I love my family. I would rather spend time with them than any other people on the face of the earth.
I love being my kids’ mom. I have enjoyed all the little stages of their childhoods that have brought us to this point and I truly love the people they are becoming.
Even if sometimes the people they are becoming can be a little bit goofy.
Every time we are at Aloha Tower, they have to pose like the statues.
One of the three was not in much of a posing mood.
However…..
I need time to not be with my children.
One of the best bits of advice Sus gave me when I was a brand new mom was to schedule time away from the kids. She told me that even if she got away for just a little while, she was always a better mom after a little break.
As usual, she was right.
It has been harder to find time to myself since we moved here last summer, but this weekend, I had the opportunity to get some hairapy and spend time with two of my favorite people. It was fun to laugh and eat and talk with grown up friends. Not to say that we weren’t a little goofy at times ourselves. Conversations took strange twists and turns that resulted in weird and random Google searches.
I don’t think we ever figured out which newscaster Alex was trying to remember. It wasn’t either of these.
I came home Sunday evening to a clean house and a family who loves me.
So here’s the takeaway point on this short little post:
Friends, no matter how hard it is to schedule, you need time away to recharge your batteries. You need date nights alone with your husband (That’s still a challenge we need to make happen at my house!), you need time with girl friends, and you need time all by yourself. Of course, you also need a husband who will support you in these endeavors and I am more than blessed to have a man who doesn’t begrudge me any time that I get to sneak away.
I’d be curious to know how you all schedule time away from the kids. And if you had a dream weekend all to yourself, how would you spend it?
Where did you go in such a hurry, Little Curly-Haired Boy?
Couldn’t you slow down and stay little just a little while longer?
More than anything else, I wanted to be a mom and twelve years ago you gave that gift to me. Because you were my first baby, sometimes you got the very best of me, but at other times, unfortunately you got my worst.
I guess I’m still practicing on you as we go through each new stage together. Now you’re almost a teenager. Not only are you growing out of your clothes and shoes, you’re pushing against the boundaries that confined you as a little boy and trying to find the man you’ll one day be. Sometimes, because I love you and, though you may not believe it, know more than you, I have to push back when you want to travel down roads that wouldn’t be good paths for you to travel. But mostly I marvel at the great person you are. I’m so very proud of you even though I know I can’t take the credit for the Goodness that is in you.
I used to be in charge of all the minutes of your day because I was with you almost every minute of every day. I chose your clothes, your friends, even what you’d eat. Now I’m not with you all the time and you’re making more and more of those choices for yourself. I’m trusting that you will rely on the Goodness that is in you, the Keeper of your heart. I pray that you are allowing Him to order your steps and that as you become more independent of me, you’ll become more dependent on Him. As much as I love you, He loves you more.
I do love you. So very much. As we walk through this next season together, I pray that you will grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.
He has big plans for you, Little Curly-Haired Boy.
I thought we’d kick off the series with a discussion about Halloween tricks, treats, and traditions.
First, just a word about family traditions. If you don’t have any, get some. They don’t have to be elaborate, but they are the memories our children will talk about for the rest of our lives and may continue in their own families. For example, I’ve carried on two of my family’s Halloween traditions: corn chowder and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Every year my mom would make corn chowder for Halloween. Soup, stew, or chili is a good choice for Halloween because you can keep it warm on the stove. Everyone can have a small bowl before trick-or-treating and warm up with a little more (if it happens to be cold where you are) after the Halloween festivities. I haven’t put our corn chowder recipe online yet, but I do have some other favorite soup/stew/chili recipes to share and I have a few on my Pinterest Looks Good Enough to Eat board that I haven’t tried yet.
Back in the old days, we had to watch Linus and the gang whenever the network felt like showing it to us, but now in the day of the DVR, you can tape the show and watch it as a family whenever it’s convenient for you! Pop a bag of popcorn, make some Whimzie Crack, or if you’re really in the Halloween spirit, roast the pumpkin seeds from your jack-o-lantern. I’m linking you to a basic recipe, but you can jazz it up with any seasonings you like to make it sweet or savory.
A new Halloween tradition we added a few years ago is our candy corn and peanuts mix. You’ve tried this, right? If you haven’t, maybe you shouldn’t, because I’m warning you, once you start eating it, it’s very hard to stop.
Pinterest can be a black hole that sucks all the time out of your afternoon, but it can also be a great place to find and store ideas for new Halloween traditions. I like one having one central location to put my ideas. Here’s a link to my Fall Pinterest board. Now, will I try all of those ideas? Absolutely not. But I will try a few. I really want to try the toilet paper roll pumpkins this weekend. Our neighbors have a four-year-old son. This looks like a super easy, no sew, no glue craft we can all do together. Remember, the goal is not to create the perfect holidays that all the moms in the neighborhood will envy. The goal is to create moments with the people you love that will become the memories you treasure.
Does your family have any Halloween traditions?
Here’s my challenge question for the week: How do you handle the leftover Halloween candy? Do you have rules on how much candy the kids are allowed to have after Halloween? How long do you keep the candy around? Do you allow everyone to keep their candy separate or does it go in one big communal pile? I’d love to hear some of your ideas!
Also, if you have any more ideas on how to make this time of year easier or more special, I’d love to hear them! Email me: snoodlings@live.com
I’m trying something new today. I decided to participate in 5 Minute Friday with The Gypsy Mama. No editing or self-critique. Just write for five minutes and publish. It is taking great self-restraint not to read over this and edit before I hit PUBLISH, but I’m going to do it anyway. Cringe! Today’s writing prompt was: GRATITUDE
It sounds innocent enough, but underneath the words I hear something more dangerous than just an off-handed complaint, I sense a more menacing threat.
“I didn’t want to eat here.”
“This is boring.”
“I’m too tired to clean my room.”
Taken as isolated comments, these sound like harmless ways my children express themselves. But string them together over the course of a day and throw in a little attitude, and I become aware that my children need to learn to live lives of gratitude.
We have so much. Sure there are those who have more, but we have much more than we need to exist. I want to provide opportunities and fun experiences for my children, but I also want to see those things as privileges, not rights.
The Bible says that to whom much is given, much is required.
So how does a mom teach an attitude of gratitude?
As I brainstorm this morning, I record these ideas:
1. We need to spend more time serving people who have less.
I need to let them take more active roles in communicating with our sponsored Compassion child. I should teach them about Ethiopia and what everyday life must be like for Tekalign.
I should look for ways we can serve those in need right here in our community. My children need to know that it isn’t just people who live in third world countries who need our help; many in our own city go to sleep hungry and without the basic provisions we take for granted.
2. I need to express my own gratitude more freely. They need to hear me thank more and complain less. I feel like I am a grateful person but I wonder how often they hear my appreciation.
They also need to serve others. They need to know what it looks like to put others before themselves. I need to become more faithful in writing thank you notes to people who have shown me kindness. Thank you notes have become a lost art and I’m so guilty of letting my verbal thanks serve as my only expression of gratitude.
We don’t get many snow days where I live, but last Friday, we had snow. Before 10 a.m. we had created a multitude of heavenly hosts (aka snow angels) and an androgynous snow person. No one could decide whether we’d made a snow”he” or a snow”she.”
I took pictures. Want to see?
Sometimes I fancy myself to be a real photographer. K gave me a fancy, new camera for Christmas. I planned to learn how to use it by reading the owner’s manual on the way to his family’s house for Christmas, but I packed the Spanish version of the manual instead of the English one. I took Spanish for Medical Professionals for one semester when I was in nursing school but I all I remember is how to say “Where does it hurt? (“[upside-down question mark] Donde le duele?”) and “Push!” (“Empuja!”) I also speak a little Dora (“Come on! Vamonos!”), but I’ve never seen an episode of Dora where she deals specifically with aperture settings. Hence, I only know how to use my fancy, new camera on the automatic setting.
Anyway, here are my artsy pictures of snowy trees:
The tire swing in our yard:
I was trying to do a “Narnia” thing here with the lampost. I didn’t realize the car was in the frame. That kind of ruins the effect for me:
I love it when trees come together like this to make a little tunnel of sorts:
I like to think that my little signs are part of the reason the snow decided to visit us. (Never mind that I put them out many a year with nary a flake to be seen all winter.):
My “home sweet home gnome.” He makes me smile:
Feeling artsy again:
Real live snow really falling down right here in Louisiana. I took a picture. It will last longer:
Find the cardinal:
My mom used to get irritated when we’d get our vacation pictures developed only to find that my dad had taken six rolls of film with nothing but birds and trees on them. I wonder if Ansel Adams’s wife gave him the same kind of grief. I did take pictures of people. Here are a few:
He owns a coat and yet he doesn’t always wear it:
His brother, on the other hand, is ready for some black diamonds. Ski googles are a must:
Always camera ready:
One of the obligatory snow angels:
Grammy takes Colonel out for a romp in the snow:
The obligatory snow person. We thought it was a snowman but look at those eyelashes!:
Mugging with the snowperson:
You know what I like about snow days? I mean besides the…snow? I like that we take the time to notice the stuff we miss when our schedules are full and our days are “normal.” I don’t usually take the time to look at trees. I don’t always take the time to make our hot chocolate more special by adding whipped cream and peppermint syrup. I go from Task A to Task B and sometimes I don’t fully look and listen to the people around me. But on snow days, I slow down and enjoy life one minute at a time. We play and laugh and rest. I think I’m going to schedule more snow days….whether the snow comes or not.
I don’t know who decided this would be “Ralph’s Favorite Stories” week here at Snoodlings. I guess I did, since I write the blog. (Anyone else hear Barry Manilow right there? Just a quick verse of “I Write the Blogs That Make the Whole World Sing”? Or as a result of a couple of posts last week maybe that should be “The Blogs That Make the Whole World Sick.”) To be honest, my brain hurts. I don’t mean that I have a headache, I mean that my brain is just a little irritable this week and seems to be rebelling against making thoughts of any real import. So I’m just telling Ralph’s favorite stories instead. Here goes:
When we found out we were having twins we were very surprised. You see, I’d just spent over three months convincing myself that I was NOT having twins. I knew something was different about that pregnancy from the very beginning. I asked all my friends who had multiples what their pregnancy was like. I googled symptoms. I was convinced that I had more than one baby in there. But everyone I talked to convinced me that I was having a girl, not more than one baby. And the nurse practitioner only heard one set of heartbeats, so I also became sure that I was only having one baby. So sure, in fact, that even several years after they were born, whenever anyone said something about me being the mother of twins, I felt surprised all over again. I still have “Good grief! I have twins!” moments from time to time, six years later.
After the initial surprise, we realized that we now had to have two names ready instead of just one. We knew that we didn’t want “twinny” sounding names like Fred and Ted or Millie and Molly. We did want their names to have significance and to be connected in some way but without the rhyming or too much alliteration. Which is weird because we both grew up Baptist and Baptists are generally known for their love of all things alliterative. I’ll blame it on the fact that we weren’t attending a Baptist church at the time.
We didn’t know the gender of the babies initially so we tried to think of combinations of boy names, girl names, and boy and girl names. If the babies were boys we considered naming them after our fathers. What a tribute, right? Sounds great until you realize that my dad’s name was Jerry and my husband’s name was Benjamin. We thought asking our boys to go through life as Ben and Jerry would be too much to ask. Plus, I was afraid that I would constantly be craving Cherry Garcia and would never be able to lose my baby weight. (I’m a suggestible eater.)
We were almost relieved when the ultrasound revealed that we were going to have a boy and a girl so we could put our ice cream names aside. On the way home from one of our appointments I asked our oldest, who was two years old, what he thought we should name our babies. We were trying to help him understand the big brother role he would soon have and wanted to involve him in as much of the changes our family was experiencing as we could. He thought about it for a minute and said with great certainty that he thought we should name his little brother “Jesus” and his little sister “Bubbles.”
That night at drama practice I told my friends that my son had decided to name his siblings after the Messiah and a stripper. They thought the names were hilarious and for the rest of my pregnancy, that’s what they called the little people growing in my stomach. My friend Alex still calls them Bubbles and Jesus and I guess she always will.
I’m not sure why this is one of Ralph’s favorite stories. It doesn’t even really have an ending. Maybe you all should hope my brain feels better very soon. Who knows what Ralph will want to hear next. Ralph, any more requests?
I’m bringing a big cookie from The Great American Cookie Company to your third grade class later this morning. Tonight, I’ll send you to choir practice with a couple dozen Krispy Kreme Happy Birthday doughnuts. On Friday, I’m bringing home a few of your friends for your very first slumber party. This weekend we’ll take the whole family out to dinner and you can pick any restaurant you want. We’ll probably throw in a gift or two. I’ll do everything I can do to make your ninth birthday a special one and yet…
It still won’t be enough to thank you for what you did for me.
You made one of the biggest dreams of my life come true.
You made me a mom.
I had more to say but I can’t because these pictures make me cry.
Before I ever even met you, I imagined what a wonderful boy you’d be. You are far more amazing than my very best dream.
So, it’s not a family secret, but if you don’t mind leaning a little closer, I want to share something about myself that you may not know. You ready? Okay, here it is…….I….homeschool. Now, please don’t misunderstand, I am in no way ashamed of the fact that we are a homeschool family, but since I’ve started homeschooling I’ve learned that revealing that piece of information the first time I meet someone is not always the best idea.
The most common response I get when I tell someone we homeschool is, “Oh.” Now that two-letter word may not seem like much, but let me tell you, I can get a lot of information from that little reaction. Sometimes “Oh” means, “I wonder if she’s ‘homeschool weird.’” You know what “homeschool weird” is, right? No? Oh, come on. Surely some of you have heard “homeschool” and immediately thought of something like this:
Truthfully, that’s what I used to think, too. Over the years I’ve known several homeschool families and a few actually may have fit into that category. Most, however, are more like my family. When I meet another homeschooling mom, I always like to test the waters to see just where on the homeschool spectrum she fits.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had a chance to get to know Tiffani from Bears and Belles through blogging and emails and the like. She homeschools and in the course of one our first email volleys we had the following exchange. My email is in pink (because it’s my blog and I get to pick the colors) and her reply is in green.
I saw in your About Me section on your blog that you homeschool. Me, too! This is my first year. I’m always curious to hear people’s homeschool stories. I think I have a wide assortment of “personalities” amongst my homeschooling friends. I’m just wondering if you’d go into the “Kind of Out There” or the “Perfectly Normal” group. Yeah, I’m just kidding again.
Well, I wear long denim and no make-up…I have a freezer full of organic products and a garden growing in the back. And a cow for the slaughter lives in the backyard as we only eat from our own resources. We are up by 7 fully clothed and reciting prayers…My children fluently speak 2 languages and are almost completely self-taught…
ARE YOU VOMITING YET????????????????????
JUST KIDDING!!! Girl, I am about as “normal and flexible” as they come…Handy Manny qualifies us for Spanish and multiculturalism and we do the Cha Cha slide for PE….I do absolutely love homeschooling and this is my fourth year….
At this moment, I knew that my next question to Tiffani would HAVE to be, “Will you please accept this rose? Heriloom variety and organically grown, of course.”
Of course “Oh” sometimes means, “She thinks she’s a better mom and Christian than I am because she homeschools and I don’t.” I can promise you, I’m certainly not judging you because you don’t homeschool. Some days I may actually envy you. Besides, unless you are physically or verbally abusing your kid in the checkout line in front of me at Target, I am not judging you as a mom. Oh, I used to judge moms all the time….before I actually had kids. Now I prefer not to shoot my fellow sister soldiers who are doing warfare in the trenches with me. Being a mom is the greatest joy of my life and it is the most difficult thing I have ever endeavored to do. And I don’t think homeschooling my kids necessarily gives me any Mom Bonus Points.
Especially on days like today when I hope I’m not failing at this homeschool thing. Today was rough. Some days I feel good about what we’ve accomplished. I find creative ways to teach difficult concepts and I actually make learning fun. Some days we finish everything I had set out to do that day and the kids still want to do more. And then there are days like today. It wasn’t our worst homeschool day but it certainly wasn’t our best. On our worst days, we all end up crying. I don’t think any of us cried today, but we didn’t get everything done and there was nothing innovative or creative about what we did do. Basically we all went through the motions….just barely.
I know that for this season I am supposed to homeschool my kids. My husband and I both arrived at this decision at almost exactly the same time. We knew that this was what we needed to do as a family, especially this year, and I haven’t doubted that decision. Will I homeschool next year? I don’t have the answer to that yet. If for some reason we don’t homeschool next year, I know that I will miss it. I’ve loved that I’ve had more of the hours of their day than anyone else. I’ve loved knowing what they’re learning and watching their brains stretch and grow and develop. I’ve loved having a say in what information they are cementing in their lives. Despite the days like today, this has been a worthwhile experience. I just want to be sensitive to what God is leading us to do next year and to be obedient to what I believe He tells us to do.
I’d love to keep talking about this, but that cow won’t feed herself. And I need to grind the wheat to bake the bread. And finish weaving the fabric for our Easter outfits.
It’s April Fools’ Day! I thought about posting that I was pregnant, or that I’d checked myself into rehab because of all the popcorn crack, or that FlyLady had asked me to take over for her when she retired because I was the best FlyBaby she’d ever raised, and then I was going to end the post with a great big “APRIL FOOLS’!” (I’m always conflicted where the apostrophe should be on that exclamation or if it even needs one!) I decided not to go that route. Instead, my mom suggested that I tell the story about the Orange Balls….which reminded me of the story about the kiwi….which reminded me about the worms, the funnel, and coalmikinosis. So even though I just posted a family secret a couple of days ago, I’m going to give you another one. This one is about my mom, the prankster.
My mom is an amazing person. I could write pages and pages, books even, about what a wonderful woman she is. Unfortunately, today you aren’t going to hear about her more loving and compassionate traits. She has them, I promise, but she also has an evil streak. She LOVES a good practical joke. I’m going to try to keep this post from becoming epic in length, but I have so many wonderfully cruel stories of pranks she’s pulled that it’s hard to cull out any as being the best. I think I’ll just do this post in installments to keep it from being the length of ANNA KARENINA.
The sad thing is, Mom doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age or familial connection. She will pull one over on small children and the geriatric population without a second thought. And if you’re related to her? All the better. Let me tell you the kinds of things she used to do to my poor little cousins.
My Aunt Darlene used to allow her twin daughters to spend time with us during the summer. Now my mom would pull out all the stops to see that the girls had a good time. We’d eat snow cones and play in the water and do all the stuff that makes summer so much fun. But in between the fun, my mother would torment those poor children.
One day, Mom was cutting up fruit for a fruit salad. Several kiwis were on the cutting board, waiting their turn to be added to the bowl. Apparently, my cousin Ashley, who was probably about five years old at the time, had never seen a kiwi. She reached out to touch one and asked, “What is that?”
Now, I don’t know what possessed my mom at that moment, but the second Ashley touched the kiwi, my mom shrieked, “OH, NO! Did you TOUCH it?!” Ashley’s eyes were as big as her face and she was so startled that all she could do was nod.
My mom cried, “You should NEVER touch one of those!! Oh, NO! I hope it’s not TOO LATE!! HURRY! HURRY! Let’s go get some alcohol!”
Ashley, unsure of what was happening ran with my mom to the hall closet where we kept the first aid supplies. Mom grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, poured some on a cotton ball and frantically started scrubbing Ash’s finger. Then she handed the alcohol to me and yelled, “Here! Keep scrubbing while I call the doctor!!”
I’d like to be able to say that I put the bottle down and assured poor, sweet Ashley that this was all a joke and she was going to be fine. But being the obedient child that I was, I did what my mother commanded me to do.
Mom picked up the phone and acted like she was calling the doctor. “No, I think she only touched it for just a second. Right. So do you think her finger will fall off? No, it isn’t turning black…not yet anyway. Do you think we should take her to the emergency room?”
Just before Ashley slipped into total freakout mode, we realized we couldn’t keep up the farce any longer. We started laughing hysterically as Ashley stumbled around with a “deer in the headlights” expression. The poor child didn’t know what was happening and I doubt that she’s ever actually tasted a kiwi because of that trauma. She just turned twenty-eight last month, so scarred for life? I’ll let you be the judge.
That summer Mom also did the trick where you trace a quarter with a pencil and then somehow convince people to roll it all over their faces. Again, they were five years old, so it didn’t take a lot of convincing. Oh, one of her favorite pranks that summer was the funnel trick! Have you seen that one? I found an example of this prank on YouTube. Watch this:
Now imagine two tiny, defenseless preschoolers with ice water running down their legs. Let’s see, what else did Mom do to those children that summer? If I’m not mistaken, that’s the summer she put nasty plastic worms from Dad’s fishing tackle in their beds. If I’m not mistaken, that’s also the year their night terrors began. I was just reliving these stories with my mom on the phone. My Aunt Darlene just happens to be visiting there this week (what do you want to bet she checks her bad tonight after these stories?) and she was saying she couldn’t believe Mom was so cruel to her children. I said that I couldn’t believe Aunt Darlene kept sending them back year after year to be tortured.
Believe it or not, Mom maintains a healthy relationship with her nieces even today. I think I’m just now beginning to understand why she helped moved them in and out of their apartments each year at college and why she worked tirelessly helping the girls before their weddings. Guilt, maybe?
Anyway, that’s enough about my mom the prankster for today. Stay tuned for my mom’s personal favorite, Family Secret #3B: My Mom, The Prankster: The One About the Orange Balls. Have a great April Fools’ Day! Oh, and I’d stay away from my mom today if I were you. Friend of mine or not, you wouldn’t be safe.
I’m going to let you in on another family secret today. This one involves family friends we had when I was younger. I don’t really remember when my mom and Marilyn became friends, but once they did it was as if her family had always been part of my family. Marilyn had three teenaged daughters and I was about five or so years younger than the youngest daughter. Our families spent huge amounts of time together and I have very special and fun memories of that family.
The dad of the family makes the best homemade ice cream on the face of this earth. Even if he gave you the recipe, you’d never be able to make it like Jake can. He’s also deaf as a post. (I know that’s not much of a segue, but I thought I’d start off with a compliment before I just laid the ugly truth out there.) Jake truly is one of the nicest, funniest people you’d ever want to meet, but if you do get to meet him, he probably won’t understand a word you say. But he’ll repeat to you what he thought he heard you say. Which is never what you said. But it’s almost always funnier.
Let me give you an example. Once upon a time, Jake and Marilyn walked into our house and Dad was on the phone. Mom told them that Dad was talking to Kay Wharton (she was a member of our church). Jake’s response? “Game warden? Why in the world is he talking to the game warden?”
One of Jake’s misunderstandings is so legendary that it has taken on its own persona. I’m not exactly sure why this gaffe became such an integral part of our family fiber, but to this day, if you are around any of us for any length of time, you will almost certainly hear us utter this phrase. So now, as the late great Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story…
Jake and Marilyn were on their way to somewhere to do something and Mom and Dad weren’t going. As they were leaving, Mom jokingly said, “Don’t have fun without us.” Jake immediately asked, “Alice? Don’t have fun with Alice? Who’s Alice?” So even today, if you’re going to do something without one of us, we will almost always say, “Don’t have fun with Alice!”
There’s an addendum to the Alice story. Apparently Jake had Alice issues. Shortly after the “fun with Alice” incident someone said something about outer space. Jake said, “Alice’s face? What about Alice’s face?”
So, I’m off to do productive things. Today’s my first day back on the FlyLady wagon, you know. I’ll have to let you know about my first day back on track. I didn’t expect any of the rest of you to actually want to do this with the CPQ and myself, but I’m glad for those of you who are. But like I told Tiffani, this isn’t like the time I turned you on to Popcorn Crack so I don’t want any of you throwing timers or control journals or feather dusters at me later this week. You’ve been warned. Now go forth and FLY, but whatever you do, don’t have fun with Alice!
