GIFTED

I love receiving gifts from my kids. Not the store-bought kind, the kind that they just spontaneously find or make for you just because they love you. I have a vast collection of stick-figure drawings and love notes with backwards letters and misspelled words. I am constantly being handed rocks, leaves, rolly pollies, sticks, and the never-ending bouquets of dandelions (which my children insist I keep and cherish for eternity).  And let’s not forget all the sticky hugs and kisses!

But this week, my four-year-old son topped them all. We were at a friend’s house and he was jumping on the trampoline. He has had a cough for several weeks, but it comes and goes and, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t paying it as much attention as I should have. Well, after jumping on the trampoline for awhile, he started to have a horrible coughing fit. Really, he just couldn’t stop and was having trouble breathing and turning red in the face. Then, suddenly, he coughed up a whole bunch of mucus, caught it in his hands, and brought it into the house to give to me.

Isn’t he precious?

Long story short, I called the pediatrician and lots of questions, one exam and a few chest x-rays later, he has been diagnosed with asthma and been given an inhaler. We are glad that he will no longer be coughing up half a lung whenever he plays with his friends.

But, just to be safe, I am making a very specific list this Christmas.

LAZY, HAZY, CRAZY DAYS

I feel really behind in writing this blog and have no other excuse than to say that it’s summer and, apparently, all semblance of order has gone to the dogs. The first month of this vacation has given us two types of days: 98% of them have been crazy, chaotic, running here and there, too much sun, too much junk food, not enough sleep but lots and lots of good times. The other 2% of our days have been spent lying around on the couch watching cartoons in our jammies, too exhausted to even think about moving as we rest up for more upcoming days of craziness.

On neither of these days does my house get clean.

Or my grocery shopping done (hence the junk food).

Or my blog written.

But I have incredibly happy children. They end every day with sun-kissed cheeks and sticky hands and faces. They fall asleep (well past school-year bedtime) at the exact second their heads hit their pillows and wake up the next morning ready to do it all over again.

In reality, the only place they have “been” this summer is to Sun Valley for a long weekend. In their imaginations, they have been to the moon and back. My son is thrilled that his big sister is home all day, every day with nothing better to do but to play endlessly with him. He loves the attention; she loves bossing him around. They are a match made in heaven.

We have spent a few mornings a week at the tennis courts and evenings at the softball fields. Two of my favorite ways to spend the summer. We have yet to make it to the swimming pool but our backyard has seen the slip-and-slide on more than one occasion. I taught my seven year old how to eat sunflower seeds. My kids are becoming proficient at bike and scooter riding. We have been through more Otter Pops and cartons of ice cream than I care to publicly admit.

I am perfecting the art of dealing with controlled chaos and look forward to two more months of it. Just don’t come by my house before September and expect clean bathrooms and gourmet meals.

(But we do have plenty of ice cream.)

BECAUSE DADS ARE PEOPLE, TOO

I just wanted to say a quick Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. I know this is a “Mom Blog” but I also know how important dads are to us mothers (and our children).  I can tell you from experience how crazy my kids go when their dad is out of town. Even if it’s just for one night, my four year old son really struggles without his father around. My husband shoulders all the responsibility for the financial support of our family, is my best friend, and is our kids’ favorite person in the world. Every evening around six o’clock, my kids hear the garage door open and it’s as if the circus has come to town. They drop whatever they are doing and run, yelling, to the door to meet him with hugs and kisses. They do this every single night without fail. Honestly, I can’t decide if they really love their father or are just really sick of me!

So Happy Father’s Day to all the dads who may be reading this. Don’t underestimate the influence you have in the lives of your children. Us moms may get all of the credit, but we couldn’t do what we do without you!

DEFINING MOTHERHOOD

I really wanted to write this post around Mother’s Day, this being a “Mom Blog” and all, but we have been dealing with a few rounds of the stomach flu, a horrendous ear infection, and a toddler who decided that a rock would make a tasty mid-morning snack. But it all makes for great blogging material, especially since I’ve wanted to address the following question: What does it mean to be a mom?

Here’s my short answer: Being a mom means scrubbing vomit out of the carpet at three o’clock in the morning.

Oh, sure, I could romanticize the whole thing and say that being a mom means creating and nurturing life or raising the future generation or molding children into caring, responsible, intelligent adults or something like that. And I guess, on some level, all those things are true, too. But really I think that being the Mom means doing the tough jobs, making the tough decisions, handing out tough love, being the bad guy, and doing the jobs that no one else wants to do.

Ironically enough, this idea came to me on Mother’s Day weekend. Not surprisingly, it came to me while I was scrubbing vomit out of the carpet at three o’clock in the morning. My four year old son had a very nasty stomach flu hit him in the middle of the night that left his bedroom looking like a scene from a horror movie, but with throw up instead of blood. When I opened his bedroom door and saw what lay before me, my very first thought was just to burn down the house and start over from scratch. That is a true confession from a real mom. I didn’t think about my son’s health or how he must be feeling or how miserable he must have been. No, my very first thought was how much I did not want to clean up that disgusting mess. My first real, honest-to-goodness instinct was to turn and run away.

But I didn’t. Because I am a Mom. And that’s exactly what being a Mom is. I spent that night deep in the trenches. I turned my son over to my husband for a bath and clean pajamas, I found the container of Clorox wipes, I rolled up my sleeves and I went to work. I stripped the bed, rinsed out the sheets and blankets, started a load of laundry. I wiped down the walls, the baseboards and the furniture. I scrubbed the carpets. We were up, repeating this same routine, almost every hour for the rest of the night. I was past the point of being grossed out. The word ‘exhausted’ did not even being to describe how I felt.

The next day was Mother’s Day. I was able to drag myself to church with my seven year old daughter, who knew the kids had a special program prepared and she would have been devastated if I had missed it. I came home and spent the afternoon lying on the couch with my feverish son sleeping next to me. The sickness had passed but the misery from the night before had caught up to all of us. As I continued to rotate loads of laundry and comfort my son (and pray that no one else would catch this awful illness), I thought that it was some kind of cruel joke that this was happening on Mother’s Day, the one day a year where I was supposed to be free from mothering duties.

I was wrong about that. Because what I thought was a cruel joke was actually a blessing in disguise.  When you are the Mom, you get to perform acts of service for your children that no one else can (or will) do. Trust me, if it hadn’t been my son that night, there was NO WAY I would have been cleaning up that mess. There just isn’t anyone else in the world I love enough to do something that disgusting for. But it was my son and I don’t take care of him because I have to or because I’m supposed to or because it’s my job to. I take care of him, literally doing anything in the world for him, because it’s my privilege to. That’s what love is. That’s what being a Mom is.

So, Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I realize this is almost two weeks late and I’m sorry for that. I really would have had these good wishes posted on here sooner, but what can I say, I was busy scrubbing vomit out of the carpet being a Mom.

GROWING PAINS

It is what my family calls “Birthday Season.”  My birthday is this week, my baby’s is next week, my oldest daughter’s is the week after that, and my husband’s is five days after hers. Plus, we have a few extended family birthdays and Mother’s Day all in that time period. I always feel bad that my husband’s birthday is last because I really just can’t even look at another piece of cake by that time. It is just a lot of party planning, gift shopping and cake baking in three weeks. It is a lot of fun but extremely exhausting. And it always gets me thinking about getting older.

I don’t think about my own ageing, though. I think a lot about my kids and how quickly they are growing up. Throughout the month of April, my oldest daughter has been telling us that she isn’t a baby anymore and we need to start treating her like a “big kid” because she is “almost 7!” (This plan back-fired on her when we started giving her more “big kid” responsibilities around the house. Now she is just fine being treated like a child).

Since the weather has started warming up, I have been shopping for summer clothes for my kids. At one store last week, I discovered that my oldest is now wearing a size medium (which, to me, meant that she is no longer small), my son is officially out of the toddler department and shopping in the Boy’s Department, and my baby is wearing clothes with the sizes marked by years instead of months. I also realized a few weeks ago that I can barely lift my almost seven year old. When did that happen? When did she get so big that I can’t even carry her anymore? I am just weak or is she just growing up?

Interestingly enough, I have been thinking a lot about my son getting older (even though, since he was born in the fall, he is not part of our family’s “Birthday Season”). I worry that, as he grows up, our interests will grow apart and he will be less interested in spending time with me. I know all kids spend more and more time away from their parents as they get older, but at least with my daughters we can still hold on to some mother-daughter bonding time and our interests and hobbies are more likely to compliment each other’s. My son has always been a bit of a Mama’s Boy (my husband will hate that I just wrote that). Up until about eight months ago, he was extremely shy and would cling to my side wherever we went. He even disliked going to friend’s houses because he wanted to be with me instead.

This year, that all changed. Besides growing so much taller and thinning out, he started preschool and his shyness all but vanished. He asks to play with friends every day and doesn’t want me to hug him or hold his hand (especially in front of other people). He is obsessed with Star Wars and barely tolerates the fact that I know almost nothing about it. He wants to be with his dad all the time, talks about fishing and soccer and Batman and all sorts of “boy” stuff that I know almost nothing about. He complains about having to go shopping with me and just wants to stay home and play video games. It’s like he went from being a toddler to being a teenager almost overnight.

And while my relationship with my girls (especially my oldest) seems to get stronger all the time, I can feel that my son is not just growing up, but growing away. I know this is supposed to happen; I really didn’t want him to stay a toddler forever.  But, he was the baby that I had the strongest bond with so I feel a little blindsided by this sudden jump into independent boyhood.

We have older nephews and friends with teenage boys and I see how sweet they are to their mothers. They joke around and give them a hard time and I’m sure not everything is perfect and lovely, but really they are good kids who love their moms and would do anything for them. I picture my son being this way, either through wishful thinking or because I know he really loves me.  I have always said that he is going to be the child who will take care of me in my old age.  And if that means that I have to watch Star Wars every day, well, that is a sacrifice I am more than willing to make.

CRAZY

I just looked at the date of my last post and cannot believe that it has pretty much been a month since I last wrote anything. March has been, as this post title would suggest, a little bit crazy for us. I spent one whole week planning and preparing for our Spring Break trip to Disneyland. Then one heavenly week with my husband and kids at the House of Mouse. Then another week getting back into the swing of things (which is always a difficult task after an awesome vacation). This included no less than nine loads of laundry and many hours of me wondering why going on vacation for a week creates so many more dirty clothes than just being at home for the same amount of time. If anyone has the answer to this question, I would love to hear it.

Part of the return to normal life included one colossal trip to the grocery store with my almost two year old. Long story short: it did not go well. She is usually my errand-running buddy. We go all sorts of places while my two oldest are at school and generally love spending one on one time together. She even tells me that she wants to “go shoppy” (which is super cute now but something I’m sure I’ll regret in the future). After seven years of motherhood, it was my first experience of complete and utter humiliation in the grocery store. I have never before had a child actually escape from the shopping cart while it was moving. And please, I don’t need the lecture on using the seatbelts in the cart. She figured those out long ago. She was screaming and running away and throwing things and even grabbing other people’s groceries. She has never acted like this before and I hope it was a random fluke that never, ever happens again. But, for now, I am too scared to take her to the store again to find out.

After relating this story to several people, I had no less than three babysitting offers from family and friends who all said the same thing: “Why are you taking her shopping with you? Just bring her over and we’ll watch her for you.” I had a horrible, busy, stressful week and this is exactly what I needed to hear. I probably won’t ever take them up on their generous offers but it is still nice to know that they care, that they understand, that they have been there before and know how difficult it is.

As I thought about this, I realized something. I can’t do it alone.  And I know that I have an incredibly helpful husband but even he and I, together, can’t do it alone. No one can. This parenting thing is hard and we need help at every turn and for all sorts of reasons, big and small. We have amazing friends and family who offer to help us constantly. Sometimes we let them, sometimes we don’t. We try to help them in return as often as we can.

I am very fortunate to have such an amazing support system and I hope all the other mothers out there have one, too. If not, find a church, a PTA meeting, a library story time, a friendly neighbor, or just a nice looking mom at your local park and strike up a conversation. It takes a lot of courage and a little bit of time but it is so worth it. Because once you have all these fantastic, generous people to help and understand you, being a mom seems a little less, well, crazy.

AT LAST

I don’t want this to sound like I am bragging, but I think I have finally figured out why I am so easy-going. It is because I am a youngest child. That is not to say that my siblings are not easy going, because they are. (Just not as much as me.) (Hi, Guys!) I know there are a lot of theories out there about where you fall in your family and how that affects your personality. I agree with this idea, but not for the reasons that we usually hear.  So, if anyone cares, here’s my theory:

My oldest child stresses out easily. She doesn’t like to wait, doesn’t like change, and needs things to be done perfectly (or at least exactly the way she wants them to be done). Now, these are not bad qualities. Sometimes, because they are coming from an emotional six year old, they can get a little out of hand. I fully expect, however, for her to grow up and mature and be able to do really great things because she is such a perfectionist and knows exactly what she wants. She is, for better or worse, a force to be reckoned with.

My middle child is pretty even-tempered. The only time he really gets upset is when I tell him he has to stop playing video games. He kind of seems like he is just along for the ride and doesn’t really have any idea what is actually going on. I can’t decide if this is because he is in the middle or because he is a four year old boy. Cluelessness seems to be a universal trait among that set. For example, this morning my husband was helping him in the bathroom and noticed that my son was wearing his pajamas but no underwear. When my husband asked him where his underwear was, my son looked down and said, “I have no idea.” See? Clueless. I understand from friends with teenage sons that this condition will get worse before it gets better.

Now to my youngest child. She is a toddler so of course she has her crazy demands and her shouts of “I do it!” and “Mine!” She bites occasionally, is super active and must have a book in her crib and in the car AT ALL TIMES (seriously, don’t mess with her on the book thing). But, when it comes right down to it, she is my most flexible child. She runs errands with me (sometimes for hours), she waits patiently for her food at mealtimes, she is easily distracted when tired or hungry. A sucker or a round of Pat-A-Cake usually does the trick.

Today I had to take my van into Costco to get new tires. I only had the baby with me as the other two were at school. They told me it would take 30-45 minutes. Now, I am not naïve enough to believe that when a repairman or mechanic tells you something will take half an hour that that actually means they will be done in half an hour. I am not blaming them or upset about it; I think it is just the nature of the beast, so to speak. So, I hoped for 30 minutes but figured it would be more like 60 and decided that I would kill the time by shopping. I wandered the store for about 40 minutes, browsed through the books and clothes, paid for my purchases, and headed back to the tire center. I could see them still working on the van and settled in to wait.

This is where being a mother becomes a test. The baby was getting antsy from sitting in the cart for almost an hour. I now had to entertain her for who knows how long. How much public embarrassment was I willing to risk to keep this baby happy? She requested the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Seriously? Right here in front of all these people?

Which would you rather avoid in public: singing nursery rhymes or having a tantrum-throwing toddler?

Yeah, me too.

We sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Pat-A-Cake and lots more. I tickled her and tested her ability to find her eyes, her nose, her hair, etc. It took maybe ten minutes. Now what? She pointed to the deli. I looked in my wallet and saw I had one dollar. Just enough for a churro. That’s a nutritious lunch, right? Fast forward about seven minutes, only three bites of the churro are gone, but the baby has managed to completely cover herself, head to toe, in cinnamon and sugar. But, she is happy and the van is finished. Totally worth it. She almost fell asleep on the way home. All of mommy’s public humiliation must have been exhausting for her.

Later, I wondered if my other kids were so patient at this age. I don’t really remember having an experience like this with them though. I think I would have made my husband take the van in because I didn’t think I could do it with the kids in tow. I don’t think I would have sung songs in public before because I would have been afraid that someone would think I was weird. But today, I did it and people saw me and I didn’t care. I certainly would not have given my first two kids free reign on a churro because it would have been too messy. Now, I don’t really think about stuff like that so much.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe my  youngest child’s easy going personality has more to do with having a more easy going mother than anything else. I think my youngest is so laid back, not simply because she is the youngest but because I am more relaxed as a mom with her than I was with my first.  Maybe my six year old stresses out so easily because, as a first time mom, I was always so stressed out. Now, I have more confidence and I worry less about what other people think and I don’t freak out about messes and stuff like that.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and start over with motherhood. You know how they say, “Pick your battles”? Well, not only would I choose different battles, I would choose a lot fewer of them, too.

And without all those battles, we could all finally have the chance to relax.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE QUEEN

I sometimes have those crazy days where I will do just about anything to make it through. A little time out for myself to take some deep breaths and repeat the mantra, “I love my kids. I love my kids. I love my kids.” I think we all have our own little ways of making it through the day, the things we take advantage of because we are the mom and so we can, and the little checks on our sanity. I have my own list of confessions as a mom. Things I get to do or don’t have to do or things I get away with because, as the mom, I am in charge. I am the boss of myself, the boss of my kids, and the boss of my house. Really, it’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it. Please don’t think that these are things I do on a regular basis. For the most part, they are just little things I occasionally enjoy getting away with.

1. If we have only one or two cookies left, I tell my kids we don’t have any. I do this for two reasons: one, I have three kids so one or two cookies just isn’t going to cut it and two, I want to eat the cookies myself after my kids have gone to bed.
2. I LOVE Hannah Montana. I watch it without my kids. To be perfectly honest, we don’t even allow our kids to watch it because we feel they are too young for it, but I watch it all the time. I don’t know what it is, but that show just sucks me in and I cannot turn it off.
3. I take way longer in the bathroom than is absolutely necessary just because I am enjoying the peace and quiet. I usually stay in there until some small child comes looking for me.
4. When I am on the computer and my kids interrupt me, I tell them they have to wait because “Mommy is working.” Really, I am just on Facebook or reading people’s blogs.
5. I am secretly glad that I get to eat kid’s food. I mean, if I didn’t have kids I don’t think I would ever have macaroni and cheese or hot dogs or go to McDonald’s. But, since I have children I get to eat this stuff all the time and I love it.
6. I make children cry on a daily basis. (Okay, if that sentence was taken out of context, it would make me seem like a horrible person. But, as a mom, it is just par for the course. And it is almost always for their own good.)
7. There is absolutely nothing in the world I dread more than potty training. I consider it a necessary evil and feel tortured during the entire process. If I had the money, I would pay someone to come in and do this task for me.
8. Last week, my four year old son made me throw a surprise birthday party for R2D2 (from Star Wars). In the middle of this “party,” I stopped for a moment, thought about what it was I was doing, and almost started to cry. Sometimes my life is sad, even to me.
9. I never believed I was a power hungry type of person, but I really, really love being able to say the words “Because I said so.” Or, I will ask my disobedient children “Who is the boss?” to which they must reply, “You are.” Sometimes, it just feels good to be the one in charge.
10. I honestly believe my children are the most adorable children on the face of the earth. There are a lot of really cute kids out there and a lot of kids that I dearly love, but no one even comes close to my own kids. I am only now beginning to realize that most mothers feel this way. And, really, on some days, that belief is the only thing that gets me through.

Alright, readers, time for you to fess up. What are your little secrets to surviving motherhood?

BALANCING ACT

Around mid-summer sometime, I sent my kids upstairs with very clear instructions to clean up the playroom while I was busy downstairs doing some other chores. About fifteen minutes later, I started to tune in to the sounds coming from the second floor. They were not the sounds of cleaning. They were the sounds of playing. No fighting or problems with sharing or destruction of any kind, just my kids happily playing. Together.

I know this will make me sound like a crazy person, but I wasn’t really sure what to do about this. I had very specifically asked them to clean up their toys. They were very obviously not obeying me. But, they were playing together and were happy. Did I want to storm up there with lectures and punishments and pleas for obedience or did I just want to let them continue playing nicely?

I mean, they are just children, right? As mothers, where do we find the balance of letting our kids be kids versus making them learn to be responsible and obedient and to do what they have been asked to do?

If your four year old refuses to brush his teeth one day, do you force him to do it anyway? Or do you just let it go because, for heaven’s sake, he’s only four?

My six year old knows that she has to make her bed every day and she is really good about doing it, even without being reminded. But, some days, she doesn’t feel like doing it. Do I just let that slide? Because, you know what, some days I don’t feel like making my bed either.

I know how important consistency is when raising children. They need to know what is expected of them and they need to understand the consequences that will follow if they don’t meet those expectations. And, to really get the message across, the consequences need to follow every single time.

I watch Supernanny. I totally get this.

But, sometimes, kids just want to play and have fun and be free. They don’t want to brush their teeth or make their beds or eat their vegetables.

Don’t you want that sometimes, too? Just to not have any responsibilities or to throw out your To-Do list and do absolutely nothing? And you are an adult; imagine how they feel!

So, here is what I am trying in my house; maybe it will work for you if you are struggling with this same balancing act.

Monday through Friday, everyone has to be responsible. My kids each have a list of Daily Expectations and all these chores must be completed every weekday. Once the weekend hits, though, they are free. No bed making or room cleaning or table setting. And no consequences for neglecting these things. In fact, I tell them not to do their chores (yes, sometimes they ask if they should and I actually say no). They do still have to get their hair and teeth brushed because I decided that health and hygiene were non-negotiable (I want them to have a break, but I don’t want to invite total anarchy).

And our weekends have been fantastic. I do all of my chores during the week and have left Saturdays open for family outings and fun activities and Sundays open to go to church and spend quiet time together at home. It is so nice for everyone to have a break and I am learning to turn a blind eye to the mess and disorganization that two days off will create. I just keep telling myself that Monday will come soon enough and then I can clean again. Now, the weekend actually feels like The Weekend. We have fun together and we recharge and we get a break from our regular routine and it is so refreshing.

So, that’s my tip for a little bit of a better balance for your family. Try it. You’ll like it. So will your kids.

And let me know how it goes!

IN WITH THE NEW

We have begun a new decade and this has forced me to look back on the old – to remember, to analyze, to find significance in the good and the bad.

I made a startling realization during this process. The past decade has been, and probably always will be, the most monumental decade of my life. In January 2000, I was single and in college. My life then in no way resembles my life now.  My husband and I knew each other; we were co-workers and friends but had not yet been on our first date. I was eight months away from my college degree, wondering what the future held.

As it turns out, it held a lot.

Here it is in chronological order: I got that degree, got married, my husband got his degree. We moved, worked, had our first child, moved again, my husband started law school, we had our second child. We survived on no money, no sleep and no time. We spent two summers away from our tiny student apartment; one here in Twin Falls, one in Washington, DC. We had a miscarriage. We had our third child. My husband finished school. We moved again. A life-long career began. We bought our first house. We bought a dog. We now survive on a little more money, still no sleep, and even less time.

All that, and much more, in only ten years. It went too fast. It was all such a crazy, chaotic blur that the details have been lost. I recently saw an old video we made of my now six and a half year old when she was about two. I watched that video and didn’t even remember that day at all. I heard her little toddler voice and it shocked me. It isn’t her voice anymore; and, yet, I never noticed that it changed.  It was only about four years ago and, if it weren’t for that video, it would have been as if it had never happened. All the major changes have eclipsed the smaller ones.

Every year, I institute a family motto that we try to remember and incorporate into our daily lives. In 2009, the motto was PEACE (after reading this post, can you possibly imagine why?).

In 2010, we will be TAKING IT SLOW.

I hope the next decade brings fewer upheavals and more slow progressions. I hope to keep better track of the every day and not get lost in the big picture. In the next ten years, that former two year old and current six year old will be a completely unrecognizable sixteen year old.

And I, for one, don’t want to miss a thing.