A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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Caroline Is Two!


Caroline turned two a couple of weeks ago. We don’t have any good pictures to share from that day. (We really are not very talented picture takers, unfortunately.) However, this morning we went to the Meijer Gardens and did get a few good shots.

Caroline is a big girl. She’s still almost off the charts height-wise. If you double her height now (36 and 1/2 inches) as a guideline for her adult height, she’ll be over 6’1″! Yikes! For her sake I certainly hope not. The doctor said he would guess more in the 5’9″ to 5’10” range. But she is tall and people almost always guess she is at least six months older than she actually is.

Caroline loves puzzles. I bought her a couple that I thought might be too hard for her right now, but she loves them and plays with them a couple of times a day. (Here’s a picture of her doing a puzzle.)

She loves doing real things. She helps carry things to the table now when we eat. We’ve only had one dropped plate so far. I don’t mind because I really want to encourage her to be helpful and involved. (And I’m selective about what I let her carry!)

Her favorite food in the world is “beans and rice” from Qdoba. That is a naked chicken burrito with black beans and corn salsa. She loves the stuff. Shovels it in. “Beans and rice! Beans and rice!” She would eat it every day if we took her there. She is also partial to apple cider right now although we have to limit it or there is no sleep to be had from all the sugar.

And she loves her Baby Einstein videos. Oh, yes. The continuing saga of the Baby Einstein videos. We put them away for a month and then got them back out again to try it out. Since then we haven’t had any problems. She loves them. We only let her watch two a day and pretty much only in the morning. That seems to work. But she enjoys them so much and I’m glad we gave it another try.

We love our Little Miss Peanut and we’re so thankful for this bright, funny, inquisitive, independent little girl who was sent by God to live with us. ♥

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What We’ve Done Well So Far In Parenting


It is my natural bent to be very aware of my faults and failings. So it is good for me to step back at times and remind myself of what I have done well. I was recently thinking about our first two years with Caroline and reflecting on what we’ve done well.

A part of me is reluctant to say “we’ve done a good job with X and Y” because we really won’t know if we’ve done a good job until we’re a lot further along in our parenting journey. I also hesitate to give too much advice about parenting because I’m the parent of one child and she’s not yet two years old. But at the same time I’m older, a former teacher, and a fairly insightful person. So somewhere in the midst of that I do want to share what I’ve learned and what I think I know without trying to come off as some kind of expert.

So that’s where I’m coming from in sharing some things we’ve done well.

1. We recognize that Caroline is an individual person, created by God for His purposes and in the way He needs her to be to fulfill His plans for her. Yes, I have lots of hopes and dreams for her. There are talents I hope she has. But I have a good understanding that we are only stewards of her life and are to raise her as best we can to live for Christ. She is not mine to mold into what I think she should be. She is a woman who belongs to God who is currently a child. My job is to help her understand who God created her to be and help her arrive at adulthood in the best way possible. So I study her and try to understand her motives. I listen to her and what she is saying through her words, her moods and her activities.

2. We have fostered a sense of belonging and helping. Caroline is eager to help. I believe this is because we have encouraged her and praised her in this area since she was tiny. She loves to do real things and we try to let her help as much as possible. For example, last spring when we were planting flowers and perennials, we had to take a lot of them from the back yard to the front yard where we were going to plant them. I could have picked up the flats and carried them up there in about twenty seconds. Instead, I spent fifteen minutes going back and forth while Caroline and I carried little pots to the front. She was so thrilled to help and felt a part of the process. I have purposely slowed down and involved her whenever I could so she will feel a part of our family life and see the need to help around here.

3. We read to her all the time. All. The. Time. I started reading books to her when she was a few months old. If she brought a book to me and wanted to read, I dropped whatever I was doing (if at all feasible) and read to her. We have surrounded her with books. Positive, cozy, beautiful, fun, uplifting books. We talk about the books, we discuss them, we look at the pictures… We read and read and read. We take her to the library and we participated in the summer reading program. Reading is SO IMPORTANT and we’ve made this a huge priority in our home.

4. We talk about matters of faith and try to live it out daily. We pray before our meals. We pray over her at bedtime. We talk about Jesus. We read Bible stories. We talk about Jesus. We use Bible terms. No, she doesn’t understand it all. But we are giving her a context and will slowly continue to teach her as she becomes able to understand more.

5. We have given her a peaceful environment. We use quiet voices. We listen to quiet instrumental and/or classical music. We have (mostly) quiet toys. We don’t raise our voices. We don’t have the TV on in the background. We don’t rush her around the house. We try to let her go at her own pace as much as possible and rarely tell her to hurry up. We try to be patient and remember that she is still a baby in some ways.

6. We let her develop at her own pace, not according to what the books say. I’ve read almost no parenting books. I do look things up online at times, but I decided I was going to use common sense and study my child. I will try to introduce new things to her, but if she isn’t ready I just put it away. When she is ready, she is ready. I truly believe a lot of parent angst comes from wanting children to do things before they are ready. We’ve let Caroline grow and develop at her own pace, without pressure.

7. We’ve had an attitude of fostering learning since the start. We provide her with all kinds of fun learning things to play with, but without the pressure of teaching her. We gave her the Fridge Phonics to play with and she surprised us by learning all her letters in just a few weeks and by the time she was seventeen months old! I bought some very large colorful button manipulatives several weeks ago and she learned her shapes and colors! We weren’t there drilling her on these things. They just happened because we gave her fun things to do that also fostered learning.

There is nothing spectacularly unique about what we’ve done with Caroline. They are things anyone could do. We’ve simply made some choices to adjust our attitude and expectations for her good. Studying her and seeking to understand her has made a tremendous difference in our lives and I’m very thankful God put this on our hearts before she was even born.

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Great Post About Having An Only Child


In my never-ending quest to find reasons to tick people off in the blogosphere, I’ve actually contemplated putting up a blogroll in my sidebar entitled something like “A Quiverfull of One – Bloggers With An Only Child”. I did previously have a “Moms of Onlies” blogroll, but never added it to this blog. However, I thought the addition of the term quiverfull might really make some people sit up and take notice. I’d also include a link to that classic Laine’s Letter “Private, Private, Private”.

However, I haven’t been feeling fully sadistic lately so it’s just been an idea running around in my head.

But it was so funny that Ashley sent me this link today because We’ve. Had. A. Day. I won’t tell you about it because I’m trying to respect Caroline’s privacy, but, um, it’s been one of those days.

In the midst of this day I said to David something like, “If I had to do this all alone every day I would absolutely have to be committed.” I’m not trying to be irreverent about people who end up committed. I truly believe that if I had more than one child and/or I had a husband who worked away from home I would end up seriously disturbed.

God knew what He was doing when He gave me a husband who works at home and an only child.

I no longer feel guilty about the only child thing. This is EXACTLY where I am supposed to be in life.

God bless you moms and dads who have multiple children and do it alone all day. But, by golly, I’m thankful for my precious only child and not ashamed to tell the world that I’m satisfied this is God’s best for me. And David. And Caroline.

And in case you were wondering… Those lovely bracelets are my napkin rings that Caroline took from the box of “shineys” (napkin rings).

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Surprised By Toddlerhood


I’ve always been a lover of babies and babies have almost always loved me. I don’t know if it is something about my face or my voice, but it is a very rare baby that doesn’t respond to me with a lot of joy. So when I was expecting Caroline, I expected to really enjoy her as a baby. I thought the time between infant/baby and age three or so would be my least favorite.

In actuality, it has turned out just the opposite.

I did not enjoy the infant stage as much as I thought I would. (That’s another post.) But I have absolutely loved the 18-23 months we’ve been going through.

Part of it is just the relationship. When she was an infant, there simply was not enough relationship for me to enjoy. (That’s another post, too.) But this little chatty, inquisitive, learning something new every hour child is just a delight to me.

Last weekend when we sat down in church before the service started, Caroline promptly jumped back down and began pulling the Bibles out of the pew rack. As she handed one to me and then one to David, she loudly pronounced, “Bible!” When she was done distributing the Bibles, she climbed back on to the pew and said, “Amen!” At the very least, the pastor and elders know that we are teaching her something at home! But I was so thrilled that she made the connection between what goes on at home and what goes on at church.

Last week I asked her, “Who loves you?” I was fully expecting her to answer, “Mama” or “Daddy.” Her answer? “Jesus.” My heart was just filled with joy! So I asked her who else loved her. “God.” I stopped asking the question. That was enough for me!

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