Major Changes

Cutting hair shouldn't be such a big deal, but it is. It totally changes the way you look. The other day Matt said the days of the long hair have come to an end. Our boys have ALWAYS had long hair (except one time when we got the crazy idea to shave Elijah's head when he was 2 and it was a major mistake). Most people might think this is a good idea at the beginning of summer, but as with most things we tend to do things in our own time. It all started with Elijah. His hair really was getting long, but it was always in his eyes and he was starting to create bad habits like chewing on it...sooo it was a good run surfer hair, but you had to go. The crazy thing is that we were still planning on keeping it somewhat long which you can see in the picture, but then after Caleb got his hair shaved Elijah decided he wanted to do the same (I don't have the final pic of Elijah's shaved head, but look for it in future posts...he looks totally different). Then Caleb was next and he decided he wanted his head totally shaved. The funny thing about Caleb's haircut is that when we shaved his hair he became a different kid. He has been the happiest we have ever seen him. Kind of strange. Then it was Jo-Jo's turn. I couldn't hardly stand to see his curly red locks being cut off, but at the same time I am so glad not to have to brush it anymore because most of the time it was more like dreads:) Ezra just got a little trim in the front and Matt's hair was the last to go and he went for the total shave. He goes through phases of long and short hair, but the beard always remains:) So those are the major physical changes.
The second major change was taking the plunge to finally get rid of our TV. This change slowly started taking place 5 years ago, which was the last time we paid for cable. However, we still had rabbit ears. We decided to get rid of the rabbit ears last year, but we still kept the TV around for the occasional movie night. For years I have been praying for guidance and direction about raising our children and every time I prayed I would feel VERY strongly like I needed to just get rid of the TV, though I never had the guts to go cold turkey. I made excuses for holding on to it, but the other night I read a great blog post about being lukewarm and longing to live a more radical life. It inspired me and gave me the final push I needed. It feels really good to finally unplug that thing. Most people view TV as a way to relax or escape, but for us I found it was a life sucker and time stealer...and since then I have found many other satisfying ways to relax. Another good feeling is that I have repurposed our TV armoire into a storage place for lots of our homeschool stuff that was taking over the kitchen and always making me feel a little bit annoyed, like a stuff bomb had been set off. Now I can shove all that stuff in the armoire, close the doors and not have to look at all that stuff that never seemed to have a right place.
Sometimes change feels uncomfortable, but this time it just feels right.