Lent with Claire 2016: Not on top of all the things this week.

Well, things didn't go as planned this week. I'm a planner/scheduler/rule-follower/creature-of-habit, so I tend to get pretty frustrated when my plans and schedules don't go according to my original plan. The thing I have to keep in mind is that they're just my plans and aren't really worth being frustrated over. My ideal plan for each week of Lent is to be orderly and consistent with our Resurrection Eggs, do a meaningful craft with Claire, and get to the Lent dinner and service at church. So far, that list has looked like this this week:

1. Resurrection Eggs: behind
2. Meaningful craft: didn't really work out
3. Church: didn't happen for me

Oof. I hate not being able to check things off my list...but that's a dumb reason to be frustrated or lose focus. Especially for an important "project" like striving to teach my daughter spiritual lessons and disciplines in the time leading up to Easter. The heart of the matter is so much more important than the completed tasks. And, when I step back and look at the bigger picture, I see that we didn't really get off track at all:

1. Resurrection Eggs: Brad has quite a few nighttime school things (which I rather hate), and I don't like to introduce new eggs without him. So, we've ended up a little further behind on introducing new eggs than I intended. HOWEVER, Claire is still quite enamored with the eggs and has a great capacity for remembering the meanings. Two of our most recent eggs were representing Jesus' beating and the crown of thorns. She has been so sad about Jesus being hurt and "having his feelings hurt" (ahem...being mocked). She asks questions about it and says, "That makes me feel sad." This being the case, I'm not too sad that we're behind- if she's getting it on some level and feeling the sadness that we should be feeling. Victory!

2. Meaningful craft: I attempted to do a watercolor craft where I taped a paper cross template to a piece of card stock with the goal of her painting over it (so that when I untaped the cross, there would be a white cross surrounded by pretty watercolors). Well, she only really wanted to paint on the cross template. It looks pretty janky, but she had a really fun time, and we talked about how crosses represent Jesus' love for us. Victory!

Craft. It's...uh...something, right?

You can't really tell, but she's waving around her Hosanya leaf craft and singing "Hosanna." 

3. Church: I have been dealing with Braxton Hicks this week (not the false labor kind- the super uncomfortable tightening stomach kind) that happens every time I move at all and lots of round ligament pain. I haven't been getting around very well, if we're being honest. Come church time last night, I was laying on the couch with four pillows and a heating pad. Claire and Brad headed off to church without me, which was a little disappointing. However. The good news is that Claire was EXCITED about going to church, which is such a huge improvement for us as a family! Brad was able to chat with some of the folks we've been meeting over the past few weeks, reminding me that we're starting to make some headway in making Blacknall our home. Plus, resting on the couch without being needed for any reason was helpful. Victories!

Although things did not go as planned, I'm pretty pleased with how things ended up. I'm encouraged by what Claire is learning (and by the way, we've started on her Lent scripture- finally) and am excited about what she will have learned by the time Easter arrives.