How to Do Personal Devotions With a Baby and Toddler

Disclosure

Every mom dreams of uninterrupted morning coffees, and peaceful time spent journalling or praying or being in the Word. Any mom with littles knows that this is not something easy to come by. In this phase of my life, my mornings are often spent with children in my hands rather than my Bible. I needed to find a more creative way for how to do personal devotions with a baby and toddler.

how to do devotions when you have a baby and toddler

I didn’t even know where to start, as personal devotions was not something I was taught growing up. I knew I wanted to include Bible reading, prayer, and journalling. That felt like a lot to bite off in one chunk so I went back to baby steps and found a simple goal: read the Bible.

Did you know that if you read to 15 minutes of the Bible a day you can get through the whole Bible in a year? I learned that from an excellent book I read a while back. (Seriously one of the best books I’ve read on living a Christian life and that I referance often but I lent my copy out years ago and I miss it terribly and should really buy another copy!) If you are anything like me, that sounds way less intimidating than looking at that big fat Bible thinking, “I know I should read it but when can I find the time?”

So the first step to personal devotions was set: Read the Bible for 15 minutes each day

It was so easy and I felt great and mostly rocked it!

But then…

Quote Sample

The last few days I have been suffering from a terrible headache. I believe it was a side effect of mastitis and it even got to the point that, out of desperation, I took two extra strength acetaminophen, which I haven’t needed to take in… years and years. (In retrospect, I could have tried the peppermint essential oil that I have sitting in my cupboard). It helped take the edge off but the pain was still there. It hindered my ability to keep up with housework, play with the kids, and was made significantly worse when I read and write.

The thing about being a mom is that I don’t get any sick days. So now I am behind on my housework and haven’t spent as much time outside with the boys as normal.

I am also behind on my Bible reading.

I might as well be perfectly honest and tell you I was about two weeks behind anyway. I had recently given another pep talk to myself and seriously been trying to catch up though. I didn’t want to get even further behind!

My normal reading time had been in the rocking chair while nursing the baby down for his nap. (I use the term “nap” very loosely here because sleep is very challenging with him.) I held him a little longer than I needed too so I could read two days at a time. He had just started to get into the rhythm of napping at a semi-regular time but even the kids were thrown off by Mama’s sickness.

Once I got out of the rhythm of reading regularly I knew it would be tough to start up again

After a couple of days I reminded myself that the Bible app on my smartphone that I use to keep track of my reading plan has a wonderful feature: a British man with a soothing voice reads it out loud to you!

So I recommitted.

This left me with no excuse to get behind, even on mornings when my hands are busy with little ones.

Then I wanted to find a way to listen while keeping my toddler’s hands busy. He needs my constant attention and interaction.

Typical toddler stuff.

So I grabbed his crayons and coloring book and he and I colored and listened. It wasn’t ideal for me because I kept getting interrupted by my toddler asking me for my crayon or what color he should make something but at least we were both getting some scripture in our heads. It is a good thing the baby was napping or I would also have been distracted by picking crayon out of his teeth.

I had been looking for a simple way to get more Bible reading in with my boys and now I think I found it. So I thank God for showing me another way to make His Word a part of our daily lives. I have a feeling we will be doing a whole lot more coloring in the future.

Do you have an favorite ways to get your devotions in with little ones? Please leave a comment below as I’m always open to new ideas!

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4 Tips for How to Enjoy Your Children More

by Tessa | Motherhood

4 Tips for How to Enjoy Your Children More

Disclosure

Not every aspect of motherhood is enjoyable but it shouldn’t all be difficult and overwhelming either. Unfortunately, it can quickly become that way so I wanted to find out, how can I enjoy my children more?

Being a mom is no joke and takes a lot out of a person. But there is no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves too. The best way to enjoy motherhood is by learning to enjoy our children. We can get into their world or invite them into ours. We can also just observe them playing or we can take specific moments to pray over them. All of these won’t take away the work of motherhood but it will certainly help us to enjoy our children more.

4 tips for how to enjoy your children more. Because not every day is butterflies and roses

Baby yawns are adorable. I remember spending hours watching them sleep. And hiccup. And sneeze. Even pooping was entertaining! It is so easy to enjoy your children when they’re fresh and soft and adorable.

Now they are older and those once-nibblicious toes have toenails that need to be trimmed, attached to dirty, stinky feet that have been run hard all day. Reminders to wash his hands after he “drops a bomb” in the bathroom (my husband’s words) are met with a smell I never thought I would associate with that adorable tushie. And those mid-day nap times of blissful baby-gazing have been replaced by preparing healthy snacks that cover as many food groups as possible yet are simple, and fun, enough that they aren’t rejected.

Mothering is an amazing gift, yet it is so easy to get lost in the day-to-day details. It is so easy to forget how to enjoy your children. Our children are a heritage from the Lord but they can sometimes (often?) feel like a burden. I’ve mentioned before about how the basics of motherhood is to develop a positive attitude and to call on the Lord for the strength to continue forward. But how do you get back to a place where you can truly say you enjoy your role as a mother?

It isn’t always easy to enjoy every moment. And I’m not saying you need to (does anyone actually enjoy wiping snotty noses?). It is, however, possible to enjoy them more.

Mothering is an amazing gift, yet it is so easy to get lost in the day-to-day details. It is so easy to forget how to enjoy your children. Our children are a heritage from the Lord but they can sometimes (often?) feel like a burden.

1. Get into their world

Find out what they enjoy and join them in it. Does your child enjoy painting? Paint with him instead of setting him up to do it on his own. What about stories? Make it a goal to read at least one story of their choice out loud every day (and don’t complain if it’s always the same one). What about physical activity? Go for a walk together or kick a ball around.

2. Allow them into your world and hobbies

Bring them into the kitchen when you are baking or cooking dinner, even if it does take longer and make more of a mess. Let them wash dishes, sweep floors, vacuum, or fold laundry. Ask for their ideas when you are writing. Teach them to scrapbook or crochet or play piano or take photographs.

3. Observe

Sometimes all it takes is a pig puppet and a handful of craft sticks to get kids giggling. Or a couple of sleeping bags to scootch around the floor in while pretending to be snakes. Give yourself permission to laugh with them. Enjoy their antics and imaginations. Their silly jokes and games. Kids laugh so much easier than adults. Harness their joy and appreciate them in a whole new way.

4. Pray over them as they sleep

Soak in their innocence and fall in love all over again.

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by Tessa | Motherhood

6 Tips for Surviving When You Feel Like You’re Drowning in Motherhood

Disclosure

Exhausted, brain not thinking clearly, no time or energy to do much of anything so you’re overwhelmed and behind. Parenting is sometimes like that, isnt it? Sometimes it is because of a round of sickness, sometimes it is a season of busyness, maybe it is cabin fever after a bout of bad weather. For me right now it is a newborn.

Those on my email newsletter or who follow me on Twitter may have read my announcement that our fourth son entered the world just over a week ago. As I type this out, he is sleeping in my arms as I sit on my couch. Other than getting up to change a diaper or get a cup of milk for the 3 year old, I have been doing next to nothing since he was born. By noon my brain has turned to mush and having a complete intelligent thought is nearly impossible. (I don’t think I was ever this bad with the others!) I felt like I was in a similar position after a round of a stomach virus hit us last winter.

By noon my brain has turned to mush and having a complete intelligent thought is nearly impossible.

Here are some tips for surviving when you feel like you’re drowning in motherhood:

Stay hydrated

We all know the benefit of drinking enough water yet many of us still have a hard time doing it. Find ways to make it easier on yourself. Set a timer to remind yourself to have a cup every couple of hours, have a big cup first thing in the morning with breakfast and have your regular coffee afterwards, use mason jars or water bottles and commit to when you want to finish them, remember you don’t have to drink just water. (I have fallen in love with the Takeya ThermoFlask Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottle. We found it at Costco a few weeks ago and it is everything the description says it is. My husband fills his with ice water every evening when he games and he was totally surprised and impressed when he filled it for the second evening and there was still ice in it from the night before! I try to drink 2 of the 40oz bottles each day, in addition to a coffee, milk, and sometimes tea. Sometimes I throw a lemon wedge in there too.

Sleep

Go to bed early. Nap. It is critical to health and sanity and we all know it. Yet so many moms refuse to do it. I understand you want to have some kid free quiet time in the evening but you’ll find that it doesn’t compare to the sanity gained by an adequate amount of sleep. Napping gets a bit tricky when kids get older and no longer nap but lock the doors, throw on a show or pull out the playdough, and doze on the couch, within earshot. (One of my most popular posts has some more tips on how to survive on interrupted sleep.) Even 20 min of resting your body and mind can be very rejuvenating. My current bedtime is around 9:30pm. Sometimes I go to bed earlier but never later. I sacrifice time with my husband (he does bedtime routines for our older 3 at 8pm and comes back downstairs around 8:20 on non gaming nights) but he and I have been through this stage before and know it is only temporary. Even when I am through the exhausting newborn phase, I still rarely go to bed after 10:30 and set an alarm on my cell phone if I find I’m making excuses to stay up later. And the older boys have learned they are to stay in bed until 7am. The 3 year old sometimes wakes up at 6 but he is still in the side-carred crib, next to my husband, so they snuggle until 7am. Teach them how to read a clock young.

Easy Food

Hit up the frozen meals aisle. I normally prefer to cook from scratch (or mostly scratch anyway) but during this season I’m relying on frozen lasagnas, frozen pizza, canned soup, and easy prep foods and snacks like toast, cereal, yogurt, grilled cheese, noodles, precut veggies, and bananas. Even my 3 year old can prepare himself a simple breakfast and my older two can start the oven and pop a meal in. I’ve also been blessed with an amazing church family and friends who have dropped meals for us.

Maintain Peace

Sometimes this means allowing your 3 year old to have a chocolate chip cookie during breakfast. This may mean using technology more than normal. Or using it less, as it goes in my house. Sending kid to separate rooms for a portion of the day when squabbles get heated. Part of my peace comes in the boys clearing all the toys out of the living room before supper. I have barely looked in the playroom but I breathe a little easier when my main room has some semblance of order after they go to bed.

Housekeeping

Ignore the mess. Truly. Yes, you’ll get behind and yes you’ll feel overwhelmed when you are finally able to catch up but you will catch up, step by step. The only one putting pressure on you is you. All you really need is moderately clean dishes (there are no housekeeping police saying you can use breakfast’s toast dishes for lunch’s grilled cheese and a veggies and dip snack) and moderately clean clothes (no housekeeping police here either so wear the same jeans all week and make your kids do the same and don’t worry about folding and putting away for the time being).

Enlist help

More often than not, our spouses are willing to help out. They just aren’t always good at seeing how much we need or what they can do about it. Let him know you feel like you’re drowning and that you need him to rescue you. And give him bite sized and practical solutions. Don’t say the housework is overwhelming, can you clean the house? Tell him the dishes are stressing you out and can he please fill and run the dishwasher. Or the laundry needs to be switched over, or gathered from bedroom floors and tossed in. And be honest with him (and yourself) about what is most important. If the toilet isn’t bothering you, don’t ask him to clean it. If you still have clean clothes, don’t ask him to do laundry. Kids can do the same. They are often more capable than you give them credit for. Be honest with them about the need to come together as a team to keep the household running.

Some seasons of parenting are harder than others. There is no way around that. But you also don’t have to drown. So take care of yourself, let go of the housework, and focus on relationships and teamwork within your family. I know that I will get through the newborn hazy days, and I know that you will get through the tough seasons too.

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3 Steps to Live Better

by Tessa | Personal Development

3 Steps to Live Better

Disclosure

Have you ever heard of how to eat an elephant? You eat it one bite at a time. It’s a pretty similar process when you want to live better.

This is the continuation of my previous post. In that post I gave you a partial list of my lifestyle improvement goals and asked you to make your own list. I hope that you now have your own list made and I hope that you went nuts on it and made a great word picture of how you want your life to look. If you haven’t done the assignment there yet, first head on over to read about taking steps to live a better life and then you’ll be ready to come back here to learn about using these 3 steps to live better.

Do you want to improve your life? It sounds like such a ginormous feat! But you eat an elephant one bite at a time and you also improve your life one step at a time.

1st Step to Live Better:

Choose an area or two that you feel the most overwhelmed with or that you feel are the most important areas to move forward. I chose housework and Jesus. (Remember when the answer to every question asked in Sunday School was “Jesus?” He’s the answer here too.)

2nd Step to Live Better

Choose one sub-topic in that area.

Housework: My “sub topic” was my dining table. It was piled like a meter high with junk and it was a nuisance when trying to eat dinner at the table and it was an eyesore and it made me feel like my entire life was piled a meter high with junk. I can’t tell you how good it is to walk into the room and my table is clear and clean (even if it is just for a few minutes a day). For some people they get this feeling by shining their sink, another mom I know got that feeling from cleaning off her kitchen island, another for keeping the entryway clear.
Jesus: I wanted to find a way to get to know Him better to make him a larger part of my life.

If something feels impossible, focus on doing just one small thing at a time.

3rd Step to Live Better

Make a simple plan and jump in:

Housework: I made it my goal to clear off the table (done over a few weeks of 10-15 min per day spurts) and keep it clear. I don’t do it every single day (sometimes we’re out the door before I have time to do it) but I don’t beat myself up over it. Slowly my table expanded to doing my dishes every day. And with no dishes piled up everywhere I was/am able to wipe my countertops every day. When I get behind and I look at my kitchen and get overwhelmed I simply go back to square one: clear and clean the table.
Jesus: Everywhere that I looked and everything that I read and all the convictions in my heart told me that the best way to improve my relationship with the Lord is to read His Word. Sounds simple enough but I’m going to have to be perfectly honest with you: outside of church and the ladies Bible study that I attended, I pretty much never picked up my Bible. I made a goal to increase my Scripture intake. I figured that I dedicate more than 15 minutes per day to social media alone, not including the articles I read on it and, more recently, Pinterest. The least I could do was give 15 minutes a day to get to know the One who gave His life for me. Ouch. What a reality check that was for me! I tried last year shortly after I had the baby but he was….. hard and I didn’t keep up with my reading. So I started all over this year. Who cares if I “failed” my attempt at this last year? I’m doing way better this year! Currently on day 162 of a 365 day plan. Woot! Last year’s failures don’t need to dictate this year’s success.

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So let’s recap:

First you will need to choose a major area or two of importance.

Second you will need to find your bite sized piece.

Third is to take a bite. And then another. But just start with one bite.

You may not have conquered the world but you are one bite closer than you were 10 minutes ago!

What is the bite-sized improvement that you working on right now? A really great way to work through a life improvement brainstorm and then track your results is with my custom Habit Tracker and Workbook. Enter your email to get the free printable and get started with your personalized steps to live better.

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Why I Don’t Keep a Clean House (And Neither Should You)

by Tessa | Homemaking

Why I Don’t Keep a Clean House (And Neither Should You)

Disclosure

I may scare a few people off my confessing this but I’ll confess anyway: I don’t keep a clean house. It isn’t a goal I’m heading toward. In fact, having a perfectly clean house is not even on my radar. What? Isn’t that everyone’s goal? Isn’t that the role of a homemaker? The answer comes in the form of a big, fat, NO!

organization and homemaking is hard but you don't actually have to keep your entire house clean

You’ll never be satisfied if you try to keep your entire home clean. It’s just not going to happen because you live here! Instead, focus on getting one area clean at a time. Some areas can be clean once per week (or month or year) and some areas can have a clean moment daily. My kitchen table is an area that I try to clean once a day. Sometimes it’s first thing in the morning and then the kids do puzzles or drive cars on it. Sometimes it’s right before supper so I can set the table for supper. Sometimes we eat at a table with last night’s rice still on it and I clean it after the kids have gone to bed. It is clean for probably 15 minutes per day maximum. But I’m okay with that.

You’ll never be satisfied if you try to keep your entire home clean. It’s just not going to happen because you live here! Instead, focus on getting one area clean at a time.

I try to clean my floors once per week. I don’t have a very big house and we don’t have a lot of toys so, if everyone (read: my husband, who pumps up the boys to help out) chips in, it only take about 15-30 minutes to tidy the floors enough so I can sweep. Sometimes I mop. And then the kids run in and out of the house with dirty feet. The next day the toys and sand are all over the floor again.

My sink has a dish brush, coffee grounds, and a few dishes in it. I try to clean it once per day but we use our sink. It is pretty much never empty because, as soon as I do clean it, it’s snack time and strawberry and banana covered knives and plates get put in there. Or my husband makes coffee and rinses out the reusable coffee filter. Or I find a cup of yesterday’s leftover milk to dump in there.

Free Printable Habit Tracker and Workbook

Get your Free Guide to Setting Life Changing Habits

The goal is not to keep your home clean. The goal is to GET it that way. And then move on. Let it go. Know that it will be messy and dirty again. And that’s okay. So give yourself grace. Pick your area to focus on that can be cleaned right now. And accept that you are cleaning it up simply to be a clean canvas for your life. A clean slate for new creativity. Whether it be for supper, race tracks, or morning coffee. That’s just life. And life is messy and dirty.

If you really struggle, start with one focus area for 5-10 minutes a day and build up a habit to keep that one area under control. Do you want some guidance in how to choose habits and keep motivation going to actually create them? Check out my free printable Habit Tracker Workbook which will walk you through setting habits for various areas of your life as well as guide you to stay motivated.

Comment below to let me know what one area you can stay focused on or how you’re planning to let go a bit and breath easier.