This summer has been a wonderfully, chaotic time of playing tag, swimming, gardening and just general craziness on the part of my children. But, all good things must come to an end. Actually, all craziness must come to an end. About a week ago, I realized things had just gotten a little out of hand. We’d hit that time in the late summer where the kids were rammy and bored and it was time to instill order and schedules to our lives again. I had told my kids we weren’t starting school til the 7th of September, but this is not a democracy around here, so the Queen is subject to changing her mind when her subjects stage a coup.
Ahhhh, schedules, order, bliss. I thrive on my routine. Ever since my children were born, they were introduced to the concept of a flexible schedule and they, and I, have thrived. It’s been proven that babies do best on a flexible schedule. The tiniest, most fragile premature infants are put on strict 3-hour feeding schedules in the NICU, and so when my babies were born, we stuck to a more flexible feeding schedule, but a schedule nonetheless. Feeding, waketime, naptime. Everyone thrived. Mommy had milk for them, baby quickly adapted to our lives, not the other way around, and everyone got a full night’s sleep very quickly; all three times. I was able to resume my activities as wife, mom, daughter, friend, etc. very quickly. And, that sense of order and routine served our family well over the years. I’ve seen how my kids get crazy and upset when their routine is thrown off and how calm our family runs when we stick to a sensible schedule.
Order is a beautiful thing. I think it is no accident that we are created this way. Our God is a God of order. When we look at nature and the seasons’ predictabilities, we see order and reason in them all. (although sometimes, living in Duluth I have to wonder when summer feels more like fall!!!) Today in my biology lesson with Nate and Daniel we did a simple object lesson to help them understand order and their Creator.
We talked about the Big Bang Theory; how some, many, people believe that everything, every intricate system of life around us was created out of nothing. Granted, I simplified it for them as they are very young. However, it still makes no sense to me even at my advanced age and with all of my learning. I had them take a deck of cards and throw them in the air to see what we could “create” by mere chance. You can see how well that worked:
Then I had them purposefully, orderly create something from the cards. Ah-ha! That made more sense and worked much better:
These are the boys’ memory verses this week:
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Psalm 57:11 “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let Your glory be above all the earth.”
When it comes down to it, either position is a position of faith. I prefer to hang my entire existence on the fact that I am not an accident and a loving Creator created me for a purpose. That purpose is that I am here on this earth to glorify Him. This gives me a reason to live.
This also gives me a reason to instill order and a love for God in my children. Which brings us back around to why we started school today. I began to see my kids getting out of control and thinking only about themselves, so like any loving parent would do, like God does in our own lives, I stepped in to restore order. Order is a beautiful thing. We sat down, we opened the computer, the books and we began to learn about meaningful things. Algebra, Biology, Writing, Reading. The day is running so much more smoothly. Everyone up at 7:30, clean your room, do your chores, sit with mom and do school and now it’s 2:30 and they are outside swimming.
And I’m going on a picnic with my sweetheart.
Mission accomplished: sanity restored.
I’ll let you know how it’s going a few months from now when the snow starts to fly and we’re housebound!
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