In the interest of fair reporting...

Before becoming a mother I had a hundred theories on how to bring up children.  Now I have seven children and only one theory:  Love them, especially when they least deserve to be loved.-Kate Samperi

Wasn't it just yesterday I posted about how great it was to be a mother??  The one where I was completely sappy concerning the joys of motherhood and how grateful I am to have this time with my children-I swear that was just yesterday!

Yea, I think it was, and didn't I  mentioned all the  things that I had learned since becoming a mother?

 I think I forgot one.  Restraint.  Yup, today I realized that I have learned to restrain myself from pulling a "Joseph's brothers act" and selling my children to the first band of Egyptians riding by.  Then again, maybe I wouldn't have had such restraint had an actual band of Egyptians passed by...

Well, either way I still have all my children with me in spite of them being uncooperative, argumentative, demanding and in all other ways behaving like CHILDREN today. (can you imagine? Children behaving like children.  Really!).  Well, lest you erroneously  think that we are just one happy flowery bundle of love all. the. time. around here, allow me to enlighten you.   Today I felt like this little guy.

I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.* And the children seemed to be having one too.  We were quite the group today.  We let  all our uglies and undesirables hang out today.  Not anyone's finest hour.  But thankfully the day is almost over and soon I will resemble this woman.

Tomorrow is a fresh new day and we will all get a fresh new start.  A clean slate.  A do-over.  Hallelujah!


Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning.  Great is Your faithfulness-Lamentations 3:22-23

I, for one, am glad we have a new chance with each sunrise.   Love, after all, does cover a multitude of "uglies".  And we do all love each other, even when none of us, myself included, are exhibiting behavior deserving of love. Sometimes that's when we need  love the most-even though it seems what we need is a kick in the...well, anyway, that's why we need to be continuously filled with God's perfect unconditional love to pour out on one another.  Then we can love each other in spite of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.  

Sometimes things just do not go as planned, or as desired, or as anything resembling acceptable.  But "mom says some days are like that, even in Australia".*

Thanks for reading

²
*The book quotes and little boy pic. come from this book.  An excellent children's book about bad days.

You bring me Joy

This is it.

Tonight is my Sweet Pea's last night of being a single digit girl.  Tomorrow she will be 10.

Wow.  10 years have gone by already.  Seems strange, when I look at her,  to think that she is the same sweet baby I brought home 10 years ago.  Then I look right at her face, and it doesn't seem strange at all.

Of my three, she is by far the most laid back.  As an infant, she slept on her own right away-unlike her siblings.  She woke up happy and singing to herself as a toddler.  She played often by herself quietly.  She was so quiet in the car that I often checked and re-checked to make sure I hadn't left her behind.

She isn't always quiet now though.  When she gets the giggles look out.  She laughs uncontrollably with no reserve.  While it is sometimes madly inappropriate, there's something about watching her laugh that makes me smile.

 She is often in her own world-much like I was at her age.  There's that saying, you know, the one that talks about marching to the beat of a different drummer.  Yea, well my Sweet Pea doesn't march at all.  She dances to the sound of a flute or something.

When my children were babies, I would often sing to them.  With each child came a special song, one that I would sing over and over to them in particular.  Sweet Pea's song is You Bring Me Joy by Anita Baker.  That is the song I would sing to her over and over, and it is still the song in my heart when I think about her.  Her gentle spirit, her giggles, her dance through life, these all bring joy to my heart.

You bring me joy, when I'm down oh, so much joy
When I lose my way your love comes smiling on me
I saw your face and then I knew we would be friends
I was so afraid, but your arms they said come to me


Being a parent has been one terrific, yet horribly frightening ride for me.  A ride that has left me, on more than one occasion, begging the operator to let me off of NOW!  But it is also one that has brought with it so much joy, and much of that joy is found in the gentle, giggling, dancing girl I call Sweet Pea.

                                           My sweet pea at 2 months

                                           My Sweet Pea with her dog on her last day of being 9

Happy Birthday Sweet Pea.  I love you.  You bring me joy.

Happy Birthday Baby.

Today my darling first born girl turns 12.

The last year before those dreaded teen years. 

When I look at her I wonder how it is possible that I've had her for 12 years already.  Yet, at the same time, I hardly remember what my life looked like without her in it.  

Her entry into the world was a rough one.  She was whisked away to the NICU moments after her birth.  I had just one moment to kiss her on the head before  Hubby and I watched our tiny baby being rushed away.  My Darling had come out not breathing.  She had some form of aspiration pneumonia.  They believed she had opened her mouth too soon and inhaled fluid.

 Hubby got a Polaroid instant camera(digital cameras weren't common place yet) and took pictures so I could see our new baby (I had health issues of my own and was not allowed out of bed). She stayed in the NICU with tubes and wires attached to her tiny body for 5 days.  I felt very blessed to be bringing  her home healthy at the end of that fifth day.

I clearly remember those first days at home with her.  I thought I was prepared, but I found that being a mother was looking a bit differently than I had imagined.  After Darling's first bath I was struggling to put an octopus my tiny squirmy baby into her gown.  I sat on the floor crying, because I couldn't do it.  "What kind of a mother am I that I can't even put my baby into a gown?!!  My kid is DOOMED!"  I screamed at myself( I was a bit hormonal).  Right at that moment Hubby's grandma was knocking at my door.  She walked in and saw I had just given Darling a bath.  Anxious to meet her, she scooped Darling up and (completely effortlessly) put the gown on my baby.  Then she smelled her head, and said she just loves the way babies smell.

I have to say, I agree with her.  

My sister called me every day just to check in on me.   She would say things like "It's OK if she cries" and "I don't care WHERE she fell asleep, leave her there.  NEVER wake a sleeping baby!"

Eventually I became quite skilled at putting gowns on my tiny squirmy octopus baby.  We muddled through her first year with little sleep and  many Dr. appts. because she wasn't growing quickly enough for Dr.'s liking.

I got into the mothering groove as the days went on, but things were not calm at our house after we brought Darling home.  She was an active baby, an active toddler,an active preschooler...-you get the point.

 I have learned so much from parenting her.

 I thought I knew how to parent.  I had worked with children at church from age 11.  I had been trained in child development from the age of 16.  I had went to college and studied Family Life for goodness sake!  I was heading into this parenting gig prepared.

Do you ever look back in hindsight at yourself and laugh at your own ignorance?

Yea, I do that a lot.  Especially when I think of parenting.

Darling proved that even the most tried and true behavior techniques were capable of failing.  All the books in all the world could not prepare me to parent this child.

Because of the issues we have faced since Darling entered our lives, I have learned many things.  I have become less judgmental  of other parents and their children.  I have become more understanding of the needs of children whose lives are affected by physical/mental conditions they can not control.  Instead of nodding my head in pious pity at the poor unprepared mother whose child is acting like a maniac in the store, I now think "Praise God my children are at home with Hubby, or that could very well be me right now."

In short, I have learned a great deal, and am still learning more every day.   It's been good.  It's been difficult.  And it's been good again.

When I think of the six years ahead of us before she reaches official "grown-up" status, I can't help but think I'm going to continue learning.  I can't help but wonder how this whole thing will turn out.  How much therapy will my poor Darling need from the multiple times I do the wrong thing?  These (and many others) are the things that roll through my mind.  Things that are not much different- I hope I suppose- than things that go through most parents' minds.

I sit here today watching her make bottle cap necklaces with a kit we bought her for her birthday.  I thought it wasn't that long ago when I bought her games like these.

Now those games are gone to make way for jewelry making kits.  While sometimes I miss playing the Chutes and Ladders game of yesterday with her, I am embracing the Diary of a Wimpy Kid game of today.

Excuse me while I bust into a chorus of "Sunrise, Sunset".  (My sister and I do this often).

 And as I watch my heart grow up beside me, I can't help but feel a bit of sadness for those days past.  At  the same time, I'm excited for the days ahead as she continues to grow into the person God has created her to be.

Proverbs 22:6
Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.


My prayer is that I will be mindful of her path, and effective in directing her to it.

3 months old

                                                                               now


Happy 12 years my Darling.  I love you more than you will ever know.

Thanks for reading.

So long baby face

The other day it happened.

The turning point in a young boy's life.

The crossing over from babyhood into the world of adulthood.

My son lost his first baby tooth.

My youngest, my little boy, is becoming a man-in his mouth anyway.

He is the youngest of my children.

My "last little guy"-as I often refer to him- turned six last month, and I thought that was difficult.  Now this?!!

Right before he turned six, I asked him if he would stay five forever.  I asked him for lots of "five year old hugs" because soon he would be six.

He told me six year old hugs were better, because they have six things of love in them instead of five.

I really loved five year old hugs.

But I guess six year old ones are good too.

I really thought it was only a few weeks ago that I held his screaming, squalling body in my arms(the kid screamed for the first six months of his life!).   Now he surfs the games on the internet faster than I can, reads, writes, and looses teeth.

What the stinkin' heck?!

My children are all growing so quickly.  Those days that seemed to drag on forever have turned into years that somehow have passed by in a blink. 

I enjoy being home with my children, although some days... It's not always sunshine and candy, let's just leave it at that.  I am ever aware though that one day, sooner than I'd like, they will be grown and gone. 

So today I will enjoy them, in spite of their constant bickering with one another.

 Today we will color Easter eggs(or spring spheres, I guess that's the new politically correct term) and make rice krispie treats(is it still OK to call them that, or maybe there is a new PC term for that one too).

Today I will look at my last little guy's empty spot where his tooth once was and feel content as I walk with him-and my other children-on this journey from childhood to adulthood.

It kills you to see them grow up.  But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.  ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams



It is a bitter-sweet journey, but one I wouldn't trade for the world.

Thanks for reading.