Why Moms Are the Toughest People in the World.

Let's just start with a short recap of the past month in our house.  Kevin got roseola.  Jeff and I got the "I think I'm going to die" kind of stomach flu.  We got well for about a day, and then the whole house got Scarlet Fever (read-- strep that is so nasty, the sore throat is the least of your problems).

But this is how the humorously horrible day went down:

Two days prior, I had taken Daniel to the doctor and MADE them do a strep test.  Rapid Strep Test came back negative. Doctor all but rolled her eyes at me and said, "Send him to school!  He just has a little cold virus."
I said, "Okay..."

A friend asks if I can watch her 1 1/2 year-old at the last minute.  She had a sitter cancel.  I say, "No problem!" because the last time I watched another little boy, my kids were so entertained by him that it was easier.

She drops him off at 7:30 am.  He screams for the first hour.

He poops nasty yellow liquid.

I think, "he must not feel very well."

I call his mom.  She says, "I'll be there in about a half hour."

It's time to take Daniel to school.

I go upstairs to pee.

I come downstairs and there is a broken lamp, a crying child (not mine), another crying baby (mine), and two sweet, peaceful children coloring.

I pick up the lamp, snuggle each baby, put them in "baby jail," ask the "big boys" (a 3 and 5 year-old) to get their shoes on.

I look at the clock.  Plenty of time to walk to school. I will just put the big baby in the stroller and the little baby in the baby carrier.  Danny can walk, and Nolan will ride his strider.  

I go outside to get the baby carrier, and when I come back in the house, the two babies are both screaming.  Kevin is gushing blood from his eyelid, cheek, nose, and lip, and the other baby is sitting there beating the crap out of my Kevin.  I tell the other baby, "We don't hit!" and sit him in time out.  He screams.  Kevin is screaming, and the other two have become bored of getting their shoes on and are running around in circles in the living room repeating, "La la looo!  La la looo!"  I get Kevin calmed down a little, check the clock, remove big baby from timeout, and weigh my options.  If I drive, I'll have to install the 4th carseat, get everyone in and out of the car seats, probably hit the traffic light, find a parking spot, and load and unload the car... It will be faster to walk.

So we walk.  And by the time we get to the end of the block, I notice that Daniel has no backpack.  So we go back and get it.

Now we are really late.  I hate being late.  And I really hate being late to kindergarten because if you're late and miss the open door, then it closes and locks and you have to go in through the front door dragging all of the other children and you have to push the buzzer and sign in and give a reason for being tardy and the kids I'll have to drag through the hallway are loud and they disrupt the whole school, not just me.

So we really hoof it.  And we are getting really close, and it looks like the Kindergarten door is going to still be open when we get there because we have 1 minute left.  And then Daniel sees a friend.  So he takes off running to say hi... and he runs past Nolan, who was in front of all of us on his Strider... "winning" the race that only Nolan was competing in.  And when Daniel takes off in front of Nolan, Nolan stops.  Flops.  And screams.

And Daniel has already run out of sight to an area where I am sure the pedophile-kidnapper that I just got an email about is lurking, waiting for my child.  So I have a baby on my back, a baby in the stroller, a 5 year-old who ran off towards a pedophile (for all I know) and this floppy, screaming child who does not follow me when I walk away if he has a fit.  Nolan's fits have been known to last for (seriously, I've timed them) 30 minutes or more, and that Kindergarten door is going to close and if there's a bad guy over there, so help me...

So, after 5 failed (because he flops on the ground) attempts and holding Nolan's hand and pulling him towards the school, I turn into my Herculean mother and pick Nolan up kicking and screaming and carry him upside down to the Kindergarten playground just in time to see Daniel happily bounding through the joyous open door.

I set Nolan down.

I text Jeff.  "You're getting a vasectomy."

Nolan finishes his timeout.

The other moms and dads on the playground are sympathetic, which is nice.

We make it back home.

Friend comes to pick up crabby diarrhea baby.

I give Nolan a snack in the car on the way to school.

He is really hungry at snack time because he didn't really have lunch, so his teacher gives him 4 helpings of fruit and yogurt.

The rest of the afternoon is fine.  I pick up the boys and start to get dinner ready.  At about 5:15, the doctor calls and says, "So, Daniel's strep test came back positive.  I guess moms always know.  I've called in the prescription for Daniel, but if your other kids aren't feeling well, you'll need to come get them checked also."

Meanwhile, Nolan has fallen asleep on the couch.

I wake him up, thinking it is just because he missed naptime and we need to go get Daniel's prescription.  The other two kids are already loaded in the car, and as I pick up Nolan, he begins to make that coughing/ hiccuping "this is going to be ugly" noise.  Well, I pick him up and sprint for the garage, but the chunks splatter the carpet, basement door, and wall.  I've gotten him to the garage by the second round, and now vomit has landed in my husband's shoes by the back door.

So, we get Nolan some clean jammies, clean up the inside-the-house chunks, obtain a puke bucket, and go to Walmart for the prescription, some Clorox wipes and gatorade.  By the grace of God, we make it all the way through the store and out to the parking lot where Nolan pukes on and in the grocery bags.

So we spend 15 minutes wiping all of the things we just bought with Clorox wipes and I begin to laugh, because, really, this is just hilarious.  As I am laughing and wiping, I see Nolan begin to pull down his pajama pants in the parking lot because he has vomited on them, so the laughter continues.

So we get everything wiped down.  We get everyone in the car, we make it home, tiptoe around the puke in the garage.  I get Danny his medicine, get Nolan cleaned up, pajama'ed, and puke-bucketed.  Wash my hands a million times.  Nurse Kevin, and get them all to bed.

I hose down the garage, scrub the living room carpet and walls some more.  Then I head upstairs and take a shower.  Just as I get my jammies on, Jeff gets home from work.

"How was your day, hon?"

I just laugh.

And that is why moms are the toughest people in the world.

The Value of Hard Work

Let me just say that I love Mike Rowe.
A) I think he's cute.
B) I love that he's willing to do ANYTHING that requires hard work.
C) He is a great story-teller. (Please click on the link below.  Yes, it takes 20 minutes to watch, but I bet it will make you squirm, laugh, and learn.)

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

In this talk, he said something that has had me wondering about ever since I watched it.  He doesn't really elaborate much on the philosophy of it, but he says being told to, "Follow your passion" is the worst advice ever.

And I'm still not sure about whether I agree or disagree with him.

First of all, I would argue (because my first inclination is to argue) that by giving a Ted talk about the heroism in doing Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe is, in fact, following his passion.  If he is not passionate about hard work and encouraging others to appreciate and embrace the value of hard work, then he sure goes to enormous lengths to lead people to believe otherwise.  This man bit off a sheep's testicles to celebrate the value of hard work, my friends.  I'm pretty sure he is passionate about the subject.

This is the whole reason I disagree.  In order to do the hard work day after day after day, we must be passionate about something involved in it.  Now, there may not seem to be a direct correlation to your willingness to do a dirty job and passion, but I assure you, there is.  A single mom may go to extreme lengths, like working 2 or 3 jobs because she is passionate about supporting her children, even if she is not passionate about any of those jobs.

I am certainly not passionate about doing dishes or laundry or wiping pee off of the bathroom floor, but I do them all daily because I am passionate about caring for my children.

I think part of what he really meant by that is that we were made to work for work's sake.  We MUST work.  God made us to WORK.  When we don't have anything to work on, we make up stupid things to work on.  We NEED to do work.

And even though we don't think we want to do nasty things, like shovel poop or be a pig farmer or sift through trash, it feels good to just work.

I don't really like to weed my garden.  I watch the weeds take over as I look out the window while doing dishes.  I procrastinate because it's too hot or we have somewhere to be and I don't have time to pull them all... And when I can't take it anymore, I walk out back, force the boys to play ball in the backyard, and before I know it, the boys are giggling and playing, and I'm smiling in the sun, watching them play and enjoying the work of gardening.

And sometimes we learn a lot by just doing what needs to be done.  One suck lesson is that love is sacrifice. And whatever we love... whatever we are passionate about... we will suck it up and clean the crap off of whatever it needs to be cleaned off of... because we love.  Not because we LOVE cleaning up crap, but because we love the ones who crapped on us...

Huh... sounds like somebody else I know.

Subtitles

Know what I hate?  When old ladies in the grocery store tell you to “enjoy every minute” of my kids being small.  God’s honest truth is that EVERY MINUTE OF PARENTING IS NOT ENJOYABLE!  Especially if you’re doing it right.

I recall being in high school, listening to someone, probably a friend’s dad or a teacher, say, “These are the best years of your life.”  And I remember thinking, Who the heck are you to tell me what I am enjoying and what is left to come in my life?  And if you do have any credibility, why in the world would THIS be the best life has to offer?  This sucks.  I’m bored out of my mind, people around me think the sun rises and sets on whether or not people like them, the football (or any other sports team) team wins or loses, and what grade they got on the last biology test.  Call me high maintenance, but I expect more from “the best years of my life.” 

Why is this lie perpetuated?  Why are there myths of how fabulous having children is?

Now, I understand that life goes by quickly and before you know it you’ve graduated from high school.  Before you know it, your KIDS are graduating from high school.  And I have no problem with an old lady coming up to me and saying, “It goes by fast.”  Or, “I remember this stage so fondly, and I didn’t appreciate it when I was in it.  I wish I could’ve enjoyed my kids more when they were that age.”

Here’s the problem:

What the old lady and the washed up football player MEAN to say is, “I really wish I would’ve appreciated what I had when I had it, because now it’s gone.”

But, they can’t verbalize their feelings to a stranger or a kid properly, so they turn to the exact same thing that I turn to when I feel like I really want my kids to understand it.  I FORCE it on them.  I cram it down their throats and make threats and scream and yell and go crazy trying to control them.

The reality is that I SHOULD say, “Nolan, I really love you and I need you to take a nap because that’s how you grow and get big like a baseball player and control your emotions.” 

But because he is attacking my “break” from his tantrums and needs, I scream like a crazy person about how he needs to obey me and that I will win because I am a 33 year old woman waging war on a 3 year-old’s napping strike.  He knows that he’s winning because I’m the one who is acting crazy.

But back to the old lady and the washed-up football player.  If they’re not trying to be rude, then why do I want to punch them in the face?  Or push my cart, full of all 3 kids, in her direction and say, “Why don’t YOU enjoy them for the rest of the morning while I get one thing started, finished, cleaned up and put away?”  Or tell the guy, “You were wrong!  I hated high school!  And I deliberately loathed it more because you told me it would be the “best time of my life”!”

When I was pregnant, I always felt that towards the end of each of my pregnancies, strangers had subtitles.  Their mouths would say, “Wow, when are you due?”  But the subtitles would say, “Holy shit, you’re huge.  Have that baby already so I don’t have to look at your fat-self anymore.” 

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if when we encountered the well-meaning old lady or the ex-jock pining over his glory days, we could just train our brains to read their subtitles instead?

So when people give us unsolicited advice, all we hear are things like, “Parenting is hard, and it’s easy to get lost in just trying not to drown, but I wish I would’ve looked at my kids and really SAW them for who they are were as often as I possibly could, I would’ve enjoyed them more.”  OR “I didn’t realize what I had back in high school, and I wish I would’ve enjoyed it more. “

I wish I could give my kids subtitles when they say, “I’m STILL hungry.”  Their subtitles would say, “That dinner was delicious.  May I please have some more?”

I bet I could train myself to HEAR what people MEAN to say, instead of what they ACTUALLY say… but… I also need to train myself to say what I should say, not tell others what they SHOULD do.

Ugh.  Life is hard.  Oh well.  Guess I’ll just go “enjoy every minute of being with my kids.” And recognize that “these are the best years of my life.”  And everything will be just fine.

"Stop Chewing on Your Shirt."

So, Daniel chews on his shirt.  And Nolan hits and kicks and screams when he's mad.

I can't get them to stop.

I nag at them when they do it.  "Get your shirt out of your mouth."  "Stop hitting your brother."

They stop for a minute.

I leave the room.

Chewing continues.  Hitting ensues.

My nagging becomes louder, more irritated, more forceful.  "I said, get that shirt out of your mouth!"  "WE DON'T HIT!"

We don't hit, but we sure do scream!

And give time outs.

Nolan punched me in the face and kicked me in the belly yesterday because I tried to carry him to timeout when he refused to pick up his trains.

So I followed through, of course.  There was a time out.  And then the "nothing else is happening until your trains are picked up.  No lunch, no baseball, no going outside, no playing with the other toys you already got out and started playing with."

He cried for at least 10 minutes.  He likes to cry, make a big, long, loud fuss, and then when he's done with it, there are no grudges, he's happy as can be, over it.

So I try teaching, "Nolan, you know how it feels really overwhelming when you have a really big mess in your room and I ask you to clean it up?  It looks too big and scary and like you can't do it all?  That's why we have to put our toys away right when we are done playing with them.  Because if we do that, then it's not that big of a deal to just put a few toys away."

"Wahhhhhh!!!!  It's too big!  It's too much!  I need Danny to help me!!!!"

"Your mess.  Your responsibility."  Then I walk away.

And my sweet Daniel begins to cheer him on, "You can do this, Nolan! Just start with the tracks..."

Before I know it, both boys are running up the stairs giggling and there are no trains or tracks in sight.

Mission accomplished.  Or is it?

I'm pretty sure that Daniel said, "Nolan, put a bunch of toys in your shirt to carry them upstairs, and I will put a bunch in my shirt and we'll be all done."

At first blush, I think, "Oh Daniel is so sweet.  He is such a sweet older brother."  But the reality is that Nolan is learning that he can take advantage of a nice person to do what he doesn't want to do, even though it is his responsibility.

Is this such a bad thing?  Don't we all do this?  Isn't part of the reason I picked Jeff for my husband because I knew he was organized and that he would make me keep my chaos to a reasonable level?

Isn't this using your spiritual giftedness?   Sort of, but not really.

So, what's the right thing to do with that?  Do I let it go?  (Which I did.)  Or do I keep hounding?  (This is horribly annoying to me, and I'm sure it's annoying to the boys.  It also doesn't seem to work, only to infuriate.)

5 minutes later, this sweet brotherly cooperation has gone sour and Nolan is beating the crap out of Daniel upstairs.

Here we go again.  Another timeout.  Another lesson.

Another lesson for mommy in "You can't control other people's choices.  You can influence them, but you can't make decisions for them."

How do you parent? Monsanto vs. God

"A gardener doesn't MAKE things grow.  A gardener just creates the conditions through which the power of the seed is released."  --Timothy Keller

When I was going to college to become a teacher, the professors echoed something to me over and over and over again.  If your students aren't getting it, consider the fact that YOU aren't teaching it well... or at all.  This was repeated and illustrated so many times that it is now burned into my brain, and as a first year teacher, I lived plenty of my own "I never taught them how to" frustrations.  They were high school kids that didn't put their names on their papers.  They came to class with NOTHING.  NOTHING.  No book, no pen, no notebook.  And while I nagged them daily, my professors had been right.  I hadn't proactively taught them to show up with the appropriate supplies.  I hadn't taught them to write their names in the upper right-hand corner of their papers.

There is a difference between nagging and teaching.  Let's define them.
Nagging: Yelling, asking, commanding, and/or begging someone repeatedly to do something that they continue to not do your way.

Teaching: Walking with the other person through the thing you want them to know or be able to do until they can figure out how to do it all by him/herself.

And in that first year of teaching, I learned that teaching works maybe 50-75% of the time if you're REALLY good at it, and nagging works maybe 5% of the time, if that.

I KNOW that nagging is ineffective.  But I still do it to my kids ALL.THE.TIME.  I expect them to know all sorts of things that I think they should know, but they don't, and I just yell.  I haven't taken the time to teach them.  I am much too busy to stop everything I'm doing to teach them at that moment.

And I KNOW from being a teacher that I was supposed to plan ahead and teach them the "getting ready to go somewhere routine," but I just want them to do what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it so we can please, for crying out loud, just be somewhere on time for once.

So, when I realized that I was nagging and not teaching, I taught.  I gave them a "get ready to go somewhere routine."  And it worked.  For one day.  Maybe two.

Now, part of the problem of the routine not working is that I get bored with routines.  I like rituals and traditions that make me feel happy and nostalgic and warm and cozy like drinking coffee every time I sit down to write or listening to jazz or blues when I cook a real breakfast, but routines for the sake of keeping things organized are lame to me.  I just can't keep up with it.  I try to break the rules of the routine instantly.  I don't know why exactly.

The other part of the problem is that I have 4 different people that I'm trying to get to do something, and we are the way that we are.  We struggle with the things we struggle with... For each of us it's something different, but we THINK my professors in college were right.  We THINK that we can educate people out of their problems.  We think we can control other people.  oooh.  We can't?  We can't make people wash their hands after they poop?  We can't make people pick up their shoes?  We can't make people think what we want them to think and do what we want them to do?

Nope.  But we THINK we can.  And it's more frustrating to THINK you can control another human being, TRY to control another human being, and FAIL than it is to ACCEPT that you cannot control them and move on to things you can control.  Like Tim Keller said, "A gardener doesn't MAKE things grow.  A gardener just creates the conditions through which the power of the seed is released."

I cannot make my children do anything, but I can do my best to give them the right conditions to grow.  Even if I've got a cactus, a broccoli plant, and an apple tree...

The difference in parenting through control or parenting by simply creating an excellent environment is like trying to farm Monsanto's (Genetically Modifying) way or God's (Organically) way.  And I don't want to be like Monsanto, but sadly, many times I am.

And then there was chaos...

So, I'm pretty sure that the last time I posted on this blog was about the time I got pregnant with Kevin, so since I'm trying to begin posting again regularly, here's a recap.  Kevin was born.

Kevin is cute.

 Nolan does not yike bwoccoli.

 Nolan is cute.

 Danny "graduated" from preschool.

The boys put on a "Dinosaur Train" Concert for me.

 Kevin started sitting up.

 Danny started T-ball this year.

Kevin LOVES Avocados.

Kevin LOVES ceiling fans even more than he loves avocados.

Kevin is cute when he sleeps.

Kevin is a good giggler.

Daniel made a "hooter." 

Jeff finally had a day off and we went on a hike.

Danny is awesome.  Star Wars, Cape, and Underoos kind of awesome.

 Make a flowerpot hat kind of awesome.

 Kevin can stand up in his crib.

 And then there was chaos.

I think we are all caught up here.  The real writing will commence next week;)