Tag: different

Failing to Compare

July 23, 2020

Failing to Compare

Do you know what I hope I fail in? 

Seriously.  I’m super competitive by nature.  I had to teach myself that trying to “be my best” is a different thing than being better than someone else. 

I had to fail at comparing. 

What are we at, 8 billion people on the planet?  Each one of us has a unique set of circumstances, challenges, goals, cultures, and opportunities.  How can we possibly compare ourselves to each other?

Simplify: we do it in our own heads even if people don’t for us. So we have to learn not to compare in our own heads too!

Your child is acting out. 

From people who may or may not know you comes the onslaught: “that’s because you work,” “that’s because you stay home all day,” “that’s because you are too busy,” “that’s because you never go on playdates,” “that’s because you have him around too many children,” “that’s because you have him in vpk,” “that’s because you home school,” “that’s because your mom ate Wendy’s Frosties with French fries while carrying you…”

And it goes on and on!  They give you reasons to blame yourself or your situation for the child crying in the grocery cart.

You know, mentally, it’s been a long day or he just woke up and the bright lights hurt his eyes or he’s teething or maybe he flat out doesn’t want to be in the store today but you let the judging start in you.  Now you blame yourself. 

One child is independent at 6: he wakes up before the rooster crows, does schoolwork without prodding, makes healthy food if there isn’t a ready meal, dresses himself and three younger siblings and feeds the dog before you have your coffee.  Another is 13 and you can’t trust him with the dog for three seconds, he never does anything without you doing it for him, you bought him sliders and gave up on shoelaces decades ago, and it scares you that the government thinks this kid can climb into a 2-ton vehicle in less than three years and turn himself into a human projectile at 70mph+.  (Exaggerated, I know, but still!)

You find yourself blaming you and your circumstances for how your kids are. 

Stop it!

Mommy, your kids are fine!

They have their own unique personalities and the unique way God set in them from when they were knit together in your womb!  Your job is to help them find their way.  It’s a really cool study to really research the Hebrew on that passage you know, “Train up a child…” the word way there means “the traits that are his” we might say his personality, likes, and dreams.  Dig into that one more when you have time – awesome study. 

ANYWAY!  Back to your mind yelling at you and beating you up because your children are different.  Different than you, different than your spouse, different than their siblings, friends, teammates, schoolmates – YES! They were all made different.  Each a beautiful masterpiece God is still carefully crafting with His own hands.

That independent child?  We lead and guide and pray they choose to ask for help when they face something that looks difficult – we’d rather them not make the same mistakes we did.  (Waving my hand, I was that independent child and humility was/is a challenge for me!)

The 13 year old that seems lazy and unproductive?  Watch what falling in love with a sport, subject, or animal will do for him.  You turn around and that one is buying books on said subject, devoting hours, days, whole weeks lost in it, suddenly you blink and he’s that subject’s walking encyclopedia – then if you listen you’ll discover that was always there, he studies one thing at a time and shoelaces, school deadlines, and things that didn’t interest him just didn’t get any attention.   

When you feel like your brain is beating you up because of your parenting, your situation, and your children not being “perfect,” remind your brain that no one is perfect.  There are no perfect children.  (Okay, be honest, you aren’t living in a Jewish village 2000 years ago watching Joseph and Mary parent Jesus – my brain wouldn’t have shut up watching a real perfect kid!)

You can’t say to yourself, “I did xyz” regarding a child’s personality unless you are using that as a tool to ask yourself, “how do I help him overcome this?”  Because yes, I know, going through financial instability, parents going to work or coming home, changing schools, changing neighborhoods, losing family members, that all does contribute to the development of personality and psyche in a child (or in an adult, am I right?) so understanding is good to help more forward – but the best way to help is to LISTEN.

Sit with them when you can – vehicles are normally good because they are trapped and can’t go anywhere.  And ditch the devices.  Unless you are parenting long distance, look in their eyes and listen with your whole self.  It doesn’t have to look like two adults over coffee at a Barnes & Noble, either.  Think like them.  You can be playing a video game with your kid and have deep conversation.  You can be building duplo blocks and get the scoop on everything in his little heart.

Listen to them.  Ask them prodding questions about their thoughts, their dreams, their goals, and what things have impacted them.  You will learn a lot.  Let them speak as much as you can.  You lecturing the same stuff becomes listening to a broken record.  You need to hear them as much as they need to talk to you.  Learn their hearts.  If you forget stuff sometimes like I do, WRITE DOWN important stuff and file it away somewhere.  That way when you want to know your daughter’s favorite color you don’t have to text her sister.

Fail to compare.  ALWAYS choose not to compare.  If you hear them saying “at least I’m better than so-and-so…” ask why they feel that way and then tell them how each person is unique.  If they want to be better at something, encourage it!  But don’t compare with others.  They don’t know “so-and-so’s” full heart story.  (Side note on that is let them read “To Kill A Mockingbird” or watch the Gregory Peck film version.) Don’t compare.  Especially don’t compare siblings!

Choose to change what you can (only yourself and the environment you create) and accept what you can’t (the personality of others and situations you have no control over).

Do your best in the environment you have.  That is all we can do.  Mothers for millennia have been doing just that – wars, famines, massive global flood, cultural and political changes, pestilences, and economic booms and busts notwithstanding, Mothers continue to do their best for their children.  

Fail to compare.

Instead of tearing each other down, we should build each other up.  We should provide safe environments for each other to come, talk deeply, and gather advice.  We live helping each other because we know the power is not in comparing ourselves with another but with helping each other up.  We need that type of love.  We need to build each other up instead of compare and break down.  Our children see how we treat others when they are near and when we are alone – character is what we say and do when no one is watching.  Build up.  Encourage.  Instead of judging someone else, rejoice with them or encourage them.

This is for our own children too.  Build them up, encourage them, rejoice with them, pray for them, and lead them in their own unique and special way.

If you catch yourself comparing yourself to another or your children to each other or another’s child… Stop.  Instead, choose to encourage or rejoice.  Your heart will smile more and that will show on your face and in your attitude – this causes joy in your heart!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Bike For My Longer Legs!

April 28, 2020

Bike For My Longer Legs!

Lucas has a unidirectional purposeful mind when it comes to what he wants. As a three year old he told us for over six months that all he wanted for Christmas was a bike. That was it. Nothing else. He didn’t break it up like the girls do (tell Grandma Joanne one want, Grandma Tina another want, each Aunt a different want, and each sibling a different want), no. Mister Super Focused always just asks for one thing only.

Well, for the past four months, actually since just after Christmas, Lucas has been asking for a “bike for my longer legs” or “a boy bike that fits my long legs” for his upcoming May birthday. He’s been singularly focused on that one wish.

I figured that if the thrift stores ever open back up I would get a boy bike with 16″ wheels.

Instead, Grandma Tina came over to drop off the coolest little pool – pics on that one in another blog! – and a special surprise for Lucas.

He was one super happy boy!

And being the lovable big brother he is, he let Thea ride it too! Just because “she loves to ride my little bike which will be hers now!”

Thank you, Grandma Tina! Thank you to Grandma Tina’s landlord whose son had outgrown this one and wanted to give it away so another little boy could love it. I promise you, this bike will be loved for as long as Lucas can fit it and in his fond boyhood memories when he’s older!

We had to drag him off of the “coolest long leg bike that fits me” well after dark and he kept going back out to check on it in the shed. The following two days he was outside bouncing from the pool to the bike without stopping for the entire day to break only for food (most of which he took outside to eat while on his bike).

Typical boy.

No. Wait a minute… Typical Tart child.

I asked him yesterday, “Lucas, what do you want for your birthday now?”

He said, “my house with stairs!” Me too, dude. Me too.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

My Little Learner

March 29, 2020

My Little Learner

Our gym has an after-school program where our comfy vans pick up from several area schools and bring little athletes back to gym. They do gymnastics, crafts, eat snacks, and do homework. Thea and her other gym baby friend sometimes hang out there. Thea loves it and thinks she’s a big kid! Just like at home, she tries to do school with them!

Especially when someone wants to play teacher! Ellie loves to play teacher and Thea loves to “learn” and she likes the chalkboard.

At home, Thea knows not to eat coloring tools like pencils, crayons, markers, and even paints! At Aunt Becca’s she got introduced to big sidewalk chalk and tasted it. Sister-cousin Anastasia laughed and said, “eww, gross Baby Thea, you color with it like me!”

Once Thea saw that, it was like “aha! this is an outside coloring tool!”

Sitting with Becky one day, she pulls up a pencil and paper and says “yeah!” and starts babbling in her own way, giving us serious glances as she explains what her work is. Jillian said, “Thea thinks she’s doing school!”

Thea and Becky are quite alike. Becky understood before her first year that coloring tools were not to be eaten too. Baby Becky never ate Legos (except for the black squishy tires, she called them gum and we had to remove them temporarily – I think she still secretly stashes them somewhere and chews them). Baby Becky was my earliest potty trainer (at 14 months telling us when she had to go & by 18 months in regular underwear – I have no clue how!) and Thea is already potty training herself. She got super excited when I bought a baby potty for her tiny self – and knows exactly what it’s for (showed us by pulling at her diaper so we took it off & she used the potty, I teased Becky that she may lose the designation of youngest potty trained).

I love watching my little love get more independent. Each one of them unique and special. Each has different strengths and weaknesses. Each helps the other in various tasks to make us a cohesive team – we build on each others’ strengths.

This is how we all should be. Learning, assisting, encouraging; each doing what we do best and helping when and where we can. It isn’t just for siblings or families. This understanding of the learning and growing and maturing process is an important life skill.

And Thea is playing in the grass without eating it – amazing! She is totally a little Becky… until Uncle Buddy came along and taught 2-year-old Becky she could eat dollar weed (and then she wouldn’t quit eating them!).

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

My New Gym!

August 22, 2019

Our New Gym!

Have you ever moved? 

YES!  I can remember 19 different homes in my early years.  My husband and I have shifted houses 10 times in almost 17 years. 

I am intimately aware of moving.

I know just how many boxes can fit in a 5×8 moving trailer.  I can look at your furniture and see it morphing into place inside a moving van like blocks in Tetris – just with some blankets and pillows strategically placed here and there for padding.

WGV Gymnastics (which yes, I call “my gym” even though it’s not mine, I coach there… but I love it!) just moved from their old facility to the new one at 135 Center Place Way, Saint Augustine, in World Golf Village area.  (They literally moved across the pond!)

We helped with loading a trailer and cleaning.  Our monster was the pit – do you know how many giant trash bags are needed to clean out 15,000+ 6”x6”x6” foam pit blocks?  We have no clue, but it’s upwards of 500.  And that doesn’t count those wrapped up in the tarp! 

Our new facility has amazing new equipment, huge cooling fans, the climbing rope (Kimberly’s favorite), and I can’t wait to teach classes in the new preschool area!  Our after-school program is very nice.  We have two vans that pick children up from area schools. (Mill Creek, Pacetti Bay, and Palencia Elementary, to name a few – check with the office if you want to find out if your school is covered!) In this program, you can pick which days you need pick up, and your students will have assistance with homework, crafts and games to entertain them, and snacks while they wait for you to pick them up!  Since we are a gymnastics facility, the bonus to the program is access to specified gymnastics classes.

Dozens of people helped out in this massive move.  Teamwork.  That’s why I only know a small facet of the whole picture. 

We finished by sorting all the blocks into good, bad, and ugly. Good went to the new pit, bad to be shredded to make new mats, and ugly to the trash bin. Our teamwork system was separated into groups of various sizes doing specific tasks: One pulled bags up out of the pit, one opened bags, one put good blocks neatly into uHaul boxes, one bagged up the bad & trashed the ugly, and one took “train cars” (aka uHaul boxes loaded with pit blocks) to the door to wait for the “engine” (aka the truck to the new gym).

Lucas and Jillian loaded the bags out with a rope (before it got reassigned to another task) while Kimberly tosses bags up to be sorted! This teamwork went on for hours.

While I only know the pit blocks intimately during this move, I am super excited for the new facility and our growth from here out.  Come and see us at 135 Center Place Drive at WGV Gymnastics!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Different Woods

How can splitting wood teach us about life?

October 10, 2018

Different Woods

Have you ever split wood?  As a child, I watched my Daddy split wood for a fireplace when we stayed at a cabin in the Smoky Mountains.  We camped all the time, so being in a cabin was a little different for us – we were actually going to spend that Christmas in an A-frame cabin with a big fireplace!  I was young, but remember being so excited.  We were praying for snow!

I’d helped chop wood a few times before this, but it was never splitting big round logs, it was always just cutting small roots or scrap wood from fallen trees discovered in the backyard so the scrap bits would fit in our firepit.  I’d always used this tiny ax. (Daddy called it a hatchet, and although he said “the Indians in Davy Crocket used weapons exactly like this,” we were warned NEVER to play with the hatchet.  We made “hatchets” out of wood to run around like Indians instead.)

At the cabin, Daddy was using the BIG ax, it had about a three foot handle, maybe four feet, with a weighted gleaming head.  Daddy would raise that ax up over his head, swing hard, and with a crash it would come down.  Most of the time, his blows would chop the round wood into three or four hunks.  Sometimes, the ax went thud and stuck.  Daddy would step on the wood, wiggle the ax, and go again.  Sometimes, the ax would take three of four cuts to split the wood.

My sisters, brother, and I were watching, fascinated at our Daddy’s strength, from what Mom considered a “safe distance” – I’m pretty sure we were inside watching through the window, but can’t be sure.  What I do remember, is what he said to us later.  It might have been a day or so later, but I remember the wood-splitting was fresh in my mind and we were sitting around the fireplace when he started talking.

“Did you see how it’s easy to cut one type of wood but harder to cut another?” Daddy asked.

We all nodded, my brother pointed out some “really tough woods” (oak).

“But I was using the same ax and I’m the same person, so it was about the same effort for each one,” Daddy said, “it’s the same with parenting.  God gave us each of you and you are all different in your own special ways.”  (The way he smiled at us when he said that made us look at each other and giggle.)

“We are the same parents, trying to use the same methods, but since each of you are different types of wood…” Here I’m sure someone yipped, “I’m this one!” (oak, of course) Daddy smiled but continued, “so we have to find different methods of teaching each of you so that in the end, we can tell God we’ve done our best.”

As I look at this memory, I realize that Daddy was probably encouraging my mom and himself (as we would have been about 8, 6, 4, 2, and almost here) and they were “early” in their own parenting journey.

This illustration of parenting is also an illustration of everything in life.  I’ve remembered this “different wood” lesson and applied it to most things in my life.  Teaching – each child is unique so it is understandable that they would each learn differently.  Friendship – each friend is different and  therefore has different likes and dislikes.  Parenting – YES, huge here, true.

Last Sunday, this memory was brought to the forefront because our pastor used chopping wood for his example of how we apply different metrics to each part of our lives.  If we judge ourselves by same metrics or measures when we strike a softwood (it shattered into perfect sticks) as when we are striking slightly petrified oak (crud, the ax stuck fast), we would be discouraged.  Just as we use different strokes and techniques when chopping different woods, we use different metrics or measures in evaluating ourselves in various areas of life.

Each area of life is unique, as we grow and change throughout our lives.  The measures we used ten years ago shouldn’t be the same measures we use today (we measure babies’ length in inches but adult height in feet).  We also should use different measures for different areas of our life.  For example: We may find challenges in using patience while trusting God is easy.  Just because patience is more of a challenge, doesn’t mean we are failing at being patient.

Thank you, God, for giving us easy examples to help us not judge ourselves too harshly.  Let us see our life progress through Your eyes.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Biblical Film Adaptations

June 16, 2018

Biblical Film Adaptations

In this world, the entertainment industry often gets inspiration or ideas from books to transform into movies.  Of course, as a writer, I like to point out to the girls that every movie started as the written word (aka written or typed scripts).  One of the areas we discuss a lot is the differences between book and movie.  We watch many films which are based on a Biblical story.  Many times when people discuss Biblically-inspired movies, the main question is: “Is it accurate?”  This is an important question.  I also like to discuss why it wasn’t accurate – because I have yet to watch a retold Biblical-story-based film that was 100% accurate.

Below are a few of my thoughts specifically on Bible-to-Movie productions.

By far a favorite series in our house is the “Greatest Adventure” cartoons; stories that are close to accurate but obviously not due to the addition of three non-biblical characters and humorous exploits by said characters that just aren’t accurate.  Another favorite is “The Ten Commandments” – which although it’s a classic with great acting and brilliant pageantry, it focuses the majority of time on the portions of Moses’ life that the Bible does not cover, and omits or changes portions of the wilderness journey.  Even the more Biblically accurate “Moses” and “Joseph,” both with Ben Kingsley, omit quite a bit of the story.  Then there are the cartoon features like “Prince of Egypt” and “King of Dreams” – which are more about the lead character “finding themselves” and “fulfilling their destiny” which sounds more along the line of Star Wars than the Bible and they outright change the stories; the former appears to be all about “freedom” (good, but what about learning to obey God?) and the latter has less obvious inaccuracies with the poignant story of forgiveness extremely strong.  Mel Gibson’s “Passion”, while being graphic and realistic where you feel like an intruder through time due to the archaic languages used, has several added sequences that aren’t in the Gospels along with omitting sections that are.  “The Nativity Story” expands on just a few verses to create a realistic emotional journey that focuses on what the storytellers believe Mary and Joseph were feeling and experiencing in their culture; it is close to being Biblically accurate, but much is added into the story.  “Noah” was realistic as entertainment but flawed if one tried to match it to the Bible (though this was the first of any Noah story remake I’d seen where they’d included the fact that Methuselah died the same year as the flood).  “Samson” has an over-the-top villain that makes it seem cartoonish, the story is again modified, yet the film storyline is highly believable.  Three or four Noah remakes as musical cartoon shorts exist in our collection and provide many laughs – the only accuracy in those is this single story thread;“Noah and his family and the animals were saved by God in a boat,” the rest is singing, dancing, and cartoon animal gags.

Even our family’s absolute favorite because it captures the truth of the character of Christ as the Gospels portray, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” leaves much to be desired if it were an exact retelling of the story (the girls always laugh at the poor cowboy Centurion but love the emotions in the face of the actor playing Jesus when he says “I am the resurrection and the life”).

The question begging is this: why are these things left out?  Why are stories shortened?  Why are portions added in?  Why create inaccuracies in a Biblical story?

In any film production there is the balance between budget, story, perceived audience retention, rating, and other factors that impact how the finished product turns out.  For the sake of the story, characters are sometimes added, omitted, or changed.  Consider in “Samson” how instead of foreskins he brings clothing (that was a nice change).  Sometimes stories are changed or details omitted to keep a film under a specific rating and therefore open to a larger audience.  When we realize that any retelling of the Biblical story will fall short of being the actual Bible, we can appreciate the retold stories as just that; someone’s retold story based on a truth from the Bible.  Granted, as with any film or story, we have to use our discretion – I don’t own a copy of “Sodom and Gomorrah” with Stewart Granger because it’s inaccuracies outweigh what I would consider worth the entertainment (really, hundreds of people escape those cities to follow the great leader, Lot?)

Sometimes accuracy is lost in retelling a story for a specific reason to craft a more palatable story or to engage a specific audience.  I’ve rewritten a few Biblical stories and no, they are not 100% accurate.

  • In “Katy Bear’s Request,” my main character is a talking bear – seriously? This is a child’s book written as a fantasy.  No human was around to witness creation so I picked a bear to witness God making Eve.  Katy Bear is a cub because my story was written for a preschool audience.  Accuracy was lost for fantasy.
  • In “Story From the Inn,” the inaccuracy comes from added details. In the Bible, there is no mention of the innkeeper’s family and no mention that Joseph and Mary are unattended when Jesus is born.  From those unspecified details, I developed the innkeeper’s daughter who sits with the midwife’s daughter to attend Mary and witnesses Jesus’ birth to retell the story to her grandchildren years later.  This inaccuracy is due to added details.
  • In “The Living God,” I actually took quotes from the Bible for the characters to speak, but I added two young palace slaves to observe Daniel and who, like Darius, is convinced Daniel’s God is the Living God. Caleb and Miriam were added because I wanted someone with whom my audience could relate.  They are not mentioned in the Biblical account, so those additions make it inaccurate.

These stories were purposefully made inaccurate to be more entertaining and to engage my audience easier.

Personally, I like to use all Biblical films as catalysts to open discussion regarding this very truth – films are simply stories retold to entertain us.  We discuss the differences between the film and the true story, the supposed reasons why these differences exist, and how the differences affect the story.  Many times, we enjoy a retold story even though we understand the truth is different.  We have two favorite films that are about the life of Ruth – and the girls enjoy watching and discussing both.

Discussion regarding movie versus book is something I do with every film we’ve seen where the girls have read the book.  I do like to turn any opportunity into a teaching moment.  Sometimes the reaction is, “The movie is much better,” (i.e. “The Hunger Games”, “Bambi”, “The Little Mermaid,” “The Count of Monte Cristo”) but most often the reaction is, “I missed xyz” or “Why didn’t they have such and such character?” ending with, “I liked the book better.”

With almost all Bible story depictions on film, the consensus is the Book is much better.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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