Category Archives: Diapers

The dirty side of motherhood.

Tell me you’re torn too.

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In less than 3 weeks, school is out.  Children will be home full-time for the summer.  I can’t figure out if I’m thrilled or terrified.

No more frantically getting children out the door to the bus in the morning.

No more papers to sign and return or send emails about when I lose them.

No more volunteering at the school and putting books in to ziploc bags for two and half hours straight.

No more packing lunches.

No more backpacks and their contents scattered on my kitchen floor.

versus:

No more one-on-one time with the kids when their staggered school schedules send them out and bring them home at different times.

No more quiet, alone time for 6 blessed hours a week when they were actually all in school and preschool at the same time.

No more leaving my children’s education and daily schedule up to some one else.

No more dealing with them in shifts.  It’s all three, all day, every day.

Yah, it’s a tough one.  I acknowledge this makes me a total mom wimp.  I had all three at home all day for several years and a few summers after that, but you know how it is.  Once you’ve tasted the sweet flavor of freedom, it’s hard to go back.  I admit there’s parts about it I enjoy, but I’m determined to have a plan.  I  need a routine in place or we will all drive each other absolutely nuts. “Mom, I’m bored. What can I do?” I’ll be able to face that first week they’re back home if I know how the summer will go.  Here are my ideas so far:

  • 30 minutes a day of summer reading
  • 30 minutes a day of workbook pages or writing exercises
  • daily chores
  • Some kind of scheduled activity each day of the week, probably mid-day, some spilling into the afternoon.  Ideas for now:  1.  Library and lunch (picnic or eating out),  2. Creative Projects (art, crafts, sewing, gardening, etc.), 3.  Meal planning and grocery shopping (I’m going to let each child choose one dinner recipe a week and buy all the ingredients for it at the store.  Then the day we eat it, they can help me make it.), 4.  Service (I’m looking for some kind of formal volunteer opportunity we can all do together.  Hoping for Meals on Wheels.),  and 5. Outings (preferably free.  Parks, canyons, walks, …. any suggestions here?)
  • Free time and play time in the afternoons.  Hopefully lots of sunny days for swimming and outside play.
  • Quiet time (ha! I’m really going to try) while I’m fixing dinner.  Kids in own rooms doing reading, listening to books or music, quiet play, etc.
  • I’ve been tossing around the idea of teaching them some Spanish this summer.  I was a darn good Spanish teacher in my pre-kids life and I’ve got all the materials I need.  I should do it.
  • We’ll do one family camping trip a month.  It’s hard work, but we love it.
  • I also thought about making a “bored box” with ideas in it that they have to pick out and do if they ever tell me they’re bored.

Some people will think all that’s just craziness, but it helps me a lot to have a blueprint to work with.  There will be lots of flexibility.  Plans will change on any given day due to weather, sickness, laziness, holidays, calendar events, or children spending half the day in time-out (I’m a realist.).

What are some of your summer plans and strategies?  I’d love to hear them.  Are you excited?  Worried?  Seriously, are you torn too?

Being a good mom is a lot easier if you’re a good wife.

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I mostly use this blog as a vehicle to talk about motherhood.  Today I’m going to switch gears just a little bit to share some thoughts I’ve had recently about marriage . . . except it’s not really switching gears since marriage and parenthood are so connected.  One of the most important things we can teach our children is how marriage is supposed to work.  (Heaven knows the rest of the world won’t teach that!)

“Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions and has the most far-reaching effects, for it has to do not only with immediate happiness, but eternal joys as well. It affects not only the two people involved, but also their families and particularly their children and their children’s children down through many generations.” (Spencer W. Kimball, Marriage and Divorce, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976, p. 10.)

Even harder than teaching about good marriage is modeling it.  Good marriage takes hard work.  It almost always takes work, but sometimes, when the cares of day-to-day living start to wear on you, that work can seem even harder.  Essential, but hard.  I have learned that when my marriage is healthy, I’m so much better equipped to deal with the other challenges I face.  There is a lightness and a sense of safety that comes from knowing that “all is well” on the home front. On the flip-side, when I let disagreements fester or small problems go unresolved, I find myself more easily overwhelmed in all my other pursuits.  There’s a heaviness that holds me back and makes it harder for me to be successful as a whole.

Recently, some of the stresses that my husband and I have been facing individually have led us to realize how much we need each other.  We need one another’s strengths to face our own weaknesses, plus we need blessings from the Lord that are sure to come if we are paying more attention to our marriage covenant.  I don’t want to cause any false alarm because I have always been certain of my love for my husband and my gratitude for my marriage, but, like all important things, Satan works hard to cause distraction.  We’ve just been busy.  We’ve dealt with big things in both of our roles.  We haven’t done things to damage our marriage, but we’ve waded through a short phase where we just kind of got too busy for each other. Even the greatest of seeds, when ignored, won’t give good fruit.

“Marriages would be happier if nurtured more carefully.”  -Elder Russell M. Nelson

In short, we’re stupid if we think we can handle life’s challenges alone.  And even together, if we don’t have the Holy Ghost, we’re alone.  We need the teamwork.  We want it.  So we’ve chosen to cling to each other, and we’ve been thinking and praying and talking about the things that are important to us and to our family.  Even just that much makes me feel so much more grounded.  At women’s conference last week, I attended a workshop where the speaker said, “Whenever I feel distance between myself and my wife, I know I need to repent.”  It struck me that rather than focusing on what needs to be done in a marriage, things will always move toward resolved when we’re each focusing on what to be.  Trying to keep my husband’s welfare and happiness as a top priority has made me happier.  It really has.  It gives me strength to deal with the same things that have been there for months and overwhelmed me, but I feel stronger because he is my partner.  We both feel better, not because life is any easier, but because we know we can lean on each other.

I just wanted to share some of the articles I’ve studied recently that I found to be the most helpful. They have great reminders of the basic nurturing that is easy to forget.

“Enriching Your Marriage” by James E. Faust

“Nurturing Marriage” by Russell M. Nelson

“Oneness in Marriage” by Spencer W. Kimball

“Coping With Difficulties in Marriage”  (The Ensign interviews Val D. MacMurray, twice a bishop, and [then] assistant commissioner for LDS Social Services.)

I also collected some favorite quotes from these articles and a few others and made little signs (ha ha ha, here I go with my signs again) to hang on the mirror in our master bathroom.  We both want to stay focused on what matters most, so I created these little “Marriage Mirror Messages.”  If you want to print them out and use them, you can click here to download the file. Please note:  I am not a graphic designer.  I just know how to type.

I wondered if this post might be a little bit too “dirty laundry” to put out there, but I can’t imagine that we are any different than any of you, and we all need reminders sometimes about what matters most.  I know that my own personal journey in the past week or so has helped me feel full of the Spirit and reminded of the great blessings that I have, not to mention the great blessing I’m married to.  I guess I just hoped it might do someone else some good to remember the same things.

Negotiating with a terrorist, and other parenting dilemmas.

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See this little angel?

She is going to be the death of me.   She was my easiest baby by far.  (Except for nursing.  I’m hoping someday I can forgive her for the multiple cases of mastitis, plus the lack of weight loss that I had so joyfully experienced while nursing my boys.)  She is bright and sassy and social and fun, and has a vocabulary far beyond her four years.  And yet, most days I want to put her on Craig’s List by 10 a.m.   Although “undiagnosed,” I’m pretty sure she has some sensory issues.  Her clothes always “feel funny.”  Her socks and especially her shoes always “bother” her.  Meltdowns ensue.  They involve crying, wailing, shrieking, flopping around on the floor, throwing shoes, and on lucky days like yesterday, a little bit of kicking and pinching.   Not to mention screaming out completely irrational things like, ” I … HATE … MY … NOSE!”  Seriously.  ?!??!

Last summer, I complained about this a little bit and DeNae suggested that I get rid of all her clothes and just buy her some loose summer dresses.  It actually worked pretty well, at least for the summer, and we’ve managed to garner a collection of a few clothing items that she considers to be comfortable and suitable.  This works until they’re all dirty, and then she spends her morning screaming down the stairs at me that “all the clothes in my closet bother me!”.  The shoes and socks situation, however, seems unsolvable.  The meltdown usually “ends” when I just drag her kicking and screaming to the car barefoot with her shoes and socks in tow, ready to begin the battle again at the place of arrival.  At that point, usually the threat of her not being able to go inside (or the threat of being left in the car … a slightly empty threat, I admit) finally convince her to put them on.  This process is a painful 10-minute exercise in on-and-off, on-and-off, open and close the straps, do it again  . . . . whimper, whimper . . . you get the idea.

Shopping for shoes is a nightmare.  Shoes, sandals, flip flops alike are all met with complete disdain and a quick eject button. (I think I’m going to try crocs this summer, but I’m not hopeful.)  Sometimes I just buy the pair that seems the most comfortable to the touch, and then we battle it out for a few months.  The solution is elusive to me.  She has been up to 90 minutes late to preschool before because of it.  I have tried to set up award systems (“If you can be all the way ready and on time to school, then we will go get the stuff to make that necklace you saw in a magazine”),  punishment (“Fine. No gymnastics today because you can’t get ready to go.”), and embarrassment (“Okay, instead of preschool today,  you have to come with me to Clark’s school and sit in the corner of the room barefoot while I do my volunteer work.”).  I have followed through with all of those by the way, except the necklace which she did not earn.  Nothing so far seems to make a difference or even move her toward more success.  By the way, she likes preschool and gymnastics, so I don’t think this is some kind of avoidance feat.

So, wise blog readers, give me your ideas, solutions, sympathy.  I’ll take any of it.

And in addition to all that, I would love to hear your ideas on a related matter:  the balance between “loving instruction” and just forcing them to do what they’re supposed to do.  I give my kids choices all the time: “Do this and get this, or do that and get that.”  I think that’s not forcing them, but helping them understand the relationship between choices and consequences.  However, sometimes I just resort to “You can’t do anything else until this gets done.  Do it!,” and obviously, in Natalie’s case, I sometimes end up literally dragging her to where she needs to be and shoving her shoes on her feet myself.  I’m starting to have concerns about how to fix this now so that I don’t have to deal with the embarrassing mess it would be when my children are big strong teenagers and I’m trying to drag them somewhere or lock them in their rooms until they’re clean … know what I mean?  Real question:  How do you not resort to “forcing” them to do things, and get to the point where they choose it on their own?  I think I mostly get it, but I feel like something’s missing.

My apologies to those of you who come to this blog thinking I’m some kind of parenting expert.  Let’s face it.  I’ve still got a lot to learn.

Snippets

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Today’s post is a random mish-mash of thoughts and announcements and such.

Most importantly, we found out on Saturday that Matt passed the Bar exam.  I can’t begin to express what a hallelujah moment that was for us.  I was dreading gearing up for single parenting again if he didn’t pass, and I did. not. want to.   I mean, it’s been a looong road.  Here’s what our boys looked like when we started the law school journey.

Then, once we’d moved, started school, and Matt was in his first semester of law school taking finals, Natalie was born.

And now, we’re finally done.  Look how our family has grown up (and grown old) since then.  Can’t believe how the days and weeks can be so long, but the months and years just fly past.

Anyway, congrats to Matt and hooray for me.  🙂

—–

Natalie’s been taking medications for a long time.  Prescriptions are part of our daily routine.  She hates medicine, and every day it’s a bit of a battle.  She actually has a sinus infection this week, so there are even more prescriptions.  She cries and doesn’t want to take her medicine because she’s too cold or feels yucky, and I try to tell her that’s why she needs the medicine.  It will help her fever and help her feel better.  She still hates it.  Today I pulled the medicines out of the cupboard and I saw her sneak from the room out of the corner of my eye.  I called her again and again.  No answer.  Finally I found her in the office hiding behind the couch.  I thought how funny it is that she tries to hide from what’s going to help her get better.  That made me think of this quote from general conference and realize that we’re all as silly as Natalie in some ways.

“Sometimes we want to have growth without challenges and to develop strength without any struggle. But growth cannot come by taking the easy way. . . .  We must be careful that we don’t resent the very things that help us put on the divine nature.”  –Elder Paul V. Johnson

—–

I can’t really explain this, but lately I’ve had an increased sensitivity to the elderly.  Maybe it’s because Matt’s grandma stayed with us for a little over a month while her husband was in the hospital.  I don’t know, but I’ve just noticed them more around me, and my heart has been drawn out to them.  I imagine that they have great wisdom from life’s experiences and probably many family members and happy memories.  But I wonder how much they struggle with loneliness or sickness, mourn the loss of spouse or loved ones, as well as the loss of their own strength, health and maybe independence.  Yesterday as I left the pharmacy, I saw a man who used to be my Stake president 18 years ago at BYU.  He set me apart for my mission.  One time he called me up out of the audience to bear my testimony at Stake Conference.  He also taught a mission prep class that I attended.  I greeted him, introduced myself and said hello, but as I got back into my van, I had a surge of those memories and I felt a wave of emotion and gratitude.  I wished I’d told him he was an important part of a really developmental stage of my life and my testimony.  I saw him as an 80 year old man now, much thinner and more frail, carrying away a prescription that was probably for him or maybe his ailing wife, and I thought, “maybe he doesn’t know what a great life he has lived and shared.”  I went home and looked him up on whitepages.com and found an address for him.  So I wrote him a letter, and it felt so great, and I hope it will somehow give him a little bit of joy.  Anyway, I’m not telling that story because I want you to think that I did some great thing; I just had a strong feeling and the thought that I should share it, so I did.  But maybe you know someone older whose day could be brightened by a note, a phone call or a visit.  Your kids can help too.  I don’t really know my point, but it’s just been on my mind lately.

—-

I have a cousin who suffers from chronic migraines.  Matt asked about her the other night at the dinner table, so then my children were curious about her.  We explained that she’s had a really bad headache for literally years.  Grant was shocked and cried out, “Why?!!  Are her kids really annoying?”  I thought that was so funny.  I told her about it and we had a good laugh.  She assured me that if that were the real problem, they would have been gone long ago.  🙂  It also reveals a lot about what Grant understands about their behavior and my well-being.  Smart little whipper-snapper.

I am evolving. No one is more shocked than I am.

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In the last couple years,  I’ve written a few posts that have revealed some of my personality points that seem a little . . . well, at odds …with how I perceive my role as a mother should be.

For example, I once wrote a post called “Other People’s Children,” in which I said:

When there’s a family in need, and they pass around a sign-up sheet at church, I’ll sign up to make them ten meals if I can, but please don’t make me watch their kids! . . . If funds were super tight, I think it’s more likely that I would take a job at a gas station cleaning toilets than run a day care out of my home.

I also wrote a post called “I Hate Playing With My Children,” where I admitted the following:

I 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. . . .

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.

So.  What I am about to say may just blow your mind.

1.  Matt was out of town last weekend, so it was just me and the kids at home.  We didn’t even go anywhere.  We played games, and painted pictures, baked cookies, read stories, and made friendship bracelets.  And I liked it.  My children are now big enough that we can play normal games and not brainless toddler garbage.  They can help me in the kitchen a little without making me develop a nervous tic.

2.  Tomorrow I am hosting a little party at my house where there could be 30 children or more in my house watching a movie and eating stuff and making all kinds of child-related noise.  And I’m looking forward to it.  *pausing to let that sink in*  I know.  It is weird.

The point of this post is not to say that it’s time for me to have more children, so don’t get cheeky and put that in the comments, nor is it to point out that I might get translated at any given moment (though I probably should be, don’t you think?), but it’s mostly to point out and relish the fact that I am growing into my children more and more.  I am becoming more comfortable with things I previously claimed to “hate,” and part of that is simply because they are growing up and have reached a stage that my personality feels more equipped to handle. (So really, when I say I’m evolving, what I really mean is my children are evolving.  They are becoming much more human and much less alien.  It’s a good thing.)

In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. . . . Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. . . .  Remember, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”  — Jeffrey R. Holland, “Because She Is a Mother”, Ensign, May 1997