Mother Love

This post isn’t as tragic as the word hijack may sound, but I {the lucky man calling Alicia my wife} wanted to hijack Alicia’s blog today!

Today is Alicia’s birthday, and I’d like to take this one day to honor her for the incredible wife + Mama + woman of beauty that she is! I can’t help but to start thinking of all the things I’m grateful for about her when I talk about her. But this post isn’t a diary. I’ll spare you of all the mushy love-words 🙂

Today I want to honor her.

Honor can be a loaded word, but honor bestows worth + value. Immeasurable, priceless value. It’s worth that can’t be traded. It’s value on one person alone, and can’t be shared or replaced by any other.

You honor your parents for example, because they are parents yes…but their only your parents. No other 2 people can replace what they’ve given you!

You honor + celebrate those in your life that have changed you more than any other. And without a shadow of doubt, being married to Alicia has been just that. Life changing in every way! She loves being a wife, and a lifetime of marriage seems too short with her. She’s a dream come true, a prayer answered above and beyond all I ever asked for in a wife .

Back a few years when I felt like God was leading me to pursue a relationship + life with Alicia, He woke me up at 2am, 2 days before I asked her out, to show me these verses I believed He was speaking over our lives. Jeremiah 32:38-42 ”…They shall be My people, and I will be their God, then I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever, for the good of them and of their children after them…” I believed that these verses were specifically for our relationship, and this is a promise we still hold dearly.

Although I still feel like it’s a life-long journey learning about and discovering the depths of what oneness means, I believe being oneness of heart means complete vulnerability. And vulnerability is absolutely vital for relationship + life.

Alicia’s vulnerability of heart with me is something that has impacted me tremendously. Although I’m her husband and that could be a ‘given’ in our relationship, she’s done that with so many others too.

She’s been one to hijack the enemies plans to steal, kill, and destroy in the lives of many. I’m so proud of her for that! Vulnerably speaking about deep things that are going on in her heart, to expose the darkness and shine the light in. Leading many others to follow that light, and be inspired to believe in the freedom that Jesus died to give us.

She’s tenacious about justice, about freedom from oppression. About bestowing value on others. She loves to cook and bake, and she’s taken many meals to the homeless here in Nashville just to love on them. But it’s not an ‘ordinary’ treat. It’s some fancy pumpkin muffin, or some other peculiar treat! 🙂 Her love for good food, and for valuing people is incredible!

She’s one to see through the problem or symptoms, and see beyond people’s choices to what affected them in the first place. We all have our story, and she doesn’t discredit anyone because of theirs.

She LOVES being a mama. And it wrecks me in every good way watching her be just that! From figuring out creative ways to make healthy baby food, to homemade baby toys, to just spending time with Ayla and loving on her. She’s with her all day, pretty much every day, and has never once complained about it!

She makes a house feel like a home, and loves to host people. I love watching her come alive with creative outlets making the meals amazing as part of that! …and of course eating the num-nums 🙂

Wife + Mama + Lover + Best Friend + Lover of People….Alicia Rose, you are one gem of a woman, and I love + honor you today!!

I think far too often we hold back words in ‘normal-every-day-life’ that we would freely lavish on someone if we knew we’d only have one last chance to bless someone. Words bring either life, or death. And I want to bless her with so much words of life, words of truth to be poured into her life…and I’d love for ya’ll to help participate in making this birthday memorable!

If Alicia has impacted you or inspired you in any way, please leave a comment below or on FB! and “bless the socks off her!!!” {..and more, but that’s only for me, hehe}

PS. I almost didn’t include that last parenthesis…but hey, I’m unashamedly her husband, I unashamedly love her, and unashamedly entered into a covenant to be one with her in body, soul, and spirit.

PPS. Ok, back to the topic at hand, please really do leave a comment to bless her!!! Thanks ya’ll!

I’ve been reading through the book French Kids Eat Everything, and am now super inspired about getting my own little American kid to eat everything too. 🙂

The book itself is an interesting read…lighthearted, intriguing, and a little eye-opening to the real French culture. It’s written by an North American woman who married a French man, had two children, and then moved to a small village in the French countryside for a year to experience his native culture. One of the things this mother learned quickly was the vast difference in the eating habits of not only French kids to American kids, but also French adults to American adults. Food is such an integral part of the French culture, and it’s almost as if a family’s entire day revolves mostly around…food. In fact, mealtimes are an event for the French, which means no eating on the go or mindless snacking and such. Family mealtimes are an essential part of family life, which in turn is what enables French children to experience a wide range of food and flavors at a young age since they are eating with adults and mostly eating what adults eat.

I’m a foodie person who loves cooking and eating and trying new things, so of course this aspect of the French culture is appealing to me. I know so many American kids exist on a steady diet of chicken fingers, French fries, macaroni and cheese, and all the “kid food” items that we just expect kids to eat as they grow up. It’s almost like we don’t even expect them to eat anything else, right? And that’s where the French food culture differs: they expect their children to develop the ability to eat all kinds of food. Vegetables, fruits, soups, salads, and even things that I would have a hard time eating like liver pâté, snails, and foie gras.

It’s already easy for me to get in a rut with the foods I prepare for Ayla, but I’m freshly determined to do my best at teaching her good eating habits and getting a variety of food and flavors into her little belly. Here a few tips from the book that I thought were helpful:

Parents, you are in charge of your child’s food education. If you don’t teach them good habits, no one will.

Avoid emotional eating, which means not using food as a reward, bribes, or punishment. This one is already difficult for me, because it’s so easy to give Ayla something to snack on when she’s fussing. I really want to be proactive at home in not developing the habit for myself in using food as a calming or soothing tool, but if we are out for a meal or with other people, I do often pull out a pretzel or cracker or dried fruit piece to keep her happy and distracted while we are having conversation.

Children should eat what adults eat…no short-order cooking. If a child refuses to eat something on their plate, don’t fight or force them…simply remove the offending item but do not give them something as a replacement.

If a child has a hard time with a certain food, tell them “you don’t have to like it, but you do have to taste it.” Apparently it can take about seven times of trying something new in order to develop a taste for it, so repeated tastings can get a child to enjoy something they previously didn’t like.

Don’t allow endless snacking. It’s ok to feel hungry between meals and to teach your child to wait to eat until the appointed time. French mothers feed their children one afternoon snack between lunch and dinner, but thats it. I’m not sure I’m totally on board with this technique, because I’m a two-or-three-snack-a-day person myself and we pretty much never go to bed without a little bedtime snack. But I like the idea of “mindful” snacking, which means it’s something intentional and not just get-a-snack-whenever-you-want-one. I’m sure this strategy is much easier said than done, especially with older children, but it’s what we’re shooting for as my own little ones grow up.

Slow food is happy food. Eat slowly, mindfully, and with pleasure.

So I have eggplant, cauliflower, and leeks all sitting in my refrigerator right now, waiting to make their way into my child’s mouth and tummy…and hopefully they make it to the tummy and don’t end up back on the tray once she’s had a taste. 😉 Bon appetit, little one!

What about you: what are your thoughts and strategies for raising good eaters?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!