My Life is Not A Tidy Story

My kids think I am mean.  When I say this it isn't in a "woe is me" please give me assurances way, but in general observation.  The longer they stay in our home, the more frequently they share their thoughts on my parenting with me.  Often they share when they have strong opinions so with fierce love and equally fierce recognition that I am doing some things totally wrong.

Sometimes it's hard to hear.  It hurts.  Because clearly I'm not trying to suck it up as a mom and rarely have I ever thought of myself as a mean person.  I also never want to quiet their voice and reject their feedback just because it is hard to hear.  And the closer they get to adulthood, the more I want them to be able to as kindly as possible share constructive feedback with their associates and with those whom they have relationships with.

So here is my formal admission, that my life is not a tidy story.  I don't always make the best choices, my words are not always kind and encouraging and supportive.  My kids don't always feel my love and sometimes they suffocate under the weight of my expectations.  I am doing some things wrong, but still I am okay with me.  I know I stand ready to try and try again, tweaking and fine tuning my methods to try and be more Christlike.  My story is not done yet and I am never going to give up.

I love you and so even if my actions aren't tidy in showing you that, let these words give you the hope you need to believe them.

May They Always Climb In Bed With Me

Each morning, I wake before the kids do or around the same time.  The two older ones prepare for early morning seminary as well as cross country and school.  They leave by 6:15am.  Around that time the next child, Issac, wakes up.  He preps for middle school cross country which starts before school at 7am.  He is out the door by 6:45 and that is around the time the last little guy, Kody wakes up.  Prior to this year and all of them being in middle or high school, I woke up with everyone, made hot breakfasts, helped prep them for school, and walked them to their bus stops.  This year everything has changed.

Instead they don't want to eat a big breakfast before running - toast all around, maybe cereal.  They are so tired from their ever growing teenage bodies they don't want to talk, and my son Issac informed me if I was walking to the bus stop, he would walk at a different time than me using a different route.  (Sigh)

So instead now I stay in bed.  I study my scriptures, I write in my journal, I have really sincere, lengthy prayers.  But the best part of this all is that the new routine provides a parade of bedtime partners and cuddles.  Wyatt is typically the first one in.  He does everything quickly and efficiently.  He can get ready in half the time his sister does.  So he comes and snuggles with me.  He tells me the highlights of the day and what he is most excited for.  He clings closest to my side throughout our cuddles and asks me questions about what I will be doing during the day. He then leaves to finish up and Isabella comes in.  She usually shares her stress and/or anxiety with me.  She asks for advice, she rests her head on my stomach or chest and I stroke her hair and reassure her that all will be well in her life.  As they leave Issac takes his cue and wanders in.  He has usually done all the lunch packing, prepping, except clothes.  So still half dressed or in PJ's he climbs into my bed and catches the last twenty minutes of sleep before he has to quickly put on running clothes and leave.  He leaves me in a hurry but always with two kisses.  The first one rushed, and then because this is the only time I get to see his sweet, tender side, I ask him for a second one, so I can appreciate his last moments of boyhood; for now he still obliges me.  Travis takes him to cross country and in bounds, Kody.  He is totally prepped for school - hair done, cologne on, sometimes even sneakers and backpack on.  I always remind him he has at least another thirty minutes.  I coerce him into taking off the shoes and backpack before he climbs into bed.  He snuggles close smelling of spicy, yummy man at age 11, but still in the body of an 8 year old, tells me how excited he is to see his friends, to go to a certain class, to get to school.  Before long he bounds right back out with an "I love you, Mom".  He leaves for the bus stop as early as we will let him out the door.

And my parade is over, my house is empty, but my heart is full.  These kids may not be perfect, my parenting most certainly isn't, but we're creating our own kind of heaven on Earth with these traditions.  Out with the old, in with the new, always adapting and changing and growing - TOGETHER!

Mental Health Days and Skipping School

When Isabella was a toddler my good friend, Carrie, and I were playing when her hubby called to say: call the school and get Spencer out of school - I am going to take him golfing today.  I remember thinking: That is so cool, a little scary, Can you do that,  I can't believe that the Dad wants to play with his son.  I remember thinking I am for sure going to do this with my kids someday.

And yet fast forward five to ten years and I have four kids in school.  And most have perfect attendance or near perfect attendance each year.  Not only that I am in an invisible competition to have my kids earn the Principal's Award each year.  One boy and girl student each year as chosen by the teacher that is both academically and characteristically stands out.  And we did win.  Lots of times, lots of years, amongst the kids.

But it isn't until they all start entering middle school and even high school that I realize that I have lost sight of my goals and instead been distracted by this silly accolade.  Increasingly I refocused and started letting the kids take mental health days.  They stay home, we cuddle, we play.  And so when Aunt Lacey told me she had an art show for her pottery and that a Plumbing Company has picked up her line of Custom Clay Sinks.

We went to support her and she had a fun activity for those attending.  Making their own clay squares and inked in scrapped in relief.  Even as I write this, I realize that life will steal time from you if you let it.  You will look back and wonder where the time went, if it was well spent.  I need to remember to take back my time and make of it what I will!

Field Tripping - It's a Verb

 I love my kids. 

I love them so much I go on all their field trips and volunteer all the time. 

I want to be near them. 

I like to have shared experiences with them. 

I like to be able to talk with them and this is the thing that sparks lots of conversations.

 I love my kids so much that I do the same field trips over and over again.

I've seen our town's wetlands, gone to County Envirothons,

and Philadelphia has nothing I haven't seen. 

But I love being with my kids, and we do talk.

So I think my plan is working.

Foregoing Fantasy For Reality

In my minds eye, I blog regularly and meaningfully.  I document our life and with such frequency that it is largely chronologically.  Well yesterday I got fed up with not blogging because I hadn't caught up or done it in some predetermined way of perfection.  I got fed up with posts that seem to be tracking our activities and nothing to do with us that weren't meaningful to me.

I'm sure you're wondering what happened that prompted this "Come to Jesus" moment.  Well it was pretty much the worst day ever. It started with the dog escaping his leash on the way to the bus stop.  As all my neighbors tried to help catch her, she thought it would be fun to turn it into a game and so darted through morning school traffic almost getting hit by a bus, a grocery delivery truck and two cars.  It took 20 minutes and I was sweating profusely.

My phone didn't charge, I had to drive the kids to school and I was helping with elementary school picture day.  That should have been a 3 hour project, but due to one of the two cameras not working at least half of the time, it took almost 5 hours.  Every teacher was frustrated and a sub got a little snippy with me. 

My husband's, who was out of town, second leg of his flight home got cancelled due to mechanical problems.  Leaving him stuck in Philly, super close, but he had parked in BWI (Baltimore).  So even if he could have rented a car and driven home, he was forced to wait for a flight so we wouldn't have to turn around and drive to Baltimore to pick up his car from long term parking.  Because of this, where I should have had two drivers for evening activities, I was the lone one. 

I had to cancel a theater date with my daughter that she had been looking forward to.  She had a cross country meet where it was pouring rain.  I'm supposed to be the photographer for the team and my camera battery died without a low battery warning.  And despite the pouring rain I was getting bit endlessly by bugs.

There were a million other useless mini things that went wrong, but the day becamse comical as clearly nothing was going to go as planned.  In the end as I was running an errand, I got a text from an aquantice long lost.  She sent a text saying generally...thanks for the friendship, I miss church and I hope I didn't lose you as a friend from being a less than stellar friend.  I responded that all was fine.  She stated that she wanted to have a life redo and be as good as me.  I chuckled as I thought, I don't know if I even want to be me right now.  But words came to my mind.  just do the best you can each day and I relayed that to her.  She asked for inspirational quotes ad help organizing her life, to which I replied, "Start with the spiritual the rest is eternally insignificant and just a temporary pain in the butt."

And as I thought about my own words, the spirit confirmed the truth of those words.  And my perspective changed immediately.  And at that exact moment I changed the radio and who should come on but George Michael's Faith Chorus.  I just started to laugh.  I don't know that the verse applies, but the chorus sure does.  I knew I needed to record this moment.  Not because it will change someone else's life, but because it changed mine.  Maybe by just a degree but enough that hopefully in ten years I'll be able to see a big difference and hopefully in several generations time, I can watch from heaven amazed that this is my posterity. 

Third Grade Field Trip - Philadelphia Zoo

Someone asked me how many times, I had been on this field trip to the Philadelphia Zoo.  The answer would be three times.  I then explained that my husband and I had been on the Manheim Farm Show fieldtrip 14 times.  Yes you heard it here.  You see they go every year for all students K-2 and since my kids are so close together in age, there have been many years when I've gone twice in the same day on the same field trip just at different times or he and I have divided and conquered.

I'm that parent...on every field trip.  I don't think it's too obnoxious for my kids yet, because I would gladly give some of them up if they showed any signs of annoyance.  But alas, parenting is like anything I do in life and I'm not willing to settle for doing it second best, so there I am - where they want me to be, even if it is 3 or 14 times.  This year for Philly, I got a group of 5 little boys.  When one of the other 3rd grade teachers found out, she was like that is our biggest group and they are boys  To which my son's teacher responded, "I know she can handle it.  It's like her everyday life."  Which is true often I travel single handedly with five little boys.  And it was fine.

They are good boys, we had tons of fun.  The animals really put on some good shows for us.  There were baby tiger cubs.  The rain and mist were cold and wet, but our good attitudes prevailed.  It helped that most of these boys have been best buds for years. 

Foster Parenting and Christ-like Love

Learning about the nature of God and trying to be like him are the major tenants of most any Christian religion, even mine.  I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known to some as Mormon.  And as the name clearly states, we are Christians.  The idea that Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and that we can't be saved except for through the selfless act of his death and ensuing resurrection is the premise to what we believe.

But let me tell you a little backstory to what we believe also.  And here is where it may vary a bit from some other religions.  Note:  I'm changing tense to tell you what I believe because if I am inaccurate on any part - blame me, instead of  my church, as I am by no means an official spokesperson or always absolutely accurate.  For those kinds of answers look to their/our website www.lds.org.

I believe that before we came to earth we lived with God.  I imagine it was heavenly - figuratively and literally.  I think of my most perfect day multiplied by hundreds.  One day our Heavenly Father explained to us (all of his children, everyone who has ever lived on Earth) that it was important for us to learn right from wrong, good from evil, and to make choices for ourselves.  This ability to choose was an irrefutable law of eternity and God that needed to be maintained.  So he set up a plan and taught us about it.  He told us he would send us to Earth, that we wouldn't be able to remember living with him but that he would give us opportunities to learn about him as well as a gift, the Holy Ghost, to help us know him, recognize him and feel when something was true or not.  With this life here on Earth, we were expected to learn and choose, to decide for ourselves if we wanted to continue this beyond happy existence in the presence of our Heavenly Father that we had already known.

He knew that some people would make mistakes, choose unwisely, not learn as much, as easily, or as early on in life and others.  Pair this with the fact that our spirits(souls) would be housed in these physical bodies that would be imperfect, age and eventually die - he created a solution.  He offered up the idea of a sacrificial son who would help us overcome both physical death and spiritual death (removed from the presence of God).  Someone who would come to the Earth, live perfectly, die without sin, and in the process accept the weight and strain of every physical and spiritual life and sin to ever exist.  That through his perfection, he could assume the responsibility of other's imperfections.  That way when we returned to our Heavenly Father after we died here, we would have someone to advocate on our behalf that despite our mistakes we desired to enter Heaven and his presence again.  These notions are commonly known as sin, repentance, forgiveness, and eternal life etc...

Someone else in this discussion stepped forward with the concern that so many would be lost in this plan.  So many would choose temporary pleasures over eternal happiness.  So many would not return, would unknowingly choose otherwise.  Heavenly Father heard the concerns of this man, reiterated the need for a Savior and asked for a volunteer.  It was at this point that Jesus Christ stepped forward and said, send me.  He knew it would be beyond hard, but trusted that God's plan was necessary and perfect.  The opposition was strong as people worried, and the leader of that opposition - Satan fought for the idea that we should send people but take away choice and instead somehow force all to choose the right. Many agreed with him.

In the end that plan was overturned by God as his chosen method.  But those who wanted that plan could indeed follow Satan, many did - conceivably 1/3 of all the spirits that God had created went with him.  But the remaining 2/3 were sent forth to enact His plan starting with the first two people Adam and Eve.   And here we are...

As a child I had no love for Satan's plan.  As a feisty little girl the word force, however well intentioned, never sat well with me as I learned this story.  Maybe it was the Holy Ghost giving me the gentle nudge of reminder that I had already known but forgotten - that choice was a huge part of living eternally in Heaven.

Well you see sometimes life is the greatest teacher.  I became a parent myself and by no means do I think I am on the same playing field as Jesus Christ or my Heavenly Father, but as a Christian my intrinsic desire to know more about them and learn to be like them leaves them as my comparison of how I should act.  So many aspects of parenthood brought the nuances of this plan home for me.  And after 9 years or so of normal parenting, I decided to become a foster parent.  My ideas of these plans has been enlarged even more.

You see as a parent, I have loved more deeply than ever before, even as I have watched my kids make dumb choices.  It kills me a little each time inside.  And each situation they face, I try to help them by giving them knowledge, by setting things up to their maximum advantage when possible and by giving them advocates/mentors to help them along the way.  And the heartbreaking sadness I felt when they still didn't succeed was wrenching, but I knew that despite the temporary setback that they could still learn from this situation and hopefully come out more victorious with the next situation.  It was as a parent that I learned more about Heavenly Father.

Then as a foster parent, I watched as battered, bruised and tentative children came to me.  Each with a background and story vastly different but intrinsically the same.  Something had happened with their parents that had made others worry about the child's safety.  For that reason they came into my care.  As I tried to love these children, heal them and build the odds in their favor for the future I learned more about Satan.  I saw a little more the long term consequences and long reaching effects of bad choices and how it affects a multitude of people outside of the chooser.  I saw the intrinsic appeal to want to force parents/people to stop being selfish, ignorant (not derogatively but literally) and thoughtless.

I hated seeing the consequences of all this choice.  I found myself thinking that I knew better and if I could just get more people to listen to me, we wouldn't have some of these problems.  I knew it was wrong, however well intentioned.  I knew my feelings closely mirrored those of Satan.  I knew that I had picked God's plan by my mere presence of being here on Earth as proof.  So I did what I have done a thousand times in my life and will probably do a thousand more.  I got down on my knees and prayed - for more knowledge, for more patience but most importantly for more charity - the pure love of Christ.  I prayed that he would show me how to love these children when they sometimes acted unloving.  I prayed that he would show me how and why he loved their parents, I prayed that I would remember each time I saw them that they were his children too and that he wanted their return to Heaven to live with him as strongly as he wanted mine.  I prayed to realize that their value in his eyes was equal to mine. 

And it's amazing because it came.  Not with some life changing moment, but with simple thoughts and increased service on their behalf.   Because as I tried to work with the parents, saw their pure and unselfish desires - small at times but still there-, set things up for their favor, worked to help them succeed and get them a mentor of their own I have come to know how strong God's love is. 

And yesterday, as I released our first child through the County, after a year and a half, return back to his parents' care, I felt a peace I didn't expect to feel.  It's not based on the knowledge that his parents won't ever mess up again or that everything will be okay for this child from here on out, but that Heavenly Father really is over this whole life.  This is his Plan, the Plan of Salvation, that he sees more than me, he knows more than me, and he cares and loves the children and parents more deeply than me.  And if I trust and believe that...the peace comes.  It may not stop the occasional tears of my own loss, but it eases it.  It fills me with hope, pushes me forward and focuses me back on the important things of life - my choices, my family and the little children, both through biology and circumstance, he has entrusted me to care for. 

I'm Trying To Be Like Jesus

Right Now

This week/month has been crazy.  Can hardly remember to breath crazy;

thankful that it is a autonomic function.

 

Travis has been home for more than two and a half weeks of his almost three month no travel stint.  It's super fun having him home all the time.  It's also a ton of help.  And all the house and car things that have been slowly breaking down or wearing out over the last 6 months he has been busily repairing.  He has been volunteering in at the school with me and of course he became dad of the year by bringing home 7, yes 7, horny toads (or lizards as the case may be) with him for the kids to have as pets.  I didn't learn about this until they were already en route.  His reasoning, "I knew you wouldn't go for it if I told you ahead of time."  He's right on that.  But he did follow it up with, but I knew you wouldn't really care once they got here.  And he was right again.

 

Right now he is at an appointment with Jay.  So the house it totally mine again.  Kids are in school and no one is home.  I love it.  I really am a girl torn between her total independence and her fierce love of being with her husband all the time.  I didn't even realize how much I missed this kind of quiet solitude until I found it again after almost three weeks of his companionable presence.

 

Everyone keeps asking me are you tired of him yet, do you want him to go back to Wyoming yet.  Which is funny because when he is gone I am constantly being asked do you miss him, how are you doing, and my favorite of all time "do you sometimes just cry".  The answers are yes, fine and no respectively to the second set of questions.  To the first, it's heck no to both. 

 

Because as I am wiping down the counters after the initial morning school rush and breakfast of French toast and accompanying syrup puddles on the table, he gets ready to leave the house with Jay.  And he runs over to me, and because my back is turned, he bites my bum, and says I love you as he prepares to leave.  You see he can't leave or even let me leave the house without a kiss first.  But after 14 years of being together he's learned almost everything about me, including the fact that I am not a fan of being interrupted when I get into work mode.  But with this kind of knowing me, I turn around laughing and smooch his brains out.  Because this guy is perfect and still after 14 years I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have found and married him.  Even if on Sunday he ran over my church bag and purse with the car - damaging and ruining a fair amount of stuff including my digital camera, in the process.

 

So why with all this help is life still crazy - well I have a child's sleepover birthday party at my home in one week, a college alumni party at my house in one week and one day, we are taking a vacation to Texas soon that I am trying to get ready for, trying to conquer the Christmas shopping list - I like to get this all done by the first week in December - I have a child who I am transitioning to live with his biological parent which is highly emotional and physically stressing, I have a child turning 8 who wants to get baptized and I have to plan every detail on that and this is all within three weeks.  Add to that the kids are begging to decorate for Christmas and I agree not only because I love Christmas, but because if we don't do it now I don't know when we will be able to do it.

 

Then add in every day crazy.  We sold our van, bought a car, a cute little Honda Accord - stick so I can feel like Danika Patrick, we had five parent teacher conferences and all the other kid associated activities.  We bought a dog almost two months ago who then almost promptly bit the neighbor boy, made the rough and heart breaking decision to put the dog to sleep. I'm on the board of two civic organizations both of which are planning huge holiday fundraisers that happen to be the same weekend, also within this three week period of craziness. I had book club at my home last night, and a slew of other activities that daily life requires attending to like bill paying, house cleaning, and such.

But I'm no fool.  And despite the almost overwhelming sense of busy"ness", I can't help but feel beyond belief happy.  Because my life isn't what I pictured it would be at all.  It's so much better.  It's busy because it is filled with children and love and experiences that make me feel rich and blessed.  And so even though each day I collapse into bed exhausted, wondering how I did it all, why I do it all - I'm quite confident that when I look back on these years, I'll nostalgically tell the anonymous pregnant girl in the supermarket with another crying toddler and child in tow to cherish these years, because they are the best of her life.