Meetin' Mickey-Part 1

Well, to set the record straight, we didn't exactly meet Mickey but we did just about everything else! We arrived in LA Friday evening after a long day trip. We couldn't leave until noon due to Steve finishing up his summer school class and turning in his grades so, that put us right in the middle of LA traffic upon our arrival. Luckily, we didn't hit any traffic until the last twenty miles. Yet sadly, the last twenty miles took us two hours!! I don't envy LA dwellers one single bit!

After some direction mishaps on my part, we pulled into a little Italian restaurant, Carolina's, down the street from our hotel where we met my parents for dinner. My Dad had done some "research" while waiting for us and he recommended this place. It proved to be a gem. When we arrived, it was 8 o'clock and we were all STARVING! My parents had ordered pizzas ahead of time for us and seriously held a table for an hour until we got there. They are saints I tell you. We devoured that pizza. It was the best pizza we have ever eaten. They also happened to have nearly 300 beers for sale. And since my husband is a beer connoisseur (aka Beer Snob as I call him), he felt totally blessed to go and find one of his favorite beers and enjoy it after an extremely long drive of baby screaming (for nearly the last two hours) and intense stop-and-go LA traffic. That night he won Best Dad/Husband of the Year Award for staying so calm. Seriously, it was some of his best stuff!

After our feast of amazing pizza, we all piled back into our Pilot (my parents included since they were smart and flew down yet as a result, were carless) which was a feat in itself since our car was packed with all of our stuff. I wish I would've gotten a picture of both of my parents sitting side by side in the front seat. They were adorable. But even more adorable was that my mom was so proud of herself that she got the seat beat buckled to ensure their safety! We were a total crack-up. Good thing we were just blocks from our hotel! My older brother and his family arrived right after us and the party began-which I will write more about next post.

Now for those of you who care to know some of the planning details of our trip, here is some of what we learned. Before we left, we made some strategic decisions that could've gone either way. Either they'd work out and we'd "look" brilliant or they wouldn't work out and we'd be up a creek. And I must say, my husband made the final calls on these things, and his reasoning did him credit. He was right. You see, brilliant!! Ha ha! For the most part, they worked out well and made our trip efficient and overall very reasonably priced.

Yet first and foremost, my parents picked up our hotel which made the whole thing possible in the first place. Without their generosity, we wouldn't have even been able to think about going. My Dad also got a decent discount on tickets from his work so that helped too. But after that, we knew we had to try and save cash because a Disneyland trip can drain you fast and most of all unknowingly. You know, a little churro here, a few ice creams there and before you know it, you're visiting every single ATM trying to keep up with the frozen lemonade demand coming from your kiddos. Plus, we have six mouths to feed which can add up quickly, if you know what I mean.

So we set the record straight from the beginning. We told the kids we would be having PB and J for lunch and that they'd get dinner and a treat from Disneyland later. One of our friends told us that was their strategy with their kids and it ended up working like a charm. So in turn, we brought a TON of food with us and it proved to be the best option. Not only does Disneyland let you bring in whatever food you want but we also found a way to refill our water bottles at the various water fountains so that we weren't buying $4 waters every twenty minutes (it was VERY hot). Buying dinner each day and a treat for the kids ended up making the trip really reasonable.

Secondly, we also decided to bring our double BOB. There were a lot of people there and the BOB is big so we were a bit wary-especially me. However, we know it turns on a dime and can weave through any crowd like a champ-- plus it has a ton of storage room. So we lugged it down with us. Therefore, when it came down to it, we had a stroller that could house all four kids if we needed (two can sit on the front) and all of our food. When we saw the strollers Disneyland offered for a decent fee, we were really stoked we brought our own stroller. That decision alone provided so much and saved us $50. It held all of our stuff and even gave the older boys a chance to rest from walking from time to time.

Lastly, we decided to walk to and from our hotel each day saving on parking, shuttle rides and adding to our overall exercise. We were a decent distance from the park (about two miles to the park entrance) but it proved to be a really fun option for us. I threw Elliana on my back into the ERGO and Steve pushed the three boys in the stroller. We were all hot and sweaty by the time we arrived and felt like we could eat ice cream that day without "paying for it!" Truthfully, we did it mostly for the exercise and not wanting to deal with our big stroller on a shuttle. Yet, it ended up being a really fun time of talking, laughing and prepping for the day. The only downside was that I was stuck at Disneyland. I felt like it was a really long walk to go back to the hotel just for naps so the two littles simply had to deal with it and try and sleep in the stroller. Joshy never did and merely skipped naps. That doesn't go over so well for him but, he survived. Both of them did just fine. And at the end of the day we were definitely tired but, we had to get back somehow...so it wasn't too bad to walk back.

These couple of things saved us and really added to the overall success of the trip. When you're paying beaucoup de bucks for the tickets, you really want the trip to be worth your while. And it was. It was an incredible time with family and an overall wonderful time. To be honest, we're already looking forward to next time.

Gifts

But King David said to Onan, "No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing." 1 Chronicles 21:24

So, I've been thinking a lot about Christmas for obvious reasons. I still have a bit of shopping to do but a lot of it has been taken care of already. I'm still trying to get into the groove of how much to buy my kids and what to buy my kids. We want to bless them abundantly because they're ours. But we also don't want to spoil them and we already have a lot of toys. So, I've definitely been pondering that. I've also been stewing about some other aspects of gift giving that might be a bit unconventional.

Christmas every year is always a stretch financially. Isn't it for most of us? If we had all the money in the world, it might be easy (financially anyway) but then Christmas wouldn't be about giving. It'd be about distributing. It's not that we don't have money, it's that we have to decide how much we can afford to spend. And that is good and wise. But sometimes I feel like I get to the point of being too frugal. I'm thinking much more about the cost than about the gift itself. And I justify it by reminding myself I'm being practical and all. But when it comes down to it, I'm really being a hoarder. I'm being greedy. I have money. I just want to spend the least amount possible to be able to save the rest for myself. In essence, I want to give gifts that didn't cost me anything.

Now hang with me. I'm not saying it's bad to get gifts on sale. Nor am I talking about people who are truly financially strapped and can't afford much more than some oranges in their kids' stockings. But most of us, if we're being honest, don't fall into that category. And I'm not talking about putting it on the credit card either because I think that's unwise too. Hear me. We live on a single teacher's income in California and we still don't fall into that category. Most of us can afford to give to our families and those around us something at Christmas time. And that giving should cost us. It should push us. Really, we should give to the point of it hurting. That may look like a lot for some and a little for others. But that's because I'm not talking about the price of the gift, but rather the cost-the cost to us personally that it took to give. Because really, that's what giving is.

There have been many times this Christmas season that I've wanted to hold back and just go with the bare minimum because that's what is natural for me. I'm not naturally giving. And every time that daunting phrase, "I'm not going to give something that didn't cost me anything" pops into my head and whips me into shape. I can't escape it for some reason and it's really been teaching me that my giving should hurt. It should be a stretch. It should cost me.

The reason I think is because of what Christmas stands for in the first place. God gave us Jesus, his ONLY Son, and He didn't do it half-way. He didn't look down at the earth and say, "Hmmmm...maybe I'll only send Him for a little while or, how can I still save them without giving up my most beloved possession-my Son?" No, God gave to the point of it hurting-literally even, for us by giving us Christ. And Christ, when He went to the cross, gave in that same manner. He gave his life, for us. It cost God everything. Everything. He didn't hold back. He did that so that we could become children of God.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." 1 John 3:1

I think, when it comes down to it, that I don't want to give in this way because I'm fearful. I'm afraid that if I give too much, I'll be wanting in the future. But God says it doesn't work that way anyway. "Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine." Proverbs 3:9-10 I definitely shouldn't give to get but I also shouldn't worry that my giving unto the Lord is going to make me destitute. It's mysterious how it works out but I have to learn to give my utmost and let God take care of the rest. It's good to save and good to be wise. But in the end, I can't take anything with me anyway.

So Christmas is about giving. We hear that all the time. But it's not just about giving anything. It's about really sacrificing to give. I don't think we should feel bad about that. If it's hurting, we're probably heading in the right direction. Not that we should borrow money to give or give big expensive gifts just to show how well off we are. Our gifts should simply reflect how much it really cost us to bless the other person, whatever they are.

I think, when we can get ourselves there, then we're headed in the right direction.

I have a long way to go on that journey. A long way. But here's to trying to put one foot in front of the other. Lord willing, I'll have many more Christmases to practice.

Just Couldn't Help It

So I've been researching a bit for a writing project due next week and I've been going through some literature prominent in the women's lib movement like Betty Friedan's landmark book The Feminine Mystique. You're probably wondering why. Well, without giving too much away, I'm writing an article on mentoring and why it's REALLY important for older Christian women, who have raised their children, to build into the next generation of women because in a lot of ways, as a result of the radical changes in our society fifty years ago, we don't necessarily know what it means to be women. For example, we've got women working their hardest to be men and men falling into the roles of being women. Gloria Steinem, one of the major voices of the movement in the 70s, said it most accurately when she stated: Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. Interesting. In my mind, there's fall-out all over the place with the family being the first and most significant casualty. Can't we just be women...strong, capable, respectful, feminine women?

I'm not saying the women's liberation movement didn't do any good. For sure it did. There were inequalities that needed to be dealt with like equal pay, legal rights like owning property and such. Fifty years earlier, the women's suffrage movement granted women the right to vote. These things were good to fight for. There were inequalities and things that needed to be settled. God didn't create women to be less, just different. In 1 Peter 3:7 it says, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel (meaning physically), since they are heirs with you of the grace of life…” Husbands were implored to show honor and to live with their wives according to understanding because they were different from them and deserved their husband’s love. The New Testament spoke out very clearly against the harsh treatment of women in the early church. But we live in a fallen world and this advice was not always readily received. Richard Ganz, a theologian stated, "If men had sought ways to see the gifts and talents of their wives developed and utilized rather than taking a beautiful person and making her into little more than a personal slave, if men had not twisted this doctrine of headship, we would not have the current problems in our society." Pg. 27 Radical Womanhood, Carolyn McCulley. Not every man treated his wife that way, but I'm sure there were many who did. So there were problems.

But, instead of just trying to fix the problems, women turned on themselves. One of the things that I noticed explicitly is that instead of embracing women from all different backgrounds (you know, "tolerance" that is so pushed in our society) which would include women who work and those who don't, there was an absolute denigration of the stay-at-home mom. In fact, these women went after the stay-at-home mom because she, just being herself, totally undermined their entire cause. They wanted women in the workforce, not in the home. Because if they were in the home, they weren’t competing with men.
Vacuuming the living room floor -- with or without makeup -- is not work that takes enough thought or energy to challenge any woman's full capacity.” Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

Linda Hirschman, a contemporary feminist, echoes this idea as she feels that the housewife has let down the team. Albert Mohler details Hirschman’s views that were on national display via ABC’s Good Morning America show when he recounts this dialogue. “Hirshman says working is also a matter of feeling fulfilled. She doesn’t buy into the arguments of many homemakers who say taking care of the family is the most fulfilling thing they could imagine. Hirshman’s response is a demonstration of breathtaking arrogance. ‘I would like to see a description of their daily lives that substantiates that position,’ she said. ‘One of the things I’ve done working on my book is to read a lot of the diaries online, and their description of their lives does not sound particularly interesting or fulfilling for a complicated person, for a complicated, educated person.’ Albert Mohler, Are Stay at Home Moms Letting Down the Team?

It is important to be educated, whether one wants to be in the workforce or not. I went to college. I LOVED it. And I don’t see my life now as a waste of my education. Rather I see it as preparation for my life as a wife and mom, and possible work when my children are grown. And Elisabeth Elliot, one of my Christian heroes, agrees with me. “Surely it [education] is to draw out (the root meaning of educate) the gifts God has given whatever they may be. Surely I did not send you to college on the assumption that you would marry [she was writing to her daughter]. A Christian liberal education will make you a better wife and mother, I’m convinced…” pg. 58 Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman

Betty Friedan also made outlandish statements about children who grew up in homes where their mothers were around either by staying home or by only working part-time.

“Strange new problems are being reported in the growing generations of children whose mothers were always there, driving them around, helping them with their homework — an inability to endure pain or discipline or pursue any self- sustained goal of any sort, a devastating boredom with life” Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

All I can say to that is, WOW! Children are worse off having a parent around to love them because they don’t learn how to endure pain on their own?

So I know that I’m biased because being home with my kids is my job and I pretty much love it. It’s true. But I do have friends who work that stretch me and get me out of my box…and I’ve really tried over the years to have a better understanding of those around me who choose to work. I’ve also learned to be quiet about it and just do my own life.

But I guess I just couldn’t help it this time. All of this reading just got me too fired up. And even though I have tried vehemently on this blog NOT to be overly controversial, because really, when do I have time to care about or read hate mail? But I guess sometimes in life, you’ve got to just say what you think.

So with that being said, you can send all hate mail to Nikki Dauphin. But I can’t promise you I’ll read it because I’ll probably be busy working and learning more how to be a mom. As my alma mater’s motto for education was “Learn by Doing” (all you Cal Poly Mustangs will understand), I’ll be making cookies, building lego towers, folding laundry, wiping bottoms and putting dinner together (not necessarily in that order and yes, I do wash my hands…often). Because that’s what I do and it’s great. Some days it’s really hard. Some days I want to call in sick. But, when I look to the future, I know my work will reap a harvest if I don’t give up. (Galatians 6:9)

She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. Proverbs 31:17