Parenting is TOUGH, but this Clever TEXT Helps.

A mentor texted me yesterday and it touched my heart, and I think it'll touch your heart. And it's one of those things that is so good you just want to share it. It complete— it will complete my joy if I can share this with you guys. You met my mentor if you watched the Great American Farm Tour. We were able to meet with— meet up with him at a rest area near his home. We're so proud of you when you obey mom and dad and you show those other kids a lot of fun and you're respectful to the other people. That's really good. We're proud of you. We just want you to know Keep it up. That's Steve. As we were catching up in text yesterday, he said, officially, as of yesterday, we are empty nesters. Now, to put this in context, he's raised 5 beautiful society-contributing children that are just a huge blessing to him and the world. So About the empty nesting, I know it'll have its perks and I'll adjust to it, but honestly, I prefer a full nest. Savor every moment with your children. Start, start every day with gratitude within.

I am thankful for you. I'm thankful that you want to go with me so heartily. You give us so many laughs throughout the day. Hey, I'm thankful for my big helper. Flower manager.

No, no, really.

Do you think I'm surprised that you're that? I'm thankful for your loyalty. I thank you that you, even at 12, want to be with me. Hey, little Lily. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful that you bring some diversity to this family and some different perspective. And I love hearing your little voice as we milk, bossing me around. Truthfully, I slept with the dog last night. I'm thankful for you, my talking teddy bear, my sensitive one. You would be the one to sleep with the dog, wouldn't you? So caring to all the creatures.

Marinate every day with gratitude towards them. Do you need help changing? You gotta help though.

You gotta help for sure.

Can you carry me out?

Sure, I'll carry you out. Where are we going? Get a snack?

Yeah.

Okay. Here we go, you got on me? There you go. What would you like for a snack?

Two flavored cut-up apples.

Okay, no cheese?

No. Feel this.

Alright, wow. I would think that was a rock.

That's mud.

What'd you guys do to get that so hard?

Baked it on the roof. I baked it on the roof.

You got—

We got mud and we like made it into this and then we just baked it on the roof.

Oh my gosh.

Get a hug. Here. Here's your two pieces of apple. What do you say?

Thank you. You're welcome.

You ready to go? Let's go.

I'm not ready.

Well, then you're gonna stay here?

I want to ask something. Papa?

Yes?

Can you carry me in the Oogurt?

Is that what it is? He wants to go in the— Oogurt is what he calls it? You want to go in the Oogurt? I don't know if this is what you mean, Steve, but— probably give the world if you could take your youngest, Josh, who's 18, and put him on your back. It's gonna end eventually.

What if Dad's kids are bigger than him?

What got into you? You weren't going to do these chores.

No, I thought I needed to do them, so I did them.

I appreciate it. A little rough start this morning. All right, here we go.

Papa?

Yeah?

Today, if you pick up the net this morning, evening chores will only take 30 minutes. Ah, because picking up the nets take 30 minutes and—

Oh, that's true. And then all we have to do is move them and set up nets. That's good.

So I've already— Jonah's already picking up a net. Yeah, I'm gonna go back.

I like that y'all are picking up these nets right now. It's the cool of the morning.

It's so—

it's gonna be hot, I can tell. It's already warm. So then we don't have to pick those up at least this afternoon. That's one less thing we have to do this afternoon. Good job, guys.

You want to get down? Okay, I don't want to fall through my butt. You won't.

I got you, I got you. You done? Come here, give me a hug. All right, what do we have in here, boss?

Jerry, can you just get the waters going?

Yeah, I'll do it.

What do I do with this much? Should I just pour it all out?

I would scrape off the shavings. I would do it over the, over the bedding in case you spill some feed and they'll get it, and then just add more feed to it.

Bubby, you know how I set the hoses up?

Yeah.

It's nice being able to have one. You run your hose straight out first, and then you just run the tubes like this.

Yeah.

And then you have a 100-foot hose that you just run wherever they go. Like that.

That was nice, man. Mom and I were watering the sea monsters yesterday, and it was real nice having water right there.

Yeah.

Good job.

Guys, we're potting these up. Could you put soil? In this. See how there's not enough soil in there? Could you put— scoop it in there and then water them for me? Put it in the cracks, Lily.

Good job, guys.

Wait, it's plants. Okay, Papa, you want to know something cool about the sea monsters?

What?

I can tell if one's a boy or a girl.

How?

Well, if you look at this, This one, see its big comb?

Yes.

How it's red? And look at like a littler one.

Oh yeah, some of them have like basically no comb.

Yes, that's a girl, I think.

Yeah, there's one. Like, there's a girl right there, and look, she's smaller. Did you go water Mom's plants? Yeah, that's nice. Hey, did you get the one way down there at the end? The sprinkler won't get that one way at the end.

I didn't get that one yet.

And these are good too because the sprinklers won't get it either. Jonah wants to show me something. He's been helping with the edits lately. Let's see what he's done. Look what I did. Let's see it. Oh, I see. Oh, I like it. Hey, you want to go with me to get Flossie? What's that? Soup.

Okay.

Yay, thank you. Is that for me?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you. What a wonderful soup.

I make it because, because I— whenever we play at the cabin, I make stew. Oh, for dinner. Okay, but I use flower petals.

Oh wow, that would make it beautiful. You got your staff?

Yeah.

Hey, I enjoy you. She jumped right in brushing her You like brushing her off too? Cleaner? What about cleaner? You like that?

Yeah, unless you do it.

Would you rather me do it?

Yeah.

Or do you like to do it?

I like to do it.

One of the hardest things about working with children is actually letting go and letting them. You know, it's oftentimes faster, more efficient if you just do it yourself, but It really is a good thing that she wants to get in there and do that. You want to do it or you want me to do it?

Okay.

But if I, uh, if I let her do it, well, she builds self-confidence. She comes to enjoy the work of the farm because she's getting to choose what she does. She's taking control, taking responsibility, learning responsibility. And eventually, like Jonah, she'll be doing a lot of the chores on her own.

I can mop the towel myself.

Right, I know it.

I need to get more hot towels.

Oh, this is dry. Oh, you're drying her off? Okay. Uh, juice stripper?

Yes.

Okay, how many times?

Yeah, each tooth.

All right, let's do 5. So let's do a couple more. There we go.

Daddy's gonna get him a drink. Is that okay? Yeah, because he dipped it in the water for me. Pump up there.

Okay. All right, well, let's make sure we have the, the kit to changing your tube out.

I think Mama got me two just in case I have another flat tire.

Yes, yes. So why don't you put that in there in one of the drawers?

This bike has an extra brake on the handlebars just in case your foot brakes don't work.

That's good.

And then so then you can use the hand brakes. So you have extra brakes.

Okay, see if that's working.

I probably got it down to 30 minutes.

Okay.

Good job, Jenna.

There we go, it's working.

Teddy's interested. There we go. I'll do a little bit more so that if we lose pressure— Oh, just like that. It is hard, but you can do it.

You're almost there.

Look at this. We got everybody on bikes. By the way, we do live on a dead-end road, so barely anybody ever comes down the street.

Okay, holy cow, you're going so fast!

You're doing good. Can't keep up. Oh my, look how fast! Do you want to set up a jump for him? Are you gonna jump, Mr. Brown?

I want them to set up a littler jump.

Yeah, perfect! All right, Gideon, we got one for you. Okay, on a 2x6. Everybody cheer for Gideon! You did good! Hey, did you get a good shot? Oh my goodness, another one!

Or this one.

That's funny. How'd you get that shot? Because that happened like a tenth of a second.

Okay, I did the burst. See, so here it is. I'm approaching.

That's a good mom. That's a good try.

Well, it's his first jump, I think.

Yeah, I think it was the first jump. Let them know you see them, you hear them, and you are present with them in every way. Rebecca is gonna go over my edit. Did you notice where our, uh, desk is? It's right in the middle of the everything. Well, it's to the side, but like, this is our living room right here, and the desk is way, you know, right, right there.

Where are you going?

Well, I was— I'm just gonna— I'm here to tell you I see you. I see you. Because I was, you know, I went to take some packages to the mailbox for your mom, and Gideon just said, hi, hi Papa. That's, that's just nice. He's letting me know that he sees me. I want, I want you guys to know that I see you.

See you.

You see me too? You're out here listening to what?

Farmer Boy.

Farmer Boy. That's good, that's good. I see you, buddy. You need anything, I'm right there. I'm right inside. We've tried it, we've tried excluding me. I'll be it. I'm more efficient, probably quite a bit more efficient, 25% or more. What am I living for? This is, this is my efficiency. So this is my real work. I see you too, buddy. What are you doing? Are you bored?

I'm listening to the audio.

Oh, you are? You can hear it from here? Okay, you farmer boy. So I was right here, you know, just putting some packages in for the beautiful one. Raise the flag. Our safety flag's Jerry. It won't stay up. Okay, there we go. And Gideon just says, hey Papa, and he's just across the street. That's just so sweet. Not because his voice is so sweet, although it is. It's because he noticed me. He saw me. This is what Steve's talking about, but We're to see them. We're to just— hey, hey, Gideon, pat him on the back. What you doing? Hey, Lily, I appreciate that, buddy. You give me this? I pre— hey, I appreciate you seeing me. Look, Lily's on the audiobook too. What are you listening to, Lily? What is it? The Penderwicks. Hey, I appreciate you, buddy, and I see you, okay? Okay, and you see me. We're buddies, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, we're buddies. Lily, I see you. What are you doing?

Making dirt.

Making dirt. I love it. I just love it. I love it.

I'm gonna make mud.

I love it that you guys are here and I can notice you. I'm gonna try to notice you even more.

We'll stay here until chores.

Okay. And then let's scoot do chores together, and a big reward for everybody after we're done. If I don't fall, don't fall right there. It's the way God cares for us, and it's how we can and should therefore bless our kids. It's afternoon. I'm in my swimming suit. You in your swimming suit?

Yeah.

We all hopeful we're gonna get this done? We're gonna get this done together, work together as a family, then we're gonna go play together as a family. All right, you getting that up? Are they ready? Yeah, guys, come on. Hey, we should keep Hamburger in. Let's keep Hamburger in. Shall we go put him in or will he stay here? He probably won't stay here. He probably needs to go see. Okay, um, it actually— we should start over there at the lane. Okay, Josiah, are you gonna spy Hamburger till he's up? Yeah, until Mom gets that net up. Okay, well, you gotta come this way. I'm gonna go get some more nets and help your mom.

Hey ladies!

Okay, we got them in. We got almost an hour to Let's go swimming, guys. See if we can get Teddy to go.

Nope.

And end each day with deep appreciation for them.

It's been a big day. It's like, I appreciate this guy. I appreciate you, buddy.

I appreciate you, Lily.

Okay.

I enjoyed you today. I appreciate you.

I appreciate you, buddy.

Appreciate you.

Of course I appreciate you. Appreciate you, buddy.