community

kindness to animals, community, & imaginary play

Our Scheidt Family Way this week is “We love one another, treating others with kindness, gentleness and respect”. The best thing about rehearsing these values each morning is that when an opportunity arises to remember what’s good (usually when we’re being bad), these sayings come to mind. So when Tristan throws a toy car at Adon’s head in the bath and Adon retaliates by throwing one back, we can talk about our Scheidt Family Ways. The ‘Ways’ hold value in and of themselves that we see validated as we examine the meanings each morning through scripture. This is SO much more effective than mommy just constantly repeating the obligatory phrase, “Be nice!”. Plus, I swore I’d never be a nag.

I decided to expand the “kindness, gentleness, and respect” piece to our furry family member, Knox, after reading Charlotte Mason speak of children naturally being kind to animals, unless they were taught otherwise. Yikes… I realized Momma hasn’t been so nice to Knox for years! At some point I started having less compassion for his poop, puke, hair, and neediness after having children. This conviction led me to treating him with more respect this week and actually petting him some (haha). I was quite surprised to see how it only took about one day of doing this for my children to mimic my behavior! And then of course, the next poem in our Children’s Book of Virtues was titled, “Kindness to Animals”. Please forgive me, Knoxie.

Yesterday our friend Rae came over to play with the boys for a bit (while mom did some reading) and then fellowship with mom! She is loved by all.

Today the boys enjoyed playing outside all morning, which of course means the costume ottoman gets opened. Adon’s been engulfed in his new comic book Bible he was gifted from his Mina for Christmas, so he’s been drawing and acting out lots of stories from the Bible. Today he decided to be old man Abraham and sacrifice his son Isaac to prove his devotion. Luckily, he too found a ram caught in the bushes to sacrifice instead. 🙂

Playing “I spy” using shapes instead of colors. (Also, Knox stealing Tristan’s rice cake)

Since we didn’t get to go on the homeschooling community hike with our friends today, we decided to head over to our favorite donut place in between Micah’s naps!

And ended the day with mom sneaking in a little latte date with a dear friend, Beth.

heartfelt friendship and decaf peppermint latte… great way to end the day.

21 days of prayer

Every new year our church does 21-days of fasting and prayer. This year, here’s what we’ll be giving up in the Scheidt abode:

Dad – evening television
Mom – complaining
Adon – saying the word “stupid” (no, he’s not allowed to say this word anyway)

We’re on day-3 and mom has {consciously} complained twice, and Adon has said stupid once (except for when he tattles on his younger brother for saying the word, which he says doesn’t count).

It’s fun to watch even little children grow in self-control and when they fail, seeing how they can do “no good apart from the Holy Spirit who helps them” and to ask Him for help. Same for mom and dad.

our favorite place

Our favorite place in the world, that we’ve visited at least twice a week for the last year, is Explorations V Children’s museum in downtown Lakeland. Although we might be coming out of that season of attending so frequently (now that Micah needs a consistent morning nap), we still try to visit our friends when we can.

Yesterday I enjoyed watching Adon put on a puppet show, while Tristan explored the instruments. Then Adon spontaneously created his own piano piece, while Tristan repeated the sound effects of fog horn and mooing cows. It was lovely.

One of the reason we love the museum so much is because we get to see our favorite museum staff, Miss Tia. She puts on the daily events and Tuesdays is our favorite, “Curious Kids” where we get to learn science and perform experiments.

Tristan caught in the back dumping all the salt. Good thing Miss Tia encourages his curious nature!

Today we made snowflakes and watched how the water can cause the ink to spread. Tristan enjoyed learning what happens to ice when you add salt.

The Museum Director recently asked me to write up a blurb about how the museum has been such a gift to our family. Here’s what I sent her:

“I’m a mom of three boys and Exploration V Children’s Museum in Lakeland, Florida might be our favorite place on earth. The activities not only capture my boy’s attention every single time we go, but we know we’re entering a safe, warm environment where the workers greet us by name. On just a regular Tuesday in July, we were greeted by the staff running to open the door to get us out of the rain, snuggles were given to one child showing subtle signs of needing affection (while I was baby-wearing), the toddler that’s running away is quickly scooped up to safety, and even sweet tears are shed by staff when they meet my newborn for the first time. Yes, all this in just one visit! And so many other interactions like this on a regular basis that make it genuinely feel like our second home.

My husband first purchased a family membership because he thought it would be a fun, cool place for me to take the kids to avoid the Florida summer heat. I just never knew how life-saving it would end up to be! My youngest at the time had just started crawling and the new Tot Spot was absolutely perfect for him to play while my older son explored the first floor. When I became pregnant with our third child, three days a week I would endure wrestling matches to get diapers quickly changed, shoes on, and kids strapped in the car because I knew once we arrived at ECM my boys would be content playing for the next few hours and I could sit and relax my swollen feet. Once my third son arrived, I had planned on barricading myself at home for several weeks, as I usually did with a newborn, but it wasn’t long before we were back playing at the museum. The benefits of seeing the staff’s smiling faces, interacting with other moms, and seeing my boys thrive and learn through the activities and relationships they had built made my typical baby blues non-existent. It wasn’t just the happy ambiance of the museum that helped my mental state during newborn fog, but the people. Having a fun, safe environment to play where we were known was worth getting two busy boys and a newborn buckled into car seats three times a week… and I’m a natural home-body!

My youngest son is now six months old and at least once a week my two year old yells from his crib, “Miss Tia!” when he wakes up because he can’t wait to see his favorite friend. We take our usual stroll to get mom a coffee at Black and Brew (where I get to say, “I’ll have the usual”) and then we head over to our favorite place on earth. I’ve been to lots of really fun, entertaining, social, and stimulating places in Lakeland for my kids to enjoy, but none compare to the constant learning and genuine warmth found at Exploration V Children’s Museum.”

…I meant every word. What a gift they have been!