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Project 52: Week 2

Posted by novelmama on January 15, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Almost done with my second glove:

I was working on it this morning with the intent of finishing it today so I can move on to my ever-growing list of projects, but somehow when I moved it from Dan’s office to the living room the hook disappeared. I’ve looked everywhere. This is the third time this has happened since I started crocheting–I always end up finding them, but it’s typically MONTHS later. I don’t want to go buy *another* hook. It’s got to be around here somewhere! Grrrr….

PJ started dance class on Thursday, so I had to make her a dance bag so she could be cool like her sister:

I’d forgotten I had those fabrics, and when AJ saw them she got jealous. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was asked to make another bag soon…

Alright. Off to find this stupid crochet hook.

ETA: Went out to the living room and Dan said, “So I hear you lost your hook! Where did you last see it?” I pointed to the couch, he literally just LOOKED at the crack between the cushions (which are not removable) and lo and behold, there was the hook. In the place where I looked TWICE. And yes, this has happened before. “This couch is like the wardrobe of Narnia,” he said. “Only I can go through!”

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Project 52: Week 1

Posted by novelmama on January 7, 2011 · 2 Comments

At the encouragement of some of my GentleChristianMothers.com friends, I’m joining in this year’s Project 52. (Honestly I don’t know if this is an official thing or just something some people have made up. Either way, it sounds cool to me.) It’s a challenge meant to keep us crafting all year–as though I need any more motivation. Each week we’ll post a picture of the crafting we did that past week. It’s also a great way to see the progression of projects throughout the year.

So here’s my first post. I’m working on a pair of fingerless gloves that I can wear while typing. This is my fifth crochet project, and as always I’ve learned something that was just one small step up from where I was skill-wise: back post double crochet (bpdc) and foundationless single crochet (fsc). Here is the first glove:

What’s funny is that I finished this two days ago–and today I received a birthday gift in the mail from a dear friend: USB-powered warming fingerless gloves. (I complain a lot on FB about my frigid office. my need of this type of item is well-known and well-documented.)

It’s far from perfect–it’s way longer than I expected and I ended up with this weird hole by the thumb. But overall it’s not bad, and I kind of like that they’re long enough to go up under my sleeve; I hate it when there’s a gap between the end of a sleeve and the bottom of a glove. I haven’t tried typing with it yet; I want to wait until I have the full set before I give them a whirl. But this first one only took a few days to do, so hopefully I’ll have them done by next week.

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Products The Work: Skip Dr. Classic

Posted by novelmama on July 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment

We’re not the most careful of people, and sadly our DVD collection has born more than its share of rough handling. When the girls’ favorite DVD developed some skips and wouldn’t even play anymore in our car’s DVD player, we decided it was time to find a solution. Staples only carried one such product, and it wasn’t the one we’d seen in other places, so we were a little dubious. But we decided to give it a shot and see what happened.

The product has a handle and a buffer that you assemble once out of the box. The disc attaches to the buffer. Then you affix the bottle of spray to the handle, give a squirt, and turn the crank to make the disc rotate. It only requires two rotations, and then you’re done. Super quick, super easy, no mess, no fuss.

The disc still looks a little scratched, but when we put it in the player there were no issues whatsoever. Product win!

We got our Skip Dr. Classic at Staples for under $20. The system is supposedly good for 50 DVDs, but you can buy replacements for the part that wears out while buffing, and you can buy more spray as well. Definitely worth it, and far better than shelling out the cash for a new copy of your well-worn DVD or CD collection.

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Golden Rule Parenting

Posted by novelmama on April 26, 2010 · 26 Comments

This post is written for inclusion in the Carnival of Gentle Discipline hosted by Paige @ Baby Dust Diaries. All week, April 26-30, we will be featuring essays about non-punitive discipline. See the bottom of this post for more information.

Regardless of their religious views, there are few who would disagree with Jesus’ words recorded in the Bible in Matthew 7:12–”So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (New International Version)–a.k.a. the Golden Rule. And yet it is astounding to me how many people–and, ironically, especially Christians–do not think this wisdom should not be applied to children. Consider the following scenarios:

– You are hungry. You’ve been going, going, going all day and haven’t had a chance to sit down and eat. You’re thinking about a dozen things at once and you don’t even realize you’re hungry, but you’re starting to snap at people, including your husband. How would you prefer for him to approach you? “Honey, you seem really off. I haven’t seen you sit for more than 5 minutes today. What’s bothering you–are you tired? When was the last time you ate? Gosh, no wonder you’re in a bad mood, sit down and let me get you a snack. I know you get preoccupied, but you really should make sure you’re eating every few hours.” or “This behavior is unacceptable. You need to go sit in that chair in the corner and think about how you’ve been acting. I’ll tell you when you can get up.”

– You got distracted with a fun new project. You glanced at the clock a little while ago and knew you should really start dinner, but decided to work “just five more minutes.” Suddenly your husband walks in the door and you realize it’s dinner time, but you haven’t started a thing. He’s obviously angry, but he leaves the room for a few minutes and returns composed. How would you want him to react? “We have an agreement: when I get home, dinner is supposed to be ready. You need to learn to get your priorities straight.” And then he slaps you and says, “Now let’s pray that God will help you to remember this lesson and forgive you for your mistake.” Or, “I understand you’re really into that project, but when I get home I’m really tired and hungry. Next time could you maybe start something in the crock pot before you start working? That way you don’t have to stop working on your project once you’ve started, and we can eat on time.”

These scenarios sound ridiculous with adults, don’t they? And yet replace “husband” with “mother” or “father” and imagine yourself as a five-year-old who has been too busy in her imaginary world to eat her afternoon snack or to fold the washcloths you were asked to fold two hours ago and you’ve got scenarios children and parents are in every day. We would never dream of telling an adult to go sit in time-out and think about what they’ve done, nor would we consider one adult slapping the other as an acceptable way of teaching anything. (And implying that God condoned that slap would be considered by most to be spiritual abuse.) Yet we have no problem banishing children to a corner or a room to sit, alone, rather than getting to the root of their behavior, and many people see no problem with deliberately causing a child physical pain to “get a point across.”

When we consider the Golden Rule in our parenting, we’re not only considering how we’d want to be treated, we’re considering the factors we’d want others to consider when dealing with us. Would you want your new boss to recognize there’s a learning curve to your job, or would you be okay with him assuming you should know how to do your job perfectly after being told only once? How do you act when you’re scared, or hungry, or tired, or lonely, or sad, or embarrassed–are you always on your best behavior when one of those factors is in play? Are you even capable of acting appropriately in those situations? And yet so often people give no thought to what might be causing a child’s poor choices, to what they’re cognitively capable of at a particular age, or to what kind of behavior is not only age-expected but is actually developmentally necessary in order for that child to eventually mature into a healthy adult.

The bottom line is that behavior is a learned skill, no different from learning how to add or tie shoes or read. And we as adults are to be teachers who guide children as they learn those behavioral skills. And just as we recognize how illogical it would be to spank a child in order to teach them how to recite their ABC’s or to send them to time out for not remembering how to “carry” when adding double digits, it should be equally astounding to us to do those things when a child doesn’t immediately hop-to when asked to disengage from a favorite activity or when they push a boundary in a developmentally-healthy way. We need to remember what it is we want children to learn when disciplining them, and make sure the consequence drives them towards that understanding. If a child’s toy breaks because he was jumping on it, then they learn jumping on toys = they break = I can’t play with it anymore. A spanking for jumping on a toy just tells them “I get spanked when I jump on this toy.” What happens when they no longer care about spanking, or when the threat of spanking isn’t there because you can’t see them? They’ll jump on the toy! They haven’t learned to treat their toys appropriately, they haven’t learned that jumping on things mean they’ll break. Will they eventually come to that understanding as they mature, even if they were spanked? Of course–a thirty-year-old isn’t going to jump on his belongings and not understand the outcome. But then why spank? Why not let the natural and logical consequence be learned, rather than administering a developmentally pointless spanking?

Another downside to punitive discipline is how it can destroy the relationship between parent and child. Do you trust people who deliberately hurt or belittle you? If your husband or wife slapped you or shamed you or sent you off alone every time you exhibited poor behavior, what would your relationship look like? Obedience comes from the heart, and if the heart is bitter or walled-up with resentment from being deliberately hurt by a person who is supposed to care for and protect them, then obedience is never going to come. If we want our children to trust us to have their best interest in mind, then we need to make sure we protect and nurture our relationship with them. If we want them to listen to us in their teens, then we need to make sure we’re building their trust in us in their early years. Building that relationship doesn’t mean giving into their every whim and tiptoeing around their misbehavior. It doesn’t mean they will never be angry at us. It means the consequences we mete out “fit the crime,” that we don’t belittle them or shame them or mock them, and that we handle their anger appropriately by reflecting their emotions to show we understand and giving them the space to be angry while showing them that their anger doesn’t make us love them any less.

At the heart of the Golden Rule is the concept of grace. We want it extended to us–why should it not be extended to children as well? This doesn’t mean withholding every consequence of their actions from them. It means tempering the consequence to fit their developmental level and understanding, and sometimes, yes, withholding the consequence. If a child was reaching for the handle of a pot of boiling water, would you ‘withhold the consequence’ of spilling it on themselves by removing the child from the kitchen, or would stand back and watch and think, “Well, they’ll learn that lesson!”? For an older child, what is going to deepen their relationship with you and make it more likely that they’ll come to you with their problems–grounding them for a month when they mess up, or discussing their transgression (and discussing means actually letting them talk, too, not just talking at them) and allowing them a hand in determining the consequence, and possibly even saying, “I can see how troubled you are by your own behavior. I think you’ve learned the lesson for now,” and absolving them of any further ‘penance’?

Grace-based, gentle, “golden rule” discipline is far from easy. It requires constant balancing of consequences, expectations, and, as its name implies, grace. It can devolve into permissiveness if the parent is not vigilant, and the tools of the method can be punitively applied if the parent is not careful. But the payoff–a child who does not fear you, but trusts you, and who appropriately understands the concept of cause-and-effect and why certain behaviors are inappropriate–is worth every ounce of patience and effort that it requires. And for my fellow followers of Jesus, applying his words to our parenting helps our children to form a view of God that is reflective of His true character–loving, grace-filled, and forever guiding us with our best interests in mind. That outcome seems to me to be absolutely worth the work.

For some excellent discussion on and tools for gentle/grace-based discipline, go to the message boards at GentleChristianMothers.com and look for the Gentle Discipline forum, or peruse GYOB (get off your butt) Parenting. For my Christian peeps who are wondering about the Bible verses often quoted in support of the use of punishment in discipline, please check out the “Spare the Rod?” articles on Arms of Love Family Fellowship.

Welcome to the Carnival of Gentle Discipline

Please join us all week, April 26-30, as we explore alternatives to punitive discipline. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month in the USA and April 30th is Spank Out Day USA. In honor of this we have collected a wonderful array of articles and essays about the negative effects of punitive discipline methods, like spanking, and a myriad of effective alternatives.

Are you a Gentle Parent? Put the Badge on your blog or website to spread the word that gentle love works!