Bringing Up Creative Kids!

Hey, ya'll!  I'm laughing so hard, and you have to join me!  hahahaha
Ok, here are my kids' latest art projects (it's the end of the year, you know..so they are all coming home!):

This is Clay's poem.  I'm sure he could've written about anything, but he chose vomit.  Gross.  But if I freak out, he'll get the response he's looking for.

This would be the primary difference between girls and boys.  I'll get to that later.  Isn't it precious?  I think I'm going to mat and frame it.  Pure love-and she's hilarious too!

Here's another of her beautiful works:

 Can't you just feel spring in the air now?


Ok, back to Clay.  Here's his other poem:

They are just different.  Spring:  She sees flowers and thinks of lemonade.  He sees cows and thinks of what they might think!

And here is my baby-busy drawing his hand, his bed, a submarine, and some scribbles.  Will he be more like Clay just because he's a boy?  I pray that he's exactly the boy God wants him to be!


I'm reading this book:

It's the latest.  I read Bringing Up Boys when it came out-maybe 3 or 4 years ago?  This one has proven to be just as good.  It makes me think.  We don't have a great guidebook, but Dr. Dobson has done a great job researching literature to share the best with us, and to give us his perspective, both as a parent and as a doctor (Ph. D. in child development).

I'd been having trouble lately with Mary Claire showing me some attitude/spoiled behavior.  We are out to nip that in the bud.  The book is helping, as is not buying her ANYTHING.  Yesterday, at Clay's game, this little girl gave Mary Claire a quarter (can you even believe you can still buy something for 25 cents?) to buy a ring pop.  I told her no.  It's not about the money, it's about the reality she knows-that she gets whatever she wants, and it has to stop.  (It mostly involves self-control on my part-very hard-it's so fun to buy girly stuff!)


So, I'm learning how very different boys and girls are-even from 8 weeks gestation!  Boys are bathed in testosterone at 8 weeks gestation, and girls have their "juvenile puberty" starting between 3-6 months of age and ends abruptly at 3 years.  They grow differently: girl babies look to faces to judge feelings.  If they look at one face that has too much Botox (yes, it's in research!), she looks to the other faces around her to read their emotions.  They are called..what's the Star Trek term?..an empath?  Boys loose the connections between the left and right hemispheres in their brains, and that's why they don't always think before they act, and why they don't understand why we have trouble making decisions-they're are so many factors!


Anyway, I can see truth in what I've read, and it manifests in my kids..see above!  So if you have small kids-especially girls-I would recommend this book. If not, just look at the art, and laugh! : )