What’s a Mom to DO?

I have a dilemma.  There is a neighbor with an eight year old son who is a whirlwind, to put it nicely.  Usually I tend to avoid allowing my boys to spend time with kids that I don’t want them picking up bad habits from, but this boys happens to be the son of our 4-H leader and a good friend of mine. Sigh!

Tonight is the kickoff bbq and I am terrified that my boys, being younger than he is, will come home after spending an hour or so with this kid and be saying things like “Oh god!” and acting maniacal.  Not to mention that for this family money is not an object and they have every toy known to man including all the video game systems and state of the art computer equipment. 

At our house, partly out of necessity ;), we emphasise non-monetary contentment and I struggle big time with Thing Two and his addictive nature toward video games.  That amounts to their dad’s old Nintendo on rare occasions and three days a week he is allowed to earn time at a free online game where a quad goes forward and backward on a two dimensional track.  So nothing fancy at all.

I guess what I’m wondering is how do I prepare them for time with this boy since it is not possible to keep them segregated from every ornery boy on the planet!  I’m sure mine can come up with lots of their own trouble too.

Do I sit them down and have a “talk” about not conforming to other’s standards?

Do I prepare them for the sorts of thing he might say (and that I’ve heard him say) and mention how his disrespect of his mother will not be tolerated by me?

I truly love this family and I dont’ want my boys going in saying, “My mom said….”  But I love my boys more and I want to prepare them in the most Godly but not condescending way. 

Did that make any sense at all?

What are your thoughts?

Don’t you think my “jail” pictures are appropriate?  Hee hee!

Sometimes I Forget

Sometimes I forget to taste my food.

I’ve even forgotten what wheat tastes like.

Sometimes I forget that my children are all very young,

That the oldest is young enough to still fear the dark.

Sometimes I forget to hug my husband,

And that my best weapon is prayer, my shield is the God who sees!

Sometimes I forget that I do a good job,

That the children will not remember a swept floor, a well thought out meal.

Sometimes I forget my manners, my patience, my happy countenance

But my Jesus, my Joy

He is my witness

Sometimes I forget

He never forgets

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Where has the mind gone?

Where has the time mind gone?

Anyone else might not understand my devastation when I forgot where I’d put Matt’s paycheck the other day.

Life happens, things get misplaced, even important things.

Even the biggest organize junkie can have a day like I did and end with the realization that the most important slip of paper went into her hand and back out without the slightest recollection.

Why then, did this understandable event cause such grief that I spent nearly an hour huddled in the corner of my bathroom sobbing into my lap while my husband, unaware that I was beside myself, frantically looked for his months pay.

The day began a bit earlier than usual with a hot cup of coffee.  Matt and I packed lunch in a cooler and tried to make breakfast to go before the kids all stumbled down the stairs with hungry tummies.  If we could beat them to it we planned to whisk them into their car seats and stuff bananas in their chubby hands so we would not be held up by the usual hour of dressing, diapering, breakfast routine.

We made it just in time. Buckled the Thinglets into their seats, shoveled a green smoothie into Pee Wee’s little mouth and off we went for the 2 1/2 hour drive north for hay.

Twenty or thirty songs and stories later we made it to the farm where we collect our hay twice yearly.  The farmer was ready with hay forks on his tractor.  I hired Thing 1 to divvy up the snack and give a bottle to the littlest before jumping onto the flatbed to roll 120lb bales of pokey, itchy hay into position while Matt hefted the strays.  Rolling bales might sound like a simple endeavor but when the rectangles are turned they tend to want to stay turned.  With all my might I fought them into place, swiping the sweat under my baseball cap, occasionally letting my boot slip through a crack in the ever growing stack.

Don’t feel too bad, I love to do hay but it sure is exhausting work.

Once most of the bales were loaded I took a break to let the little ones have a few minutes out of the truck before our long trek home.

With Pee Wee on my hip and Bubba in tow we picked alfalfa flowers as I threatened the big boys to stay out of the way of the tractor.  Finally it was time to pull out the checkbook so I summoned Matt with the “Mary Poppin’s Pockets”.  He pulled a somewhat soggy pile of papers from his back pocket and we laughed at having to find a dry check to pay with. 

The farmer (a friendly granfatherly man) snatched up the Bubba and tickled him upside down like he would have done to his own grandson.

Matt noticed his paycheck in the stack of papers and handed it to me for safe keeping, I set the checkbook down on the bumper of the green Chevy and…

POOF!

I can’t remember what happened next.

Remembering has become infinitely more precious to me this year.  You see, my Dad was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimers a disease that robs the brain of memory by depositing plaque in areas with previously perfect activity.  Early Onset is the only type of AZ that is believed to be highly hereditary.  At one point I heard a stat that children of Early Onset AZ patients have a 50% chance of contracting this disgusting disease which can begin it’s tragic effects as early as 30.

Did I mention I turned 30 this year?

That’s how an ordinary event and an active imagination gets turned into a cause for devastation.  A crippling reminder that life is short and a tragic way to start a perfectly good day.

Thank goodness that isn’t where the story ends.

God’s promised are not bound by time, events or circumstance and despite my first raw feelings that somehow my Jesus caused this to happen to Dad.  The facts are he did not, he does not, he can not cause ugly, depraved and sin induced things to happen. He does however allow us to wrestle through life bumping into our circumstances (sometimes self induced, often not) with the choice to include him or not.

When Jacob (the deceiver) wrestled with God (Gen 32:22-31) in the desert he hung on till daybreak. God could have ended the match at any second and yet he allowed the hand to hand combat to continue.  Why?  To be cruel, because he was heartless?  A game?  Jacob had been dubbed a liar from birth, it was on every tongue when his name was spoken.

“Liar, come to dinner.”

“Liar, clean your room.”

God eventually ended the tussle by simply touching (and injuring) Liar’s leg and when he let go he announced,

“You have wrestled with God and with man and you have overcome.  From now on your name will be Israel (he struggles with God)”

In a recent Bible Study I attended the leader implored us to “hang on until the blessing comes.”

The Liar, wrestling with God would not let go. He clung to the struggle and stuck with it until he had encountered God (the wrenched hip) and received a new name “Israel my beloved!”

Even though I don’t like it, even though my mind deceives me I will hang on till the blessing comes and not allow my circumstances to cripple me and keep me from encountering God.

Tinkle Torture

Yeah that’s right, it says “tinkle” not “tickle”!

As many of you know I’m in the process of potty training the Bubba and let me tell you it is an adventure to put it mildly.  Training a toddler with two older brothers is a lot different than when I trained the first two who didn’t have peer pressure to guide them in potty time fun.

Today before nap I scurried Bubba up the stairs to get a diaper.  While I was putting Pee Wee into her crib singing a lullaby and tickling her baby soft ribs I heard a tinkle from the direction of the bathroom that sits between the “baby girl room” and “3 boys room”. 

Now before you cry mutiny and snicker at my “little Princess” getting to reside solo in the “royal suite” please know that the Thinglets did this to themselves.  As I was setting up the nursery I prepared it for Bubba and Pee Wee but the boys pitched such a fit that I had to squeeze the toddler bed into the already stuffed “2 boys bedroom” and it promptly became the “3 boys bedroom”.  Sigh!  Even if I  don’t turn her into “the Princess” her big brothers will.

At any rate the tinkling began and I jerked around, stole into the bathroom to find the Bubba desperately hanging onto his “peanut” (as he calls it- pardon my description of this torturous event) while an ark of tinkle reached up and over the potty sprinkling the toilet tank, then the floor, then the seat.

Oh NO!  He hasn’t got AIM!  Who would expect him to at the good ol’ age of “SOoo TEW”.  I watched in horror not wanting to get myself into the baptising and trying to figure out how to help.

He leaned forward and tried to stop the stream only instead of relaxing he pulled harder and this time the tinkle went nearly straight up and dribbled ceremoniously on his pudgy belly and trailed down his legs.

“Stop, stop!” I finally manage, though I don’t know how I expected him to accomplish that.

He tried, and I stretched my go go gadget arms aiming for his pits, snatched him up and dangled him triumphantly over the porcelain throne just in time for the last little dribble.

“I done!”  he announced with dignation.

Just another day in Paradise!

Frustration

A new hitch in my meal making adventures has surface.  Bubba, my food loving 2yr old has a number of other food intolerances or allergies besides the celiac.  I’ve been trying different foods one at a time after a version of an elimination diet where he ate only rice, chicken and a few other very bland things for a month.  I  kept a journal of the process and discovered that he can not tolerate milk, soy (including soy oils it appears), tree nuts, apples, strawberries, and any citrus (included in all soda’s and most juices).

Almost every dressing/marinade contains either soy or citrus. Our family standby protein snack (nuts) is out of the question.  Most cereals are out even some of the newly re-done CHEX.  I had been getting confident with the food allergies already in place and this just seems out of control!

The poor guy practically views food consumption as his love language, ha ha, and it seems much like a cruel joke.  He is the least picky of my kids and yet at two he knows to ask “It not make me sick?”  when any food is offered to him.  Although he understands that he feels better when avoiding certain things his brothers have it is exceptionally difficult to keep alternatives for all the things we were used to having.

I don’t know why this seems so different since I have already been through the shock of discovering myself and three of my kids are celiac.

My tendency has been to make good food that is naturally gluten free and not have to worry about making one, two or three alternative meals for non-wheat, non-soy, non-whatever individuals.  We all eat together for the most part.  Bubba and I have our own milk and on rare occasions Matt has a loaf of bread stashed in a special cupboard but everything else is the same. 

NOW what?

Thank you, I just had to vent. This is one reason why there have not been recipes posted here lately. Hoping to get my groove back soon!

Another Attempt- Macro Monday

My title could be very telling if you allow it some depth of reason!  Are Macro and Mom synonyms?  I wish I was a centipede.

 One of the major struggles I have in my life is to remember to stop and smell the flowers! 

I look at everything through a “macro” lens of critical thoughts and suspicion.  It is such an easy thing to do especially with small children. Instead of feeling blessed by the “quality” time included in picking up multiples of puzzle pieces from several dumped puzzles I get frustrated and overwhelmed.  I need to stop and consider my blessings and enjoy my darling children.

 I found this encouragement on a magnet, author unknown…

EXCUSE This House

Some houses try to hide the fact that children shelter there: Ours boasts of it quite openly, the signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows, little smudges on the doors; I should apologize, I guess, for toys strewn on the floor.

But I sat down with the children and we played and laughed and read, and if the doorbell doesn’t shine their eyes will shine instead.

For when I have to choose between the one job or the other, though I need to cook and clean, first I’ll be a mother.

Please visit the others by clicking the picture below!  There are so many great photographers that participate!

Real life isn’t all roses or maybe it is.

My struggle with PPD