Let's Hear It For the Boys

Warning: this is a kid update post. Let's shake it up a bit and start with the youngest for a change. Justin! He's 14 and a half months old now and has been crawling around for maybe a month or so. In the last week he's conquered stair climbing and goes up our stairs pretty much 20 times a day now. He's starting to look pretty skinny from all that climbing and crawling (no worries, he doesn't seem to be in any danger of losing his cute thigh rolls yet...). His favorite room to play in is the kitchen. I don't know why exactly, but he seems to have a kind of routine down: go to fridge, throw off all magnets within reach, turn stool over and put magnets in slots, throw magnets as far as possible, open tupperware cupboard, get into recyclables under sink, then finally make way to last cupboard in kitchen to see if there's anything worth pulling out. I know, sounds like fun, to Justin it's grade A entertainment. Justin has also discovered the bathroom and pulling himself up into a standing position. He usually leaves the toilet alone, but can't resist sometimes. He also loves to close doors then cries when he can't open them again. He's been pulling himself into a standing position at his toy chest and pulling books down. As you know, I'm always eager for more things to clean up. It's fun to see Evan and Justin interacting more. In some ways Justin wants to be just like his big bro: has a growing attachment to a blue blanket, doesn't like white milk, and sticks to mom like glue. Justin is still my happy little guy and I'll be sad when he's a full fledged toddler because I still can't help calling him my baby. sigh!

Evan and I are still so much alike sometimes it's scary. We know what the other is thinking and the same things make us mad. However, it's not fun when we are both mad at the same time, but we are working on that! Evan's favorite thing to do is to build. Building with pipes is number 1 but he'll build with legos, castle blocks, and his kinex too. He also likes to draw and recently has discovered video games. I honestly thought I was in the clear on that last one, after 4 and a half years in a house full of video games and NO interest in them, I figured he just wasn't going to ever like them and I was happy about that. Alas, I was wrong! It's become our newest battle: how long he can play, when he can play, what he can play. Ugh. At least he likes going to preschool finally. He rarely fights me on it (a day I thought would NEVER come) and I've seen how he's grown and learned from his experiences there.

Even though raising kids has been the most demanding, exhausting, and frustrating job I've ever had, I know it's what I'm meant to be doing right now and there's things that only my kids can teach me that I need to learn. I've found, especially in my struggles with Evan, that even though I wish I could just snap my fingers to make things better on the bad days, I know it's not in vain, I'm not being punished, but molded into the Mom I need to be. It's a hard process, one I'm not always eager to go through, but with Heavenly Father's help, I know it's one I won't regret and one I'm determined not to fail at. I love my kids and even though I don't always love myself for the shortcomings I see in myself as their mother, I know there's a reason we're together, and I think it's mostly for my learning and growing benefit at this time. So kids, thanks for loving your imperfect mother, just know I'm trying!!

"I'm the Boss!"

Evan yelled at me the other morning from across the kitchen table "I'm the boss and you're not!" Great, I sighed to myself thinking our day was already off to a sour start. Evan then proceeded to stand up in his chair, give me his most defiant look and just in general try to lord over me, giving an even further sinking feeling to my stomach. But then, I thought, heck, why not kid? Why don't you just be the boss already? You practically rule our house anyways! So, then, I looked at him and said, "yep, Evan, you're right, you are the boss, so let me tell you about your duties." I then started to tell him all that he needed to do as "the boss", starting from everything I do from the moment the kids get up. I told him how, as the boss, he was in charge of getting him and his brother breakfast, oh, and breakfast for me for the matter. This was getting fun, so I told him I wanted waffles on Monday, cereal on Tuesday ect. Of course, then I had to tell him how he had to put the dishes away in the morning and change Justin's butt and on and on. Finally, he stops me and says "But I don't know how to do all of those things!" To which I replied "Oh, that's too bad, because, as the boss, you're going to have to learn because the boss is in charge of everything, right?" He starts thinking about it again, we talk about how I'm willing to teach him all that stuff so he can be a proper boss, and then finally he sighs and says "That's ok Mom, you can be the boss, I don't want to have to do all of that stuff." Ahh, the morning was starting to look up again...however, now I did have to go do all of that stuff I had just described to him...oh well! Merry Christmas everyone!!!

The Story of My Life Part 6: The Move to a Senior Citizen Trailer Court

All good things must come to an end, right? And thus it was with our blissful time in the country. My parents eventually did get worn out from tending their one acre and from driving back and forth into the nearest "big" town, so they decided to move into town and make us city folk. Tiffin isn't a big place, it's got about a population of 18,000 people in it, but out of all the places to live in town, my parents picked a trailer court for people who were over the age of 60 for us to call home. Ok, my parents were in their mid 30s at the time, so how did they get us young people in? They hid us. Just kidding! They bribed the trailer court owner I think. Tee-hee. His name was MJ Brown and he liked money and him and my parents came to an agreement that got us a nice blue double-wide. Now, you have to understand something about Ohio, there are trailer courts everywhere, but they are much nicer than the ones I've seen out west. I promise you, you'd be impressed. Plus, there's no stigma attached to living in one in Ohio like there is out here. I never thought twice about it, the house was really nice.
The trailer court wasn't half bad either, it had a swimming pool alongside a rock quarry "lake" to swim in, lots of places to ride my bike and a shuffle board court. My sister and I even got a paper route. Well, Jenn had it officially as her own at first, but she felt so bad asking for people to pay up, I started to do the collecting for her and when Mom found out she made me Jenn's official partner and I started delivering papers too. We got to know a lot of the residents that way. Plus, you really stick out when you're 8 and everyone else is over 60. I got all the lemonade and cookies I wanted, it was like I had 20 sets of grandparents. I used to go pick wildflowers and give the flowers to my favorite residents. They were all so sweet (except for one guy who would yell at Jenn and I whenever we'd ride by on our bikes--which we responded to by biking up onto his driveway any chance we got--but even he too eventually warmed up to us). But living in a senior citizen trailer court isn't as bad as you'd think when you're 8.

Family Photos

Who doesn't love a good photo session with the kids? It's such a relaxing time for everyone, one free of stress and worry, full of smiles and happiness and golden unicorns. I think we should do a photo shoot at least once a month from now on.

A Parenting Book Made for Me and Evan

Some of you already know that a book I put on hold at the library awhile ago finally came in this week (because I've already started to talk your ear off about it!) and it's called "Raising Your Spirited Child: a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent and energetic." I first heard about this book on my friend Tristan's blog. She has a child that fits this description too and talked about how this book was immensely helpful to her so that's when I immediately put it on hold because I said "hmm, this sounds like me and Evan!". If you are wondering "what is a spirited child?" "do I need to read this book?" then my answer would be nope! you probably don't need to read it! If you have a spirited child, there's no need to wonder about it, you KNOW it. lol!
The really interesting thing is when I'm reading this book it's like I'm finding all the answers to my concerns with how to deal with Evan answered (I feel like this book is reading my mind!) that I've been wondering about for forever, but I'm also finding out things about ME that I never knew how to deal with before. I know Evan and I are a lot alike. I was a very spirited child and there's a lot of things, as a now spirited adult, I'm able to manage well, but there's always been things about my personality I've never understood or knew how to manage. And it's really worried me that I'm supposed to teach my child how to manage something I can't manage in myself. My parents did a great job raising me and helped me out in a lot of ways, but I was really, really hard to deal with as a small child and some of those things carried over as an adult. It's like, if you don't learn how to manage some things as a child, you grow up and still don't know how to manage them. One of those things is my intense temper. I've struggled for years with my blowups, and having a child just like me with the same tendency really gets things crazy around here sometimes. And the book talks about intensity and how not to be afraid of it and how to watch for cues when things are getting too intense and how one needs to get out of the situation and go do a calming activity. So, this morning for instance, we were all in the same room and the baby was starting to cry and fuss and Evan was getting whiny and demanding and Steven wasn't engaging the situation like I was hoping he would and I could feel myself getting steamed and overwhelmed. Then, I realized these cues in myself that I needed to get out of the situation before I blew, so I picked the baby up, and went downstairs to have breakfast. And it worked! I didn't blow up and I could feel myself immediately calming down. In the past, I would have picked a fight with Steve to get him to help which would have made the children even more agitated and then blown up when my "plan" to defuse the situation backfired. Instead, the baby and I got breakfast and Steve dealt with Evan in my absence like I sensed he would. And these same tactics work for Evan. I really could go on and on, but it's amazing how finding the right book has suddenly given me the tools I've been formerly lacking in my life to deal with so many things so much better. It's a true blessing!! One which I can tell I'll probably blog about several more times! Lucky!!
here's a link to copy and paste that leads to a really good article that sums up the book and what spirited children are very well: http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsbehavior/0,,45pv,00.html

The Story of My Life Part 5: Treehouses, Gardens, Ponds and Cornfields

I don't remember if we mentioned it to Dad just once or maybe it was a million times, but at some point in our young lives my sister and I told him we'd like a treehouse. So what does good ol' dad do? He builds us one of course! My dad is the sort of person who once he decides to do something he doesn't wait around, he does it NOW and doesn't stop till it's done. Thus it was with said treehouse. He chopped down the trees, laid the planks, got the ladder up and everything in what pretty much felt like one day. We lived on an acre of land and we had 2 small forests right behind our house each going down the same hill. A big swath of grass divided them (I think the bare spot was there just so we had something to sled down in the winter). The forest he built the treehouse in was considered the "tame" forest. You could actually walk through it, the other one was too wild and you had to climb over tons of underbrush to get through it. Anyways, the treehouse was right at the beginning of the tame forest and my sister and I played in it for hours. We always dreamt of upgrading it--give it things like a roof, more rooms ect. but I thought we were pretty lucky to have one at all. Most kids only dream of having a treehouse, but we actually had one! I remember Jenn loved to climb trees, but I didn't so I'd always use the ladder to get down, but Jenn would liked to grab onto the nearest tree and climb down. She's such a daredevil!!
My dad is the most enthusiastic gardener I know. And having an acre of land to tinker with meant he put as much of it as he could to good use. We had every kind of fruit tree imaginable, and a gigantic vegetable garden. Every year Dad would expand the garden somehow so we even had flower gardens with brick paths through them and everything. Thinking about how much work that all must been, I wish I would have inherited Dad's energy!
When I was really young, we had a big pool in the yard. But Dad got tired of maintaining it, so one summer he took it out and what remained was a huge mud hole. One day my sister Jenn, my foster sister Crystal and I decided it would be fun to jump in it. Of course, it turned into a big mud wrestling match and I still remeber trying to climb out of that mud pit and just being covered, head to toe, in mud. It disgusts me to think of it now, but back then, that was called some good country fun! Eventually, the mud hole grew some cattails, got some frogs in it and became a regular looking pond. I remember catching tadpoles and frogs for hours, but I never went "swimming" in it again!
We lived by a lot of farms, so there were tons of cornfields to go exploring in. I remember one time, walking through one to this little island of land that had a small forest in it and in that forest were a couple of graves. Yet, what really scared me away from cornfields? Not graves, but E.T. Yep, pretty much after that movie I wouldn't go near a cornfield for a very long time. And I still look behind the shower curtain when I go to the bathroom to make sure he's not there either. Ok, just kidding about that last part, really...