Come to Think of it, How Do I Do It?

Madeline is a very clingy baby. Which means it's hard to get housework done.

I feel like I get nothing done. I have more clothes needing folding than I did with a newborn and my kitchen is grimy. I hate running out of room around here and feeling like we need to move to a bigger house. I hate our half painted exterior (we started removing the shutters and painting our house last year). I hate my unorganized basement and half hung curtains down there and a much needed plumbing repair for the washing machine outlet. I hate all the things that are undone, the a pile of to-do lists, our annoying goat fence repairs...I hate writing about it. I hate complaining. I hate being unappreciative. I hate using the word hate.

After reading what I just wrote above my frustration begins to wane. I am forced to remember how fortunate we are, how this home is large and we only think it's shrinking because we keep adding kids to it. I remember that we go to the grocery store and we afford plenty of food. I remember the kids are in gymnastics and homeschool groups and they go to homeschool dances and summer camp. We are healthy. We are so blessed. Life with nine kids is not easy, and this past year I have realized it more than ever. But we do love it even if it means that things stay undone and get neglected...even if it means I can't finish projects, even if it means I don't have time for painting or fixing up the laundry room. Even if it means stuff goes undone while babies get nurtured. Sometimes though, I have to tell myself that its also okay to get frustrated and fed up and not to feel guilty about it, I'm human!

When I have mini freak outs of 'I get nothing done' I have to recenter myself. I'm raising people. And thats a lot. So, when I feel like I'm losing ground and I just have to realize it and think about it. When I go shopping I say a prayer of thanks that we eat well. While driving the kids to gymnastics I think of my husband at work and remember that this is one more reason why he works so hard for us. (He has said so too.) Every time we get gas I appreciate we have cars. Every month, at least once or twice, I thank my husband for taking care of us. My worries start to seem small when I remember what real worries look like. 

How I Really Do It 

I get lots of people telling me they don't know how I do it. "It" meaning how I handle all the kids, housework, insanity, long hours, the screaming ( happy and sad kids scream!), the crying, the very little 'me' time, cooking, cleaning (oh dear God, cleaning is most of what I do!), and last but not least, the overall expense involved in raising a gaggle of kids. 

I used to just chuckle it off and give a half hearted "Yeahhh, it's a real hoot!" Or, "They keep me very busy!" and move on. 

It got me thinking a while ago though, how DO I do it? Pretty much what keeps me going, besides the fact that I love my kids and want them to have the best childhood possible, is that I have a really supportive husband. If I could stand there and explain this to every person who asks me how I do it this is what I'd say: I'm not in this alone. Ricky is fully present in our lives as a husband and father. He's almost always present with us when he's home and if he's not home he's always just a phone call away. We have a really close relationship, and he's in nine kids just as deep as I am. 

I absolutely love being a mom and wife, but part of the reason I love it so, so much is that I never feel alone or taken for granted. Ricky and I don't have "who has it harder contests." We have both joy and sympathy for each other on a daily basis. I'm so proud of him working hard and accomplishing what he does and I'm thankful he's a great dad and husband. I honor and cherish him and he does and feels all the same ways for me. I always get more than one kiss goodbye. He is optimistic. He's easy to love. He's a good dad. He loves me at my best and my worst. He supports me. He respects me. He's nice to me. He's funny. He laughs. That's how I do it. .

One thing that helps me through tough days is that he's always there for me. I can get a hold of him anytime when he's at work (unless he's in a meeting of course). Anytime I want to tell him anything, if I just want a sympathetic ear to quickly share my hardships with, he's there. If I'm cranky and un-showered. If the kids are screaming and crying in the background. If the baby just fell off of something. If I'm sick or tired. If I just want to tell him that I wish I had another job for the day where I didn't have people screaming, roughhousing, throwing food, emptying toilet paper rolls, clogging the toilet, losing a toothbrush down the drain, scattering potatoes all over the kitchen floor, coloring on the wall, making "potions" with spices in the kitchen, unmaking beds, playing with mud on the front porch, throwing a mud ball at side of the house, all while the baby is latched on me like a sucker fish as the kids fall off swings and get stuck in trees. I can tell him. Sometimes I want to escape the people who eat 20 lbs of oranges, three loaves of bread, and four dozen eggs in four days.... So I call him. He listens. He lends support. He agrees. He asks me what he can do to help. He's my rock. That's how I do it, and that's how I keep doing it. I'm allowed to have every emotion I have. And he listens.

Then there's the times that he laughs at me as I rattle off hilarious or ornery things the kids are up to. There's also the times he tells me I'm cute as I explain to him the quirky mishaps I have encountered throughout the day. I love his strong supportive voice, his calm demeanor, his attention to detail, his chuckling laugh - I know co workers must hear him laughing sometimes. I adore that laugh so much. I can feel the stress wash away from me and I start to smile because I can hear his laughter and love for me shoot right through the phone line and into my heart. This is how I do it. It's him. He doesn't just say he loves me, he shows it in everything he does. I see it in his eyes. I hear it in his voice. 

He calls me. Sometimes he will call me just to hear me ramble for a minute. I love that. So he'll call out of the blue sometimes and I'll just talk... he also knows it's a way I get some adult interaction and I can share my joys or frustrations.

We are a great team. Last weekend was full of so much crazy. We laughed it off all day. Every whine, scream, wrestling match between the kids, food on the floor, clingy baby, messes, poop, spilled drink, a certain kid defying us, we rolled with it all weekend. We often look at each other and wonder why we did this to ourselves. We often long for some alone time. We get interrupted by kids frequently. It's hard. It's realllly hard. But I'm not alone. But not only all that, we love kids. We love watching them, nurturing them, laughing at their antics, we love providing a loving home and building this legacy together. We love having a built in party on birthdays and holidays. We love it. We love each other. It makes it all so easy even when it's hard.

If I could, I'd stand there and tell complete strangers all of that when they ask how I do it. Or, when some people give me dirty looks or make rude comments because they think children are a burden and that one (or two) people could not possibly provide for or enjoy that many children, I'd like to tell them how wrong they are.

Thanksgiving 2016

I stood sobbing over two bowls of marshmallow salad. It started with just two tears streaming down my face but by the time I was folding whipped topping into the fluffy marshmallows and fruit I was sobbing. Making Thanksgiving dinner is a joy to me but the stress of October lingered and Thanksgiving was starting to feel like another thing I had to do. I just wanted a shower. The kids had been wild and restless for weeks. Madeline had also been a monkey for weeks. She's so wild!
Minutes before the tears fell I yelled at Ricky for basically nothing. He irritated me about something dumb and I got snappy. He told me he wasn't going to hang out in the kitchen with me if I was going to yell at him. So then I did yell at him, "I'm not yelling at you, THIS is yelling at you!" I was feeling tired (it was nearing midnight) and I was so grumpy. (Or at this point totally pissed off.) I continued on, "And don't be in the kitchen then! I don't care because "everything's" ruined now anyway."

Sigh. Stress. Sad face.

I had a hard week, and when I really think about it, this has also been a bit of a hard year for various reasons that I don't want to spell out.

Madeline has been so demanding this week and really this month. She is into everything. All day long we chase her around. She also chases me around wanting to be held. She is very needy but so very sweet. She's not a hard baby in actuality, but she keeps us very busy. This week she's been pulling cans out of the cupboard. She's wrapped the vacuum cord around her neck. She also just wants to tear massive amounts of stuff up. She's constantly wiggling from her high chair and then standing up in her high chair. When you get her down she just climbs up the kitchen chairs and the kitchen table. She falls off the chairs regularly and yesterday she fell off the table. She basically landed head first on the wood floor. I was running over to her when it happened. In almost slow motion, before I could reach her, there she toppled feet over her head just as she peeked over the edge of the table in a squat. Insane child! Most people, the kind without nine kids, probably would have rushed their child to the hospital. After only a few minutes of crying and nursing and then a half hour of playing I gave mine a car ride to make her fall asleep.I have no idea why she STILL climbs up chairs. She falls of them frequently. Kids are amazing and resilient. The human species in general is too. Also, genetics. Ricky's head and his children's heads are like bricks! I've never seen anything like it. One time Beatrice fell out of the van while we were loading it up. She was around two and I was right next to her. She talked in full paragraphs very young and insisted I did NOT have to help her up! She toppled out on her head. She still has an actual dent on her head from it. That actually scared me very badly. The sound of head hitting black top is horrid. She was totally fine. Her head dented though! Their skulls are all part metal or brick, I'm sure of it.

Picture from December 2016 (which hasn't even happened yet because this is a NOVEMBER 2016 post, remember. lol) See, told you. She's nuts. She tries to run down the slide.

You know when someone's kid gets hurt or dies from drowning, or an equally horrible thing, and everyone lashes out at the parents and calls them the worst ever? The holier than thou parents (and grandparents) come out in hoards on online comment sections preaching about how they never take their eyes off their kids ever, and this would never happen to them. Yeah whatever. Parenting is hard and kids do stuff. Not only do accidents happen, but sometimes you have these really freaking crazy kids (like Everett the bull riding fire fighter and adventurous Madeline especially) and nearly every time you turn around they are being totally insane.

So, Thanksgiving...
I sobbed while folding the marshmallows and fruit together. The small gluten free pizza I was baking for us as a late dinner was done. I cut it and solemnly brought Ricky half. He ate quietly in the dark bedroom while he finished watching TV. Afterwards he came in the kitchen and asked me if I wanted help. I had stopped crying but started again as I blurted out, "I'm so sorry I was mean to you." Tears. Lots of tears fell as big man arms wrapped all the way around my sobbing body. He's the best. This is marriage, the raw stuff. The I'd do anything for you no matter what stuff. The best stuff: like bringing your husband pizza because he needs to eat even if you are snappy and annoyed, or offering help and giving bear hugs to your wife even when she was being the mean one. No grudges or grievances to be had.

"For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish..."

Does anyone really think about what "for worse" means? I didn't really. I always just assumed it meant during hard times or illness --pretty similar to the 'poorer' and 'in sickness' thing actually. Turns out it probably means more like when your partner is suddenly a grouchy jerk to you and you show them grace and humility. When we show our worst sides we need to still work towards loving and cherishing each other. (Note: This should not extend itself into abuse.)

He forgave me. He apologized. (He didn't need to.) I cried. I felt better. Release.

We finished making marshmallow salad, jello, stuffing, and pumpkin pie together until our eyes were drooping closed. We had a nice Thanksgiving. I'm always thankful for him and for who we are together. We truly bring out the best in each other.

1 year ago~ Newborn Madeline

I was pretty busy, but I finally got my shower at 2pm Thanksgiving day after everything was almost ready. I told my family that no one eats until I shower!  Barely squeezed that in!

I was very pleased with my braided pie crusts! I LOVE making homemade pie.

 We played Pie Face (kids loved it!) and ate and ate and ate.

We all ate around the kitchen table. Big family life!

Reminds me of this gem of a movie, Cheaper By the Dozen

And that's a wrap! My calendar is cleared. I am looking forward to hibernation time. Usually in the winter we stay in a lot. We hunker down like bears. So very thankful for that.

Kid Snippets: 

November 10th
Bea (3) was looking closely at the bushes and flowers outside the library....
Bea: "Mom are these flowers all out of bees?"
Me: That's so cute Bea. You know so much stuff, like how flowers are supposed to have bees on them.
Bea: Yeah cause I know everything! Just like I know about doggies in the road and old leaves and bees in flowers! Cause I am sooo big and sooo smart, too.

And so cute too! She is great. (I have no idea what doggies in the road meant! I love it though!) Picture below is outside of the library next to the flowers. Bea decided to crawl through the bike racks, Penelope is following.

Always stop to smell the flowers...and crawl through make-shift tunnels

November 7
Bea (3) a few minutes ago at 4-freaking-am...
Bea: Mom, is it almost Christmas?
Me: No honey, not yet.
Bea: Mom is it almost Christmas?
Me: No, it's almost Thanksgiving.
Bea: Mom, is it almost Christmas?
Me: No!
Bea: Mom, is it almost Christmas?
Me: Bea, NO! You've asked me four times!! Stop asking!
Bea says nothing for 10 minutes, then she says, "Mom, I talk a lot when I talk."

(Oh goodness, I LOVE HER!)

November 3
“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” –Plato

November 28 

Everett age (6) loves to try to cook things in front of the space heater in the kitchen. "I want perfect ham" he tells me quite seriously as he places lunch meat in front of the heater.  It actually cooked to my surprise! He was thrilled. He's been obsessed with freezing things for years. It's actually comical. If he has two cookies he'll freeze one. He freezes milk and all kinds of things. It drives me crazy but it is also super adorable and interesting how much he loves freezing things. Now he has taken a fancy with the space heater. 

Last summer he kept trying to freeze our blackberries from our bushes. We didn't have enough to freeze though! We wanted to eat them fresh. If I wanted frozen blackberries I would buy some from Costco. He would beat us to the bushes sometimes and we'd go crazy because he'd have the ripe ones frozen already without us knowing. It's pretty hilarious even though we were also not happy he was doing it. He LOVES freezing stuff to see how it changes.

November Update

A round of turkey-bingo with a 7, 5 and 3 year old went horribly wrong; kids crying, whinny,  bored. Everett's jumping off the living room coffee table. I'm pretty much trying to salvage our "school" day and say, 'you're going to like this dang turkey-bingo game if it's the last thing I do' *shaking fist* ...but then snowflakes started falling across the living room window and we were all rescued from the torture. The first snow we always have hot cocoa to celebrate. Usually I don't make it when it's just a flurry of flakes that ends in 6 minutes, but today is different. Today we need a distraction. Badly. Not all the Enchanted Learning printables and Pinterest homescool pins in the world can save me from today.

It's one of those days where I am being as calm and awesome as can humanly be possible, even giving Mary Poppins a run for her money, and the children are being as whiny, fussy, picky, and uncooperative as possible. Sometimes every single minute is a struggle. Sometimes the results of awesome parenting and patience just doesn't take hold until they are older. ((lol lol)) I tell myself just keep swimming...

At bedtime tonight I told the kids enthusiastically that we'd try turkey-bingo again tomorrow. They all said "okay mom!" So tomorrow is another day.

I really don't have much time to do anything let alone write. It gets me a little down but I try to write things down here and there. This month was supposed to be more relaxed, more carefree, more balanced, less stressed. It was none of those things. I journaled some things off and on this month...

11/10/13
Layla's doing interviews around the house today. She asks me and Sebastian in a talk show host tone, "Okay now, what schools or colleges have you gone to? ...and Clown College counts, so don't be shy."

Sage and Ethan had their wisdom teeth out and it sucked, but it's over and now we don't ever have to worry about their straight teeth (which they were naturally given!) being ruined from wisdom teeth. We had their wisdom teeth out early in hopes it would be an easier process because the younger you are the smaller they are. Unfortunately for us the difference between 13-14 years old and Charlotte having hers out at 16 years old was not much.  

Chicken Surgery
Charlotte and I can now add chicken tongue surgery to our resumes.  Poor lil bird. It was time to add some young chickens to the flock again. We usually raise spring chicks but this time we decided to try fall birds. We bought them 6 weeks ago and they just got let loose with the big girl birds last week.  When you raise chicks in the spring they don’t start laying eggs until Halloween or Thanksgiving and then soon winter hits and they slow or stop laying for a while. This spring we’ll have healthy perfectly aged birds ready to crank out eggs all spring and summer.

They had only been with the big girls 24 hours before Penelope and Sage caught one and noticed she had a long red string in her mouth.  Charlotte told me she tried to pull it out but it was stuck. Upon further investigation the thread was tied around this poor chickens tongue two different ways and knotted three times! It definitely appeared to be cutting off circulation. We worked on this 2 ft. string for a half hour.  One end was down the chicken’s throat and one hanging out of her mouth.  Charlotte held the bird and I went to work and it was not easy but we got it done despite almost giving up twice.

The poor hen stayed calm and let us stick tweezers down her throat…my good 10 year old Tweezer-man tweezers!  I cannot even think of all the gross things I’ve used these tweezers for. If I even began to name the things you’d barf.  I just keep boiling them on the stove as if it’s the only tool in the whole world.  You can not underestimate the power of a good pair of tweezers…and I still use them on my eyebrows. Lol.  

To get the full effect of the surgery story you would have to hear in the background kids running, crying, fighting, and see Everett keep stealing our scissors and tweezers when we weren’t looking.  Also the sound of “mom, mom, mom, moooom, mom…” on repeat. It was nuts. The chicken survived!

  

Friday 11-15-13
Feeling very thankful thoughts today even though my house isn't as clean as I wish it was and I feel really, really behind (and our washing machine is broken and the dirty clothes are starting to pile up). Feeling thankful I have a sweet baby to care for even if the sweeping isn't getting done and the bathroom is messy and past due for a cleaning. I have kids to run to appointments and school events so my bedroom has baskets of unfolded clothes that we were able to wash finally, and important papers. The baby's changing table in my bedroom holds papers, a belly cast, a lap top computer, a toy sword, some other junk and the directions for Layla's 5k run tomorrow. Things are piling up. I keep telling myself to keep living and no stressing.

Every night I think I'll get caught up after the kids go to bed, but I don't. It's mostly because of long talks and laughter on the couch visiting late into night with my husband. Last night we laughed and laughed and laughed together like we were enjoying a date. I like a clean and organized house but I like my husband more. I also noticed recently that we just never have time to watch TV together...and it's because we spend so much time visiting with each other (after the kids are in bed) it gets way too late to watch TV. What a wonderful problem to have.

 Saturday 11-16-13

Feeling thankful and proud that when I woke up this morning I stumbled into the kitchen and saw 7 year old Penelope loading the dishwasher. I was supposed to do a monstrous amount of dishes last night but fell asleep with Ricky. Thankful that I live in a home where we care and take care of it together even if it's pretty hectic.

Today is Girls On The Run 5k day GO LAYLA!!!!

Layla finished her 5K in with a time of 35.12. SO proud of her. Her practice 5k last weekend was 34.12. Amazing pace!

Sunday 11-17-13

A beautiful day outside, but inside there is crying and screaming over: burnt finger (Penelope and hot glue, hot glue won), laundry piling up badly from broken washer, glass broken on kitchen floor, Everett hollering for some one to peel his apple, Sebastian has a birthday party to go to, the kitchen is a mess with half painted walls and a broken refrigerator, and some insane woman bought 80 lbs of apples and 50 lbs of local potatoes...like she thought she had time for that and 8 kids.

I got to retreat to the den to peacefully soothe and nurse a hungry sweet baby for 10 minutes. Back to work now.

So very thankful for a patient husband who spent 4.5 hours doing laundry last night. (And then I spent 2 hours folding it all.) I don't know how I'd get through the day if he wasn't at the end of every single one smiling at me.

Monday 11-18-13
We really need to order a new water pump for the washer, but the old one is still working --sort of. In order to get it to complete a load of laundry Ricky has to open up the washer valve at the right time and manually drain the washer into our basement floor drain two times a cycle. Then when the pump kicks on he has to make sure it's primed. Sometimes this means pouring water into a hose he has attached to the washer so that the pump primes, this signals our pain in the butt high tech front loader to start the spin cycle.

We have no way to spin the clothes dry unless the washer is signaled by the pump.  Ridiculous. We've said countless times for countless reasons we are never buying a washer that doesn't have a specified SPIN selection on it. Clothes still wet? No spin for you, you're just stuck!!! It's frustrating.

What else was I doing last night? Emptying our refrigerated foods into the freezer downstairs and into an ice chest on the porch. Yup fridge is broken now too. We got the milk out of the ice chest this morning, it's just like camping!

Sunday 11-24-13

We are still living without a refrigerator and washer. A mild but still barfy stomach bug invaded our home. My turn was last night. None of the little kids have gotten in yet, which means the barfed on laundry and towels hasn't hit yet. Life is slightly frustrating a real challenge sometimes!

Two weeks ago I told Ricky I wanted a white vintage Christmas tree. Spoiled and grateful, I am sitting near it right now as I type. We found it on Ebay. He said he loves it too and it was a great idea!

 Monday Nov 26, 2013

The crock pot leaks and I just noticed a crack. I was complaining about it and Ricky said I complained more about a broken $40 crock pot than I have about the refrigerator. Ha. Funny and interesting. 

I have been thinking all week about how refreshing it is we don't have to do anything for Thanksgiving. I'm not even making pie. Charlotte just told me, "I'm so glad we don't have to cook anything this year!" And while we love having Thanksgiving at our house we are so glad we aren't hosting it this year.

Then we started discussing pie...and how we have a pumpkin on the porch and we should make fresh pumpkin pie ...and how we should make a Thanksgiving centerpiece too.

Well so much for doing nothing! Charlotte's cutting up that pumpkin right now. Something is so wrong with us!!

Finding Peace

I knew a Lincoln Log was down the bathroom drain, it's been there for weeks!
(the drain stopper broke and was discarded a year ago, sure we need to buy another one but it's obviously been put on the 2014 to do list lol)
I knew a small toothbrush got dropped down there too. The sink still drained normally though! That left two busy parents very little incentive to fix it. Finally the sink was stopped up and Ricky fixed it. I asked him what else was down there. He said, "Oh, all kinds of gross things...like a carrot." LOL.

The weekend was rough.  Nah, not because of the sink. That's baby stuff.

Trying to regain balance in the home (or life?), cracking down on little kids who are talking unkind to us, a noisy house, and a stressed out mom and dad with more on their plate than they thought. Everett is a handful. This place is familiar.

 I'm trying to find peace and learn to let go. I'm trying to find happiness and let go of things that don't matter.

I've embarked on a soul searching quest for contentment. Contentment is a worn path for me to follow; there's a fight between the fire within me that can't sit still... and contentment. Fire tends to win.

Ricky's swamped at work, he's working on a mountain of projects and there is no end in sight. The stress is starting to show. It goes unnoticeable for a long time but then I can tell after a while. It's times like this I realize how he feels when I'm at a breaking point. We can't stand to see one another unsettled.

We found ourselves cranky and snappy over a beautiful holiday weekend (Labor Day). It was at first unfortunate and sad, but then it was okay and uplifting because while we were cranky at each other and easily irritated we were also understanding and forgiving of each other too. We never fought, we just went with it.

It reminded me of this picture. Especially when he made me a fancy breakfast on Sunday morning.

 We growled and grumbled at each other but we gave each other the permission and space to do so. 

Our Marriage Mantra

From May: A Long Blog Post....Wants, Needs, Love, Toddlers, Graditute, Blessings...a run on blog post over weeks of time

Everett is a MONSTER! Seriously.
A friend of mine wrote that her daughter was being a 'giant rude asshole' the other day and it made me seriously laugh-out-loud because little kids can SO act like that sometimes. (She didn't say it to her daughter, she’s was venting to adults of course.)  Like sometimes their ability to be rude, disrespectful, whinny, needy, jerky and unmanageable just reaches new heights of what is normal and there is just no other word you can grasp to describe the frustration. Now the last three days, because toddler hell has been released on my household in waves of terror, I think to myself "you're acting like such an asshole!" But you know, even if it's not nice, sometimes it's just true. If anyone else was acting like this they would be thrown out of my house! But because they are two, four, or six you have to just go with it and talk it out one problem at a time. The only real successful way I've been to handle what I call being in 'kid-hell' (and the way I explain it to the other kids to help us all cope) is to pretend that the toddler/preschooler in question is from another planet. We pretend that on their planet it is totally okay to throw their spoon or spit out popcorn kernels on the floor. On their planet clothes must be optional and sprinkling seasonings from the spice cupboard all over the den, bed and floor is a routine way of having fun. We pretend Everett's spaceship dropped him here and he can never return so we have to teach him the way of our world. And it's a long process.

In the last 24 hours Everett (2) poured a water bottle into the silverware drawer, peed on Ricky (while sitting innocently on his lap he just starts peeing!?!), peed on the living room floor, threw toys around the house more times than I can count, dumped water on the dining room floor, dumped water on the kitchen floor, rolled out toilet paper (an old pastime apparently he's decided to re-discover) and a bunch of other highly annoying things. There are times when he just simply looks for something "bad" to do for seemingly no reason, there are times when I don't think he knows what he is doing, and then there are times when I can tell he’s doing it out of boredom or reactionary reasons.

Maybe you're reading this and you don't understand what I mean by having a jerky kid. If you are that person you may have had really easy "angel" kids, and I know because I've had them too. If I never had the jerky ones I would have no idea what I was talking about either; sometimes you're not dealt the difficult, spirited, ornery, jerky kid card, but sometimes you are. I wasn't dealt one until Layla. (Sage was a difficult young kid but in a different way.) Layla was downright spirited and had some attachment and tactile sensitivity issues. She was hard but I think her stubborn and difficult behavior was due to her personality more than anything. Sebastian and Everett had/have an ornery streak that far surpasses anything we've seen before. Sebastian grew out of it and now we are mostly just working on self-control, frustration control, and respecting personal body space. (grabbing, hitting, etc.)

Everett has now entered a familiar stage that we totally remember from Sebastian. Partly I MUST admit that we let the little boys watch too many superhero shows at WAY too young of an age. They have been adversely affected by the high speed, high fighting images. We've put a stop to seemingly innocent but ultimately violent TV and the impulsive hitting behavior has gotten WAYYYY better, but the ornery almost boredom induced jerkiness is still something we are working on, with Everett at least.

I'm pretty sure since we have eight kids we are even more likely to have a wide spread of special personalities. I think it must also have to do with the fact that I'm a bit high spirited myself --Ricky lovingly sneaks in comments about me being a bit manic so I can't blame the children too much. lol. I'm manic and spontaneous and he's analytical and calm. 

We are weird: We're both fairly introverted homebodies that like to be around each other all of the time but can’t take too many social engagements back to back. We also dislike crowds of people (it totally exhausts us). We are a totally bizarre combo! We both over-analyze going places. For example, if we want to go to a concert we think about all of the exhausting things we’d have to do to go. This usually includes driving, parking, going in, dealing with crowds and then spending hours fighting traffic and crowds to get home. So we’ll both say nahhh and settle on dinner, music at home, coffee on the porch and maybe a game night or TV instead. Such homebodies.

Back to Everett, more and more we see him apologizing genuinely, even to his siblings, seeing that he does care about others and tries to make amends --usually.
 I think he's trying to fit in. It's totally about boundaries and testing limits, but it's also about finding his place in the family and in the world. 

I still wonder on occasion why it's okay to hit kids but not dogs, but lock dogs in crates but not kids. I could really use a crate around here sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, what can I DO with this CRAZY fit throwing and thrashing little kid who is dumping out my basket of laundry right now? And that's around the time when I think I need a baby crib. But that's a short lived thought because by the time the toddler age rolls around and I think I "need" a baby crib to curb a fit-thrower my kid could just climb out of it and flip me off anyway. (Just kidding about the flipping off part lol, our kids don't do that ;) 

Everett can climb and get up or in anything; getting out of a crib would be the easiest thing in the world to him. It would be fun.

I've posted this before but it's good enough to post again:

“I really think it’s crazy that we hit our kids. Here’s the crazy part about it; kids are the only people in the world that you’re allowed to hit. Do you realize that? They’re the most vulnerable and the most destroyed by being hit but it’s totally OK to hit them. And they’re the only ones! If you hit a dog they will put you in jail for that shit. You can’t hit a person unless you can prove that they were trying to kill you. But a little tiny person with a head this big who trusts you implicitly: ‘FUCK ‘EM, WHO GIVES A SHIT!  -Comic C.K. Lewis

WILL A NEW BABY SPELL DISASTER?

Luckily when baby brother Everett was born Sebastian mellowed out. Not forever, but for a long time. He focused on caring for his brother and the household dynamic changed for the better. No matter what adding a new member changes the household dynamic, it's just going to. The kids have always been excited, always been helpful, and have always gained a lot from a new sibling. There is no reason for me to assume anything different will happen at this point. Also right before a new sibling is born we go through a crazy time where everyone starts fighting and I think how am I going to do this!? And Ricky always says 'the same why we always have been doing it' then suddenly it all stops and peacefulness is restored around that same week the needy newborn arrives. I'm counting on it this time. I have actually spent many pregnancies worried about what was going to happen after the new baby came and if I could handle another baby...and everything always worked out. And if not Ricky will just have to quit his job and we'll all move back to Indian Springs so Aunt Sharon can help us raise all the kids. (Just kidding ;)

Wants

I have so much I want to do, want to start, want to write, want to accomplish, want to fix, want to finish, want to make, want to ..... want to...want to...

My mind is a ADD train wreck of constantly evolving impulse and ideas. I'm an Aries: Impulsive, project starter, adventurous. Aries are forceful, dynamic and aggressive. Found online about an Aries: "Faith in life and the future remains untouched by hardship...their gift is that they are always children at heart and the world is always a magical place for them."

That sounds so right. Living with me might not be very easy but it's not boring. I'm all over the place. A constant flow of energy, projects, and expectation. I'm learning that it's totally exhausting being me sometimes.  I make myself crazy by having to have everything in order, everything in place, everything controlled, everything fun, everything beautiful. I ask myself all of the time why I'm not more content. It wears me out and I'm sure it wears my family out too.

In addition I'm the only one over age 7 or 8 years old allowed to stress out. Stress in other people throws me off balance. Since I know this I have to make an effort to be extra sensitive to others when they are stressed/cranky, I have to work at it. I've realy worked on it since having teens in the house! I have to be thoughtful of others to act like it's okay for other people to have bad/stressed days too. 

Sadness

I have a friend who just lost her Grandmother to cancer, I have a friend who is asking for prayers for for a 3 year old little girl with cancer, I have a dear family member getting ready to have cancer treatment. Our neighbor is leaving her house on Saturday to go live with her daughter in Nevada. She is dying from cancer. (Charlotte is taking care of her house and 5 cats until it is sold and they can hopefully re-home the adult cats.)

Recently I've been reading the blog of a woman whose husband died unexpectedly and she's left with kids and pain and her soul mate gone. It's wretched and I have no business reading it; none at all. The rawness and cruelness of love and life mixed with random tragedy pulled me in and I have to stop it. Her pain does nothing but make me weep, and her sorrow will still not be gone because I weep for her. Going through loss is a hellish trip. It’s the cruelest thing about life and I have serious issues with it.

Enjoying Now ~ The small things are the big things

My father in law sent me a beautiful mother's day orchid. 

My Aunt and Grandma visited us with strawberry cake and stories and fun.

The kids all had something fun over the weekend to enjoy; parties, nature classes, fun time at a creek.

My kids make me laugh. 

I have a houseful of food and kids.

I have as many children as I could ever want.

I am rich with love beyond measure.

Everyday my husband looks at me like he did the first week we met.
And last but not least: Happy 35 weeks to you little baby girl...or boy! You are alive and well and lovely and I'm carrying life. 

Stop, Breathe, Be Thankful.

And of course sometimes it's hard to see the good and sometimes I don't have to ALWAYS see the good. Sometimes I can be and cranky, remorseful, or overwhelmed and not feeling one bit guilty about it. Because that is life too. But most of the time I don’t want to; most of the time I can't muster the energy it takes to think that life is that bad (stressful maybe but not bad!). I have a deep appreciation for what I have because I feel it would be a travesty if I didn't. I never want to wake up with regrets. I never want to feel guilt or shame or sorrow for not enjoying something I should be. I don't want to pass up a field of flowers in haste to get to a pot of honey. 

While continuously adding to this two week long blog post I got into a stupid argument with Ricky over something stupid (we had different opinions about a news report and an argument ensued). I should have noticed he was working on his computer and he had been very busy and probably stressed. I didn't take notice though. I walked off pissy and got in the shower and thought to myself that he was being SO jerky. As I let the tension run from my body I thought to myself that yes he probably was being jerky, but probably it was because he'd been awake since 5am...and he's still up working at home after coming home and spending quality time with me and the kids and then helping brush teeth and putting everyone to bed. Yeah he's probably pissy, he's at work again just four hours after he got home from work.

My mind flooded with the words: He's here...HE'S HERE. Over and over...chanting in my head I heard: Your husband is home and you are fighting with him. It didn't matter that he said this or that or that he sounded grouchy with me for no reason. It didn't matter. I didn't really care at all. He's here and I love him. I knocked on the shower wall and he came in so I could tell him I was sorry and I didn't want to fight or be grouchy. We kissed. He said he was sorry too. And this is why my favorite love/movie quote and mantra to my life has been this for so very long:  

I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No...not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that...over-throws life. Unbiddable, ungovernable- like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love- like there has never been in a play.  -Shakespeare in Love

And so I tell myself to stop, breathe, be thankful, be the love.

Somebody somewhere is losing their moment to be thankful. Someday we all lose moments, so I look for the good ones and don't take them granted. I’m obsessed with not taking things for granted. I think it’s because I love life.

Gratitude for Staying Home: A letter to my husband about being a stay at home mom and wife

  I never take staying home for granted. I never take the luxury of setting the rhythm for my day for granted. I like both organized chaos and organized non-chaos. I like daily breakfast at 8am sharp, but I also like when the kids trickle down and all eat on their own before 9:30ish. I like 10am coffee after I’ve done three loads of laundry, or after I've done nothing much but hang out with the kids, or after I write a blog post like I am right now. I like never leaving the house unless we want to. I like choosing to prep dinner at 9am, 3pm or 5pm. I like playing Legos and blocks. I like rearranging the living-room furniture for the 5th time this year. I like planning our days around the weather. I like crafts. I like napping with the baby if I need too. I like planning TV and video game time for the kids around their school work, nap time, or other things that work out best. I love organization and routine but I love flexibility too. I'm given the gift of having the schedules I want: meal times, play times, school times, garden time, craft time, and free time. I could have none of this freedom if I worked outside the home. I love living life on my own schedule -and of the schedules of the little people who I live with. The kids make up a lot of what I have to juggle, plan and balance around, but I get to set into motion the routines that work for all of us on any given day of the year. It's a powerful responsibility and I'm honored to be in charge of it. I love my life and I owe it to you, my dear husband, who I fondly remember once telling some of our children, “This house is Mom’s house, I bought it for her.”

 I really appreciate being an at-home mom and just love the way days crash, roll, ripple, flow and peak like an ocean’s waves. Peaceful, playful, loud or wild the kids and I can swim, float or sink...and we do so day-in and day-out because we stay home and follow the rhythm of life. I don’t take it for granted and I show it by being the best I can be (most days!). I enjoy keeping home-cooked food on the table (most days!), up-keeping our home, keeping our kids happy and cared for, and I do it with a smile on my face (most days). I make the bed and get dressed every morning to show gratitude for each beautiful blessed day, unless it happens to be a pajama day. In that case we might all dance around, eat chocolate, and wear pajamas -and I sigh with relief that we are free to do so. Life is crazy and sometimes hard, but it's a free spirited kind of crazy. Thank you, Ricky. I love you.

 

Memories, Snow, Hospital Aftermath, Honoring Each Other

For the 'ice and snow storm' that came through last week (Feb 21)) I wanted to do something more fun than our routine wintery day vegetable beef soup...so I picked Salisbury steak with homemade mushroom gravy (made with homemade beef broth), mashed taters, veggies and moist delicious chocolate cake. If there were to be homemaker rating scales I’d rate making this somewhere around awesome. Not because it’s hard, it’s not!  Mostly because it's thought to just come from a TV dinner -and I wanted to make it healthier with the classic-ness of yesteryear, but better tasting and all from scratch. So all that clearly makes it awesome.

Food never looks as good photographed, but look; it does look like tasty Salisbury steak! 

And I served mixed veggies on the side, too.

 And look here, mine beats the pants off this flashback photo:

I felt accomplished because no beef bouillon, canned soups, or gravy mixes were used. Not even canned beef broth was used, because I made that myself! (It's my thing: I want to know how to make things from scratch!) All I'm missing is that little delicious cranberry-cherry cobbler that comes with some TV dinners. Oh, how I LOVED that dessert thing when I was a young girl.

I love all the hustle and bustle and freak out of a winter storm; it’s so exciting. The store was packed when I went and I was among the masses filling my cart. I enjoy the good ol' day feel of everyone 'talk'n 'bout the weather' with anyone that'll listen. Everyone loves to chatter about a storm -it's a small town thing especially. When I talked to Aunt Sharon she told me about the ladies in the hair salon chattering about it.
 I sickeningly like being among 30 people in line and one of the 12 people crammed at the counter packing up their own groceries all at once at Aldi's. I was told by the cashier, "You should have seen how busy it was earlier, this is nothing!" I was probably a sight myself, wearing my purple snow pants as usual before any snow had fallen. I hate the cold but with my snow pant I’m fine!

  People seem to love to prepare for a snow storm. I love turning on the news when they are reporting on almost absolutely nothing in our viewing area, but Kansas however is getting 10 inches of snow in 5 hours so they have to cut into all the afternoon programing to talk about it. Then when our snow does start it’s almost never as bad as they say it might be for us, but they cover it anyway…for hours. I love it. I love my family cuddled up and playing by the window, too. I love waking up to a white world after months of yellow grass and gray sad trees. I sometimes love the house strung about with snowsuits and boots and kids with lost gloves. (It depends on the year; sometimes I don’t look forward to bundling up a houseful of kids This year it was a very welcome distraction.)

Working together, so cute!

Charlotte (16) is a great animal herder in the snow and caught the geese so we could shelter them the night it was supposed to drizzle freezing rain. They are really tolerant in the cold though.

When the storm hit Ricky was home from work by 2pm and the kids were thankfully content and easy going while I baked and cooked to my heart’s content. Charlotte kept laundry going so I could stay in the kitchen and I’m happy to report my first ever Salisbury steak attempt went amazingly well.

 Last week my blog also got love bombed! I got so many nice comments and friendly folks wishing Penelope and our family well.  Just look at Penelope in that photo at the very top, does this look like a kid that had surgery a week ago? Yes it does actually ...because kids are full of awesome. (She's the blue-eyed sweet one in all pink.)

Weekend Highlights and Hardships / And Trying to Get Back to Normal
 *Ricky and I smell something burning, we walk into the kitchen and the toaster is smoking like it's on fire. It's not on fire; it's just burning the hell out of some toast. Everett (2) is very close to it and as he yells "FIRE!" at the smoke the toast pops up. My mouth hangs open in disbelief and thankfulness that he wasn’t hurt. Without missing a beat he happily and rather loudly and proudly then exclaims, “TOAST ALL DONE NOW!”

*Everett (2) was on the table naked and he had a piece construction paper between his legs. Try as we might the kid loves streaking and it's hard to keep him off the table which is a whole other separate issue. So he's holding this paper between his legs and I see his penis making contact with the thick paper. I look at him casually and say, "Everett seriously, you're going to hurt your wiener if you don't stop it. Look see it on the paper, paper can cut you." He grins and yells, "YEE-HAW" at the very top of his lungs and trots off down the table riding the paper. Ricky and I can't hold back the laughter. Life can be so crazy, but they are so funny and free spirited.

*Sebastian (4) says: Hypno-potamus instead of hippopotamus. He also still says Dark-Gator for Darth Vader (a long time favorite of ours.) I love the things kids say.

The weekend is a time Ricky and I really look forward to. I get help with the mundane and not-so mundane kid-tasks, Ricky and I get later nights together (if we can manage to stay awake!) and longer mornings to snuggle up (a long morning to us is 20-30 minutes of being awake and snuggling --generally *almost* uninterrupted) before we have to make breakfast, break up a fight, or wipe a butt that isn't our own. Saturday and/or Sunday (but usually one morning more than the other) is a family-filled retreat of a breakfast casserole (made the day before so it just needs baked!), berries, juice and sometimes donuts or homemade coffee cake. Ricky and I take time on the weekend to have coffee together on the front porch or at the kitchen table if it's too cold out. The weekend is also a time we try and sneak in a meal alone; we prepare something for ourselves and quietly eat together before the kids get to. On weekends we don't generally go places, especially in the winter. We try to make time for games, kid-friendly documentaries, have a family movie night and/or living room picnic with the kids, and it's also the main video game time for the kids. Sometimes the weekends are really this nice and sometimes they make us question our very sanity. Last weekend was absolutely crazy.

We are trying to yet again get reorganized after yet another household disruption (Penelope's illness). As I predicted another glitch in our health and routine has shaken the very core of all sanity in our home. The older kids and Aunt Sharon and Grandma, God-bless them, made sure laundry was done and the house was clean before we got home from the hospital so really the hard part was fairly easy -keep it all up while trying to re-establish routine and as we settled into Penelope's medicine routine and home-care. Things went fairly smoothly, but she's been home 12 days and the emotional trauma rears its ugly head over and over again, a little bit for us too.

Penelope has regressed slightly since her hospital trips: clingy, whiny, needy, night waking, crying -no, make that bawling- at the drop of a hat. I expected all of it. I did not expect her pain tolerance (or lack thereof) to be so fragile. She's always been a sensitive kid (neither of my Libra children are very good with pain, in any form at all, is this a Libra trait perhaps!?)

The little kids are being weaned off TV and video games after another stint with 'mom is too busy to notice just how much we are getting away with.' Of course I notice, I just know I'll have to fix it and I wasn't ready yet. I became ready a few days ago. I notice a definite pattern in our lives when it comes to a major disruption (usually the disruption is an illness but it can be a vacation, holiday or new baby). It seems like when I'm busy TV viewing becomes more frequent and I eventually accept it and continue on doing what I need to do, same slip with homeschool. We'll go from school 4-5 days a week to 1-3 days a week. Arts and crafts frequency will slip to very little; soon we are totally out of habit and the only thing that's getting done is laundry and dishes. Unless I'm really-super busy or sick, in that case the laundry starts to pile up for about 4 days. So anyway, slowly things slip and when they do it doesn't take long for chaos to build and build and explode. Little kids get bored and they don't know what to do with themselves after television-zombification occurs. Older kids dodge some chores and homework but still do just enough to pass. Several kids forget simple household routines: like what day trash day is, how to water and feed the chickens or where the dog water bowl is (seriously is it that hard? LOL)! Or, they forget what life was like getting dressed and brushing teeth before 10am. The older kids also tend to stay up later at night, I think because they aren't as tired from structured busier days. The older kids also tend to help me more when the little kids are bored and crazy, so I feel obligated to thank them with later TV nights so they can unwind too. The older kids are awesome.

Slowly I get back into my routine and them back to theirs. I'm the leader of the pack so they follow my cues and vibe whether I crack a whip or not. (Learned this a long time ago, I used to stress out and complain at everyone when we got behind and things got crazy, now I realize I can just chill and relax, everyone will help out and get busy with gentle reminders that it's time we buck up and get back to reality!)

Weaning the younger kids off TV is a little trickier, but seriously it's ONLY four or five days of torture and crying and boredom before they settle into a new routine. I usually spend this time doing a lot of extra stuff with them. Reading, playing, art, Etc. I sit in their room and just talk and play with them for hours and I take them along with me to do chores around the house and bake. Soon the more peaceful (but never fully peaceful of course!) household dynamic is back. Soon my tv watching zombie-kids are used to independent play and structure and circle time again. (Circle time is our pre K and K homeschool time)

So that's kinda-sorta where we are.
To keep busy this week we made these fun things! Link to the Busy Kids Blog and some things we did.

Things have been more stressful for me and Ricky. I can't remember a time we've been this stressed, but I'm sure we have been. We knew my car needed work on it and I told myself I was not going to be surprised when it happened, which is probably abruptly and VERY soon. It's Ricky's car that is acting up first though. I'm still not surprised. So he's taking my car to work. Hospital bills are trickling in and it's stressful to be put so far back from paying off some other debts we thought would be GONE this year, or just to even do home improvements we desperately wanted to do. We checked on Ricky's student loans in the midst of all this, to assess the whole situation, which was a depressing mistake. This is real life though and not surprising. Two steps forward, one step back. Three steps forward, two steps back. And repeat after me: LIFE. We are using this opportunity to teach the kids that life is not always fair and balanced, so try not to be too surprised when things crumble and money is hard. It's life. Half our tax return paid for our winter heat, animals we had butchered in the fall and some other car repairs we had done last year instead of a family vacation or new to us car/van. Thank God we find a way though. Thank God we do it with a smile...mostly. We have income, we have a house, we have each other...and we try to let that be our focus.

Last weekend everything was coming to ahead and things got particularly stressful and annoying when the younger kids ran around the house like insane people. Also, Penelope needed help walking (being carried everywhere) yet again because of a seriously sore knee, and then her elbow hurt. (Her joints it seems are problems for now - considering Juvenile Arthritis. This kiddo is in “pain” so often. But pain is a relative term. How much pain is she actually in? She exaggerates and also is super sensitive. Nothing to freak out about yet but come on when is this kid going to stop having weird aches each day? It's wearing on us big time. So far the Dr. says no signs of arthritis.)

 Since I/we have been waking at night to administer meds every six hours I think I reached a breaking point on Saturday. I could feel it building. I felt exhausted, but okay, but as time wore on I felt fragile. I realized at some point I haven't had a full night sleep in a very long time. After weaning Everett in December he had *just* started sleeping without waking up and needing to be rocked back asleep when Penelope started having health issues. Life is a balance like that. One kid got easy while another got hard.

Saturday was a roller-coaster ride of insane kids and mood shifting parents. One minute I'd be stressed about money and the car and the next Ricky would. We balance each other like this. We hate seeing each other stressed or upset, so we will go out of our way to make the other one feel better. The day was wearing thin on us though. We had fun laughing at the kids for part of it and cringing at other times. Eventually Everett was throwing toys at me in the kitchen during a toddler fit and I was trying to make something for lunch and help Penelope (who couldn't walk for some unknown hurt knee reason). At the same time Sebastian was running through the house and Ricky was bringing up old clunker computers from the basement. I eventually snapped at Ricky that I didn't want the computers upstairs and that I was trying to get the kids away from the screens not get more of them, and then for an hour we were both miserably hurt by each other because I was mean and he was mean and then it turned into something about some clothes in the bedroom. His work clothes were a mess and taking over our closest and some were piled on our dresser, and while I really don't mind tidying them up it had been two weeks, and I realized all at once while dodging a toddler throwing a block at my head that I frigging just wasn't going to get to it, like ever. I lashed out about it totally randomly and snapped, "I always do _____" and he asked why it wasn't done then. And that is how fast a fight can start, except thankfully we don't really fight. We get mad or overwhelmed about something and say a few words and usually then we both just shut-up and our feelings just get hurt. I rarely cry but I did. I did the sad go-to-the-bathroom-and-hide pregnant women's 'ohhhh life is so hard' cry. He moved some clothes upstairs to our storage closet and hung up stuff that he hadn't worn but had down from the previous week. I folded clothes Charlotte washed for me and cleaned the bathroom while mascara streamed down my face. He very soon told me he was sorry he made me cry. I thanked him and said that I was sorry for my part too. And then it was over and nothing else mattered and no one was hurt. (But I cried when I saw the trashed basement later that day! lol)
 We don't play the blame game, I tried that early on in our marriage and he jarred me right out of it. I love to vent and I automatically seem to retort to blame and anger. At first this was my "language" but shortly after we were married I found his love for me ran far too deep for me to fight with him from a place of blame or anger. I thankfully realized long ago by the things he said and the way he treated me that if I was worthy of his love and honor I better act like it. I had no idea I was lacking at compromise until he pointed it out. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. This is what honoring each other means -putting the other first. Duh.
Soon I'd do anything to make him feel better and he'd do anything to make me feel better and the outcome we both wanted no matter what was/is to just love each other. I found that happiness, affection and love automatically followed without any effort when we just simply *honored* each other.

I emailed him a couple days later:
I read this and thought of when you apologized for 'making me cry' last weekend.
Honor your wife more than yourself.
Love your wife more than yourself.
Do not let her shed a tear.

Thank you for noticing my feelings and thank you for valuing them like you do. I'm sorry again that we fought and I'm sorry for my part in it, but that's all over now. What I remember is not what happened or what I felt or what we said, but how you cared about me and never want me to cry. It's not just about saying you were sorry, anyone can do that, it was how you said it. I Love You.

And here is another quote I love and live by :)
'Make your husband your hero, your home your palace, and your children your priority." -Jerry Ross

Love,
me