Rather than the pressure of trying to find Advent traditions that are perfect and promise to stand the test of time, I’m trying to see this season as an opportunity to pick the ones that work best this year for this season. So, without further ado, here are our best ideas for how to point to God’s in-breaking of light and love in ways our three-year-old can begin to see and understand.
Playing “I Spy” offers the opportunity to notice our surroundings and to pay attention to what might be calling out to us, both of which are key elements of spiritual formation. All disguised in the form of a fun game!
Most of the time I kill my own spiders because I’m grown-up like that, but in order to convince Adam of the enormity of our problem, I began keeping track of the number of spiders I was killing …
We all know how much a look can communicate and The Dog has perfected many looks over the past seven months since we brought The Baby home. Also, I think we can safely say that I’ve lost my ever-loving mind.
I know he’s too young to learn about stillness & contemplation, but I still hope these moments are formative, if only because his introverted mother is going to need some quiet moments with her son as he grows up.
Some refer to motherhood as a spiritual discipline, which is quite lovely & zen. I tend to think of it more as a Sisyphean effort. Perhaps there is another name for this life of mothering in which so little seems to get done.
Parenting is exhausting. It’s harder than I ever anticipated in ways I never anticipated. But every other mother has already realized this.
I, on the other hand, take comfort in reading as much as humanly possible. For me, book knowledge serves as an important counterpoint to the sheer ignorance I feel in the face of this little person.
Is it possible that motherhood is slowly chipping away at my rationality? Will I soon find myself wearing particular socks in hopes that my $2 scratch-off lotto ticket will once again yield $20?