Fifteen years ago today at this time, I was packed and getting ready to go to the hospital to have my labor induced to have my daughter. She wasn't due for yet another three weeks, but because my body has this thing about having babies at least three weeks before they are due, this time the doctor wanted to be more in control. She is child number five of seven, and the one born before her had decided not only to come early like the rest, he even decided to skip the hospital bit and be born at home. I had these weird labors where you start off normal and then skip a lot of the middle stuff and go right to the last stage and have the baby. Anyway, there we were preparing to go and let the medical world be in charge this time.
I grew up in what we call the Brady Bunch era, where the family tv sitcoms had these perfect children, and the worse things they ever did wrong were leave bicycles in the driveway, they never slammed doors, yelled at parents, or made a mess. Their bad grades consited of a B shame on them, their rooms were always clean, they ate everything on their plate. The perfect children, in the perfectly manicured home, with the perfect parents, and of course Alice the perfect housekeeper who kept the world perfectly balanced.
Shortly after my daughters birth I took a child development class, taught by a psychologist and though it was 20 years or more past the Brady Bunch sitcom, the children portrayed in the books and movies shown at class were exact examples of that type of child. I wondered then with two teens,two toddlers, and a two month old, in my life where I could order a set of children like them! In the course of this class, which was filled with parents, we were asked to add up the ages of our children at that time, and the result was that was how many years of parenting experience we had under our own belt.
This morning, I did that exercise again for myself, and my grand total years of experience based on that instructors particular theory is 133 years to date. Wow, 133 years!! You would think with 133 years experience I would surely have this job perfected and should actually be able to perform the job of parent with such skill and knowledge, and expertise that I too would by now have children that reflect the Brady Bunch era. WRONG!!
Even with all this experience I still have children who argue with me, still have to be reminded to clean their rooms,still won't eat everything put in front of them, despite the fact that I have told them what my mother told me about the starving people in the world. When they are presented with a food they don't want to eat they they offer to send it to the starving people I told them about.
In my 133 years of experience I have not figured out how to get them all to do what is asked of them the first time, or even the second time. Never mind getting them all to, I would be glad if just one did! I would settle for now and then. You would think with 133 years under my belt I would know by now that when a child no matter what age tells you they will do all the work involved in having a pet, that I would have learned that means for a maximum of one week, and then 99% of that pet care is mine, and if I even mention not keeping it they suddenly have a love for it beyond anything a mere parent could possibly understand. Of course that love is nowhere to be found if it needs a bath, or has an accident of the floor. Oh gross I'll puke is the normal response I hear.How do you know it was mine, did you actually see it do that? Forget the fact it is the only one in the house at the time, unless you have time for forensics to prove it, you might as well clean it and get it over with.
In my 133 years of parenting, there has never been a vacation, or even a day off. Sick days consist of you being so ill you can't move and when you do begin to feel better, you can't believe that you haven't been relocated to another house during your illness as you can no longer recognize the one you are in, because your sick day translated to your children as free for all! And the phrase are you really my child comes to mind frequently.
However, in that 133 years experience I have been privilged to learn a lot. I have learned that your house doesn't have to be perfect at all times, it's okay to take a day too goof off. Your laundry will never be all done so why half kill, yourself trying to accompolish the unaccomplishable. There will always be dirty dishes in your kitchen, and the bathrooms, well all you can do is do your best, and if all else fails go to the nearest gas station and use theirs. If you owned and lived in the grocery store there would still be nothing to eat, and having the pets actually does teach them things you don't see until they are grown.
While accumulating this experience I have been blessed to be part of many first steps, many first days, many hugs, millions of beautiful pictures colored just for me. Drawings of stick people with heads as big as Asia,yellow hair, and huge eyes, because a child drew a picture of mommy. I have been given thousands of bouquets of flowers,okay some of them were weeds, but they were hand picked by a child. And smiles and giggles by the dozens.
All in all I think the 133 years experience has taught me that even my kids are a product of the Brady Bunch era, and maybe just maybe if we readjust our version of what we think a perfect kid is, and really look at the good qualities each and every one has, they are all perfectly themself and that is even better.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Downsizing Our Life From The High Tech World
Imagine living in a house that has no television, no microwave, no WII game system, and basically no quick, convienent meals in a minute. A house where dinner time is about 4:30 in the afternoon, instead of 9 or 10 at night, fresh outof the microwave and onto your lap so you can watch the newest CSI whereever!
Imagine a place where clothes shopping doesn't mean the mall, watching a movie means a DVD, board games get played and books are read rather instead of part of the home decor sitting on a shelf, and library cards are actually used. Imagine a world where solitare is played the old fashioned way with a deck of cards instead of a click of the mouse.
Remember the days when a box of 64 Crayola crayons opened your eyes to an entirely different world, and now they have an even bigger box that has 96! The days where coloring books were a treat and we drew pictures to color, rather than print them out of the cool web site we found.
Imagine not going to McDonalds every week, even though Happy Meals are a mere $1.99, not ordering pizza every week, and not having a never ending supply of soda in the house daily.
Imagine a world that had stay home mothers, dinners eaten at a table that were cooked, not ordered in or premade hot and ready to put on the table fresh out of the box or bag, a world where kids had to clean their rooms and not get an allowance for it. A world where children played outside, instead of video games all day long. A world where commericals didn't infuence every toy, piece of clothing or what brand of cleaners we bought.
I remember that world fondly. And in our effort to live more simply in a high tech world, we are incorporating a lot of back to basics into our lives.
Our house has television, but no cable and oddly enough we don't even have an antennae and that craazy box to get local channels from. No satellite with Dish Network or Direct TV. We do have DVD players and movies and once in the while we rent the $1.00 movies from the Blockbuster Box at Publix, but more often we borrow them with our library cards instead.
Our house has book shelves and we actually take the books off the shelf and read them, and again we use those library cards to have access to other books we don't have.We don't have the newest game system, and though we do play some games on the computer we play Scrabble, Monopoly, Life and a huge array of other board games at the dining room table. We have jigsaw puzzles, paper, crayons, and a variety of craft items.
We have no idea what we can Shout out of our laundry anymore, or what laundry soap the tv tells us has the best scent, or what shampoo can make our hair look like the models. Over 18 months ago we got rid of cable in our home and that eliminated all the product hype, all the newest toys, movies, fashions, from our daily view. Imagine this we have five children in this house and they have all survived the lack of television.
In our world we have a 15 year old girl who has decorated the walls of her room with her own colorful drawings, not posters of the hottest celebrity, or the most recent movie star heart throb. We have a 17 year old who does jigsaw puzzles and glues them with puzzle glue to hang on the walls of his room. We have a seven year old who wants a story read each night and goes to sleep without Spongbob or whatever the newest cartoon craze is blaring obnoxiously in the back ground.
I have some children that not only read for pleasure, but have actually put books on reserve at the public library. I have children that volunteer their time for free to a variety of places. My kids no longer remember what an allowance is, it has been so long since they have gotten one, and yet for the most part they keep those rooms clean for free, because it is their room, and thereby not my job to clean them.
We don't have a microwave, it quit working nearly a year and a half ago, and oddly enough it just hasn't been a priority to replace it, even though we could for less than $50.00 these days. Seems to me we have gone this long without it, so we obviously don't need it. Of course that means popcorn cooked on the stove in our stove top popcorn maker, and my 13 year old makes the best popcorn. It also means no meals in a minute, but guess what we have that solved to, by actually cooking and eating dinner at 4:30 at the dining room table. Our meals are not interuppted by televison or telephones.
We do have a box of 64 Crayola Crayons, and I am thinking for Christmas maybe we should get one of the 96 count, if for no other reason to figure out how we have that many colors! And we have some coloring books and a variety of other craft items for pleasure. We do have a couple of the older game systems, but oddly enough we still have kids who play outside. They have bicycles, but no go carts, no 4 wheelers, and again they have survived, and I probably have a few less gray hairs from not having those particular worries.
They are all active in sports, thereby helping get them to the dinner table at 4:30, as we eat before we got to the 6 o'clock practices rather than after them. We do not have soda in the house very often at all, and though we bake something nearly every day, we have not got the endless supply of chips, Oreos, Doritos, snack cakes etc., that the store is full of. Imagine that no Hot Pockets, no pizza rolls, no Pop Tarts! And somehow on regular home cooked meals, fruits and veggies as snacks, peanut butter crackers made at home with saltines rather than the ready to open orange cracker ones, everyone is healthy. Soda is a rarity in our house, and yet they don't seem to mind having koolaid, or gatorade mix, or water instead. They have adapted well to our desire to downsize to a more simple life, less high tech and less convienence oriented.
Are they perfect absolutely not! Is this kind of life for everyone, probably not. But for us, it helps cut the bills some, giving us a little more help in me being a stay home mother. And it teaches valuable lessons in finding what your true needs are, and how to put priority in order. I know when we got rid of the cable, my kids thought the world would end. It didn't and they adjusted very well. When ordering pizza and going through drive thrus became a rarity, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, they actually began to appreciate it as an extra, looking at it as something special not something that was a part of daily life.
I am looking for even more ways to downsize our lives, and steer us more into the simple world and out of the high tech, give me, selfish world that surrounds us all. I'll keep you posted on what we try in our efforts to live simple in this chaotic high tech world.
Imagine a place where clothes shopping doesn't mean the mall, watching a movie means a DVD, board games get played and books are read rather instead of part of the home decor sitting on a shelf, and library cards are actually used. Imagine a world where solitare is played the old fashioned way with a deck of cards instead of a click of the mouse.
Remember the days when a box of 64 Crayola crayons opened your eyes to an entirely different world, and now they have an even bigger box that has 96! The days where coloring books were a treat and we drew pictures to color, rather than print them out of the cool web site we found.
Imagine not going to McDonalds every week, even though Happy Meals are a mere $1.99, not ordering pizza every week, and not having a never ending supply of soda in the house daily.
Imagine a world that had stay home mothers, dinners eaten at a table that were cooked, not ordered in or premade hot and ready to put on the table fresh out of the box or bag, a world where kids had to clean their rooms and not get an allowance for it. A world where children played outside, instead of video games all day long. A world where commericals didn't infuence every toy, piece of clothing or what brand of cleaners we bought.
I remember that world fondly. And in our effort to live more simply in a high tech world, we are incorporating a lot of back to basics into our lives.
Our house has television, but no cable and oddly enough we don't even have an antennae and that craazy box to get local channels from. No satellite with Dish Network or Direct TV. We do have DVD players and movies and once in the while we rent the $1.00 movies from the Blockbuster Box at Publix, but more often we borrow them with our library cards instead.
Our house has book shelves and we actually take the books off the shelf and read them, and again we use those library cards to have access to other books we don't have.We don't have the newest game system, and though we do play some games on the computer we play Scrabble, Monopoly, Life and a huge array of other board games at the dining room table. We have jigsaw puzzles, paper, crayons, and a variety of craft items.
We have no idea what we can Shout out of our laundry anymore, or what laundry soap the tv tells us has the best scent, or what shampoo can make our hair look like the models. Over 18 months ago we got rid of cable in our home and that eliminated all the product hype, all the newest toys, movies, fashions, from our daily view. Imagine this we have five children in this house and they have all survived the lack of television.
In our world we have a 15 year old girl who has decorated the walls of her room with her own colorful drawings, not posters of the hottest celebrity, or the most recent movie star heart throb. We have a 17 year old who does jigsaw puzzles and glues them with puzzle glue to hang on the walls of his room. We have a seven year old who wants a story read each night and goes to sleep without Spongbob or whatever the newest cartoon craze is blaring obnoxiously in the back ground.
I have some children that not only read for pleasure, but have actually put books on reserve at the public library. I have children that volunteer their time for free to a variety of places. My kids no longer remember what an allowance is, it has been so long since they have gotten one, and yet for the most part they keep those rooms clean for free, because it is their room, and thereby not my job to clean them.
We don't have a microwave, it quit working nearly a year and a half ago, and oddly enough it just hasn't been a priority to replace it, even though we could for less than $50.00 these days. Seems to me we have gone this long without it, so we obviously don't need it. Of course that means popcorn cooked on the stove in our stove top popcorn maker, and my 13 year old makes the best popcorn. It also means no meals in a minute, but guess what we have that solved to, by actually cooking and eating dinner at 4:30 at the dining room table. Our meals are not interuppted by televison or telephones.
We do have a box of 64 Crayola Crayons, and I am thinking for Christmas maybe we should get one of the 96 count, if for no other reason to figure out how we have that many colors! And we have some coloring books and a variety of other craft items for pleasure. We do have a couple of the older game systems, but oddly enough we still have kids who play outside. They have bicycles, but no go carts, no 4 wheelers, and again they have survived, and I probably have a few less gray hairs from not having those particular worries.
They are all active in sports, thereby helping get them to the dinner table at 4:30, as we eat before we got to the 6 o'clock practices rather than after them. We do not have soda in the house very often at all, and though we bake something nearly every day, we have not got the endless supply of chips, Oreos, Doritos, snack cakes etc., that the store is full of. Imagine that no Hot Pockets, no pizza rolls, no Pop Tarts! And somehow on regular home cooked meals, fruits and veggies as snacks, peanut butter crackers made at home with saltines rather than the ready to open orange cracker ones, everyone is healthy. Soda is a rarity in our house, and yet they don't seem to mind having koolaid, or gatorade mix, or water instead. They have adapted well to our desire to downsize to a more simple life, less high tech and less convienence oriented.
Are they perfect absolutely not! Is this kind of life for everyone, probably not. But for us, it helps cut the bills some, giving us a little more help in me being a stay home mother. And it teaches valuable lessons in finding what your true needs are, and how to put priority in order. I know when we got rid of the cable, my kids thought the world would end. It didn't and they adjusted very well. When ordering pizza and going through drive thrus became a rarity, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, they actually began to appreciate it as an extra, looking at it as something special not something that was a part of daily life.
I am looking for even more ways to downsize our lives, and steer us more into the simple world and out of the high tech, give me, selfish world that surrounds us all. I'll keep you posted on what we try in our efforts to live simple in this chaotic high tech world.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
A New Year
When I was a kid the start of the school year was the beginning of the new year to me. It didn't matter that the year officially begins on Jan. 1, to me the year consisted of the months we were in school, it ended in June with the start of summer, and it began the Wednesday after Labor Day with the first day of school. Even all these years later, though the year still officially begins on Jan.1, I still look at the start of school as the beginning of the year. I am not sure what part of the year I thought summer was, probably just a nothingness and in many ways summer is still pretty much that. I still tend to look at the beginning of school as the beginning of a new year.
We are quickly approaching the new year here. In Florida where we live, school begins in August, and I am learning in many parts of the country that is now the norm. We are down to seven week days and four weekend days and it will be the first day of school.
This new year will bring many lasts with it for our house. This football season is the last season two of my boys will be eligible by age to play for the league they have played on for four seasons. We are nearly a month into practices already, and our Jamboree games are this Saturday. These will be the official start of this years season, and also the last Jamboree my boys will attend as football players. The official beginning and the official end all at one time. Football is tiring for old mom here, yet we begin this season with the bittersweet knowledge that this is the end of an era in their lives and mine.
This school year also marks my one sons Senior year. And at its end another one will have only one year left before he too will be done with high school. A stage of my parenting will be completed, and that little baby I held will turn 18. My hopes and dreams at his birth will take second place to his own. Yes I am kidding myself, they probably did that in his eyes at about age 12.
My grandson and my nephew, and my niece are all beginning the school careers as they begin kindergarten this year. Another niece begins her college career as she prepares to leave home and attend a university that is a few hour trip from home.
My 16 year old will complete his Eagle Project with the Boy Scouts of Amercia and that will close yet another chapter in the story of our lives. And the youngest if he chooses would now be eligible to begin Cub Scouts.
That is a lot of changes in one year! As we embark on the start of this new year, we do so with the dreams, hopes, and faith that we do every year, yet this time it feels different. This time of year this year is an ending to so many things, and marks the beginning of so very many more.
Over the many years of first days of school, there have always been new changes, and yet this year they seem to be different somehow with it being the ending of so many of the stages of growing up happening in our house. As with every year we will face the challenges, climb the mountains, and come to terms with the new phases we will be embarking on.
I look forward to the adventures the new year will bring, and I will no doubt feel many twinges of sadness as well, as I prepare myself for the ending of one childhood and the beginning of that same childs adulthood. I will continue to have dreams for that child and the others as well. I will continue to pray for all of them, and as I watch these last football games, and this last year of high school I will hold close to my heart the memories we are going to take with us from this year. I will engrave those memories into my heart, and I will promise myself now that amongst the tears I will surley cry as we work our way to the end of the year, I will also smile for this year and all the ones that brought us to it.
We are quickly approaching the new year here. In Florida where we live, school begins in August, and I am learning in many parts of the country that is now the norm. We are down to seven week days and four weekend days and it will be the first day of school.
This new year will bring many lasts with it for our house. This football season is the last season two of my boys will be eligible by age to play for the league they have played on for four seasons. We are nearly a month into practices already, and our Jamboree games are this Saturday. These will be the official start of this years season, and also the last Jamboree my boys will attend as football players. The official beginning and the official end all at one time. Football is tiring for old mom here, yet we begin this season with the bittersweet knowledge that this is the end of an era in their lives and mine.
This school year also marks my one sons Senior year. And at its end another one will have only one year left before he too will be done with high school. A stage of my parenting will be completed, and that little baby I held will turn 18. My hopes and dreams at his birth will take second place to his own. Yes I am kidding myself, they probably did that in his eyes at about age 12.
My grandson and my nephew, and my niece are all beginning the school careers as they begin kindergarten this year. Another niece begins her college career as she prepares to leave home and attend a university that is a few hour trip from home.
My 16 year old will complete his Eagle Project with the Boy Scouts of Amercia and that will close yet another chapter in the story of our lives. And the youngest if he chooses would now be eligible to begin Cub Scouts.
That is a lot of changes in one year! As we embark on the start of this new year, we do so with the dreams, hopes, and faith that we do every year, yet this time it feels different. This time of year this year is an ending to so many things, and marks the beginning of so very many more.
Over the many years of first days of school, there have always been new changes, and yet this year they seem to be different somehow with it being the ending of so many of the stages of growing up happening in our house. As with every year we will face the challenges, climb the mountains, and come to terms with the new phases we will be embarking on.
I look forward to the adventures the new year will bring, and I will no doubt feel many twinges of sadness as well, as I prepare myself for the ending of one childhood and the beginning of that same childs adulthood. I will continue to have dreams for that child and the others as well. I will continue to pray for all of them, and as I watch these last football games, and this last year of high school I will hold close to my heart the memories we are going to take with us from this year. I will engrave those memories into my heart, and I will promise myself now that amongst the tears I will surley cry as we work our way to the end of the year, I will also smile for this year and all the ones that brought us to it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
I Live In The Food Processor
Living in a house with five children aged 7-17, and two adults is much like living in a food processor. Our combined personality traits, all in one house is similar to putting all the vegetables into the food processor at one time, turning it on high speed, and letting it whir away. The result often being that mess you have when it is time to take the food processor apart and clean it. Shreds of this and that stuck on the blades, reminding you every time why it is you really don't like digging it out of the cabinet and using it at all!
Seven people, seven personalities, all in one place, with some strange idea that we will live together in this wonderfully harmonious enviroment! Well okay, it was a thought, even if it wasn't a realistic thought.
Now we all know teenagers have this tremendous power in which they can push a parents buttons and create so much chaos that you'd give almost anything to jump into a food processor just to get away from the noise and drama. Being the " parent" doesn't work, I know I have tried. However if you are lucky enough to be the step parent in the situation it works wonderfully. I have seen this first hand, my husband has an incredible talent in being able to become the invisible person. If the teens in particular are giving me a difficult time, he has the uncanny ability to just walk right by, completely deaf to the noise around him, totally blind to their existence or mine and can just tune out the fact that he cohabitates with any of us at all. My kids are very tuned into this, and as most kids will do, they see this as an advantage on their part. I have learned how to do the same thing in regards to issues with his kids as well, and if there is one thing he and I should agree on, ignorance is truly bliss as they say. If we just stay out of the other factors of each others lives, all kids are happy.
So as we endure our daily struggles to live in harmony, and blend the seven personalities in the same house, we also must blend the remaining personalities that are part of the unit, though they don't live in the same house. However we continue to hope for a balance to miraculously make itself visible to all, and our intent is to try and stick it out long enough to finally one day become somewhat blended happily all the way around.
Seven people, seven personalities, all in one place, with some strange idea that we will live together in this wonderfully harmonious enviroment! Well okay, it was a thought, even if it wasn't a realistic thought.
Want to know all about different tastes in music, sports, foods, movies, you name it and we can quickly give you seven different opinions, and seven different reasons for each opinon. Though one may briefly tolerate someone elses likes, it should never be mistaken as being in agreement. Somehow it seems like I am the one tossed into the food processor of our united lives the most often. I wonder at times is it because I am the mom? It seems that without fail we will get into my car and the button to change the radio station of my choice is immediately the first thing touched and music that isn't my choice is then blaring at me. Okay, so you say well teenagers tend to like different music and tend to think they are in charge of our musical entertainment for car rides. I disagree with this, and feel people riding in my car with me should listen to whatever music I happen to choose playing. However as we have blended families and personalities, it is not just the teens who make it the choice to do this, but my husband as well will change the dial to suit his tastes. Most of the time I just endure, but if we have the kids with us, it then proceeds to be a battle of wills. Step father versus kids, both sides insisting on getting in the last word, both sides equally determined to win, and where does that leave me? Stuck in the middle, caught between the man I married and the kids that I inherited sole custody of when their father died. Not a good place to be. I'd rather have a side than be caught in the middle, ah yes there goes the chopping blade yet once again. Score at end is a tie for zero, but mom is now fried.
Another are of aggravation.......Dishes! Dishes are a neverending cause of stress and strife in our household. We seem to have a never ending supply that need to be washed or loaded into the dishwasher. If I didn't live in this house with all these people I love, I would never have believed that dishes can be the battleground for a major war. However they are! It doesn't seem to matter that when I leave the house there are no dishes to be dealt with, nor does it make any difference if I am gone for a long time or a short time, the dishes seem to jump out of the cabinets all by themself at times, but I will none the less come home to a massive supply of dishes needing to be washed or loaded into said dishwasher. Uh oh, in come children and step dad...put your gloves on battle begins. Now my offspring have a stubborn streak, and if you ask them to do something in a way that they get the impression they have a choice ( notice I say impression, because really they have no choice), they will usually, not always, but usually somehow see it your way and do what it is you want. Mission accompolished..mom-1 kids-0. But, like I said they are stubborn and if you come out into the ring telling and heaven forbid making it appear demanding they do, well there again..WAR has begun. And again I am tossed into the food processor, caught between enemy lines, and anything I say is going to be against one side or the other, so I am again in a no win scenario.
Then we have the chair episode. I bought a wicker chair at a yard sale and my first words that day are probably the only words I have ever spoken that seem to have been commited to the memory of others. I told everyone that day to stay out of my chair, as I did not want it torn up from horsing around like so many of my belongings tend to be. Well recently that chair has been a huge issue! In comes the seven year old, leaning on the chair daily to look out the window and see if his friend is outside. Second enters the grown-up with the demand he get off his mamas chair, thus the lines are drawn, and the battle begins, and mom is again tossed into the food processor. This particualr chair has become such a topic of disagreement that I myself am ready to destroy it, just so I don't have to hear near daily battles over it. And again when I open my mouth, I am in a no win situation over my own stupid chair, that I have learned to regret ever having bought!
These are just a couple of the daily issues we have in our blended household, and they are just tiny parts of the reasons why I often wonder, just why exactly we thought this was such a brilliant idea.
My days are spent trying to keep peace, fairness, objectiveness, hope, love, and every other kind of good emotion strong and stable in my life. Yet many days I find myself sticking to the eggshells I find myself walking on, pushing back deep inside me the things I believe in to suit others and keep peace, and what happens in the process, is I get chopped up living in the food processor to the point sometimes I am not even sure who I am anymore.
Now we all know teenagers have this tremendous power in which they can push a parents buttons and create so much chaos that you'd give almost anything to jump into a food processor just to get away from the noise and drama. Being the " parent" doesn't work, I know I have tried. However if you are lucky enough to be the step parent in the situation it works wonderfully. I have seen this first hand, my husband has an incredible talent in being able to become the invisible person. If the teens in particular are giving me a difficult time, he has the uncanny ability to just walk right by, completely deaf to the noise around him, totally blind to their existence or mine and can just tune out the fact that he cohabitates with any of us at all. My kids are very tuned into this, and as most kids will do, they see this as an advantage on their part. I have learned how to do the same thing in regards to issues with his kids as well, and if there is one thing he and I should agree on, ignorance is truly bliss as they say. If we just stay out of the other factors of each others lives, all kids are happy.
So as we endure our daily struggles to live in harmony, and blend the seven personalities in the same house, we also must blend the remaining personalities that are part of the unit, though they don't live in the same house. However we continue to hope for a balance to miraculously make itself visible to all, and our intent is to try and stick it out long enough to finally one day become somewhat blended happily all the way around.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Food for Thought
The other night as I spent the night unable to sleep I used the quiet time while all others in the house were asleep to do some research on the computer. I was on the Focus on the Family site where they have numerous articles about the modern blended families that are so present in our modern society. I must say I was shocked by some of what I read, humored by some, and left scratching my head and saying wow that's my life on yet other things.
I was shocked by the realization that my marriage falls in the category that has a 73% chance statistically of failing. As I read further into it I began the scrathcing of my head and saying wow, as many of the little things mentioned are daily tidbits in my own life. Now talk about not sleeping! Whew.
In one segment they talked about the term blending and what that actually means. They used the example of putting all the foods into the blender and mixing them up at once, translating to me as the part where you get married to one person and all the others in their lives and those in your life being tossed into the blender and anticpating that all will mesh together into one fine smooth lump, and everyone will be happy. Yes sadly that is the hope of most of us when we remarry. We somehow think any mistakes made in the past have prepared us to have a great remarriage and all will have the fairy tale happily ever after ending we grew up believing in.
Then they used the example of putting things one at a time into a crock pot and allowing the foods over time to blend nicely together, given the time to simmer and cook and blend. That tranlated to me as yikes we are going to spend our lives simmering, and stewing in the hopes that all comes out happily together at the end of the process. Yet as I think more on it, the crock pot is a much better comparison than the blender, where we get thrown in together, chopped up and there we are. At least with the crock pot we have the advantage of being put in individually as our own enity, allowed to slowly cook with others and come out one happy stew.
The simmering part is one of the phrases that caught me as really resembling my own blending here. We seem to constantly have someone simmering, and either they eventually reach a full boil and bubble over, or they just continue to slow cook with the boil being hidden beneath the surface. A great deal of the simmering process in our unit is that very often there is no real communication. In an attempt top keep peace, we tend to make things appear to be much more humorous than they really are. In trying to keep everyone smiling and blended peacefully, we begin a discussions and as soon as one or another has decided they don't want to deal with it conversation is over, and leading to more of the simmering just below the surface. If this is at all usual in the married again world I can better understand why that figure for failing is at 73%.
Now our house consists of a lot of male persons, a lot more than most houses and we all know that the males gruffly say their two cents worth and the conversation is over, or they don't contribute to the talk process at all. If we force them to talk about things it creates another problem with attitude, and they go back into the denial process that anything could really be not quite right after all. We have a wild combination of both here at our blender, and a variety of age levels in which it is evident, young teen, to young men, to grown men. The silly stuff they have a lot to say about, but the real issues result in head nodding and at a later point saying I didn't hear that. I also notice they have this blank sad puppy dog stare if you talk seriously to them and the result of that is the quilt you feel,( very much a female trait) at the idea of rocking the boat, so you stop talking, and allow those feelings to simmer in that family crock pot, stewing away any hurt thoughts, angry thoughts, selfish thoughts, allowing them to simmer and simmer but never totally bubble up to boil.
The other thing that is very evident in our house are the extra walls, the ones we bang into all the time, but can not see. They are the invisible walls which keep our unit divided as that relish dish I mentioned before. We have the us section, the me section, the my kids section, the your kids section, the your extended family section, the my extended family section, and the the sections that include one or the other with any one or the other sections. We are like a giant experiment dish, and the focus is keep all from blending at all costs to prevent from boiling. We probably should come with a warning label! Mix, shake, or put in same place at same time may be hazardous to your family harmony. And trust me on this we have definetly seen the proof of the truth in this. Even in these times of trial mixture, the seperateness of the unit is highly visible, as mine goes one way, his goes another, he hangs with his and trickles over to the mine to try and keep peace, and I finally remove myself from the not being spoken to, and the anxiety one can get from being surrounded by contempt for oneself, and I have been known to take a nice long walk where I actually have been gone for a really long time before anybody even noticed. Maybe I am simmering, yea probably. But the walls are there, they can't be seen but they absolutely can be felt.
Two families, two completley different families, simmering in the crock pot of life, because two grown people decided to merge all these people together into one great dish, whether they wanted to be merged or not, no wonder that number is at 73%. Those two people are so completely outnumbered by the signifcants in their own individual lives and the realizations that no matter how long they try and simmer these different fruits of life the probabilty of their actually blending into one happy mixture is probably less than the 27% chance they have of making it. WOW!!
So the process continues, and two people hope for the best, each one allowing the feelings to simmer and not boil over, stir it up a little, put the lid back on it and hope that one day they will beat those odds and actually somehow stay together and that all the significants will discover it isn't so bad to allow the blending process to happen.
What does this have to do with me? Well we have the yours and the mine daily in our lives. We have the us, and the stress of trying to be a family, but we are constantly three families trying to be one, and including all in one thing has turned out so hurtful and disastrous in the past that we no longer even really try. That creates the simmering in our own personal relationship, consiting of two, where one or the other of us feels the need to walk on eggshells at all times, or to conviently not mention aspects of our days. 73 % of these remarriages will fail, 27% will be strong enough to survive. I wonder what the percentage is of those who just give up. At times I feel like I am too stubborn to fall in to that 73% and at other times I feel like if I just go ahead and allow myself to fall in that 73% I may find myself hurt less, smiling more, more free to feel useful, happy, and fulfilled as a person.
So as our life continues to simmer in our family crock pot perhaps we will become more tender, more combined as a whole and who knows maybe even beat the odds.
I was shocked by the realization that my marriage falls in the category that has a 73% chance statistically of failing. As I read further into it I began the scrathcing of my head and saying wow, as many of the little things mentioned are daily tidbits in my own life. Now talk about not sleeping! Whew.
In one segment they talked about the term blending and what that actually means. They used the example of putting all the foods into the blender and mixing them up at once, translating to me as the part where you get married to one person and all the others in their lives and those in your life being tossed into the blender and anticpating that all will mesh together into one fine smooth lump, and everyone will be happy. Yes sadly that is the hope of most of us when we remarry. We somehow think any mistakes made in the past have prepared us to have a great remarriage and all will have the fairy tale happily ever after ending we grew up believing in.
Then they used the example of putting things one at a time into a crock pot and allowing the foods over time to blend nicely together, given the time to simmer and cook and blend. That tranlated to me as yikes we are going to spend our lives simmering, and stewing in the hopes that all comes out happily together at the end of the process. Yet as I think more on it, the crock pot is a much better comparison than the blender, where we get thrown in together, chopped up and there we are. At least with the crock pot we have the advantage of being put in individually as our own enity, allowed to slowly cook with others and come out one happy stew.
The simmering part is one of the phrases that caught me as really resembling my own blending here. We seem to constantly have someone simmering, and either they eventually reach a full boil and bubble over, or they just continue to slow cook with the boil being hidden beneath the surface. A great deal of the simmering process in our unit is that very often there is no real communication. In an attempt top keep peace, we tend to make things appear to be much more humorous than they really are. In trying to keep everyone smiling and blended peacefully, we begin a discussions and as soon as one or another has decided they don't want to deal with it conversation is over, and leading to more of the simmering just below the surface. If this is at all usual in the married again world I can better understand why that figure for failing is at 73%.
Now our house consists of a lot of male persons, a lot more than most houses and we all know that the males gruffly say their two cents worth and the conversation is over, or they don't contribute to the talk process at all. If we force them to talk about things it creates another problem with attitude, and they go back into the denial process that anything could really be not quite right after all. We have a wild combination of both here at our blender, and a variety of age levels in which it is evident, young teen, to young men, to grown men. The silly stuff they have a lot to say about, but the real issues result in head nodding and at a later point saying I didn't hear that. I also notice they have this blank sad puppy dog stare if you talk seriously to them and the result of that is the quilt you feel,( very much a female trait) at the idea of rocking the boat, so you stop talking, and allow those feelings to simmer in that family crock pot, stewing away any hurt thoughts, angry thoughts, selfish thoughts, allowing them to simmer and simmer but never totally bubble up to boil.
The other thing that is very evident in our house are the extra walls, the ones we bang into all the time, but can not see. They are the invisible walls which keep our unit divided as that relish dish I mentioned before. We have the us section, the me section, the my kids section, the your kids section, the your extended family section, the my extended family section, and the the sections that include one or the other with any one or the other sections. We are like a giant experiment dish, and the focus is keep all from blending at all costs to prevent from boiling. We probably should come with a warning label! Mix, shake, or put in same place at same time may be hazardous to your family harmony. And trust me on this we have definetly seen the proof of the truth in this. Even in these times of trial mixture, the seperateness of the unit is highly visible, as mine goes one way, his goes another, he hangs with his and trickles over to the mine to try and keep peace, and I finally remove myself from the not being spoken to, and the anxiety one can get from being surrounded by contempt for oneself, and I have been known to take a nice long walk where I actually have been gone for a really long time before anybody even noticed. Maybe I am simmering, yea probably. But the walls are there, they can't be seen but they absolutely can be felt.
Two families, two completley different families, simmering in the crock pot of life, because two grown people decided to merge all these people together into one great dish, whether they wanted to be merged or not, no wonder that number is at 73%. Those two people are so completely outnumbered by the signifcants in their own individual lives and the realizations that no matter how long they try and simmer these different fruits of life the probabilty of their actually blending into one happy mixture is probably less than the 27% chance they have of making it. WOW!!
So the process continues, and two people hope for the best, each one allowing the feelings to simmer and not boil over, stir it up a little, put the lid back on it and hope that one day they will beat those odds and actually somehow stay together and that all the significants will discover it isn't so bad to allow the blending process to happen.
What does this have to do with me? Well we have the yours and the mine daily in our lives. We have the us, and the stress of trying to be a family, but we are constantly three families trying to be one, and including all in one thing has turned out so hurtful and disastrous in the past that we no longer even really try. That creates the simmering in our own personal relationship, consiting of two, where one or the other of us feels the need to walk on eggshells at all times, or to conviently not mention aspects of our days. 73 % of these remarriages will fail, 27% will be strong enough to survive. I wonder what the percentage is of those who just give up. At times I feel like I am too stubborn to fall in to that 73% and at other times I feel like if I just go ahead and allow myself to fall in that 73% I may find myself hurt less, smiling more, more free to feel useful, happy, and fulfilled as a person.
So as our life continues to simmer in our family crock pot perhaps we will become more tender, more combined as a whole and who knows maybe even beat the odds.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Blessings Abound
This weekend we had one of those memorable and joyous family happenings here at our house. Several weeks ago my teenage daughter announced she wanted to be baptised. This was a joyful announcement for me as I don't baptize my children when they are infants. I do have them blessed when they are babies, but I feel being baptised is a choice they must make for it to really count. Anyway, yesterday was the day she chose.
After she compiled her personal list of people she wanted to be included we handed out invitations and all except one were able to attend. For us that meant a grand total of 42 people in our home for the grand event, as she chose to be totally immersed in our pool. When the Pastors performing the ceremony opened it up to anyone else who wanted to make their choice or anyone who wanted to be rebaptised, her younger brother decided it was a good day for him to do this as well. Now he had been talking about it for weeks as well, but this was her day, so I hadn't asked her to share it with him, but rather told him of course he could do this and we would choose a day for him. One of my own blessings came at the moment the offer for anyone to join her was made, as she looked at her little brother and said," Come on Peter, do this with me". Now the remarkable part of this to me is , as a teenager she is under most circumstances completely self absorbed! And yet given an opportunity to do something with or for someone else, she grasped the chance to go for it!
So my youngest daughter and my youngest son in the presence of their immediate family and our wonderful circle of closest friends and church family members were baptised together on July 18. It was a joyful day not only for them, but for me as their mother, as I watched them go under the water and come back up born again! They officially claimed their faith in that brief moment of time, and will be blessed beyond their comprehension as the days of their lives unfold.
For me it was a double blessing to watch as two more of my children took that leap of faith, and I now have four of my seven that have chosen to be Baptised. I look forward to watching them continue to grow in their faith, to help others grow in theirs, and to embrace them into mine in an entirely new way.
After she compiled her personal list of people she wanted to be included we handed out invitations and all except one were able to attend. For us that meant a grand total of 42 people in our home for the grand event, as she chose to be totally immersed in our pool. When the Pastors performing the ceremony opened it up to anyone else who wanted to make their choice or anyone who wanted to be rebaptised, her younger brother decided it was a good day for him to do this as well. Now he had been talking about it for weeks as well, but this was her day, so I hadn't asked her to share it with him, but rather told him of course he could do this and we would choose a day for him. One of my own blessings came at the moment the offer for anyone to join her was made, as she looked at her little brother and said," Come on Peter, do this with me". Now the remarkable part of this to me is , as a teenager she is under most circumstances completely self absorbed! And yet given an opportunity to do something with or for someone else, she grasped the chance to go for it!
So my youngest daughter and my youngest son in the presence of their immediate family and our wonderful circle of closest friends and church family members were baptised together on July 18. It was a joyful day not only for them, but for me as their mother, as I watched them go under the water and come back up born again! They officially claimed their faith in that brief moment of time, and will be blessed beyond their comprehension as the days of their lives unfold.
For me it was a double blessing to watch as two more of my children took that leap of faith, and I now have four of my seven that have chosen to be Baptised. I look forward to watching them continue to grow in their faith, to help others grow in theirs, and to embrace them into mine in an entirely new way.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Our Lives Are Like A Relish Dish
Sometimes I sit and look at where my life is at, where it has been and where it appears to be going and I realize that I often am on the outside looking in the window and that my view is actually what I often refer to as my view from the porch. That is what I call it when I seem to be looking in at my life and though I am there it sometimes seems that I am on the outside looking in.
I first noticed this two and a half years ago when my husband and I were dating. I discovered then that there was an invisible divison between his life and mine and though somewhere in the middle we joined, that divison was none the less there, keeping our life divided into three parts, ours, his, and mine. Somehow through all that we worked on that common ground we found and we continued dating and eventually marrying. And somewhere in the midst of our life, there are still so many parts of it where I find myself still getting my view from the porch.
At times it is like we live three lives that is somehow entwined into one. We have the our life, the my life, and the his life. Since I am the one who still has younger kids living at home he is included more into my part of the three lives than I am into his, which became again transparently clear today. It is seen in the simplest things, and yet those are the very things that remind me of my place on the porch.
In our blended life today we celebrated the Baptism of two of my children, his "step" children, and we also were celebrating the birthday of my teenage daughters boyfriend as well. As my husband was cutting the cake to be handed out I wanted to take a picture, and I once again got a picture with sunglasses and no smile, after he had already done his usual hide from the camera stunt. This is not an uncommon event when I want to capture a moment in time via the camera and though three years ago it was just as common, it didn't seem to irrittate me as much. Perhaps that was before I realized, he does actually take off his sunglasses and does actually give a genuine smile for the camera, just not for me, but to the part of our life that is his.
When he is with his own blood related family he will actually look at the camera, give a heartfelt genuine smile,and guess what he actually shows off the fact that he has eyes underneath sunglasses. I find these pictures without knowledge because we have facebooks and he gets tagged by his "real" children on it so that he too has the pictures. Silly thing to bug someone you are most likely thinking and I actually tend to agree to a point. However, these visits are never shared verbally or any other way until they are happy family photo shots online. As I sit on the porch looking in at the part of life that is behind that invisible divider I often wonder why that is. That in itself is mystifying to me, but then when we have an event to take a good photo shot at, that my children or I are involved in we get the goofy photos instead of the nice ones.
As we move forward through the days of our lives, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that there will forever be the relsih dish effect in our lives. There will always be three sections and no matter how much I want to include him in all aspects of my life, there are always going to be parts he doesn't really want to be involved in where my children or my side of the family label is concerned, and there also will be parts of his life that I will never be fully included in as well.
This is all part of blending two completely different families together.
I first noticed this two and a half years ago when my husband and I were dating. I discovered then that there was an invisible divison between his life and mine and though somewhere in the middle we joined, that divison was none the less there, keeping our life divided into three parts, ours, his, and mine. Somehow through all that we worked on that common ground we found and we continued dating and eventually marrying. And somewhere in the midst of our life, there are still so many parts of it where I find myself still getting my view from the porch.
At times it is like we live three lives that is somehow entwined into one. We have the our life, the my life, and the his life. Since I am the one who still has younger kids living at home he is included more into my part of the three lives than I am into his, which became again transparently clear today. It is seen in the simplest things, and yet those are the very things that remind me of my place on the porch.
In our blended life today we celebrated the Baptism of two of my children, his "step" children, and we also were celebrating the birthday of my teenage daughters boyfriend as well. As my husband was cutting the cake to be handed out I wanted to take a picture, and I once again got a picture with sunglasses and no smile, after he had already done his usual hide from the camera stunt. This is not an uncommon event when I want to capture a moment in time via the camera and though three years ago it was just as common, it didn't seem to irrittate me as much. Perhaps that was before I realized, he does actually take off his sunglasses and does actually give a genuine smile for the camera, just not for me, but to the part of our life that is his.
When he is with his own blood related family he will actually look at the camera, give a heartfelt genuine smile,and guess what he actually shows off the fact that he has eyes underneath sunglasses. I find these pictures without knowledge because we have facebooks and he gets tagged by his "real" children on it so that he too has the pictures. Silly thing to bug someone you are most likely thinking and I actually tend to agree to a point. However, these visits are never shared verbally or any other way until they are happy family photo shots online. As I sit on the porch looking in at the part of life that is behind that invisible divider I often wonder why that is. That in itself is mystifying to me, but then when we have an event to take a good photo shot at, that my children or I are involved in we get the goofy photos instead of the nice ones.
As we move forward through the days of our lives, it becomes clearer and clearer to me that there will forever be the relsih dish effect in our lives. There will always be three sections and no matter how much I want to include him in all aspects of my life, there are always going to be parts he doesn't really want to be involved in where my children or my side of the family label is concerned, and there also will be parts of his life that I will never be fully included in as well.
This is all part of blending two completely different families together.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Good Old Summer Days
I remember the good old summer days of youth. School ended and the days were longer, and filled with carefree nothingness. We looked so forward to those longer days and all that freedom to do pretty much nothing at all. Friends spent the night, we spent the night somewhere and families actually took vacations, had cookouts,family reunions, and we all just basked in the enjoyment of being lazy for days and weeks. Ah, to have a summer like that again!!
Now my summer is filled with sports practices, teenage music blasting in my head hours after they have actually turned the music off, cleaning up after armies of teenagers, and it seems someone is spending the night at my house every night! Seriously not one night goes by that one child or more doesn't say " I have a question, can so and so stay the night?". There are no lazy carefree days filled with nothingness in my summer. I can't even really decide why they ever called it things like summer vacation, or summer break. I can't find five minutes to be lazy and do nothing. Cookouts are a lot of work, where did we ever get the idea that cookouts were the way to go. You have to shop, decide what to cook, clean the grill, wait for ever for the grill to heat up, and then can you believe you actually still have to prepare food after all, so you have something to eat with whatever you are cooking out!! I mean I don't remember that from my earlier summers. I had the crazy idea that while we kids loafed around in our nothingness every one did, with the exception of the dad who had to go to work.
Summer around here consists of five kids with five various sets of friends who all think our house is just the coolest place to be all day and apparently every night as well. I wonder sometimes if they really have homes at all. Our house seems to be the local camp or something, and my kitchen seems to be open to the public. I didn't realize we even owned as many dishes as I find in my kitchen sink at any given moment throught out the day. I barely get them dry before they are again dirty in the sink. I have this wonderful modern device called a dishwasher, but apparently you have to be over 30 to put dirty dishes in it, as no one here during summer seems to know how.
I have decided it might be a really good idea to put in a revolving door before summer rolls around again, as it seems ours is constantly being opened and closed. They will walk outside, turn around come back in, just to walk out and back in again in five minutes. They stand there with the door half open and declare it is hot today! Well no kidding, it is hot every day, it is summer. I guess they have some strange idea that if they wait five minutes and go out again it might somehow be cooler, but surprise still hot...let's try again in a few minutes!! And so it goes with the door. Know what else I don't remember from my lazy summers of the past, electric costs A LOT!!
Then what is up with youth sports?? I mean seriously we practice football all summer long, three to five nights a week depending on the cooperativeness of the weather. Those wonderful longer days are spent sweating at a field all so we can give our kids the great opportunity of team sports!! WOW! What a great idea that is. Of course it has it's advantages too... it means we have to eat dinner by 4:30 so those cookouts are out of the question. However it adds to the restaurant effect in the kitchen since I make sure all the dinner dishes and such are done before we leave, that way they are all clean for round two after we get home.
I still have one luxury of my earleir summers though. Remember we got to stay up late?? Well I still get too, that way after all are showered and all have eaten their second course of dinner, and I get yet round 250 of the dishes dealt with, then I get to take a shower and if I am very lucky there may be a few trickles of hot water left, I might actually pick up a bottle of shampoo that isn't empty and once in the while there is actually still a full size towel left in the cabinet to dry off with, if not I have learned that hand towels work too. But the best part is I still get to stay up late!! There are times when it is almost time to get up by the time I get to sleep.
Then there is morning while they are all sleeping in late, and I am up early. I stumble to the kitchen to discover I can't find the sink!! Seems it is a requirement in my house for each operson to use four or more glasses and various other dishes after I have gone to sleep as there is some sort of rule that mom must wake up to sinks full of dishes! And did you know that lightning bugs must come in our homes at night and eat all our food, because in my house food is eaten in the middle of the night by no one here and they also leave dishes for you.
But soon summer will end, things will slowly return to a more normal state, and just as I begin to get comfortable with that......it will be winter break!!
Now my summer is filled with sports practices, teenage music blasting in my head hours after they have actually turned the music off, cleaning up after armies of teenagers, and it seems someone is spending the night at my house every night! Seriously not one night goes by that one child or more doesn't say " I have a question, can so and so stay the night?". There are no lazy carefree days filled with nothingness in my summer. I can't even really decide why they ever called it things like summer vacation, or summer break. I can't find five minutes to be lazy and do nothing. Cookouts are a lot of work, where did we ever get the idea that cookouts were the way to go. You have to shop, decide what to cook, clean the grill, wait for ever for the grill to heat up, and then can you believe you actually still have to prepare food after all, so you have something to eat with whatever you are cooking out!! I mean I don't remember that from my earlier summers. I had the crazy idea that while we kids loafed around in our nothingness every one did, with the exception of the dad who had to go to work.
Summer around here consists of five kids with five various sets of friends who all think our house is just the coolest place to be all day and apparently every night as well. I wonder sometimes if they really have homes at all. Our house seems to be the local camp or something, and my kitchen seems to be open to the public. I didn't realize we even owned as many dishes as I find in my kitchen sink at any given moment throught out the day. I barely get them dry before they are again dirty in the sink. I have this wonderful modern device called a dishwasher, but apparently you have to be over 30 to put dirty dishes in it, as no one here during summer seems to know how.
I have decided it might be a really good idea to put in a revolving door before summer rolls around again, as it seems ours is constantly being opened and closed. They will walk outside, turn around come back in, just to walk out and back in again in five minutes. They stand there with the door half open and declare it is hot today! Well no kidding, it is hot every day, it is summer. I guess they have some strange idea that if they wait five minutes and go out again it might somehow be cooler, but surprise still hot...let's try again in a few minutes!! And so it goes with the door. Know what else I don't remember from my lazy summers of the past, electric costs A LOT!!
Then what is up with youth sports?? I mean seriously we practice football all summer long, three to five nights a week depending on the cooperativeness of the weather. Those wonderful longer days are spent sweating at a field all so we can give our kids the great opportunity of team sports!! WOW! What a great idea that is. Of course it has it's advantages too... it means we have to eat dinner by 4:30 so those cookouts are out of the question. However it adds to the restaurant effect in the kitchen since I make sure all the dinner dishes and such are done before we leave, that way they are all clean for round two after we get home.
I still have one luxury of my earleir summers though. Remember we got to stay up late?? Well I still get too, that way after all are showered and all have eaten their second course of dinner, and I get yet round 250 of the dishes dealt with, then I get to take a shower and if I am very lucky there may be a few trickles of hot water left, I might actually pick up a bottle of shampoo that isn't empty and once in the while there is actually still a full size towel left in the cabinet to dry off with, if not I have learned that hand towels work too. But the best part is I still get to stay up late!! There are times when it is almost time to get up by the time I get to sleep.
Then there is morning while they are all sleeping in late, and I am up early. I stumble to the kitchen to discover I can't find the sink!! Seems it is a requirement in my house for each operson to use four or more glasses and various other dishes after I have gone to sleep as there is some sort of rule that mom must wake up to sinks full of dishes! And did you know that lightning bugs must come in our homes at night and eat all our food, because in my house food is eaten in the middle of the night by no one here and they also leave dishes for you.
But soon summer will end, things will slowly return to a more normal state, and just as I begin to get comfortable with that......it will be winter break!!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Yikes!! Hey I Want A Rewind!!
During my motherhood journey, I look back on the days of my childrens infancy and toddlerhood, and I think Oh, if I only knew then what I know now!! Those wonderful innocent days of whimpering cries from babies, and the helplessness of being a mother pulling her hair out trying to figure out why are they crying?? I so remember thinking if only you could talk and tell me what is wrong. You know those cries, when they have a full belly so hunger isn't the problem, they don't really have a tummy ache as they just burped and spit out any excess all over you, they aren't wet you just changed them, too soon for teething, no shots just had causing this, and rocking, singing,walking,begging, nothing helps!! Ah yes I remember those days.
Then they speak and you are delighted, finally now you and baby can communicate. Baby can help you know what to do by telling you what is wrong. Uh huh...only problem is baby won't talk, they just point, whine, nod, and the only word you can understand with absolute clarity besides me is that.
Suddenly those days flew by and the child is no longer a baby and they have a vocabulary that you actually can understand and for a few years life for the most part is grand. They use their manners and never forget please and thank you. I love you are words that just flow from their sweet mouth non stop. And you swell with pride at your child.
Before you know it you have a teenager and sadly you understand everything they are saying. They are still whining and crying and their favorite words are still me and that with a lot I want and can I mixed in. Those manners, well lets say letting them have friends and social lives was not your best idea. You find yourself looking back at their baby pictures and wanting to slap yourself for begging to be able to understand their words, because now you are praying for silence, wishing you couldn't understand what they were saying, as you look at them blankly wondering did your child actually just use that word, or has someone dropped the wrong kid off at your house.
I have officially got four teenagers in my house now, and that means I have personally had to live with six teenagers so far, and heaven help me I still have one that will be a teenager! I personally have a goal to survive this and witness each of them with at least one teenager of their very own. I will even treat myself to a medal if I do!
As I think back to the days of wishing so hard I could understand what they were trying to tell me I think now oh how I wish you couldn't talk yet. Then I look at the one that is grown up with a child of their own now and I think ah Her turn. So though I can't rewind my life back to the quieter days, I can smile as I watch my own child shake her head wondering is this really my sweet little baby? Yelling like that?? And then I can laugh when I remind her he is only five and the real fun is still to come. We get to rewind in a way through our children, and this time we get to be in our parents spot of watching them deal with it and smiling.
Then they speak and you are delighted, finally now you and baby can communicate. Baby can help you know what to do by telling you what is wrong. Uh huh...only problem is baby won't talk, they just point, whine, nod, and the only word you can understand with absolute clarity besides me is that.
Suddenly those days flew by and the child is no longer a baby and they have a vocabulary that you actually can understand and for a few years life for the most part is grand. They use their manners and never forget please and thank you. I love you are words that just flow from their sweet mouth non stop. And you swell with pride at your child.
Before you know it you have a teenager and sadly you understand everything they are saying. They are still whining and crying and their favorite words are still me and that with a lot I want and can I mixed in. Those manners, well lets say letting them have friends and social lives was not your best idea. You find yourself looking back at their baby pictures and wanting to slap yourself for begging to be able to understand their words, because now you are praying for silence, wishing you couldn't understand what they were saying, as you look at them blankly wondering did your child actually just use that word, or has someone dropped the wrong kid off at your house.
I have officially got four teenagers in my house now, and that means I have personally had to live with six teenagers so far, and heaven help me I still have one that will be a teenager! I personally have a goal to survive this and witness each of them with at least one teenager of their very own. I will even treat myself to a medal if I do!
As I think back to the days of wishing so hard I could understand what they were trying to tell me I think now oh how I wish you couldn't talk yet. Then I look at the one that is grown up with a child of their own now and I think ah Her turn. So though I can't rewind my life back to the quieter days, I can smile as I watch my own child shake her head wondering is this really my sweet little baby? Yelling like that?? And then I can laugh when I remind her he is only five and the real fun is still to come. We get to rewind in a way through our children, and this time we get to be in our parents spot of watching them deal with it and smiling.
I Now Pronounce You Family and Family
We live is a society of muliple marriages, the generation of yours, mine, and sometimes ours.In my situation the ours consists of farm animals , dogs, and cats. The yours and the mine are made up of seven kids belonging to me and three kids belonging to him, and then all the fill in family as well on both sides.
I met my husband a little more than three and a half years ago on myspace, and in person three years ago. We will be married two years this fall. He was then a divorced dad of three and I was a widowed mom of seven, five of whom still lived at home.
In the months before we even thought about marrying, he met my kids, I met his kids. We spent time with his parents, his brother and sister in law and their children, his sister, I even met an aunt of his. He met my aunt, my sister, her husband and their boys, my brother, sister in law and their blended family of his and theirs, my cousin and her family.
Given the fact that everyone liked one another, all talked, laughed and seemed to enjoy one another, you would think that when we did get married our lives would have blended smoothly into one big happy family!! Wrong!!!
We learned quickly that the kids that like you , like you much better when you are around now and then, not daily. We have learned that no matter what ways we try to be creative to include everyone it won't happen that way. We have learned that grown children are very jealous of young children, and that whether kids despite what age they are liked you before they don't like you very much if you have "taken" their daddy or their mom! Through it all we have discovered they for all their wanting you to be happy really liked it best when you had no real personal life at all and they could count on you to be there at their beckon call.
And this is what we call our blended family! Between us there are a total of seven boys, three girls, one granddaughter, and one grandson. There is his family which he refers to as " My other family" and their is my family. There are his kids and my kids, one set of parents on his side. A grand total between us of three brothers, two sisters, two sisters in law, and one brother in law. and somewhere in the middle of it all there we are. Two people surrounded by the obstacles of many, trying to be a couple in our spare time.
We have discovered that getting together with the family ( that is the entire family consisting of both sides ) is an illusion, well at the very least is a memory of our past. We have tried birthday parties that included from both sides and have ended up with no one from either side. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, you name it we can only get some to agree, and the rest are busy. Add to it that the ones who do agree come hours after you have asked them to be here for dinner, or say they are coming and then just don't show up at all.
We both remember the days of family reunions, aunts, uncles, cousins, in laws, and probably some outlaws but the whole entire family, gathering for feasting, playing, joking, talking, laughing, and reminiscing about the good old days. That is how it was when we were kids. That is how we were brought up to think it was supposed to be~always! That is how we somehow thought it would be when we blended our two family units and that is also the point where we were the most wrong! Now in fairness he has family that lives in other states, and so do I, but they do come to visit. He sees his family and I see mine and every once in the while it works that I see his and he sees mine too.
But our dreams of blending the families and being one large happy family have long since fallen to the wayside. The harder we try to do that the harder it becomes and now we just accept that he was right when he labeled it his other family.
Scotty and Missy are a couple, they live with five of her kids, and lots of farm animals, flower gardens, and fruit trees. He has a family, and they belong to him and she has a family and they belong to her. His kids have no desire to be a big happy family, and hers don't either. They have learned through the blending journey that they are the only common denominator and that if we of them fell to the side, his family would go their way, and hers would do the same.
Now you might say well perhaps it the ages of the kids, and I suppose perhaps for some that is true, our children combined range in age from 7-32, and age could be a contributing factor. Life is a facgtor too I imagine as everyone is busy in the world today, but how sad that we are too busy for family, for following traditions, for making traditions. Sad also when I think how we now live in the generation of I now pronounce you family and family....go your seperate ways and hope what God has joined together, children don't put unsunder.
I met my husband a little more than three and a half years ago on myspace, and in person three years ago. We will be married two years this fall. He was then a divorced dad of three and I was a widowed mom of seven, five of whom still lived at home.
In the months before we even thought about marrying, he met my kids, I met his kids. We spent time with his parents, his brother and sister in law and their children, his sister, I even met an aunt of his. He met my aunt, my sister, her husband and their boys, my brother, sister in law and their blended family of his and theirs, my cousin and her family.
Given the fact that everyone liked one another, all talked, laughed and seemed to enjoy one another, you would think that when we did get married our lives would have blended smoothly into one big happy family!! Wrong!!!
We learned quickly that the kids that like you , like you much better when you are around now and then, not daily. We have learned that no matter what ways we try to be creative to include everyone it won't happen that way. We have learned that grown children are very jealous of young children, and that whether kids despite what age they are liked you before they don't like you very much if you have "taken" their daddy or their mom! Through it all we have discovered they for all their wanting you to be happy really liked it best when you had no real personal life at all and they could count on you to be there at their beckon call.
And this is what we call our blended family! Between us there are a total of seven boys, three girls, one granddaughter, and one grandson. There is his family which he refers to as " My other family" and their is my family. There are his kids and my kids, one set of parents on his side. A grand total between us of three brothers, two sisters, two sisters in law, and one brother in law. and somewhere in the middle of it all there we are. Two people surrounded by the obstacles of many, trying to be a couple in our spare time.
We have discovered that getting together with the family ( that is the entire family consisting of both sides ) is an illusion, well at the very least is a memory of our past. We have tried birthday parties that included from both sides and have ended up with no one from either side. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, you name it we can only get some to agree, and the rest are busy. Add to it that the ones who do agree come hours after you have asked them to be here for dinner, or say they are coming and then just don't show up at all.
We both remember the days of family reunions, aunts, uncles, cousins, in laws, and probably some outlaws but the whole entire family, gathering for feasting, playing, joking, talking, laughing, and reminiscing about the good old days. That is how it was when we were kids. That is how we were brought up to think it was supposed to be~always! That is how we somehow thought it would be when we blended our two family units and that is also the point where we were the most wrong! Now in fairness he has family that lives in other states, and so do I, but they do come to visit. He sees his family and I see mine and every once in the while it works that I see his and he sees mine too.
But our dreams of blending the families and being one large happy family have long since fallen to the wayside. The harder we try to do that the harder it becomes and now we just accept that he was right when he labeled it his other family.
Scotty and Missy are a couple, they live with five of her kids, and lots of farm animals, flower gardens, and fruit trees. He has a family, and they belong to him and she has a family and they belong to her. His kids have no desire to be a big happy family, and hers don't either. They have learned through the blending journey that they are the only common denominator and that if we of them fell to the side, his family would go their way, and hers would do the same.
Now you might say well perhaps it the ages of the kids, and I suppose perhaps for some that is true, our children combined range in age from 7-32, and age could be a contributing factor. Life is a facgtor too I imagine as everyone is busy in the world today, but how sad that we are too busy for family, for following traditions, for making traditions. Sad also when I think how we now live in the generation of I now pronounce you family and family....go your seperate ways and hope what God has joined together, children don't put unsunder.
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