Thoughts on Mothers Day

My little sister V passed me a note during Sacrament Meeting at Church yesterday. Her brain was obviously going faster than her pen, because the note said "Have a Mothers Day". Which was startlingly accurate!

I surely DID have "A Mother's Day"! It was pretty much like all of my other days--only more so. I was more tired, more sick and stiff (had a pretty bad fall in the driveway on Friday--bruised my knees, finger and dignity!). More stuff to do for people, more whining, crying and spitting on the floor (mostly from SmallDaughter, some from me!) Just, you know--MORE.

In the middle of all of this I pondered on MOTHERS DAY. A day that is simply fraught with emotional booby traps. Directly below the frothy pink surface of sticky kisses, Hallmark cards and brunch buffets is a seething mass of difficult emotions. While most of us have pretty good (or even outstandingly fabulous!) moms, there is still a lot of pain there:

The Hearts that hurt because this is their first (or thirtieth) Mothers Day without their Mom.

The Hearts that are lonely in quiet houses or nursing homes, where children "can't be bothered" to visit those who raised them.

The Hearts that carry the burden of having parents who are not (or were not) "kind and dear"--sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively abusive or downright evil.

The Hearts that ache because they long to be mothers, but because of many circumstances (unmarried, infertility, illness, whatever) they are not able to fill their lonely arms.

The Hearts that are mourning miscarriages, stillbirths, abortions, babies placed for adoption, children that died, children who have rejected their parents teachings and are busy making heartrendingly bad choices...

The Hearts whose beautiful children are given tremendous loads to carry in this mortal life--who not only won't watch their child graduate, but will never hear that child say "I love you, Mom".

And in all of this pain that mortal life offers, the sweetest answer is that God does care, and the amazing power of the Savior's atonement can heal every broken heart, and wipe away every tear. He suffered ALL of our pains, so he could succor us perfectly. Amazingly (to me, with my limited understanding), He cares about everything that matters to me.

The best part of my Mothers Day? Watching my Handsome Husband place his hands lovingly on the head of our Handsome LargeBoy, and, using the power of God, given to men on earth (with a group of good, strong men that we love) ordain him to the office of a Deacon, and give him the Priesthood.

It is a good thing that I was in too much of a hurry to put on makeup (and I think I lost my makeup bag, too) because I cried so much I would have washed it all off, anyway!

I just reread the post on last year's mothers day --wow, most of it applies perfectly! I did have another yard sale (please kill me if I EVER say I am going to have a Yard Sale again, for ANY Reason!) The weather (which has been so nice) was gross--@#$%^&*! cold and rainy, with big wind gusts.

My garden is sitting all lonely and unplanted back there. Don't know how much I am going to do, since I am going to be traveling all summer.

Also, I have been fighting off a chest cold, but I seem to be losing. Sleep has been eluding me, because my bedroom sounds like a tuberculosis sanatorium. Who can sleep when they are coughing like this?

On a more cheerful note--The Art & Dessert Show came together beautifully. It was a great success--which comes as a great relief since my last offering as the Ward Activities Chairperson was not.

This week I will recover from the last two weeks and try to dig out from under all the projects that got put on the back burner from the big stuff going on!

Mothering 101--tips from an expert

I was raised by wise women. Our society doesn't particularly value wisdom, (youth and ignorance are prized, and wisdom and experience are overlooked and dismissed) but I was blessed to have true wisdom in my life.

My dear aunt once told me the best parenting advice she had came from 2 sources: My mother (her older sister, who had 11 well loved children) and my Grammy (their mom who had 10 well loved children). She said the emotionally wise things came from Grammy, and the rationally wise things came from mom (who took parenting classes, and read voraciously--choosing what she felt was the best and truest, most useful wisdom and tossing the rest).

Here is some of my Grammy's advice--the things that she left to be shared at her funeral.

JOYCE’S COUNSEL TO HER DESCENDANTS


*Parenting and grand-parenting are their own reward.

*Seek guidance from prayer.

*When your child, grandchild, or anyone comes to you with serious worries and feelings of failure: LISTEN – LISTEN – LISTEN! Avoid giving advice like the plague.

*Sit near them, say, “This is hard, but you can do hard things.”

*They may feel worthless – you know they are not. They may feel not lovable – you know they are. They may feel they lack courage – you know they’re brave.

*Remember the healing power of touch. Draw near, wipe away tears, pat their hand, rub their back, and give a hug. Let them feel the strength and faith that Heavenly Father will always bless and guide through prayer. Let them know you have faith in them and their prayers. Let them know that the Savior is watching over them by day and by night and loves them always no matter what. But most of all pray with them and for them.

A poem my grammy had saved (which describes her perfectly)

She had a way with children,
She molded them like clay.
She found the greatness in them, and
She nurtured it each day.


Our trip to Idaho for Grammy's funeral was physically rather uncomfortable--I have never been good at sleeping in the car. However, the love and joy that was gathered together to celebrate the life of a remarkable woman made it worthwhile--and, as an added bonus, I love getting to spend time with my family, and I loved being with my dad & 2 sisters. LOTS of stories were shared!

When you drive across the country in January, you know you will be crossing your fingers all the way for good weather. We were very blessed--although we had 30 mile an hour winds all the way across Kansas and most of Missouri, and the blowing snow was NOT pleasant to drive in, the wind did keep it from sticking to the road. That means that although visibility was reduced, the roads were bare and dry.

One fun note--at a late night potty stop (in Colorado, I think!)the restroom door was postitioned in such a way that there was a pretty good sized snowdrift (a foot across, 18 inches long & 3 inches deep) that had blown into the ladies room, under the door. While we were waiting, we made a tiny little snowman, with emery board arms and dog treat face, and left him sitting in the corner by the door (where the wind would keep him cold). It was fabulously funny. I guess you had to be there! Just more proof that life is about the journey, not just the destination!

Pondering

Today conditions conspired to create the perfect day for me to stop procrastinating and clean out the chicken coop. While we have managed to keep them from being horribly stinky or unpleasant (deep cedar chips and diatomaceous earth), it needed cleaned out before winter. Thus I had plenty of time to ponder on a discussion I had once with my very wise mother.

I was about 14 at the time, and many of my friends were doing ANYTHING to appear more "adult". My mom's comment was short, but it has resonated in me through the years. She said, "the real adults are the ones who clean up the crap. Our lives are filled with various forms of crap--we care for babies, and pets and old people, which involves physically cleaning up crap. We also care for the people who produce the emotional crap. The real adult is the person who sees what needs to be done, rolls up their sleeves and finishes the job, to make the world a better place--even when the ones they clean up after don't notice or care. By this definition I know some 12 year olds who are the grownups, and some 55 year olds who aren't."

Now that I am an adult by pretty much any way of figuring, this is more true than ever. It also reminds me of the gentle way she taught me that changing a baby is a privilege--to take care of another person's most intimate needs is a gift, and we, by our attitude can make it a time of wonderful bonding. She taught me that we never confuse the PERSON with the BEHAVIOR/RESULT. Thus, you don't say "Ooh, gross, you stink!" you say, "Ooh gross, let's get this stinky poop off of you". People are not their behaviors. Even when supremely bad behavior is going on (ie, screaming tantrums in a toddler, or alcoholic rages in an adult) the person still has merit and worth.

POSTSCRIPT-- Now I get to go clean up the flour. SmallDaughter just got a 5 lb bag of flour out of the cupboard, stabbed it open with a knife and spread it everywhere. BIG SIGH.

Time moves on

This week has been one of "chilling" and recovering after the intense stress of the last few weeks. I have been doing a lot of canning (for me). I am not totally inexperienced with canning, but I have never done very much. This year I have done a LOT. You can tell canners, because during canning season, their main topic of conversation is how many bottles of ________ they put up. Realizing for yourself how much work goes into each bottle--be it cup, pint or quart, you can see why.

That said, here is my list:
6 quarts of spaghetti sauce. HOWEVER-- the big brag is that it came almost totally from my very own garden! Not only the tomatoes, but also the oregano, basil, parsley, bell peppers & onions.
3 quarts and 14 pints of pickled beets (another 3 quarts broke during processing)
7 quarts of potatoes
AND
10 QUARTS of sliced, pickled jalepeno peppers.

If you know Mr. Prism (My Favorite Gentleman), you will know why I didn't bother with pint jars. 10 quarts is about a 2 month supply. However, all of the peppers came out of my garden, too.

BTW, it is painful to slice the tip of your finger off with the veggie slicer--but it is much @#$%^&* worse when it is in the middle of the jalepeno slicing! Don't ask me how I know this.

Wednesday was SmallDaughter's first day back at school. Preparing her for school is a different experience than when the other 2 were in public school. There is no anticipation or dread, because she doesn't understand the concept of time and things that will happen in the future. There is no big rush about back to school shopping because--1) she doesn't care about clothes at all, and 2) she still fits into all of her clothes from last year. Very mellow preparations. She does love her teacher, her "bus ladies" and her friends at school.

A "return to school" is a much less emotional event for unschoolers, too. All around me I am surrounded by hype about the excitement of packing your children away into the care of strangers and the dubious "socialization" of various more or less hostile peers. Hmmm.

We are settling into school by: canning, snuggling, reading some really excellent new book series (more on those soon), bike riding, tending the chickens, achieving a new level of championship on Pokemon (which means much more to LargeBoy than to me, but I was excited that I was with him when he achieved something that he really worked to do, and that he was excited to share with me), cooking (if I told you how excellent our last batch of brownies were, you would cry with jealousy--trust me!).

He is also coming up with lots of ideas for cool games of the future, and since his uncle is a talented programmer, who has designed several awesome i-phone game apps, I think it is very probable that at least some of his ideas will come to fruition.

BigGirl is deeply excited by the portability of her schooling--and by that I mean she is now clear across the country, assisting with 2 sweet babies to help out a Meggan in need. She has been anxiously awaiting the day when she would be big enough to go "stay", and it has finally arrived!

One of the sad things much of our culture has lost in it's quest to abolish the traditional extended family is the "stay". Growing up in my very large family, when a baby was born, surgery, illness, stress, moves or grief occured, help came, often in the form of a middle-teenage assistant.

At first they were my mom's younger siblings (My mom had done it for her older siblings). We loved having the aunts come to stay--besides being a very real help, they provided energy, excitement and a level of glamour that a "mere mom" could never hope to have!

(Just think of the glamour of being served
that most excellent breakfast in bed:
oranges--sliced glamourously in half, and cinnamon toast.
Well, maybe you had to be there, but it was glamorous as heck to me!)

I got older, and eventually it was my turn (and then my younger siblings and cousins turn) to go assist those same aunts, now that they had married and had little children. Then I recieved the assistance.
And so it goes.
It is valuable training in very real household skills and parenting, it provides true self esteem (which has nothing to do with praise, letter grades or programs, and everything to do with accomplishing or creating something that is really useful or that needs to be done.)

PLUS--She is now one of the "cool older cousins"--and that is just awesome!

Deep thought for the day:

Time flies like the wind--
Fruit flies like bananas.

Mothering 101

I had a lovely visit from a sweet young mother-to-be yesterday. She wanted and needed more information on breastfeeding, and I have MORE INFORMATION! She also got (as a free bonus!) information on labor, childrearing and mothering, since those are my passions. I really feel our society has lost a lot of traditional wisdom on how to be a truly good mother. Some of it is how you interact with the child, but that is only one portion, actually.

So, that being said, here is the first of my "lists of wisdom":

Wisdom for having a baby:

1. Your body was designed for this. RELAX and let it do it's job without interfering too much.

2. You can stop worrying about whether you can/will provide enough milk for your baby. You are a mammal. So is your baby. WOW--SIMPLE! That means, your body is designed to make the 1 PERFECT food for YOUR baby. Since it would be unwise to feed tiger milk to baby dolphins or gorilla milk to baby kangaroos (as those species are completely different, and have totally different growth needs), what baby humans need is human milk, perfectly customized for their own needs, by their own mommy.

3.The baby will automatically set it's breathing, heartbeat and temperature to match the person who is holding it, so bare chest to bare chest contact is VERY important to help your baby stabilize (and a great thing for daddy to do for baby while they clean mom up). It is important to continue skin to skin contact for the first several weeks.

4. The baby does recognize the voices of the people it heard in utero, and will prefer those people.

5. Babies need a lot LESS stuff than the stores would have you believe. Millions of babies have turned out fine without a crib, nursery or diaper genie. Babies prefer to sleep with their parents (or very nearby if you have to). After spending the last nine months listening to the sound of their parents breathing, heartbeat and talking why would they want to be locked away in a dark room by themself? They need to spend more time OUT of the car seat than IN it--a baby on a clean blanket on the floor is learning about spacial relationships and preparing to crawl (and it won't need a helmet to reshape it's soft little skull that has flattened from too much time in it's car seat!)

6. A baby sling or (even better a baby wrap) will help you have a happier, calmer baby, and a happier, more productive mom.

7. Babies can (and do) smile very soon after birth. Studies have shown that if the parents respond the baby will continue to smile, but if smiles are ignored, the baby will stop smiling until they are about 3 months old. (and honestly, when was the last time gas bubbles made you smile? Honestly, Gas Bubbles?)

8. All 5 senses are firmly in place by 17 weeks in utero. That means, when the baby is still the size of a billiard ball, it can feel pain and tickling, prefers sweet tastes to salty or bitter, and can hear the sounds of it's world--parents voices, mom's heartbeat and digestive system (which is a LOT louder than you would think!) and other sounds.

9. No cute little brightly colored or black and white toys are as exciting for your baby as your face. The more you play with and interact with your baby, the better you will get at understanding them, and the smarter your baby will be. Talk about a win-win situation!

10. You are wiser than you think. It will only take a few days for you to become the world's leading expert on your baby. Trust your heart. But find a wise mother (whose children you like, and are turning out well!) as a mentor.

The best book on raising a wise, happy child is "The Mothers Almanac" by Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons. There is a great companion book, also, "The Fathers Almanac" by S. Adams Sullivan. Your personal library should have both--and you should read them.

The next best book is "The One-Minute Mother" by Spencer Johnson.

And your "go-to" book should be by William and Martha Sears (they have GREAT books on attachment parenting, breastfeeding, discipline and more!) He is a doctor, and together they have 8 children (which makes him much wiser than the doctor part!)

Busy Summer

I have been very busy--which means I have been alternately chauffering all of my short people to all of the many and varied places they have to go (I would like to mention here, that even SmallDaughter has a more exciting social life than I do--Physical Therapy--[which has a POOL!], Occupational Therapy, and Theraputic Riding) and reading A LOT.

The big kids just went to the area level (22 counties) for their
4-H "Health & Safety Speaking Contest" Skit. They were very good, and I am really proud of them. They did a funny skit on Car Safety--so we have had a lot (more than usual) of backseat driving!

MFG has been working out of town, which always throws my groove off. I have remembered to feed everybody (mostly), but the food gets WAY more casual. Also, I can't go to bed when he isn't home--a big problem for the chronic insomniac!

I have thought of a lot of blog entries, but always when I am driving, and far away from my computer. When I get near the computer I have forgotten them, and I am too tired. I have been sleeping even worse than usual lately. Sigh.

LargeBoy is SO happy his best-friend-in-the world has finally come back from Texas. The yard is full of sticks again (battles have been renewed) and yesterday they got in trouble for making a zip-line off of the TV antenna tower to the crabapple tree (they assured me they always dropped off before they face planted into the tree.) I still stopped them.

My garden is flourishing. The tomatoes are as tall as I am. The cucumber is producing about 3 a day--perfect. The chickens are big and busy sounding. I will post pictures of their new run soon.

Summer Camp

We have begun our annual summer camp. While the big kids do have various "away" camps, one of the high points of summer is our camp that we have at home. We vote on weekly themes, which have included "Harry Potter", "Ancient Egypt", "Dragons" and "Movies". Each of the kids gets to be a counselor for 2 weeks. We plan menus, activities, crafts and movies that fit the themes. It sounds like more work than it actually is--and it keeps all of us (me included!) from turning into lumps of boredom! We have had a great time with it, and my children's creativity continually stuns me!

Real Independence means no one HOVERS

Yesterday, while I was in the garage running power tools, LargeBoy came out and asked if he could build something. I said yes--that being a VERY important part of my homeschooling philosophy. He puttered around, getting some wood from the scrap pile, asking questions, and I showed him how to safely operate the radial arm saw, and the drill/screwdriver, and he made a very nice box for DVD's--as nice as most high school shop projects. He is excited to make more projects--the world has opened up for him! It is fun to see! Also, while we were outside, BigGirl volunteered to make dinner, called her aunt for a favorite recipe, and made pasta alfredo with meat from scratch--with no help! A day for independence!

Living a blessed life

During the last week, I have had a chance to read blogs from several beautiful, wise virtual friends
who are going through many types of pain. I cried with them as I learned from the lessons they share, the beauty they find in life, even during their trials (or maybe it is more correct that they find beauty especially during their trials).


My life has not been free of trials, pain or difficulty. However, the more I live through, the more I see that the sweetest blessings I have recieved have been those that came in the middle of a trial. I have had uncountable numbers of miracles-miracles of timing, when the exact person that I needed was exactly where I needed them to be, with the tools/equipment/experience that I needed at that moment.

Every life has hardship. There are basically only 2 choices.

A)Deal with it,
or
B)kill yourself.

If you choose option A)--Deal with it, you have two further choices:

A) Deal with it well
or
B)Deal with it poorly.

There are MANY variations of "dealing with it poorly". I will let you observe those for yourself (hopefully from a safe distance).

In my opinion, "dealing with it well" takes:

faith and prayer
a sense of humor
and
a sense of gratitude.

Prayer for me is not a "weak" or "passive" option. Prayer is a very real power, which even non-believers have studied and found gives both physical and mental health benefits. Prayer not only reassures me of a loving Heavenly Fathers interest in, and care for my individual life (which is pretty darn amazing, when you think about it), but I have had prayers answered so many times that I cannot doubt its efficacy.

A sense of humor serves you very well when your only options are to laugh or to have a total, sobbing breakdown. Sadly, these two options present themselves together fairly often in my life. Being the mother of a child with multiple neurological handicaps gives me this choice all the time. Wait--now that I think about it, I should have said "Being the mother of a child...gives me this choice all the time" that would have been more correct.

Motherhood moves these two options to the forefront of your life like nothing else can. When you walk into the living room (like a certain sweet young mom that I know) to find that your angelic children have thrown an entire (extra-large, family sized) canister of flour all over--and then thrown cups of water all over that, so that instead of having a huge floury mess to vacuum up, now you have a huge flour paste mess--you know you are deep in the forest of motherhood. Laughing through tears is permitted.


"Making Flour Angels"

My mom, above her hospital bed, when she was diagnosed with acute, agressive leukemia the week of her 50th birthday, had 2 signs posted:
One said
"How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans!"
and the other said
"Never knock on death's door--Ring the bell and run--He hates that!".
That is one of the reasons she is my hero.

People would tell her all the time "Oh, I could never have that many children--I just don't have the patience!" To which she would invariably respond "I didn't have the patience when I started!" Patience comes one crisis at a time. Trust me--laughing is better.

A sense of gratitude is amazing. It changes the focus of your life from an inward looking perspective "oh poor me, I don't have_____" to an outward looking perspective, where you can see how much you really do have. If you are trying to live a grateful life, you will still have times where it is hard, but you will find yourself forcibly jogged from your little rut of self pitying gloom to see how good you really have it--if you pay attention.

Two examples from my own life--both on days where I was feeling very sorry for myself, deep in my own dark little "pity party". One was a day where I was missing my mom quite dreadfully. Two news items were brought to my attention--one the suicide of a father, who had held in his sorrow,stress and sadness until he could no longer cope, and the other a mother who was in a deadly car accident. The children of these people also lost their parents, but unlike me, did not have a grace period of several months to spend precious, aware moments saying goodbye. I am so blessed.

The other was a day when being SmallDaughter's mother had me at the end of my tether. I was (once again) wallowing in self pity, thinking how hard my life is--she needs watching every second, 24/7, she pinches and bites when she is frustrated, and has no way to communicate what she needs or thinks or feels, she ... (on, and on, and on) when I started talking to another mother in the waiting room at therapy. She was there, waiting for her son to finish his therapy. Her son, who was around the age of LargeBoy, who had been a bright, creative, noisy boy, was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the surgery and treatments had saved his life, but he could no longer talk, walk, take care of himself in any way--and the tumor had reoccured. (If you really need a dose of gratitude, hang out in a pediatric waiting room and find out how good your life really is!) My problems were instantly reduced to the tiny, miniscule things that they really are. Gratitude saves the day again.

I live a very blessed life.

Sam is Engaged!

The handsome son of my dear friend L, just announced his engagement. We became friends long ago, when I was still at home, and my mom had her fullest house ever. In those days, Sam was a bright and sparkly 4 year old, with big blue eyes and strawberry blond hair.

My mom had OOODLES of smart, funny, opinionated, literate unschooled children. The oldest of us were big enough to start showing the results of years of home school. This was back in the days of "you do what? Is that legal?" whereas now, when you tell someone you are homeschooling the most common response is "I know somebody who does that..."

Anyway, we became friends with L, who was between my mom's age and my age, and who also believed big families are great. My mom inspired L to homeschool her children. L had a big family, with mostly boys. Those children are now big, and going into the world to change and shape the future.

I am happy that these good men were allowed to be little boys first--they wiggled, they made noise, they got dirty, they took up lots and lots of room, and made lots and lots of messes. I am proud of them. I am proud of the way they grew up as individuals. They have gentle hearts and are kind, loving and strong. Our future is in good hands with men like these.

I am proud of their mom. I hope I can grow up to be like her.