Heart Reflections Live

We are delighting in our baby boys day by day watching them grow and learn, despite me having to pack all the girls' homeschool stuff into plastic tubs, after some paper work was joyfully torn and nearly eaten! They are getting into everything- crawling fast, pulling themselves up, and even attempting to take tiny steps, while holding onto things, and they're not quite 10 months yet...

We are just as committed in raising our little princes to walk in godliness, as we are with our little girls, and maintaining a happy, old-fashioned home in which to do so. I've been inspired afresh with my Christian parenting, imperfect as it is, through Mrs June Fuentes latest series on her blog- A Wise Woman Builds her House- The link is on my sidebar, and also a few articles back.

I've been meditating lately on this scripture with regard to all our children: Psalm 144:12 "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after the similtude of a palace;" I'd read this many times before with regard to our daughters, but not since having our sons. Grown up in their youth, refers to the age of 12 upwards having a maturity in their lives and outlook. We do not want our sons to become rebellious video-game playing Peter Pans in their youth who never want to grow up and take responsibility! We want them to become noble, strong youth, Like Daniel and his 3 friends in the Bible, who were so different from those around them. We want to instill such a love for the Scriptures that men such as these become their heroes and Not Superman, Spiderman etc- We don't do superheroes at our house!- this is not meant to condemn any one else who does, but we have to lead our little family in the way God directs for us :-)

Has anyone else noticed how hard it is to find nice traditional boyswear in the shops? We don't embrace the current trend to dress even babies as rock stars-YUCK! Let our children be children, I say! If anyone knows of any Aussie stores or online stores that stock nice traditional boyswear that doesn't cost the earth, please let me know! I'm still new to the world of little boys, you know! It's so easy to find beautiful dresses for girls at thrift stores, but so hard to find nice things for boys...

Books for boys have also been in my thoughts lately. We have heaps of vintage Little Golden books that have boy stories in, as do our old Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories, but what of Good classics for when they're older? Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, I believe we have, I'm keeping an eye out for originals by R.M. Ballantyne- I believe my Dad may have some of these-, and we have heaps of Christian bios of such heroes as Spurgeon, Bunyan, George Muller and the like, but I'm open to suggestions for other good classics for boys. We try to buy our books original and unabridged, and good morals are always a must- ideas please????

I'm so excited about raising boys!

Labels: sons, twins, Youth

Nesting urges are in full swing at our home in the hills, and though physical strength is still lacking, I've started sorting and washing baby clothes, and my head is ticking away with ideas for the playroom/homeschool room.

While we've never intended to buy a lot of new stuff for blessings 3 and 4, mainly because we want our children to learn to share freely, my research on the dangers of certain plastics (PVC in toys being another one) has turned my mind to consider shopping for some wooden boys toys. (with no lead paint that is!)

I've always been very much a traditionalist when it comes to children's toys, preferring to stay away from the electronic and media-driven commercialism for children.(Eg. things to do with TV shows and movies etc). It's the same with their clothing, while we don't make much fuss over an occasional Pooh Bear or Thomas the Tank Engine motif, for the most part I prefer to stick with generic patterns or plain clothes.

We'll probably keep a few plastic items like our plain Duplo and construction toys, farm animals etc. Both our girls enjoy playing with these, and they are toys either gender can enjoy. I've already packed the really girly dress-up stuff into a special toybox just for the girls, making sure that anything left in our dress-up-hat -box is either boyish or gender neutral. I'm also sorting slowly through every toybox- like medical kits etc- removing any chokable size items until the little ones to come are older. This is something I've always strived to do before the babies come.

I can't wait till our playroom is all organised. The homeschool end is pretty much done and fuctional and very soon hubby and some of our friends will be carpeting the other end, with the blessing of free carpet and underlay we recently received.

So what do I envisige our little boys playing with...wooden trains, planes and cars, construction toys,spinning tops, boats, the bible character toys my hubby got off EBAY- NO Spiderman, Hulk or PS3's for our little men! I see them playing ball in the backyard, playing noble Princes with their Princess Sisters and gardening with Daddy in the backyard. Simple good clean fun coupled with learning to look after their Mama and Sisters, and learning the value of hard work.

And as we've done with our other children, reading Bible Stories and Beatrix Potter and Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories to them from birth, to foster hearts that love Jesus and produce life-long learners.

I can't wait to meet our little boys (Dec 2 is my C-section date), to be back in the land of lullabies and Teddy Bears- OK, yes AND sleepless nights- don't interrupt my reverie. We are indeed both looking forward to parenthood again...

Labels: commercialism, parenthood, sons, toys