30til30: day 16, diane k.

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 16: diane k.

i have wonderful parents who did many things right. but, until i got married and started thinking of beginning our own family, i didn’t think much about how they parented. and, at that point, it was difficult to look back and remember exactly the ways my parents did things.

and, being so far removed from the raising-young-children gig, they don’t always remember how they did things, either.

which is why i’m so grateful for diane. along with reed and marian, gary and diane are the mentoring couples for our young married sunday school class. together, diane and marian lead a bible study for the women in our class.

last summer, we focused on parenting.

i have learned tons from diane and might not be as intentional with our children as i am without her influence. our bible study last summer gave michael and me a foundation to begin to discuss ideas and paradigms we’d never before discussed. and, as we have now entered toddlerhood, i’m so thankful that he and i are on the same page!

mostly, diane has influenced the way i choose to intentionally discipline our children. she’s given me words to use, concepts to employ and the boldness to begin now.

i appreciate diane because she’s honest and real. she doesn’t try to lead us to believe she’s done everything “right.” she shares with us the times she should have done things differently. and, she’s available. just the other week, she and i had a long discussion about luke’s eating habits and how to encourage him to eat a larger variety of food -- without getting into a power-struggle.

because our parents are so far away and aren’t daily involved in our lives, it’s encouraging to have older friends, one or two or three steps ahead of us, who do see us more regularly and can affirm that we’re doing okay with this parenting deal. diane has been one of those friends for me.