Healed!

May 25th, 2010

The other day I asked if you wanted to know something about me.  Begged you to ask me something, really.  And you did!  Yay!  I answered some of them in round 1.  Here’s round 2.

Stacey asked lots of wonderful questions.  

Stacey, girl,  you get a whole post to yourself!  I’m already a little too verbose according to all the “this is what you should do in a blog” studies, but I can’t make myself not talk like we were chatting over koolaid, so, lengthy is what you get.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

“Your kids look happy and healthy, so it must be working fine.”

                   ~The kids do seem happy.  Except when I make them do school work or chores.  Eat their veggies or quit arguing with their sister.  Brush their teeth or go to bed.  But then, I hear that’s normal.  And my marvelous pediatrician assures me they are healthy (even that skinny minny one of the bunch!)

Are your kids calm or rowdy?

                    ~Oh my goodness I’m rolling on the floor laughing at this one!  They are ridiculously rowdy!  They wrestle until someone gets hurt (and they always get hurt, right?!), they jump off couches, climb walls (literally, they have competitions to see who can climb to the top of the door frame the quickest), they’ve somehow managed to tear the netting around the trampoline (how is that even possible?!), they rough house in the grocery store line, the 3 year old throws shoes from the back of the van.  Oh, the rowdiness!

“What’s your most effective way to deal with noise level in the house?”

                     ~I dream of carpet.  We have these great Pergo fake wood floors throughout the house.  Awesome for spills and potty training, however, the echo factor is not my friend.  Sound bounces off every wall in the house.  Times 5.  And I didn’t grow up in a house full of people.  Though I have sisters I didn’t grow up with them (they are so much older), I was used to my parents (quiet people by nature) and me.  No one in my space, no one to share with, no one talking nonstop.  It was all about me.  Man, what a paradigm shift.  I try to tolerate it for the most part.  Until I can’t stand it anymore and then I send them outside.  Or start a quiet show (here’s the main reason I hate Spongebob – the racket on that show does me in).  We do cycles around here.  Quiet first thing in the morning, rowdy for awhile, quiet for school, rowdy, quiet for rest time, rowdy.  That way they get what they need and I don’t scream like a crazy person when I go into sensory overload. 

“How did you know how many kids you could “handle”?  How did you get to 5 and stop? How do they all get “enuf” attn? I’m not criticizing, just looking for ideas on how to balance the needs of my 3.”

                     ~Ooh, this is a biggie.  Hold onto your hats for all the gems hidden in this one.  First of all – we re-evaluate after every child.  I always thought I wanted a big family (five was the number in my head since I was in junior high).  Then we had our first son who was an awesome surprise.  And I was knocked onto my selfish hiney.  What on earth?!  But I was so madly in love with him in spite of my selfishness and longing for the fast lane of big city working, that we immediately started trying for a second child.  At the point that we had 2 in the house I kinda lost my mind.  Daily.  Cried, lashed out at God, demanded my husband help me (but it was never enough, it never is, is it?), spent a lot of time tending to needs, but angry.  It was not how I had imagined it.  We were really struggling with the quiver full movement and our beliefs on that subject at the time.  I remember wanting more children though.  And my husband saying, very wisely, we can’t be having more children if I can’t handle the 2 we have.  And I remember falling apart and telling him it wasn’t about having more or not, but about trying to figure out how to have the 2 we had and do it well.  Because I wasn’t.  Time passed and I cried at my second son’s first birthday when I wasn’t pregnant that time around.  We even tried oral birth control (my husband and I felt a very strong conviction to stop them after one month).  A few months later and we tried for the child who would be our one and only girl.  By then, God was growing a little fruit in my life.  It had gotten easier – this parenting gig.  My attitude had changed – I enjoyed being home.  And it didn’t hurt that my girl was so laid back.  Matt was ready to be done.  Two boys and a girl – no more.  But I was so sad – threw fits, begged, was not a gracious woman about it.  One more time.  And we were blessed with BigMan.  That’s it, though.  No more.  Done.  We didn’t have much money (never a great excuse, but understandable since my awesome husband is the one out working so hard for us) and that’s it.  I remember asking before donating all of our baby stuff if we were really through.  Repeatedly.  I was becoming a constant drip.  He finally said, ”Whatever you think.”  I knew that was it. We had already discussed it, I donated the stuff.  I prayed for contentment.  Or maybe a change of heart for him.  Or both.  My husband got a new job, a raise.  And when my body was ready again I began praying.  But never said a word to him.  I knew this time I wanted it to be different.  I didn’t want to fight, fuss, beg.  I wanted it to be his idea.  I prayed for contentment, the changing of his mind, peace, whatever, just … something!  And one day he changed his mind.  He talked to me about having more children.  And God blessed us again!

How do they get enough?  I don’t know.  I’m glad you asked me now and not a few weeks back when I was a mess.  Because the answer I have for you now is how I really feel, not some grey slump.  I believe that it’s a trade off.  That for everything they give up in a large family (one on one time, more stuff, undivided attention) they gain so much more.  They gain a better understanding of the world and the way it should work.  They gain insight into scripture that’s hard to impart when there are less children in a home.  Putting others first and loving your enemy become daily battles.  They have constant companionship.  And I’m able to give them more than the average public schooled child (oh, I know I’m stepping on toes, and I’m sorry, really I am, it’s just true when you break the numbers down) I’m there around the clock to kiss away their booboos and tears, to correct unseemly behavior, to smile at them, to rub their back.  Even if it’s not the amount of attention they would get if there were only two of them, it’s constant.

How did we get to 5 and stop?  Well, because when I asked my husband what our baby’s nickname should be he said, “The Finalist!” and laughed.  And I did too.  Especially after that hard pregnancy.  And the outside world will tell you risks go up as I get older (and I am, you know, getting older).  And our faith has to be stronger than what it is.  Because I know that’s really the issue.  Trusting that He has it under control.  All of it.  Would I have more?  Yes.  (I think.  I don’t know.)  Will we?  I don’t know.  Am I okay with that?  Absolutely.  I do know that my husband informed me the other day that he’s so sick of hearing people say to him “You are through having kids now, aren’t you?”  That he’s begun answering “Nope, we’re aiming for ten.  Just call us Duggar lite.”  Is he kidding?  Of course.  Is he really?  I don’t know.

“And finally, are you feeling better? I read how you were down a while back…I hope your heart is healed.”

                 ~It is!  My heart is strong again!  And as with all His miracles I don’t understand it.  I just rejoice in it.  Awhile back I talked frequently of pondering my shortcomings, of struggling, of the beginning of gaining perspective and then my confession of my waning faith.  I knew that night was special.  But how could a night be more special than leading your daughter to follow Christ and to see your two older sons who’ve already decided to follow Him decide they are ready to be baptized?  All at once.  A few short hours after praying for God to help my unbelief.  Un.believ.able.  I knew my tears washed away so much grey, but I didn’t know the extent of the gloom until days had passed.  The sun shone again.  Seriously, night after night, I slowly realized I didn’t hear even the faintest whisper of one guilt-ridden “you failed today.”  Not one “why would you have this many children?  You aren’t doing any of this well.”  It was gone.  As was the paralyzing fear that I had been living in about the well-being of my children.  Gone.  Y’all, I’m gonna get downright crazy on you.  The oppression lifted.  The heaviness was wiped away.  Even though I’d been praying through it all that time night after night, I hadn’t faced the real issue – my lack of belief in Him.  My faith in a God I couldn’t believe in anymore.  Just as James said in James 1:5-8 “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”  I was truly unstable in all I did.  I confessed it as the sin it was and asked for help in a belief that I didn’t have anymore.  And there He was, holding my hand, lifting my burdens all over again.  Just like He always does.  And the rain passed.  Yes, Stacey, my heart is healed!  I found forgiveness for myself and I feel free to shine again!

Answering Questions - Round 1

Let’s hit the easy stuff first, shall we?

Thank you for all your sweet comments on my new profile pic.  It’s nice to not be sporting an 8 months pregnant picture any longer.  Whew, that’s a lot of weight I shed in just one photo session!  *hehe*  The photo-taking magician is my friend Melissa Stover at A Familiar Path.  Go visit her, you’ll feel so at home over there.

Mandy ~ “My question is . . . these chocolate chips you so love, are they milk or semi-sweet?”
          ~Mandy: Either.  Both!  I grew up with only semi-sweet (was that a time period thing or a my family thing?) and now use almost exclusively milk.  However, I’ve recently discovered dark chocolate is so mahvelous!!  Eating them is my little secret, I only eat them after the kids are in bed – I don’t wanna have to share!  And I love eating them (instead of Kisses or other candy bars) because it feels like I’m being much less naughty by eating those teeny tiny little things.  When, in reality, I can polish off half a bag way too quickly. 

Brenda ~ “What I want to know is….how do you get something done that requires you to concentrate?  Like…pay bills? Or write an e-mail, or cook supper?”
         ~Brenda: I have no idea.  That’s good, right?  Most of the time I feel like I have absolutely no brain whatsoever.  And trying to make it work, makes me nutty.  I work on auto pilot most of the time – muscle memory – I can make coffee while still fast asleep, I’m sure of it.  I don’t pay bills all at once, I run to the water department when they’re going to shut me off, remember!   Emailing and writing, especially the heavy duty stuff is written at night.  Or while the kids are watching a movie.  And in chunks.  I do most everything in segments.  When I write anything at night, most of the time I leave it in draft until morning so that I can look back over it and ask myself “Do I really want to say that now that the sun’s shining?  Did that make sense that way?  Was I considerate?  Was it even coherent?”  New recipes from the computer are the hardest – I don’t have a working computer so I literally run back and forth and have to repeat the measurement over and over – sometimes checking the same ingredient 5 times.  I wish I was kidding.  Now, I’ve recruited the 8 year old to help read it to me, so there’s much less running involved in cooking.  But the one that sends me over the crazy ledge is grocery shopping.  I take all the kids.  Every time.  And usually alone (sometimes Matt comes, but mostly I go it solo).  I have a plan.  I pray a lot.  I only go to the stores I know like the back of my hand (muscle memory pays off!) 

So to sum that up, I talk out loud to myself, repeatedly, I get the help of my many busy little people “Hey, tell Mama in a minute ‘chicken soup’ and you, child, yes, you, you tell Mama ‘bread’ don’t let Mama leave the store without bread.”  I also find myself saying much too often, “What was I saying?”  Oh, and I do what I know.

Diane ~ “I’m fairly new to your site……so I apologize in advance if you’ve talked about this elsewhere. My question might seem a little silly, but – I’m going to ask anyway! How do you keep your little boys busy? We have a girl and four boys (ages 11 mo. to 9 yrs.) and I’m constantly trying to come up with ideas to keep my boys from boredom. I hear all the time from them, “What can I do?” That question usually comes after schoolwork and after chores are done, and after they’ve played outside, played inside, etc. I just don’t have enough “constructive” stuff for them to do. So then I’m constantly being asked, “Can I watch TV?” Any thoughts or ideas?!!!”
             ~I love that Stacey jumped right in to help out, because that’s WAY more than you were going to get from me.  I hear ya, girl.  I don’t do nearly enough.  And I love Stacey’s ideas (further, I’m sure my children will love them even more!).  I have the same thing over here.  My only move so far is to keep them moving from one thing to another.  We eat, do schoolwork, eat, play outside, have read aloud time, rest time, tv time, snack time, chores, play outside time, eat some more.  It’s a constantly rotating schedule.  Part of me starts feeling bad about not having enough for them to do and then I think, you know, get an imagination.  If they insist on complaining after I have suggested many varied “legos?  color?  write?  dress up? ”  I fall back to the “I can give you some work to do.”  And they scatter to the wind!

**How about one more and we’ll save the rest for next time?  Who knew y’all’d step up and keep the nobody-reads-this, paranoia-induced-candy-eating at bay?  :)

Kathi ~ ? – do you feel the need to get away from your kids much, because I don’t…and it makes me feel weird…because our house is as crazy as yours, and I’m fine.  P.S. Sam’s sells REALLY BIG bags of chocolate chips. I must ban them. We made 1, as in UNO, batch of choco chip pancakes with this last one…and ate the rest straight from the bag…I say “we”, but it was mostly me.
              ~No.  I don’t.  And I used to feel weird about it too, not so much anymore.  It’s just who we are.  As Melissa (same friend who did my pics) said when asked why she was taking all her kids on a cruise with her and her husband, “I like my kids.”  I did at first, want to get away from them – when my first was about 21 months and my second was a couple of months old.  Or at least I thought I did.  But then I would leave them, feel miserable the whole time, and vow to not do it again.  It was never the big payoff everyone promised it would be.  When I was losing my mind with 2 little ones, what I thought would fix it (a trip away) never did – because it wasn’t about my circumstances, it was about my mindset.  God was working on my selfishness.  Once I realized that, I was much happier.  And, Kathi, don’t tell me things like that about the chocolate chips!!  We’ve started hitting Sam’s each payday – that’s all I need is a BIGGER bag!!!  (Did you keep it in the baking cabinet and keep telling yourself “just a couple and then I’m going to save the rest for cookies” and then eventually just give in and sit down on the couch with the whole thing?  Or is that just me?!)

**Phyllis, it’s good to know I’m not alone!  Tammy, you’re such a wealth of encouragement – thank you so much!  Jules, too much to say on the homeschooling curriculum this post – next time!!  And Stacey, I’ve been thinking about needing to let you all know how I’m doing after my slump and I haven’t done it yet.  Definitely coming up  – so much to say to all your questions.  Just know, in the meantime, that God is so good and my heart IS healed!!

If you missed the first round of questions, but have some of your own, please drop me a comment - I would LOVE to answer them.  And upcoming, I have questions of my own about how you clean bathrooms - get ready!  I love y’all, have I told you that lately?

Answering Your Questions - Round 1

May 22nd, 2010

Let’s hit the easy stuff first, shall we?

Thank you for all your sweet comments on my new profile pic.  It’s nice to not be sporting an 8 months pregnant picture any longer.  Whew, that’s a lot of weight I shed in just one photo session!  *hehe*  The photo-taking magician is my friend Melissa Stover at A Familiar Path.  Go visit her, you’ll feel so at home over there.

Mandy ~ “My question is . . . these chocolate chips you so love, are they milk or semi-sweet?”
          ~Mandy: Either.  Both!  I grew up with only semi-sweet (was that a time period thing or a my family thing?) and now use almost exclusively milk.  However, I’ve recently discovered dark chocolate is so mahvelous!!  Eating them is my little secret, I only eat them after the kids are in bed – I don’t wanna have to share!  And I love eating them (instead of Kisses or other candy bars) because it feels like I’m being much less naughty by eating those teeny tiny little things.  When, in reality, I can polish off half a bag way too quickly. 

Brenda ~ “What I want to know is….how do you get something done that requires you to concentrate?  Like…pay bills? Or write an e-mail, or cook supper?”
         ~Brenda: I have no idea.  That’s good, right?  Most of the time I feel like I have absolutely no brain whatsoever.  And trying to make it work, makes me nutty.  I work on auto pilot most of the time – muscle memory – I can make coffee while still fast asleep, I’m sure of it.  I don’t pay bills all at once, I run to the water department when they’re going to shut me off, remember!   Emailing and writing, especially the heavy duty stuff is written at night.  Or while the kids are watching a movie.  And in chunks.  I do most everything in segments.  When I write anything at night, most of the time I leave it in draft until morning so that I can look back over it and ask myself “Do I really want to say that now that the sun’s shining?  Did that make sense that way?  Was I considerate?  Was it even coherent?”  New recipes from the computer are the hardest – I don’t have a working computer so I literally run back and forth and have to repeat the measurement over and over – sometimes checking the same ingredient 5 times.  I wish I was kidding.  Now, I’ve recruited the 8 year old to help read it to me, so there’s much less running involved in cooking.  But the one that sends me over the crazy ledge is grocery shopping.  I take all the kids.  Every time.  And usually alone (sometimes Matt comes, but mostly I go it solo).  I have a plan.  I pray a lot.  I only go to the stores I know like the back of my hand (muscle memory pays off!) 

So to sum that up, I talk out loud to myself, repeatedly, I get the help of my many busy little people “Hey, tell Mama in a minute ‘chicken soup’ and you, child, yes, you, you tell Mama ‘bread’ don’t let Mama leave the store without bread.”  I also find myself saying much too often, “What was I saying?”  Oh, and I do what I know.

Diane ~ “I’m fairly new to your site……so I apologize in advance if you’ve talked about this elsewhere. My question might seem a little silly, but – I’m going to ask anyway! How do you keep your little boys busy? We have a girl and four boys (ages 11 mo. to 9 yrs.) and I’m constantly trying to come up with ideas to keep my boys from boredom. I hear all the time from them, “What can I do?” That question usually comes after schoolwork and after chores are done, and after they’ve played outside, played inside, etc. I just don’t have enough “constructive” stuff for them to do. So then I’m constantly being asked, “Can I watch TV?” Any thoughts or ideas?!!!”
             ~I love that Stacey jumped right in to help out, because that’s WAY more than you were going to get from me.  I hear ya, girl.  I don’t do nearly enough.  And I love Stacey’s ideas (further, I’m sure my children will love them even more!).  I have the same thing over here.  My only move so far is to keep them moving from one thing to another.  We eat, do schoolwork, eat, play outside, have read aloud time, rest time, tv time, snack time, chores, play outside time, eat some more.  It’s a constantly rotating schedule.  Part of me starts feeling bad about not having enough for them to do and then I think, you know, get an imagination.  If they insist on complaining after I have suggested many varied “legos?  color?  write?  dress up? ”  I fall back to the “I can give you some work to do.”  And they scatter to the wind!

**How about one more and we’ll save the rest for next time?  Who knew y’all’d step up and keep the nobody-reads-this, paranoia-induced-candy-eating at bay?  

Kathi ~ ? – do you feel the need to get away from your kids much, because I don’t…and it makes me feel weird…because our house is as crazy as yours, and I’m fine.  P.S. Sam’s sells REALLY BIG bags of chocolate chips. I must ban them. We made 1, as in UNO, batch of choco chip pancakes with this last one…and ate the rest straight from the bag…I say “we”, but it was mostly me.
              ~No.  I don’t.  And I used to feel weird about it too, not so much anymore.  It’s just who we are.  As Melissa (same friend who did my pics) said when asked why she was taking all her kids on a cruise with her and her husband, “I like my kids.”  I did at first, want to get away from them – when my first was about 21 months and my second was a couple of months old.  Or at least I thought I did.  But then I would leave them, feel miserable the whole time, and vow to not do it again.  It was never the big payoff everyone promised it would be.  When I was losing my mind with 2 little ones, what I thought would fix it (a trip away) never did – because it wasn’t about my circumstances, it was about my mindset.  God was working on my selfishness.  Once I realized that, I was much happier.  And, Kathi, don’t tell me things like that about the chocolate chips!!  We’ve started hitting Sam’s each payday – that’s all I need is a BIGGER bag!!!  (Did you keep it in the baking cabinet and keep telling yourself “just a couple and then I’m going to save the rest for cookies” and then eventually just give in and sit down on the couch with the whole thing?  Or is that just me?!)

**Phyllis, it’s good to know I’m not alone!  Tammy, you’re such a wealth of encouragement – thank you so much!  Jules, too much to say on the homeschooling curriculum this post – next time!!  And Stacey, I’ve been thinking about needing to let you all know how I’m doing after my slump and I haven’t done it yet.  Definitely coming up  – so much to say to all your questions.  Just know, in the meantime, that God is so good and my heart IS healed!!

If you missed the first round of questions, but have some of your own, please drop me a comment - I would LOVE to answer them.  And upcoming, I have questions of my own about how you clean bathrooms - get ready!  I love y’all, have I told you that lately?

Little Rock Zoo

May 6th, 2010

Located in well, Little Rock, it’s one of our “What are we going to do today?” go-to places.  It is, admittedly, over-priced.  Which is why I recommend to everyone (even with one child) buy the season pass.  If you’ve already paid then it takes the pressure off when your younger kiddos have a meltdown (“Callin’ it off, this is too much work for fun”), when you don’t feel like walking all the way over to see the bears today (“Next time, kids, don’t worry”), or when you’re just looking for a quick place to let the kids run between shopping trips (“We’re only staying a few minutes today, but we’ll be back for longer next time.”)  It just generally makes you a more relaxed mom – and we all need that, right? 

A couple of insider tips on tickets (and they may never do it again, but you never know – keep your eyes open!) they offered their season passes for half price this year at Christmas – we jumped on it and gave it as a one of the big Christmas presents – our family of 7 has a year pass (as many trips as we want) and we paid $42.50.  Also, last year in the midst of the “Staycation conserve gas money craze” – they gave free admission for the summer.  Oh, and they have a nation-wide zoo and aquarium exchange program – if you’re planning on travelling it’s worth checking out. 

We love it because when you go at “off” times I can let the younger kids roam from me a little farther.  Let them get their “gotta run around like crazies” out.  The Zoo’s site explains that the busiest days are Thursday and Friday mornings in the spring and Saturdays through the summer.  Go early in the day and early in the week to have it to yourself.  Also, it helps to call ahead they don’t mind telling you if they have schools scheduled or events planned.

As homeschoolers, we like to do lapbooks and learn about specific animals (my girl just finished up an elephant lapbook and is excited to go back and really watch for all the things she just learned).  You can play “I spy” with the younger ones.  Here’s BigMan finding the bird I described to him in the Bird House. 

You can turn your trips into a geography lesson and learn where each animal is from.

Another benefit of having a pass and going often is that you get to see more of the animals doing what they do.  Last time we went we got to see the baby chimpanzee that we had missed the first 2 times we went this year.

They have a carousel and a train you can ride.  This is my major pet peeve - they each cost $2 per person per ride.  For our family of 6 paying persons to ride a 2 minute carousel it costs us $12.  To be clear, if our family rides both the carousel and the train it’s $24.  And the train ride is severely lacking for that price.  Plus, they’re usually not open during the week.  I noticed the family package now includes 2 free rides to each of those, but it’s still not worth it.

What is worth it are some of the other extras.

One of my favorite places is the very kid-friendly playground (this is about mid-zoo and has benches for mom – this is where we snack -shh, don’t tell anyone! – and I nurse the youngest while the rest run wild – contained.  I like contained.

  

You can feed the fish, which is always fun.  And play under the covered picnic area.  It’s painted awesomely and my kids call this the echo place – they love to yell and stomp and generally embarrass me here!

 

They are building a new Penguin habitat set to open in the fall of 2010.  So exciting!

Which brings me to another downside – with all the construction going on, which is great, a lot of the paths are unexpectedly closed.  Leaving you to backtrack.  I don’t like backtracking.  It makes me grumble.  Hey, Zoo, a current map or at the very least, signs warning of deadends would be nice.  Just sayin’.

Eat before you go and stash a water bottle in your stroller – the food and drinks are also frighteningly overpriced.  We did splurge once and get the little animal water bottles with lemonade for each of the kids for $5 a piece.  After picking myself up off the floor I was able to enjoy the fact that the kids LOVED the bottles.  They were dishwasher safe and it was similar to the price of cool water bottles from Wal-Mart.

One of my kids’ favorite parts is the reptile and bug cave.

 

Get a map when you get there.  Locate the bathrooms, playground, and places you most want to hit.  Make a plan – you’ll be happier.

We love the Little Rock Zoo, but I’m not delusional.  I have been to other zoos.  The Memphis Zoo still puts ours to shame.  But they’re working on it.  It’s getting better.  And, hey, it’s all we’ve got.  I’m still hopelessly devoted to it.

While working on this post my 8 year old spontaneously came up with a poem and my 3 year old looked at the pictures and begged to go today.  “Now!” he screamed.

The zoo is a land
That is so grand!

              ~TheOldest

You can visit the Little Rock Zoo’s official site to check out current pricing, events, and contact information.