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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Toddler Teething Meltdowns and the Rest of Our Life I Don’t Talk About Here


I was thinking this evening about how much of our life I don’t blog about. There are so many things I would like to write about, questions I would like to ask, etc. but don’t feel the freedom to do so.

However.

Two year molar… What is the word for it? Oh, yes. H E Double Hockey Sticks.

Our first sustained, total meltdown in a public place yesterday. You know the kind. Arching back, barely hold onto the child, loud vocal inflections, on the floor type stuff. (Only Caroline. David and I held it together.)

Total meltdown tonight at bedtime not helped at all by the fact that instead of drinking the Motrin (which she usually takes without any problem) she accidentally dumped it all over her hair and neck. This did not help the situation in more ways than one.

Teething. is. my. least. favorite. part. of. parenting. without. a. single. solitary. doubt.

The worst part is that she has been working on these teeth for MONTHS. I read one discussion board where a woman said her daughter worked on her two year molars for NINE MONTHS.

I miss my sweet little girl.

Okay, I just had to get that off my chest.

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What Is Your Default Mode of Christian Thinking – Come Out or Engage?


This is going to be a very round about way to get to my point so bear with me!

I’ve mentioned before that I am a member of a sorority. My sorority has a private side to their website where we can connect with other Tri Deltas from around the world. Kind of like a Facebook, I guess, but for members only. I recently received an invitation from one of my sorority sisters from college inviting me to join so I decided I would.

So I was filling out my profile which was pretty easy. Profession, location, languages (I entered “Toddler”), etc.  Until I got to the religion section. There was a pull down menu with a whole bunch of choices and I didn’t know what to pick! Protestant isn’t specific enough. Christian definitely isn’t specific enough. Baptist? Well, I was Baptist for a good portion of my life, but I really don’t feel comfortable defining myself as a Baptist any longer. Christian Reformed? I’m a member of a CRC church, but I honestly don’t “feel” like a part of the Christian Reformed subculture and don’t necessarily line up very well theologically. Well enough to be a member but not well enough that I could be an apologist for the denomination. (And I’m not telling tales out of school. My pastor reads my blog.)

So anyway, I picked Christian Reformed since that is the church I am a member of right now. But I haven’t been totally comfortable with that.

And that brings me to the new poll!  You knew I’d get there eventually!

David and I have discussed this topic off and on for months and it has to do with our default mode of thinking.

It seems that there are two default modes of thinking among Christians. (And I recognize that I’m generalizing here.)

There is the group who would operate from the default mode of “Come out and be ye separate.” They are more focused on being in the world but not of it. They do not totally withdraw from the culture like the Amish, but they definitely have a view of not embracing too much of the culture. Their first instinct would be to back off from the culture in a situation. I would say this is more the Baptist view with which I grew up although it is definitely not exclusively Baptist. There are many other denominations that would fall into this as well.

The other mode of thinking is what I would call the “Embrace and engage the culture” mode. This is more the idea of really getting involved with the culture and trying to transform it. Their first instinct is to jump in and try to change the situation in which they find themselves. This is very much the mindset of the CRC to which we now belong. It would also apply to other denominations as well and is a very Reformed way of thinking. (BTW… A very interesting and accurate critique of this mindset is here: Why Are There Never Enough Parking Spaces at the Prostrate Clinic. I strongly encourage you to read the first half of it at least.)

So David and I have discussed this. His default mode is “Embrace and engage the culture” which makes sense because he grew up in a Reformed denomination. Mine is “Come out and be ye separate.”  It is actually a good thing that we approach life differently because it probably has kept us from extreme error in either direction.

We both see the value in each view. I believe each view is biblical when not taken to an extreme. But it was helpful for us to understand how the other reacts to the world on the most basic, instinctive method.

So what is your default way of thinking? Feel free to vote in the poll and leave a comment.

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Behold the Power of Television on Language Development


I got your attention with that title, didn’t I? Truth be told, Caroline doesn’t watch any network TV. She does watch DVDs. She enjoys Baby Einstein DVDs and the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice).

But her current obsession – and I do mean obsession – is watching DVDs of herself.

David copies all our home videos onto DVD so we can easily watch them without having to run it through the camcorder. Caroline is ENTHRALLED with watching us on TV. She calls them “Baby Caroline”. We call them CTV.

Yesterday, we brought up a tote of toys for rotation. Caroline had pulled everything out of the tote and the living room floor looked, um, pretty trashed. She looked up at me and said, “There’s stuff strewn all over in here.”

Strewn? Yes, strewn.

And where did she pick that up? From David on one of the videos.

He’s talking about a toy mess when she was under a year and described it just that way. She’s seen that scene more than a few times and obviously picked it up.

I do think Caroline is quite far ahead of the curve in terms of language development for only being twenty-eight months old. I attributed it to the fact that she spends all day with two gabby adults and we read a lot to her.

David mentioned last night after the strewn comment that she probably is also learning a lot by watching those family DVDs.

And, I have to admit that I was glad to see something positive coming out of it beyond just being entertained and engaged for a bit each day.

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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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