Having Done All We Could Do

We are nearing the end of all the requirements for the Foreign Service.  This past ten days or so have been filled with medical, medical, medical.  Lots of different doctor appointments.  Lots of labwork.  The kids doctor’s office has a lab inside so everything could be done there.  But the labs on my insurance plan are half the valley away.  I finally made it to one last week only to find out that these labs don’t do the test for tuberculosis.  So I had to go to a second lab (not on my insurance plan) on another day.  And then go back again three days later to have the test read.  Meanwhile, the day I chose to do all the kids labs at their doctor’s office was a Thursday.  And TB tests have to be read between 48 and 72 hours later.  Which puts that firmly in the weekend when the doctor’s office was closed.  So we had to go back another day to do the test and then come back again 2 days later to read the test.

Here we are in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.  In the middle of the night, the night before, I had woken up with the feeling of somethig in my eye.  My eye was watering like crazy.  How anything got in there while I was SLEEPING, I will never know.  It was super irritating.  My eye was fiercely red, but the Hubba couldn’t see anything.  By morning I could feel the inside of my eyelid swollen.  Every time I blinked it felt like a little pebble scraping across my eye.  This happened to be once before on the fourth of July a few years aback when a bit of firework ash landed in my eye as I was looking up.  So I knew that the only thing that can be done is to give you numbing eye drops so you don’t feel that swelling/pebble feeling.  So I was just powering through the annoyance that day.  I asked Wink if my eye was red.  She said, “No, but you have eye boogers right there.”  So I took a picture to see.  I don’t see any.

We were waiting there to take the TB test for a long time.  The kids were tired and bored (and some of them were worried).  Pink entertained herself with my phone.

Finally, it was our turn.  For the TB test, they just inject a little bubble of fluid underneath your skin.  It looks pretty freaky but the needle barely goes in.  It hurts a lot less than a shot and is a lot quicker than drawing blood.  I ordered the children to get their testd done like this:  X, Mack, Kelvinator, Wink Pink.  X and Mack were the least worried and would be fine.  Kelvinator is pretty nervous about needles, but he’s also a big boy and shouldn’t freak out about it.  Pink would ultimately be ok, but she wouldn’t set a good example for Wink.  So I wanted Wink to go before Pink.

X was fine.  Mack was fine.  It was actually kind of cute because he was looking away but was surprised by how much it hurt.  So he said “ow” like three times–each more emphatically as his eyes got bigger.  Wink was freaking out and I was actually holding her in my arms trying to calm her down when it was Kelvinator’s turn.  He wanted me to be in there with him for support and comfort but I was wrestling a very distraught 8 year old and couldn’t get to him (the room was crowded with all of us in it) in time.  I was, however, able to snap this sweet brotherly love photo of X holding his hand and getting him through it.

Kelvinator was so hilariously grumpy about having to do this again.  Also, as a side note, one of the neat things that has been happening with JJ out of the house is this awesome brotherly bond between Kelvinator and X.  Growing up, it was always JJ and X.  Kelvinator was forever trying to do things with his big bros and they were just so mean to him.  Excluding him from everything.  So the past year and four months has given them the chance to really get to know and enjoy each other.  And they do.  I have loved seeing that relationship develop.  And I hope there is enough time when JJ comes home (and X is on his mission) before he leaves for school for the same magic to happen between JJ and K.

Pink had been doing ok but when it was her turn she was pretty freaking out.  I set Wink down to go be with her.  Last time when she had to have her blood drawn she was really nervous and kind of fighting it.  Then she said, “I need something to bite on.”  So the tech gave her a wad of gauze to put in her mouth.  And it sounds silly, but I was really proud of her for knowing what would help her and speaking up to get it.  After that, she was just fine.  So this time, she got to a point where she said, “I need to bite something.”  I said ok.  And the (new) tech looked at me like, “What kind of thing can she bite on?”  But we got her a wad of gauze and she settled right down.  In fact, she actually stopped squirming and completely relaxed WHEN they inserted the needle.  It was kind of hilarious.  It was clearly a case of her worrying it was going to be awful but then when it happened it was no big deal.

Unfortuantely for all of us, Wink had had enough.  She had left the room and was running from me down the hall when I tried to retrieve her.  She let me pick her up but was fighting going back in the room.  I finally got her settled on my lap but she was refusing to allow us access to her arm.  I was patient and tried to convince her to let us.  I tried to coax her reminding her that this was necessary so she could come with us if Dad got the job and how she had been so brave all the other times.  She would say ok but then when I tried to take her jacket off or pull up her sleeve, she would go rigid and wouldn’t let us get at her arms.  It was exhausting.  And it was taking a LOT of time.  So I tried again.  This will only take 5 seconds and then we can leave.  Let’s go home and do something fun.  The staff brought out the stickers and the otter pops AND the treasure box, too.  So we let her rummage through the treasure box to see what she wanted.

Still, she said no.  They brought in other staff members who were suggesting that we just pin her down and get this done.  I have had to do that once before.  We were taking her to an opthalmologist to figure out why she was having eye pain (she still has it intermittently, no one knows why).  They had done everything they needed to do except one test where she needed eye drops that were going to sting just a bit.  I coaxed and encouraged but she still refused.  So finally they brought in a big guy and we all held her down while they forced eye drops in her eyes.  It was truly awful and afterwards I felt like I had allowed and participated in the violation of my daughter.  And you can say “it was necessary” all you want, but that felt absolutely yucky and I never wanted to do that again.

So here we were.  So I said to Wink, “Do you understand what their talking about?  Because you won’t let us do this important test on your arm, they are getting ready to just have you lie down and make you be still so we can do it.  Would you rather just sit here on my lap and let them have your arm or do you want us all to hold you down so they can get to your arm?”  She chose sitting on my lap, but when the time came, she wouldn’t let us get at her arm.  So I said, “Ok.  Since you won’t let us have your arm, we will have to try the other way.  And I set her on the examination table.  She was not having any of that and said she would sit on my lap.  But the same thing happened.  She got too frightened and wouldn’t give us her arm.    So I explained what was happening and set her down on the examination table.   She said she would sit on my lap and do it.  I told her that this was last her chance, if she didn’t do it now, we were going to have to do it the other way.

So she sat on my lap and took off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve.  (I was so relieved!!)  She was still rigid and tense and freaking out and we did use another staff member to hold her arm to make sure it stayed there, but she allowed it all.  X had been becoming so distraught as he watched both girls’ distress.  He had the sweetest look of love and compassion and his face while all of this was going on.  And he had made his way next to me as I was holding Wink through everything.  So when we were finally able to do this, he was right next to her and we were having her look at him rather than look at her arm and he was just saying sweet and encouraging things to her and helping me hold her.

When it was (finally) all over, I was holding Wink on my hip so she could see inside the treasure box that was on top of a counter.  But X scooped her up and doted on her.  He seemed like he was just waiting for his chance to hold her and comfort her. I was so grateful because I was physically exhausted from wrestling a wiry 8 year old for the past 40 minutes!

Anyway, the hard parts were done.  We went back yesterday to have them read the kids’ tests.  It was the easiest time we had had.  Just run your thumb over the arm looking for bumps.  We are tuberculosis-free!  In case you were wondering.  It’s pretty much going to be awful the next time I decide to take K, Pink, or Wink in for a vaccination, though.

Meanwhile, the Hubba has to be fasting for his labwork.  Even though we all have the same forms, the four different doctors we have seen have ordered different labs–I’m kind of worried about whether they’ve done it right!!  Some of us had to do urinalysis-es (urinalyses?).   Some didn’t.  Some only had two vials of blood drawn, some four.  The Hubba had to do an EKG, too.  Anyway, he has to be fasting for his bloodwork.  So he will go in on Monday morning after taking the kids to school and do all his stuff.  Then he’ll have to go back on Wednesday or Thursday to have his TB test read.  But then we’re done!

It’s the home stretch.

 

More Books, I Say!

A year or so ago (I think it was about a year ago), the kids and I really got into reading books together.  Specifically books in a certain genre.  I don’t know what that genre is called but they featured people who were stranded and alone and had to survive on their own outside of civilization.

I love that kind of survival stuff and apparently the kids did, too.  Everyone from X to Wink would gather around in the family room after school while I read a few more chapters.  I wanted to keep it up, but as I found out, there just aren’t that many books written in that particular genre.  Especially for kids!

So after I had tapped out our local library, I kind of gave up.  But as I was decluttering our bookshelves before Christmas, I came across “Island of the Blue Dolphins”.  I had read it years ago and forgotten all about it!  I couldn’t wait to read it to the kids.  I actually couldn’t remember what it was about so I was re-reading the back cover and something about the story reminded me of Robinson Crusoe.  Duh.

I had read an abridged version of Robinson Crusoe several years ago as well and really liked it.  While I don’t remember the whole story very well, there is still vivid imagery of certain scenes etched in my brain.  I know that my kids would love the descriptions of those scenes.

So last night at dinner we were talking about these books I wanted to read them and it was all I could do not to describe things from Robinson Crusoe to them.  I wanted to tell them so badly.  But I also did not want to spoil the story!  It was torture.  We continued to talk about things and the Hubba mentioned how much he loved Swiss Family Robinson.  All of us had seen and loved the movie but only the Hubba had read the book.  Because I felt like the book was kind of dense reading and since everyone had already watched the movie, I wasn’t really interested in reading that book.

So this morning I decided to go downstairs and grab “Island of the Blue Dolphins” to read after school today.  And it was right next to “Swiss Family Robinson” on the shelf.  I didn’t even know we owned a copy.   So I took that as a sign.  Then I got online and found a free abridged version of Robinson Crusoe, too.

I don’t even know where to start!  But I’m excited to do this again!

Medical Sidenote

I recently took all the kids to the doctor.  Everyone was healthy, but when the doctor looked in one of Wink’s ears she said it was a little red and asked if she had been sick recently.  I mentioned that she had had a fever a couple weeks before Christmas.  The doctor said, “That’s probably it.  She also has a swollen gland but that’s normal to take a month or two for the swelling to go down after an infection.”  Then she explained that they usually don’t prescribe antibiotics for ear infections unless there is uncontrolled pain.  And since Wink wasn’t in any pain, there was nothing to worry about and to just let her know if the fever came back.

I was like, no problem.  We aren’t big antibiotic fans anyway.

I like to just do one vaccination at a time and at the end of the appointment, the doctor was assuring me that vaccinations are safe and her own kids are fully vaccinated and encouraging me to catch my kids up.

And the irony was just so intense.

Because I remembered that when Baboo was a baby, she was on so many rounds of antibiotics because every time I took her in to the doctor she had signs of an ear infection.  Whether she was in pain or not, whether she had a fever or not.  Just look in the ear, see something red or bulgy, prescribe antibiotics.  So many antibiotics.

When she was 7, I finally decided to just let the ear infections play out because a round of antibiotics lasted 7 to 10 days and letting the body take care of the infection was expected to last 7 to 10 days anyway.  I was so frightened at first.  But instead of giving her antibiotics adn sending her to school, I actually took care of her.  She stayed home and I gave her a warm, moist compress on her ear.  I increased her vitamins and supplemented with other things to support her immune systerm.  She stayed home and rested.  It took a couple days and she felt better.  And despite the fact that she had a plethora of ear infections up until that point, she never had another ear infection after that.

And I stopped using antibiotics.  So I would take a kid in and they’d get diagnosed with an ear infection.  If I told the doctor that I’d just let their body heal it themselves, I’d get a big lecture on how devastating untreated ear infections could be and how it could lead to having ear drums rupture and even loss of hearing.  The doctors would totally badger me and I actually felt very threatened.  Threatened enough that I stopped saying what I was going to do and just started silently taking the prescription with no intention of filling it, but at least knowing enough to keep my mouth shut about it.

So there I was being told (ten years later) that the way I had chosen to treat ear infections was NOW agreed upon medically as the best course of action.  Of course, this lady was much younger than I was and I’m guessing that her career didn’t span back as far as my experience.  She probably thought that those in her profession had always been telling me to treat ear infections this way.  She had no idea of my history with the treatment.

So I found it a little ironic as she was trying to convince me about vaccinations as if her profession new everything and just because they said it was safe and good now meant that they would always see it that way.  And the undeserved condescension as if I didn’t know that I had been right about antibiotics the entire time.

 

I Need More Sleep In My Life

Last night I was exhausted.  And I was cold.  The best (only) place in the house to not be cold is sitting within two feet of the fireplace.  We have one bean bag there and it’s pretty much my spot.  Everybody else in the house lets me get dibs.  But if I’m not there, lots of other people will take my place.

Anyway, last night it was actually a little too warm to sit right there, but if you backed up even a foot, it was too cold.  So I was on my bean bag feeling too warm, but the heat was like a thick blanket and before you know it, I was out cold.  At 8pm.

Around 10pm I started being aware of my surroundings enough to ask what time it was and be surprised that I had crashed so hard.  I got up, made my way upstairs, changed into sleep-time clothes and worried that since I had just slept for two hours and then done all this “activity” that I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep now.  But I was wrong.

I woke up a few times briefly throughout the night but fell back asleep immediately.  Then, when the house was still dark, one of my children (Guess which one.) came in and woke me up and told me that it was already 7:10am.

Just for perspective, my alarm goes off at 5am.  It takes me a bit to get up.  But I brush my teeth, head downstairs, turn up the fire, and get started on the excruciatingly emotionally painful task of trying to figure out what to feed everyone for two meals in the next two hours.  So I (hopefully) make a breakfast (lately we’ve had a LOT of cold cereal, unfortunately, because I just can’t pull it together) and a lunch for everyone.  I make the rounds waking different people up at their respective times and then making the rounds again because only one or two people actually got out of bed the first time.  At 7am, I call everyone together for family prayer.  Then ideally, I leave to take the first round of kids to school at 7:20.

So to just be waking up at 7:10 meant I was WAY off my game this morning.  But oh man.  That sleep was delicious.  Eleven hours of blessed sleep.  It felt so good. I need more of that in my life.  I get teased for getting sleepy so early in the evenings.  And I would love to NOT be sleepy so early in teh evenings.  It makes a lot of things hard.  Especially having time with my husband.  I’m forever falling asleep about ten minutes into movies.  And it’s hard to have a meaningful conversation with him because my brain is just turning off at night.

But I also wish I could just sleep.  Because if you get enough sleep, it’s so easy to wake up in the morning and I do hate starting my day with that feeling of death because you still need a few more hours of sleep to function properly.  I love that feeling of waking up feeling like “I’m ready. Let’s go.”  I don’t know why I need so much sleep.  That 8 hours they say adults need doesn’t come close to cutting it for me.

And hey, if you guessed that Pinkleberry was the one who woke me up this morning, you are correct.  She’s so responsible like that.  She came in and said, “Mom, it’s 7:10 already and I have safety patrol this morning.”  (She has to be at school early for safety patrol on Fridays.)  I told her I was up and to start getting ready.  She offered to go wake everyone else up to but I told her to leave that to me.  It was a crazy morning.

Listen First.

So X is supposed to keep us informed of his activities while he is out.  He sends us regular text updates of where he is and who he is with and what he is doing.  He is also supposed to be home by a certain time.

This evening the Hubba and I went out on a double date.  I figured that X would be going out as well and asked before he left what his plans were.  He didn’t know.  Even though for most of the evening I would not be able to receive his texts, I wanted him to still keep me informed.  When we got home, I saw that he had done so.

But as the time passed, I hadn’t heard anything more from him.  It was past the time he was supposed to be home and I was getting frustrated.  So I texted him.

Me:  What’s up?

X: Not much.  Why?

Me:  Because it’s past 11:30.

X:  Well yeah.

At this point I was starting to get pretty upset.  He actually set his own rules about keeping in touch with us while he was out and about the time for his curfew.  Those things came from his brain.  And why was he pretending like he didn’t know what I was talking about?  The Hubba and I were incredulous at his lack of respect and pretention to innocence.  The Hubba wanted me to call him.  So I did.

I can’t remember how the conversation unfolded, but there was a moment of clarity I had in the strange way he answered one of my questions when the light bulb finally came on.

Me:  Are you home?

X:  Yeah.

Me:  Why didn’t you come up to tell us?
(That’s another rule.  When you get in, you come tell mom and dad.)

X:  Wait.  Are you home?

It turns out that X had gotten home like 30 minutes before hand.  He assumed that we still weren’t back yet because the van wasn’t in the driveway.  But the van wasn’t there because Wiyah had taken it out this evening.

So it was all a big misunderstanding that could have been averted if I had asked more specific questions instead of assuming that he knew why I was asking.  And I feel terrible about assuming bad motives for his behavior and not giving him the benefit of the doubt.  But I am happy that there was at enough communication to figure out the misunderstanding quickly and that although I had internally accused him of something wrong, it hadn’t made it’s way into my words or my actions.

And he’s a good guy.  While I was speaking to him on the phone and we just figured out that we were both home, he came upstairs right away and accounted for his time and showed us the sandwich he had made that was already mostly eaten and we had a good laugh.

And the Hubba needed a sandwich like that.

My Messy House

A year or so ago, every time Baboo had a date coming over, we always had to clean the house.  She was adamant that we not humiliate her and I wasn’t too keen on humiliating myself either.  One day we were joking around about how clean our house would be if Baboo ever got a boyfriend.  We’d have to clean every day!  HAHAHA!  Seriously, I was laughing while Baboo and I kidded each other.  It was a funny moment making fun of ourselves.

Well, Baboo did get a boyfriend.  Lucky for me, he has ten younger siblings.  And their house is modest and crowded with stuff everywhere.  In fact, I audibly sighed in relief when Baboo told me that she went over there on a  Sunday and everyone was lounging around it was kind of a mess around there.  Or when she mentioned that she had to take something into their master bedroom once and it looked like OUR master bedroom–with things (that don’t necessarily belong to us) everywhere and laundry piled high on the unmade bed.  I thought, “They let a stranger into their bedroom like that?”  I would never.

(Sidenote:  This was so much better than the time she was dating the guy whose mother was a professional organizer.  Can you imagine??)

But the result was that Baboo became less concerned about having us scrub for three days prior to her beau coming over.  And I was comfortable, too.  Which is very rare.  There were still times when I kind of cringed or wished he wasn’t seeing something STILL out since the last time he came over.  But he was over all the time.  There was no way I could keep up a fake image that frequently.  And he never seemed phased.  Never said any passive aggressive rude comments.  He just always seemed accepting.

Anyway, for Christmas, I gave my family the gift of compiling all our family videos for viewing.  So for the ten days after Christmas we watched so many family movies.  I loved seeing all this old footage.  And you know what?  I didn’t even mind seeing the mess!  And it was messy.  This definitely isn’t a story about I looked back in time and things weren’t as bad as I thought they were.  They totally were!  I just don’t care.

Do you see all those books on the floor in the background of this video?  That’s because Wink’s favorite game of all time was pulling every single book she could reach off of the shelves.  And I would spend so much time putting them all back nice and neat but the next time she saw them, off they came!  I couldn’t keep up!  Look at all those TOYS on the floor!  We had so many kids playing and not picking up after themselves.  During one video, Pink noticed the background and said, “Woah.  That’s a lot of diapers!”  Yes, it was!  We had so many diapers for so long!  My personal favorite is the video where the baby (Wink, I think) was playing with a screwdriver.  Haha!  How not to parent, right?  It’s hilarious.  She’s playing with and sucking on a screwdriver and no one is even taking it away.  We’re just recording her!  And then fast forward a little bit in time, on some other day, the baby is crawling around and there’s the screw driver on the floor again and she’s headed straight for it to play with it and stick it in her mouth.  For reals.  This is gold.  I love it all!

Mostly, though, that messy house is just the backdrop for what we are really all gathered around the television to see.  Pink used to have the cutest, hugest underbite!  And look at Wink when she was chubby!  Mack was so cute!  Listen to how husky his voice was and how sweetly he speaks!  Kelvinator had straight hair for the first half of his life!  Look at how short X used to be!  JJ was avoiding the camera even at that young age!  Baboo and Wiyah lived a life I never knew about with the video camera when we were away from home?  Another homemade music video?  Yes, please!

These were the stars, the main attraction.  That messy house in the background is kind of charming and kind of funny.  It helped to produce these amazing people.  And there were so many of those amazing little people in the house at a time!  I really didn’t feel embarrassment or shame.  I’ve never felt that before.

Then at the Relief Society activity the other night, I was talking that humble woman sitting next to me.  I told her how I had tried all sorts of chore charts and cleaning zones and reward systems and ideas about not being able to do whatever until household work got done.  And how I hated it.  How when we were all younger I would obsess over things and was so grouchy about keeping the house clean and yelling at my kids all the time to clean up their stuff and do their jobs.  I’m not a good manager.  I’m just not good at it.  I never had the patience to constantly follow up with all these people about what they were supposed to be doing and whether or not it was done and how well.  Shoot me.

But I was pretty good at doing what I needed to get done.  And basically that’s how things work now.  I do what I need to do to be able to survive in my house.  We don’t really have assigned chores at all.  Sometimes I’ll tell the kids that we need to have a “quick pick up” which basically means that the entire main level of the house needs to be made livable again.  Sometimes the kids just jump in and do it and other times they need specific assignments.  I usually assign an area (not a job) to each kid.  When the Hubba organizes the kids to work, he usually tells the kids to get points.  Each thing they put away is worth one point.  They keep track of their own points and depending on the state of the house, the Hubba might want 25 points each or 100 points each.  If the house isn’t looking good when everyone is done, he will assign more points.

I told her that my kids were amazing about doing whatever I asked them to.  I used to say something like “At noon we are going to do a quick pick up.”  And Wiyah would say, “Can I just get started now?”  And if my teenage boys are on the computer and I say, “When you’re done with that game, can you….?”  They often respond, “I can do that right now, Mom.”  And they pause their game and do it immediately.  Or if I stand in a room and say, “Can somebody help me with…?”  I often get two or three kids coming from other rooms saying, “I can do that.”

The lady was looking at me in amazement and so I had to clarify that the downside of all of this is that my kids pretty much only do things when I ask.  So in other words, if I don’t specifically ask for something to be done, no one really takes the initiative to get it done.  And our house is still pretty messy (though I can definitely see improvement from 7 years ago!).  And then I said something like, “I guess I basically made the choice that I’d rather have a messy house than be frustrated with my kids all the time.”

And it just struck me.  That is the exact choice that I made.  I’m not at all interested in making another chore chart or following up to make sure things got done or getting on anybody’s case because it wasn’t done well enough.  I also don’t have the energy/inclination to work all day thoroughly cleaning my house myself.  But I made that choice.

And it’s a legitimate choice.

It’s ok for me to prioritize that way.

I can just stand by my choice and say, “This is how I prefer to live my life.”  I don’t need to be humiliated by it.

The platitudes say that if you’re house is messy it must be because you are doing awesome activities and crafts and playing with your kids instead of steam cleaning your corners.  That just made me feel guilty because I wasn’t doing awesome things with my kids.  I was reading a book or on the computer.

Other platitudes say cute little things about how it’s ok to leave fingerprints on walls or neglect your dusting because children are only young once and they’ll be gone soon.  Fingerprints?  Dusting?  You’ve got to be kidding me?  Those things would be EASY to ignore.  Who even cares?  It also made me feel guilty because those things were so minor.  I’m talking about mountains of laundry and filth and not having dishes to eat off of because I’m so behind in the kitchen.  (The stories I could tell!) You can’t really ignore those things.  Those things aren’t “cute” things to let go.

But I did it.  And the world didn’t stop spinning.  Life continues to go on even with a trashed house.

I wish that I could have figured out how to keep the house picked up and be sane.  But I didn’t.  I wish I could have figured out how to organize and manage my kids so that they would all be hard workers and do jobs without being asked.  But I never could figure out a way to do it without yelling and getting frustrated.

So I just did it this way.  And there are perks to this way.  Like, I’m totally the most laid back parent that I know.  And my kids are so awesome.  The house gets clean when we really need it to.  The older kids totally picked up my slack, too.  I’m good at getting a job done and they learned how to manage the younger kids.  They each have a different style, too.  So that’s a skill they can take with them into adulthood and parenthood that I don’t have.  And I think that seeing me work hard without necessarily asking them to do anything has made them more helpful and willing when I do ask.

There are perks to other ways, too.  I’m not saying I’ve got the corner on the market by any means.  I’m just saying this way has had it’s pros and cons.  I definitely don’t like the cons.  But it was the best way I could figure out and I definitely like the pros.

I’m exhausted by being ashamed of our messes all the time.  You know what?  Life is messy.  Family is messy.  But I’m accepting of messes.  I’m a mess.  Sometimes my kids and husband are.  Sometimes we all are.  And all are welcome here.

I choose to accept it.

 

To Thine Own Self Be True

I read a blog post today where someone quoted Shakespeare as the title.  IT was so powerful and thoughtful and made you want to read the article.  I think I am a pretty good writer, but coming up with titles is not one of my strong points.  Anyway, this title has nothing to do with the post. (Or does it??)  Just thought I’d throw it up there and be cool.

This post is really about pride and humility and parenting.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about being a stay-at-home mom.  Everybody tries to honor stay at home moms and say how great they are, but when have you ever gone to hear a female speaker who was “just” a stay at home mom?  Either she built her own business or she has a doctorate in psychology or she served a as a nurse in a third world country or she went to the olympics or….  Nobody really wants to hear from the regular old stay at home moms who do nothing other than keep house and raise children.  And sometimes you’ll see around the internet that if stay at home moms got paid for all that they do, they’d be able to retire soon after potty training.  But we all know that’s not real.  If I died, my husband wouldn’t spend $150,000/year to replace all that I do.  And I’m certainly not worth that much money if no one is willing to pay it.  And last I looked, I wasn’t on anybody’s salary.  So anyway, these were the thoughts of the past few days that had been going through my mind when…

I went to the Relief Society activity at church tonight. We were having a speaker come.  All I knew was that it was a woman that you usually had to pay to hear speak.  I found out when I walked into the room that she was speaking about parenting.  I wanted to turn around and walk right back out.  Does anybody else feel that way?  I don’t even know why that was my immediate response.  I just don’t want to hear it.

Secondarily, I thought about all the women who had successfully raised families but weren’t “trained” in whatever the newest parenting method was.  They didn’t have designated letters after their names even though some of them had put in almost 80 man-years parenting successful and/or happy people.  I thought about myself and my own parenting styles and beliefs and my awesome children.  I thought about some really incredible things that have happened within the walls of our home.

And frankly, I wanted to be the one up there sharing.  I didn’t want to be the one in the audience listening.  I knew I had a bad attitude.  And after I made two comments I decided I had better stop talking because it was showing.  So I refrained from saying anything else for the entire evening.  But there was so much I wanted to say.  There were times when I wanted to contradict the speaker with alternatives or different points of view.  There were times when I probably would have otherwise agreed with what she was saying but just felt contrary and wanted to say it myself.  Most of all, I just wanted to share story after story after story and examples of how things could be done and how I’d changed as a person and as a parent.

I wanted to tell someone that on my way to this very presentation, I had walked into the building where there was a large group of young men getting ready to go ice skating.  My own sons were there, and even though I had seen Kelvinator just a few hours before he left all his friends to come over to me and ask what I was up to and then give me a big hug and a kiss.  In front of all his friends.

And while I was wallowing in my own pride, the lady sitting next to me was the picture of humility.  I think she has four kids–all of them adults.  She’s a grandma of two now.  She was asking questions and wanting to know more.  She was taking notes and listening raptly.  She was open to hearing new ideas and learning and admitting that she didn’t know it all.    In fact, she was more likely to admit that she didn’t know anything.

I felt conflicted.  I admired her for her humility.  But I also couldn’t bring myself to want to feel it myself.

If I could have a job as a personal parenting consultant or speaking to large groups about parenting, I think that would be fun.  Except I could never teach anybody else’s parenting philosophies.  They’d have to be my own thoughts.  And I couldn’t get certified or do trainings.  I’m also not sure I would eve be able to completely focus on the other parent/child and their issues since I’m always so caught up in talking about myself and my experiences.

Although, after the meeting the grandma sitting next to me was talking about a difficult situation she was having with her 4 year old grandchild and as we were talking I threw out about three or four different ideas off the top of my head that she seemed to love and was amazed by and couldn’t wait to try out.

Maybe she was just being super humble again and it didn’t really have anything to do with any unique ideas I spouted off.

The speaker said that it takes 20 years or more to teach your kids to be responsible and so we should have patience.  My thought was that it takes 20 years or more for us to learn how to parent, too. It’s not just our children who are growing through the process.

One thing that I hate about every single parenting course/style/philosophy I have ever read about is the focus is primarily on how to get your kids to do what you want when you want it.  I’ll admit, that’s important.  I mean, I’d love to be able to achieve that.  But doesn’t it sound childish when you say it that way?  Tonight I heard about how to move from a polite request to an “I-statement” to a firm request and then on to natural or logical consequences.   There was so much emphasis on the consequences and the differences between saying, “Would you please clean your room now?” and “Clean your room now.”  (I would argue there’s really no difference if you’re just going to punish/make consequences because you aren’t really taking no for an answer.)  But there was little to no discussion on Why do we (parents) want this behavior?  Can we change our own expectations to solve the problem?  Is what we want legitimate or even right?

In other words, parents are just trying to come with with “nicer” ways to get kids to be obedient and teach them a lesson.  The presumption is that parents are always right and that we always know best.  I disagree with that premise.

Another thought I had was just how ridiculous the whole consequence thing is.  What if I treated my husband that way?  What kind of marriage would that be where he had to do what I wanted him to do when I wanted him to do it when I asked nicely.  If he didn’t do it, then I would ask firmly.  Then I’d give him a consequence.  And I would consistently give him a consequence each time so that he would learn not to make that choice again.

Ugh.  It makes me want to pull my hair out the disrespect that we unwittingly give to children.  End rant.

 

Little Things

*At the Christmas party on Saturday, Kelvinator came up to give me a hug.  X saw him hugging me and came over for a hug, too.  But Kelvinator wouldn’t let him get close enough to hug me.  He kept angling his bootie in the way so X couldn’t get near.  They started fighting over me.  Sometimes I would be hugging Kelvinator.  Then X would squeeze between us and I would be hugging him.  They started trying to compromise by saying “You can have her back end, I get her front end!”  Or “You can have her bottom half, I get her top half.”  This probably went on for a good ten minutes.  It was pretty funny and actually kind of fun.  And they did this in front of everyone.

*A sweet Thank You card from Baboo that I discovered on my bed on really terrible day. She listed reasons she loves her parents and includes:
The fact that I still make her breakfast and lunch every day, that we can talk for 6 hours before realizing we haven’t eaten or peed, that I listen to her cry and always take her side, that we have FHE every Monday night and scriptures and prayer every night, that we always ask questions and stay involved in her life, and that for her whole life she has thought that we’ve perfectly exemplified seeking the Kingdom of God first.

*

“Sometimes the Victory is that you Just Keep Trying”

This is has been my life motto for close to a decade now.  I remember having this idea dawn on me during a relief society lesson in church where we were talking about addictions.  I was thinking about how powerful addictions were and that if people tried (and failed) to overcome addictions, they were still better off than someone who wasn’t trying at all.  But that failure often makes you think that you’re no good, you’re weak, you’re worthless because you couldn’t keep it up.  You failed, you gave in.  But maybe you were sober for 3 months.  That’s three months of victory that you wouldn’t otherwise have.  And if you give in and start back over again, that changes your character.  And as your character continues to change over time hopefully you will eventually overcome.  But even if you don’t, you’re still better off for having given the effort to keep on trying.

And of course that applied to so much in my life, too.  I may not be addicted to drugs but I have plenty of other vices and habits and weaknesses that I keep failing at.  One that is always at the forefront of my thoughts is that I cannot seem to keep my house clean.  I’ve never been able to do it.  And it has caused me so much anguish over the years.

But recently I’ve been looking at all my facebook memories and in trying to prepare my last post, I was searching all through my previous blog’s decade-worth of entries and one of the repeating themes that I kept seeing over and over was all the food I was trying to make and how hard I was working to clean things up again.  Post after post after post.  There were a lot of successes I was posting about!  It’s true that they didn’t last.  I never made yummy, gourmet meals for my family every night and had it on the table by 6pm unfailingly.  But I sure have kept trying.  And over a decade that really adds up to a lot of nice meals.  And although I have never been able to keep the house clean consistently, there were also plenty of days in there where I gave it my all and really tried to catch up.  I never did quite catch up really.  Things weren’t perfect.  But I know that things were better for that effort than if I had never given any effort at all.

Or even look at exercising.  I wish I was the kind of person who had spent the past decade working out consistently.  But I am not.  I started and stopped jazzercised so many times, depending on our schedule and budget.  I have played basketball and not played basketball, volleyball and not volleyball.  I have run and stopped running and then run again.  I really wish I had consistently been running for a decade.  Imagine what I’d look like and how I’d feel right now if I had?  On the other hand, I completed a half marathon and ran a total of 11.5 miles!  I’ve learned a lot about myself.  And while I haven’t always been consistent, I’m much better off for all the times I started and tried than if I had just spent the past decade doing nothing at ll.

It was actually really inspiring to scroll through years and years of my life and see just how much effort I was putting forth on a weekly basis.  Failing and getting up and trying again.

Victory.

X

Today, the Hubba got an email about X from the Young Men’s President:

By the way, I love working with X!  One of the coolest young men I’ve ever known.  So approachable for all the young men, willing to help in any way, always has a smile and positive glow.  X is a good reason to be proud!  Way to go!