A Good Kind of Busy Part II

We've been physically getting our "classroom" ready for our first official homeschool year (with nearly every room in the house a potential "classroom" we've been busy), but we've also been busy in a different way readying our children's hearts and minds for our future tasks.  This is honestly where I've been--if not physically then mentally.  I finally had the stunning realization that my kids aren't babies anymore...HALLELUJAH! Instead of being frustrated with having so many chores to do myself to run the household I decided it's time to delegate.  We've been expecting the kiddos to pick up their toys and I've taught them to make their beds, but inevitably beds are unmade and there are tantrums over not wanting to help clean up messes.  *sigh*  Really big tantrums from a very adorable 3-1/2-year-old girl.  I know that my job as a mom is to provide consistency and discipline, and there are times when I'm just too tired to uphold my end of the bargain.  We all need a little grace, right?

My baby girl has been getting the best of me...and exposing my worst.  God holds us in a refining fire and I've been feeling the heat!  I've had a few students in the past that have left me feeling helpless--nothing I tried with them seemed to resonate and I ended up feeling intense relief when they exited my classroom door in June.  I always thought "if only that was my kid I'd..." or "yes, but, if he was mine.." and felt that having the sense of ownership, if you will, of one's child would just command authority and make things a little easier, a little more cut and dry.  Then Madi Moo entered the world one fine December morning in 2007.  She did nothing the first few hours but scream her displeasure at a slightly early eviction.  One birth attendant (there seemed to be a dozen people present, I have no idea who they were or why they were there) decried that she should receive "extra credit" on her Apgar scores for being burgundy.  Josh and I felt helpless and dazed that first morning, but thankfully our little babe settled and was quiet and charming as long as she was left alone that day.  After that she was an absolute delight--I described her until recently as joy and sunshine.

Moo Rylee is given to the dramatic.  She likes attention and I told Josh the other night that we should get her a spotlight for her 4th birthday.  Needless to say, our daughter can be charming and sweet and full of smiles then turn right around and grow fangs and horns.  It's a bit puzzling.  And this third year of life has definitely shown us more of her dark side--we know she sounds like Vader when she sleeps at times and I wonder how eerie it would be to plop a shiny black helmet on her head.  She might just use the Force to strangle her poor mother the next time I dare suggest she pick up her princess dolls.  Please understand she is not violent or evil, but she has a sinful heart just like the rest of us.  Just don't tell her or she'll scream at you and pout.  Our God is a God of mercy, and I know that because when she isn't making me want to run away and join the circus I want to hold her and cuddle her until the end of time.

She is strong-willed and we have had a really difficult time finding an appropriate consequence to use that makes an impact on her.  Spank her and she pouts and might end up in a worse mood.  Put her in time out and she'll just cop an attitude over and over.  Take toys away and she'll scream but won't help clean.  And her refrains in times of duress are "I'm tired" and "I'm scared" and we know that she is neither.  Everyone has bad days, and I can find compassion when I know she is having one--I understand what that feels like.  But when she is choosing to be ornery Josh and I stand with mouths gaping and shoulders shrugging.  There seems to be no explanation other than she just doesn't want to do "xyz" and, by golly, you can't make her!  Spank her, put her in time out, take away a privilege...she...doesn't...care.  Princesses don't take orders, apparently.

I've had enough of this lately, and I find myself laughing at my former thoughts of "if that was my kid" and so on.  And you know what?  It really stinks to feel helpless when it comes to your own kid.  All I can wonder is how in the world I'm going to homeschool this one when she chooses to do the opposite of what I want.  I know she's not like that all the time, thankfully.  But when the mood strikes I want to throw in the towel!  She refuses to eat meals, she won't help out, she won't share, she won't use the potty, she doesn't want to be a big girl!  Ah, and here we are at the heart of the matter.  My baby doesn't want to grow up.  Who can blame her?  Growing up is hard work.  It's also inevitable.  Mommy understands that, but Moo doesn't.

Prayer works, people.  I am so glad that when I'm at the end of my rope God tosses me another.  He never seems to run out.  And you know what?  He's holding the end of every rope I'm clinging to.  Last week my grip was slipping.  My precious girl had me in tears of frustration, anger, and more than a little pity.  I'd had enough, but when you are a parent you have to keep going.  Sometimes it's like being tied to a car traveling down the freeway--keep running or fall down and end up beaten and bloody.  Even if you stay on your feet your shoes are going to wear out.  So I prayed and prayed and asked for prayer.  And the next morning God sent me a pair of rollerskates (I'm old-school, lol).  My daughter continued to refuse to clean her room (third day running) and screamed and had a lovely tantrum that went on an hour or so.  But I felt serene.  I never lost my temper.  I found the wherewithal to just shake my head and hmmm and continue cleaning up the kitchen while my son quietly smooshed Playdough.  Oh, she tried to drag me down that freeway but my skates just rolled right along.  After she wore down a bit I handed her an olive branch and we made a compromise that squarely left Mommy in control yet allowed Moo to have some choice.

And I learned something.  God will keep throwing you that rope, but what He really wants is for you to let go.  When you do He's waiting with open arms to hold you in His lap as your Abba Father.  When I gave up (my daughter comes by her obstinance honestly) God said that He didn't.  And what I couldn't do, He did.  The day after I admitted I couldn't do it, couldn't possible train and mold this child she changed.  She was more pliant, more willing to bend, to listen.  Her protests were fewer and had lost some of their strength.  Let me be blunt--she WILLINGLY CLEANED HER ROOM and did it earlier in the day than she is assigned to do so!  She helped clean up toys!  What a difference!

I welcome each morning as a new day, I always extend that grace to my children.  And now I truly expect that we are going to have a good day without wondering what antics my daughter is going to deliver.  I know each day will have trials (today she hit her brother in the head with a wooden puzzle board and nearly took his eye out) and we might not all be on the same page with our moods and emotions.  But I'm not looking for perfect.  That would be boring!  And what fodder would I have for blogging?

Back to our recent busyness...Moo's drama aside, we have been working on consistency with responsibilities and personal accountability.  It's taking a lot of hand-holding (mainly for Moo) for now but I know that it won't be long before my kiddos are helping more and more.  I'm definitely not rushing them because that means they are growing up, lol.  Yet I am expecting more of them as is appropriate for their ages.  My main goal, now, is firming up our daily routine to allow for a better transition into our school time.  And if more housework is done--and less by me--then great!  We are using a program called Accountable Kids--it's everything I wanted to do but don't have the time/energy/creativity/resources/energy/skill/energy to make, lol.  I love that I've transferred our expectations and consequences from a more nebulous form to something concrete and placed the responsibility on our children's shoulders.  Dman is loving it!  Moo has both been responsive and had difficulty (not wanting to clean up), but all in all she is doing very well.  If you are looking for something similar for your family I encourage you to go take a look at the program here!

We will continue working each day--believe me, I'm working hardest at being consistent and firm when it would be so much easier to just let it all go and not hold the kids responsible for their chores or completing them in a timely manner.  The changes we're seeing are fantastic, if small.  If someone would just take my daughter and potty train her for me life would be pretty rosy...or at least rosy enough for me!

A Good Kind of Busy

Oh life...how you just have a way of...you know...yeah.  It's been over a month since my last blog post--wait, isn't that similar to what one might say at confession?  I'm not Catholic so I wouldn't know for sure but it sounds familiar (absolutely no religious-ritual-bashing intended).  Anyway, life has been moving steadily along.  It feels as though it's been both 3 years and 3 minutes since I last wrote, maybe because I'm always composing in my head.  Writing is my own form of song, a spoonful of sugar to help the daily medicine of life go down.  So even though I have forced myself, at times, to stay off of the computer it doesn't mean I haven't been typing away on my brain's keyboard.  Funny, though, that when I sit down and open up a new blog post nothing gets pulled from my mental files--no rough draft comes forward for a polishing.  So what you get is raw, and, frankly, I don't even know what I'm going to type next!  I'm trying to be honest, to be real, and keep things organic...whatever that means.

Back to life...I hate ants.  Hate them.  H-A-T-E them...  HaTe TheM... Let me give you an acrostic: A-annoying, N-naughty, T-troublesome, S-stupid.  Yep.  I used the "s" word.  The past week I've been consumed with AW478--that's Ant War 478 (which I'm not about to write out in Roman numerals).  Every summer with the first steady heat wave that settles in we get invaded.  They first appear around my bathroom sink, then my daughter's bathroom sink and tub, then the kitchen.  After that they seem to find their way into every part of the house.  I have done nothing for the past week but spray (all my good green intentions fly out when I see the little critters) and clean, repeat.  No workouts, no daily chores (except dishes), just ant annihilation--AW478.  Go ahead and lecture me on their value if you must.  I respect that God created them and that there must be a purpose for their existence, but that's where I draw the line at understanding them or caring about them.  Outside, no big deal...in my house, they've stepped their tiny legs over the line.  Last year one found its way into my EAR--I don't recommend that experience for anyone's bucket list, by the way.  I'm tired of ant trails, ant swarms, ant scouts, and the ant bridges to nowhere.  What can they possibly want?  Water?  Been tossing that theory around.  Sugar?  The only foodstuffs they've infested have been sweet, but very limited.  I don't care what they're after--I want them GONE!

Now that my ant rant is over, let me fill you in on the past month.  I've been making some changes around the house in anticipation of our upcoming first year of school.  Dman is going to begin his Kindergarten year--agh!  I remember being in tears over his first day of school when he was a day old.  I'm not exaggerating much!  Saving the homeschool story for another blog post, let me just say that the Lord showed us that He wants us to obey the call to homeschool our children, and obey we will.  I feel incredibly free because of that choice!  And Dman's first day of school?  There won't be a tissue in sight, unless one of us has the sniffles.  We are so excited about this amazing educational adventure, but I knew some changes needed to be made to prepare us for this journey.

If you're a mom you can appreciate where this all stems from.  I have no space, none.  No special hole or corner to call my own where I can be as messy or neat as I like, where I can begin a project and leave it OUT and UNATTENDED until completion, no where to store my "stuff" that isn't in someone's way (usually my own).  I'm not expecting a place to go where I can be left alone--I can't even go to the bathroom in peace and I don't know the last time I even bothered closing the door.  But I have scrapbooking supplies and photography equipment and tons of books...and most of it ends up tucked into spots all over the house and I end up having to send out a search party when I have need of something specific.  My desk has been in the loft--which slowly morphed into a tv/gaming/homeschool room in addition to my "office"--and always ended up covered in my "stuff" simply because the desk and the stuff were both mine and there appeared to be no where else to place it.  My scrapbook supplies are stored in my bedroom closet--I'm ok with that but there is more "stuff" than storage for it, especially the larger working items like my Cricut and paper cutters. And when I have some special project to work on I end up hauling everything downstairs to the kitchen table or dining room table and leaving my mess from here to yonder while trying to keep little hands from pushing buttons and exploring sharp objects and permanent pens and glue.  As my photography interest grew so did my equipment and books...and there's no safe place to put it so that it's all together when I need it.  All in all I've felt scattered and misplaced for the past 5 years.

When we moved into our home I suggested to Josh that we share the extra bedroom as an office.  After he stopped staring at me as though I had grown an extra head he reasoned there just wasn't enough space for both desks and all his hobbies and that he really needed a space all his own.  He needed a man-cave, I let him have his man-cave.  I was content to be able to shut the door on his man-caveness and not see it; I told myself my computer would likely become the "family" computer in time anyway and that the loft just made more sense all around.  Fast-forward 5 years and I'm tired of looking at the man-caveness for 2 reasons: (1) the room is SO messy I can't shut the door, and (2) the man is no longer in the man-cave because he decided almost 2 years ago that he liked having his computer downstairs so that he could be around the family.  So last month I made the executive decision to clean out the cave and reclaim it as a dual office and hobby space.

I took time cleaning out and consolidating, throwing away and reorganizing.  The extra room once again became functional.  The hobby desk hadn't really been touched by my husband since we moved in, though he took time to cover it in every tool he might foreseeably need at some point in time should he decide to do...something.  I left him all of the space in the office, minus the one hobby desk I claimed for scrapbooking and photography, and patted myself on the back.  Then I made the comment that we could have easily shared this room from the get-go because of all the wasted space, not really intending anything but just reiterating a point I tried to make years ago.  And you know what?  My hubby suggested we move my desk into the room and SHARE it so that there would be more space in the loft!

I gotta say, it feels so nice!  We laughed that in creating more usable space we are stomping around in my pet-peeve territory.  I hate what we call "wall-to-wall furniture" but we had to allow for it in the office so that we can both have functional space.  And as Josh said, it doesn't have to be pretty and sophisticated, it just has to work for us.  And we can actually shut the door!  It's still a but rough--a curio that doesn't have a spot, some boxes of electronic equipment that need to be gone through and put away, etc.--but MY desk is clean and I have somewhere to scrapbook!  And the loft feels more spacious and brighter with my desk gone.  The kids have more room to play and our homeschool area is less scrunched.  We can even play Kinect or Wii without falling over my desk chair.

Things aren't perfect.  I know that life has a way of shifting and changing so that what works now won't always be the right solution later on.  I'm happy with the way things are, now, though, and I think we are off to a good start.  It's good, all this busyness.  There are other things we've been working on--I'll write about that separately.  Now if the ants would just retreat I'd be happier!