Category Archives: Diapers

The dirty side of motherhood.

Credit where credit’s due (and a giveaway)

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My readers are so cool.

A while back, I wrote a post that included a short video clip with me and Grant in it.  Some of my readers said nice things about me, even going so far as to say I was pretty.  Well, yesterday I received a comment on that post by “Fefe” who wrote the following:

“very good but its the most boringest video i have ever seen in my whole life. and i don’t think you are pritty at all your ugly.”

Fefe, your point is well taken, and you may be right; however, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I can’t help but mention that I’m grateful I’m literate, and that I hold the key to the delete button on my blog.

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My husband Matt is one of the greatest guys ever and I truly love him.  (Go read our love story if you don’t believe it.)  He even reads my blog and still loves me.  I’d like to thank him for making our family Christmas card photo shoot so smooth and seamless the other day.  I am a lucky woman.

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Rebecca Irvine (formerly known as “Scripture Mom”) is one sharp woman, and I’ve loved getting to know her a little through blogging.  She wrote a family scripture study guide called Adventures with the Word of God, which I really liked– so many great cut-and-paste ideas for enhancing family scripture time.  Now, her second book has been released and I think you should check it out, especially if you’re interested in having a collection of ready-made materials for Family Home Evening. “Family Home Evening Adventures can help your family learn to love and enjoy the scriptures together. Each monthly theme uses fun seasonal ideas to promote an appreciation of scripture study, teach basic gospel principles, and provide wholesome family activities.”  It provides one complete lesson for each month and a guide of resources for the rest of the month.  If your children are small like mine, and you need shorter lessons, I think her lessons could be broken up into segments and then used for several weeks throughout the month.  Nice.

I really love this quote by James E. Faust about the urgency of taking time for family home evening and gospel study in our homes:

“I wonder if having casual and infrequent family home evening will be enough in the future to fortify our children with sufficient moral strength. In the future, infrequent family scripture study may be inadequate to arm our children with the virtue necessary to withstand the moral decay of the environment in which they will live. Where in the world will the children learn chastity, integrity, honesty, and basic human decency if not at home? These values will, of course, be reinforced at church, but parental teaching is more constant.”

Well, the lovely Rebecca is offering a giveaway of a copy of her book.  Hooray!  Just mention in the comments if you would like to be entered in the giveaway, and a winner will be selected at random on Sunday evening.

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Almost done here; I just wanted to point you to a couple links.

Shelf Reliance makes food storage products.  I’ve never bought any of their food items, but I do own one of their big can-rotation shelf systems, which I really like.  They are a tiny bit pricey, but I noticed on their blog that starting next week, they’re having a huge giveaway every day and actually giving away some of the shelving systems and some other great stuff.  This week, they’re offering half-off specials.  If you’re interested, you can check it out here.

My laurel advisor, Marci, has been such a sweet supporter of my blog. Speaking of food storage, I remember her as the woman who had canned M&Ms because she didn’t want to go without real necessities in a crisis.  Anyway, she emailed me this link that I thought was a great idea for Thanksgiving time.  Xerox is offering free cards/postcards to be sent to troops overseas.  All you have to do is go here: Let’s Say Thanks.  You just select a card, write a note on it from your family, and then Xerox will print them out and send them to a random soldier at no cost.  Easy, and for a wonderful cause.

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Finally, Kim, another beloved reader (who always makes great comments on the GCBC posts) invited me to participate in a meme/award.  It’s 35 questions about me that I have to answer with only one word.  I can’t imagine that anyone can handle reading anything more about me, but if you’re looking for an excuse to procrastinate your household chores just a little bit longer, you can read my answers here.  Thanks, Kim!

My son thinks I’m a murderer of the Earth.

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Just in case you didn’t already know this, first grade turns you into genius.  During the course of your first year in elementary school, you will in fact become an expert on many topics, thereby learning that your parents are idiots.

(The subtitle of this post is:  Why I want to kick Grant’s science teacher in the knees.)

Thanks to Grant’s science teacher, our first-grader has become an environmental vigilante.  Never mind that we already have a fairly well-coordinated recycling program in place.  My recycling garbage can is always at least as full as my actual-garbage garbage can, we trade in our printer cartridges for refills, use rechargeable batteries, and replaced all our lightbulbs with those twirly-whirly- save-lots-of-money lightbulbs that I can’t remember the name of.  If the tree-huggers could look past my compulsive paper towel use and occasional paper plate use, I think they might be kind of proud of us.

I do not know if Mr. Science Man has a program in place where he bribes small children with treasures untold if they can confiscate half of their family’s belongings and bring them directly to him to be disposed of properly, but I have my theories.  Several times, Grant has tried to grab all our printer cartridges and convince us that he needs to take them to his science teacher, along with all our batteries.  That same self-proclaimed genius cannot seem to comprehend that I will recharge and refill them on. my. own. (thank you?) and thereby save our family some money.  “But Mr. Science Man says we have to bring them to him!”   No matter how I try to make him understand that his teacher’s intention is to keep those items from being thrown away, and we are NOT throwing them away, he still thinks I’m ruining his life as an activist.

Today he came from school and enjoyed his after-school snack for a few seconds before he jolted, quickly remembering that he is a man on a mission.

“Mom!  Do we have milk cartons or boxes or things that we can use to make other things?”

“They’re in the recycling bin, Grant.”

“No, mom!  We’re not supposed to throw them away.  That’s a waste!  We can use them.”

“Grant, when they are recycled, that means they can be melted down and use them again.  We are not wasting them.”

He began digging through my garbage.  I began picturing his science teacher in that torture machine from The Princess Bride.

He grabbed a ziploc bag and held it above his head, victorious.  “Do not throw these away, mom!  That is a waste.”

I rolled my eyes, “What?  Do you want to wash them out?”  “Yes!”  “Fine, you can do it.”

He kept digging.  “I need a bottle or something for my agates (small rocks designed to make your mother curse when she does the laundry).”

“Grant, the bottles are in the recycling bin which means they are going to be re- … never mind.”  I give up.

Anyway, I think educating our children is severely overrated. I offered him this box from the garbage to carry the rock collection he’s accumulating so he can impress Mr. Science Man.  I’m sure he’ll be thrilled when he sees how resourceful we are in our family.


 

I hate playing with my children.

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There, I said it.

Don't Break the IceI hate tea parties.
I hate Stratego, and Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, and Hungry Hungry Hippos, Lucky Ducks, and especially Don’t Break the Ice.
I hate pretending I’m an animal.
I can’t stand holding little toys and making them have conversations with each other.
I really don’t enjoy activities where all the cushions and pillows from my couches are spread haphazardly on the floor throughout my house.
I would rather clean out my closets than use a silly, high voice and make Webkinz tell jokes to each other while they bonk each other on the head.

 

I am a horrible person.
And I’m not even being sarcastic.

This is exactly why I was afraid to have children in the first place. I knew that I was not endowed with the type of personality that would ever land me a job in a preschool or day-care environment. My gifts and talents seem to be best geared toward the few-steps-past-elementary-school and beyond kind of crowd.

And yet here I am.
A mother of three small children. They love to play.
And they want me to play with them, which I am as excited to do as I am to train for a marathon. Sometimes it feels that hard.

Part of the reason I had them in bulk was so that they would play with each other, and I must confess that usually that’s a good strategy. But they still want me, and I got the feeling today that maybe they wouldn’t fight me so much on the things that I want them to do if I were more accommodating occasionally on the things they want to do.

(You’re allowed to say things like “duh.” I can’t hear you.)

Earlier this week, I read this post by Erin where she talked about play being a child’s language of love. (I felt a little too guilty to comment.)

Then today, as I was cleaning up the playroom, I found this quote on the floor that used to be taped to the television before we implemented our what-you-will-surely-think-is-crazy rule of no TV on weekdays (which by the way has been way less dreadful than I feared it would be, but I’ll save that for another post if you even happen to care). The quote by Elder M. Russell Ballard says:

“Families need unstructured time when relationships can deepen and real parenting can take place. Take time to listen, to laugh, and to play together.”

So, rather than just feel guilty, I went back and looked at his talk about motherhood that the quote came from, and found this phrase there:

“There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children.”

So I tried to focus on my own skills for a minute. This is how I play with my children: I sing songs with them. I wrestle. I read them books. Lots and lots of books. I like to go to the zoo or aquarium or museum with them. I like to answer their questions about the world around them.  Sometimes we make cookies. I like to play outside with them (when it’s warm). I print out pictures for them to color and then I applaud their amazing art skills. I ask them questions about their friends and their day.

Maybe I’m not a horrible person.
I can do better because, come on, how hard is it really to play a dumb game for five minutes? And they would love it. So in some ways, I need to stop making excuses and “sacrifice” with just a little more joy. But, I can also focus on my strengths and “play” them up.

And though I was nervous about having children, and certainly nervous about my own abilities, I have never regretted the choice to be a mother.  I love these three kids more than I love anything else in the whole world.  Sure, my life might be “easier” without them, but it would also be much, much emptier.  They deserve more of me, and I deserve more of the lovey-huggy-warm stuff that automatically happens when I give them more of myself.

But I still might throw away Don’t Break the Ice.

Pre-dawn ponderings

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It’s 4- something in the morning and I’ve been lying awake in bed for over an hour, so I thought “Hey, maybe I should get up and do something productive since I’m not sleeping.”  And blogging sounded a lot more fun then laundry.  I don’t suffer from insomnia; I could sleep for a day straight probably, but when I get woken up (my children pee in their beds through their nighttime diapers on a regular basis and we have midnight sheet changing rituals.  My pediatrician swears it’s normal, but I’m ready to hook everyone up to some kind of automatic electro-shock system and stop giving them liquids after breakfast.), well, then I think too much and it’s hard to go back to sleep.

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So, lucky you.  Welcome to my sleep-deprived midnight musings.

With all the sickness around here lately, and a handful of unexpected drama in other areas of my life, there’s been a sense of trudging knee-deep through some drudgery lately.  I won’t lie, I’ve felt overwhelmed and run-down.  I can feel it getting better now as it always does once you just get through it and start to get to the other side.  Matt’s been down with the flu the last couple days and Natalie’s been taking care of him by bringing him pieces of candy (from the Great Pumpkin stash she discovered) and asking him if he feels better.  Matt, recognizing her nurturing instinct, said, “Natalie, thanks for taking care of me.  Are you like a mommy?”  She nodded and smiled and replied, “I’m a mudder (mother).”  Then she called me in the room and said, “Guess what mom?  I’m a mudder.”  I watched her with her kindness, and pride in her new title, and it was a grounding moment for me.  She saw the value in that nurturing role, embraced it, and wore it with pride.  There are days I forget that, but guess what everybody?  I’m a mudder.

I had an experience this week where some good intentions went wrong and I offended someone.  I know that I have a strong personality (I like to call it “resolute”), but I don’t think I’m controlling, and I really really hate contention, so I try not to rustle up fights or drama.  I may have offended people many times and not known about it, but in this case, I was was made quickly and abruptly aware of my offenses.  Can I just say humility sucks?  It is hard to step back when you feel under attack and realize that maybe you need to make some improvements.  I had to pray my way through this one and then have a nervous-stomach, heart-pounding conversation and apologize for my mistakes.  Anyway, the whole drama is not the point, but I just wanted to testify that prayer works.  And priesthood blessings.  I  knew I was heard, and I knew I was not left alone in solving it.  I could feel that Heavenly Father understood my heart, but that he also wanted me to acknowledge and change some things.  He was so nice about it, but it still hurt a little, as all stretching does.  But there’s a new lightness and hope after He helped me understand it better.  It’s the beginning of learning process for me.

On a lighter note, I shaved my legs yesterday.  Um, maybe I’m running out of substance here.  I think I’ll go back to bed.