Today I killed my son's frog- oops!

Yes, I have missed another mother of the year opportunity by killing my son's pet frog. For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, you already know I have long history with animal tragedies (just one example would be when our beagle completely consumed my daughter guinea pig last year). If you haven't already read these accounts, you can find them in the archives of the blog. I believe the sheer number of problems I have had with animals really isn't my fault. After all, anyone who has so many animals would statistically have the same number of problems as me - right???



OK, I won't lie... I don't really miss the frog. This thing was ugly, I mean really ugly. So ugly that kids would come over for play dates just to look at this strange looking frog. It was some sort of albino, African, bumpy, paper-like skinned water frog. Thankfully it didn't smell, but the tank would grow a lot of algae, this frog laid copious amount of eggs almost every month and once the frog food somehow hatched these ugly white worms in the water!!! With all of that being said, would you believe me when I tell you I honest forgot that you aren't supposed to use soap to clean the tank? I'm telling you the truth, really!!!



You see, I like to use OxiClean. It works pretty well and I had mixed up a bucket to clean some spots on the carpet. Well, I had some left over and being Dutch meant I was required to use the rest of the bucket- I couldn't throw it away (the horror). I looked around my house and saw a filthy frog tank. It was perfect. I knew the OxiClean would go right to work on all of that algae. Somewhere in the back of my mind said that this was not a good idea, but why on earth should I waste the half full bucket of soap?



I carefully scooped the slithering, jerky, frog out of the tank and put it in a container for holding. I (OK, really my husband- that tank was heavy) moved the tank to our shower so I could fully wash it out. Let me tell you, I was feeling rather brilliant when that algae just disappeared with the mix of OxiClean and the tank virtually sparkled! I did have a little trouble rinsing it though, and that is when I remembered that these frogs have very fragile skin that absorbs any chemical present in the habitat (by the way, habitat is a third grade vocabulary word- you are impressed aren't you?). I did try and give the tank an extra rinse and thought it would be OK. I returned everything to the tank, including the frog, and all seemed well.



Now the tragedy, later I went into my son's room and actually said to him "Whew, look at how clean that tank is! I don't think I have ever seen it so clean!!!" At this point I was feeling pretty good about myself. I have never claimed to be able to cook, but I can get things clean if they need to be. I was thrilled with myself, that is until I noticed that the frog was swollen to about two times its normal size. Oh, no. I told my son that "mommy may have done something to hurt your frog accidentally." He asked "do you think it might die?" I had to respond "NO, it might not die, I think it already did". Fortunately, he was not too upset. We are currently in negotiations with Daddy about getting another animal for the fish tank. He thinks we have too many animals already- can't understand why...



Since my son's frog croaked (you knew I had to throw that joke in there), I started thinking about how, as mothers, our houses may look clean but we are all hiding a lot of junk. You see, I thought having a clean looking tank was best, but it really ended up killing the frog. I am studying the book The Power of a Positive Mom with a good friend on Wednesday nights. Last night we looked at the idea that a positive mom is not a perfect mom! What? Is that idea Biblical? You bet, and we need to tell each other that more often! How often do we clean our "tanks" trying to show everyone how good things are at our house, only to discover later that the very act of sparkling our houses up caused more harm than good. We need to be honest with our friends, we need people to support us, we need people to pray for us. I deeply value my time with this very good friend each week because she knows the dirt in my life and loves me anyway. It is because she knows the dirt in my life that our relationship is so deep! The strength that God has provided for me through this relationship is amazing. I encourage you to let the dirt show in your house because God will bless that vulnerability. Don't be tempted to just let people see a sparkling life today, not showing the dirt might just hurt you even more.

Today I am using clocks to punish my kids.

Today I have finally had it with my kids fighting with each other, trying to talk me out of punishments, or not obeying me the first time I ask them to do something. So my husband and I have come up with a new form of punishment using these clocks. When the kids misbehave, we take the clocks off the wall and throw them at the kids. OK, I'm just kidding!!! But don't tell me you haven't thought of throwing something at your children at some point in their lives. If you tell me no, I know you are lying. The simple fact is that our kids need us to set rules and boundaries for them to keep order in their lives.

Recently, a friend of mine told me about a new system of discipline she is using. She told me about a poster she created with house rules, free spaces, privileges, and X's. While I completely agreed with this idea of discipline, I also knew that I couldn't be consistent enough to make it work in our house. So I came up with a simpler method of discipline.

I purchased these inexpensive clocks, took the plastic covers off of them and hung them in our kitchen. The clocks are reset to the kids' bedtimes each morning. Whenever we need to speak to the kids about not behaving or obeying, they move the hands of the clocks back five minutes. Consequently, their bedtime moves back and they may miss cartoons with Daddy or even bedtime snack.

This has worked out pretty well for us. There have been a few occasions in public that I simply had to say "five minutes" instead of yelling and it really got their attention! In fact, it has been a miracle for us; you'll notice that on the picture above their clocks are still set at the original bedtimes for the day. You know I didn't change the times just for the picture, don't you? Because my kids would never do anything like stand in the open front door complete naked waving at the people walking by; or argue at school so loudly that all of the people in the library stop talking just to stare at them; or continually throw a sticky rubber rabbit in the air so that it would stick to our kitchen ceiling; or sneak up behind me with a dead roach shoving it into my face (wait that was my husband)- well, you get the idea. No, our kids would never do any of those things. But just in case they would, we are going to try our new clock system.

We have all been told that God is a God of order and that is true. Just like we need our house rules orderly, we need our lives orderly as well. I have said this before and I will say it again. God does not give us rules to live by to make our lives more complicated; His rules are for OUR good. If you gossip about someone and they find out, you are in trouble. If you overspend and aren't a good steward of money, you are in trouble. If you loose your temper and yell at your boss, you are in trouble. Next time you discipline your children to keep that order in your house, remember that God disciplines us to help keep order in our lives also. Don't make Him take a clock off the wall and throw it at you today!