Everyday Life – Page 9 – Mia The Reader

May The Sum Equal Love

Posted on September 17, 2015

If a six-year-younger version of me walked into my house right now, with her firstborn so new and rosy in her arms and her eyes bright with ideas about the future, there are so many ways she wouldn’t recognize herself in the Here-and-Now-Me. The younger me wouldn’t understand the mess. She wouldn’t believe my voice could elevate that quickly to angry tones over seemingly silly offenses (“I told you not to growl at your baby sister!”). She wouldn’t understand the exhaustion pouring from my posture as my very frame slumps over the dishes in the sink. She wouldn’t get why I have to remind my kids every single morning to brush their teeth. (Really?)

Whether we mean to or not, we all enter into parenthood with ideals of who we will be. Some of them aren’t even fully formed in our brains before our hands are clenched tight around them. They can range from “I’ll be the fun mom who plans great birthday parties” to “I’ll be the intentional dad who plans one-on-one time for each child once a week.” Sometimes our ideals are so abstract like, “My kids are just going to love talking to me one day!” Then we get into the thick of raising human beings, and it’s at that point we step back and think, “this is not the person I was planning to be!” That’s when we realize how much we had our hearts set on a specific version of ourselves, and how far we are from hitting that mark.

But maybe we are better than the person we planned to be?

Yes, my six-year-younger-self would probably walk into my house today and see too much stress, too much mess, a mom with un-washed hair and an overflowing laundry closet. After that, though. After that, she might see a mom spreading peanut butter on apples for her older kids with a perfectly happy, mostly clean toddler on her hip and think, “huh, that should be hard but she makes it look easy.” Maybe that younger me would see a mom who knows what kind of music to put on to get her kids out of a slump and into a dance party on the living room floor. Maybe she’d see a woman who keeps on going on four-hundred-and-one nights of severely interrupted sleep. She might see this girl trying to be a wise, adult mother who will still lie flat down on the floor next to a mopey six-year-old in a desperate attempt to show her, “I am with you in this day. Let’s make it better.” Maybe she’d see a mom who makes sloppy cakes with her kids? Maybe she’d see a mom who tears up when her 4-year-old son puts his arms around his older sister and says with wonder and kindness, “You looks so pretty today.” Maybe she’d forgive me for yelling sometimes. Maybe.

My children are still so young, just 6, 4, and 1, but already I can see the harsh difference between the mom I thought I’d be and the mom I am now. Sometimes I don’t like what I see. And sometimes, I really do. Here’s what I know now: mothering is not a minute to minute equation, balancing the bad ones and the good ones and striving to make sure all the bad moments are cancelled out. Parenting is the sum of all the moments. There is no erasing the bad moments. And there are some pretty bad ones! I know now, I make big mistakes regularly and I can neither deny them nor hide them from my kids. But praise God, there are so many good moments as well. The hope I have replaced my ideals with is this: that the sum of my moments will add up to love in my children’s hearts and with the support of Colorado Springs domestic violence attorney, no harm can be done in their happiness. I hope and pray that I will play enough games with them, make them do the hard stuff to build their character consistently enough, hug them enough, stretch out beside them in their beds at bedtime and hold them close so many nights, look into their eyes and really hear them so many times….that I will do all these things enough so that when they are grown, all the time we had together in their childhoods will scream and ooze warmth and safety, acceptance and care, affection and security that lasts and leads them ever onward to the Parent whose love is all they need. If you are in an unhappy marriage and want child custody, you can contact an expert lawyer for theft claims to give you legal counseling and help you out.

May the sum of my moments equal love.

Everyday Life, Parenting

The Debris Of The Day

Posted on August 19, 2015

It’s 4:00 o’clock. The time when monsters come out.

Not really. But 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon is not the happiest time in my day. Rest time is over, the littlest one is done with her nap, and the dinner prep and clean up looms ahead. 4:00 o’clock should be the time when you sigh and tell yourself “Almost done.” But that’s just not true. Ever heard of “the witching hours?” Whether you like the term or not (and I try not to think too hard about it), there’s just no denying that when I stand at the end of my time on earth and add up all my hours, late afternoons will undoubtedly be the doldrums of life.

Take today for instance. It was our second day of homeschooling in 1st grade, and it went ten times better than the first. Both the first grader and the preschooler were fascinated by the diagram of the inner ear we studied (is there anything more fulfilling than fascinated students? I think not). The complaining over writing vocab words went from 15 minutes to 5 minutes. And math (math!) was a cinch. Not to mention we read all kinds of books. It was nearly a perfect homeschool day. On top of that, I washed three loads of laundry, cleaned two bathrooms, vacuumed a room, kept up with a one-year-old, and stayed on top of the dishes. So maybe I’m crazy, but I really did think that when I surveyed the house and the children around me at 4:00 p.m. on such a smooth, wonderful day, my eyes would not be met with the molten lava of meltdowns and toys explosions. Yet there it sure was. A few words popped into my head when I looked around me at 4:00 o’clock today, and I found them strangely comforting. I took it all in and took a deep breath. “This is not my fault,” I whispered to myself in a soothing voice. “This is just The Debris of the Day.”

The Debris of the Day is one of my formerly unnamed triggers in the late afternoon that leads to irritability and a sense of exhaustion. The Debris of the Day makes me feel like all my work is for naught. Today, however, when I named it, I realized none of that is true. We live here. It’s a fact of the homeschooling or stay-at-home-mom life (and probably many other lifestyles I haven’t experienced!) that junk will surround you when you feel like the day should be winding down. The kids will be whining because they’re tired and maybe a little bored because you told them “no TV” (good for you!) and they want attention but you’ve got other things on your mind at this point. The glass doors will be smeared. The bathroom will have toothpaste stuck to the sink (and mirror? how the heck…). There will still be dishes (a few or a few meals worth!) in the sink because we have eaten here today. Books will be scattered hither and yon. All this is true for me, in one way or another every single day, but today I came to realize that The Debris of the Day is not a failure. It is just what a day brings right now in my house.

And it’s okay.

Deep breath. Say it with me. It is okay. Maybe we can call the kids, put on some music (and a smile even?), and clean some stuff up. Maybe we can just send the kids outside and leave it be for a while during the dinner hours. However we handle this, we can decide that it’s perfectly normal and it’s okay for now.

And maybe tomorrow I’ll try not to think of it as debris. Debris makes it sound like a storm blew through, which is accurate enough some days, but not the most pleasant image in the world. Tomorrow, I might get all sappy and think of this crazy mess of emotions and stuff as The Proof of Life, or even The Proof of Life Abundant…or maybe not. One mental step at a time. Right now, I may not be too thrilled with the debris, but I can tell myself it’s not a failure in my motherhood, and it’s all going to be okay.

Everyday Life, Parenting

Let Her Make Cake

Posted on June 29, 2015

I am really bad at making cakes.

When Ella was turning two, I made the mistake of asking her what kind of birthday cake she wanted. “Orange and purple,” she replied. Well, those colors are pretty unpopular in our Gamecock loving, Clemson Tiger hating family. But I tried to leave the college sports rivalries aside, and envisioned this purple round layer cake with a white icing flower on top and an orange center. Kind of cheating, but there was orange in it! I failed to remember one important thing that you may recall…oh yeah, I’m not so good at making cakes. About three hours before party time, that cute daisy cake had fallen apart in three pieces on its serving plate. It was not salvageable (believe me, I tried. In hindsight, I wish I’d taken a picture for this awesomely comforting website). On to cake number two of the day! There was no time for cuteness. This rectangle sheet cake with chocolate icing with badly written purple and orange letters would have to do.

Told ya. I’m bad at cakes.

That was not the first or last time I made two cakes for one birthday party. In fact, I now always keep a backup box of cake mix on hand. So it seemed like a cruel joke when about a year and a half later, Ella developed a fascination with cake decorating video tutorials. Thanks to Youtube’s suggested videos on the side of a Sleeping Beauty sing-along-song, we ended up watching princess cake tutorials just for the fun of it. The ghost of bad cakes past was out to get me. “Mommy, can I watch some cake videos?” became a daily request. You know when your child watches cake decorating tutorials in her spare time, she is not going to be too thrilled by by a repeat of the cake above. I respect her innate desire for beauty in culinary art (and I kind of love the kid), so together we concocted this for her fourth birthday.

Despite appearances, those turrets did manage to keep from sliding off into oblivion until after the candles were blown out. Whew.

Then I found salvation in cupcakes(but no improvement in photography).

A month ago I would have said, “Looks like Ella’s cake decorating phase is over.” And I would have only been a tiny bit sentimental about it.

But a few weeks ago, it was Isaac’s fourth birthday. I had planned to make him something pretty classic and simple. I mean, you can’t get much simpler than this Robin Hood cake I served at his last birthday party:

Face palm.

(Hey, there aren’t too many ideas floating around on Pinterest for Robin Hood cakes, okay?)

Cupcakes. Cupcakes are good for fourth birthdays.

But the plan was changed by something seemingly unrelated. My relationship with Ella was struggling. In the past few months, I had noted a resentfulness in her attitude towards me. I saw her happy face change to a frown when I started speaking to her. She didn’t seek me out to play or read or do much of anything. There had been too many times in the last year that I had said “no.” In my floundering and fragile mothering philosophy, it’s important for me to say, “go find something to do” a healthy amount of the time. At age six, I want my children to play well, to imagine big, to read some books on their own, and blossom into independent people. But I also want to still be friends. It’s hard to balance out being in authority and being friends, and I was doing a poor job of it.The day before Isaac’s birthday party, the tension was pretty high and it was killing me. So I did something crazy. I opened up my laptop and said, “Hey Ella, let’s find a good cake to make for Isaac’s birthday.” She oohed and aahed over car cakes, airplane cakes, even a dragon cake. (Help.)

But thanks to the mostly doable videos from Howdini and Liv Hansen, we settled on a modified rocket cake. Modified, because we can’t just do anything easy, can we? It had to be a fighter jet, didn’t it? (just roll with it).

Two trips to the store and 24 hours later, the cake was done. It was far from perfect, but it was so much more to me than flour and icing. It was hours of planning together and shopping together. It was thinking about what her brother would like most. It was a six-year-old who is dearly loved spinning cake fantasies into something real on a platter in our kitchen and laughing and smiling with her mother. It was her brother’s face that said, “wow” when it was done and how loved he felt. And it was a start to this mom remembering to say “yes” to things that build relationships and feed souls.

It didn’t have to be a cake, but it had to be something to show Ella that I wanted to spend time with her and to build her up.

(And let’s be honest, it was also a hope that when Ella’s ten, she’ll be the master cake maker around here and I’ll get to hang up the cake making apron. Life skills, right? Can I count this as a school day? Just kidding. )

This summer has been a quiet time for this old blog, but it’s been full of cake making and soul filling here on the other side of the screen. I miss the writing, but summer is such a perfect time to replenish our children as we let them delight in their passions and whims. Isaac builds airplanes and cars and creates worlds for them. Ella asks to turn the hall into an art gallery and is eagerly awaiting the day when we will paint her playhouse. Last week she made a closet for her doll’s clothes out of a cardboard box and an old golf club. It’s this stuff of making and playing that tells me it’s going to be a great summer, not the vacations or trips to the water parks and the zoo.

And when things start to get a little strained or boring? We’ll make a cake.

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Dear Third Child

Everyday Life

Ten Years

Posted on May 14, 2015

Dear Husband of Ten Years Today,

You are God’s greatest gift to me.

Yes, that’s a pretty big cliché. But don’t roll your eyes, because it’s true. I have an awesome husband, and I can’t take a smidgen of credit for that.

For starters, I don’t even remember meeting you. I was five. You were eight. I don’t remember our first conversation, but it probably had something to do with dividing teams to play capture the flag in your family’s back yard. I’m sure we ended up playing girls against boys. Those were probably the only conversations we had at all until I was about ten, when you decided you were absolutely bored enough to play Skip-bo with your little sister and her friend on a January vacation to your family’s mountain house. (I won). (No, really, I did. It was the highlight of my year).

In fact, we hardly talked at all until I made it to high school. We didn’t talk a lot then either, but you spent several weeks of the summer trying your best to coach a bunch of girls in our youth group to play a decent game of basketball. At the end of the summer, we were horrible, but it wasn’t your fault. And that summer of humiliation spurred us on to great things—a church basketball team and a four-year losing record. But we had a lot of fun, thanks to you and your friend being crazy enough to try to teach us something about “zone defense” and “jump shots.”

Then three years later, something must have changed because all of a sudden, we were talking all the time. It was like a sneak attack that maybe you planned or maybe you didn’t. And what did we even talk about? Email after email flew between us, until that one that made me freeze, my heart standing still as I tried to take in these words: “Is there a snowball’s chance in Hades you and I could get together someday?”

Words don’t have to be profound to change your life forever.

I stared at that email for at least a solid five minutes, hardly knowing what I was reading. I was seventeen, at the computer desk in my family’s kitchen, my parents and sisters already in bed, and those words on the screen had just uncovered the tip of an iceberg of feelings for you that had been forming, layer upon layer, for who knows how long. I didn’t write you back that night, did I? I wasn’t sure how I was going to say “yes, there’s a chance. More than a chance.” I said something more like, “Can we talk about this in person?” And then I avoided you for a week. Not exactly a promising start.

But here we are, ten years later, married with three children. And that’s why I think of you as a gift. Because how could I have known then what I know now?

I couldn’t have known that you would be the perfect provider for me. Our journey of discovering how God wants us to use money is one of my favorite things about the last ten years. Marriage experts always talk about how women need to feel taken care of, but I think every woman will define this differently. I didn’t know ten years ago that you would care for us so well and also encourage our family to give generously and to always pursue good stewardship of what God has blessed us with. How clearly we both knew that we needed a smaller house and a larger life has shaped our relationship for good.

I couldn’t have known you would be The Best Father In The World. Okay, I had an inkling. I saw how awesome of a big brother you were to your six brothers and sisters pretty much my whole life. But seriously? How many people go into marriage with the exact same parenting philosophy already in place? I had hardly considered what kind of parent I wanted to be, yet our parenting journey has been relatively smooth.

I couldn’t have known you would still be hot. You are.

I couldn’t have known we would still like the same things. We do. And we keep finding new fun stuff to do. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have said “I love golf.” But I do now! And you love bookstores! (Right? Right?)

I couldn’t have asked for a guy so good at being a problem solver and a sympathetic listener. I didn’t even know that’s what I needed.

I couldn’t have known you would be the strong and kind leader you are, because I had no idea what a rarity this is. It would not have occurred to me to put that on a checklist. You lead our family through the way you look to God’s Word and the examples of other strong believers. I love how proactively you think, and want to be more like you.

I couldn’t have known back when I was seventeen how crazy good you are at just plain getting things done. You pick a thing that needs doing, you make a plan, and you accomplish it. Thank goodness you’re in my life, because can you say planning is not a strong point of mine? Yes, you can.

I couldn’t have known you + me = The Most Beautiful Babies In the World. Bonus.

I couldn’t have known I chose the one who would I love more deeply with every passing year.

One can only hope when first walking into this crazy thing called marriage, but I hardly knew what to hope for. When I chose you and you chose me, we had ideas of what we were choosing, but there was so much that remained a mystery. If I had a list of husband qualifications on that day ten years ago, most of the really important stuff that matters to me now wouldn’t have even been on it. Yet here you are, ten years later, my awesome husband.

So cliché or not, I can honestly say: You are a gift. The past ten years have been nearly surreal in their beauty and happiness. The next ten years may hold hardships galore, but I look forward to the next decade no matter what because you are my husband.

Thank you for being mine.

With love beyond measure,

Alana

Everyday Life, Parenting

Stomach Bugs, Small Children, and How To Deal

Posted on May 6, 2015

This isn’t a typical Mia The Reader post, but unfortunately, how to handle those pesky stomach bugs in small children is what’s on my brain these days. This post will be part of the Works for Me Wednesday link up over at Giving Up On Perfect. If you’re not in this phase of life, maybe skip this post and come back next time? Or stick around, you might learn something new. But don’t say I didn’t warn you…

I remember so clearly the first time one of my kids came down with the dreaded stomach bug. She was 18 months old and woke up crying in the night an hour after I put her down for the night. I had no idea what was wrong with her. I sat down in the rocking chair to rock her back to sleep, but you can guess how that worked out. A few rocks later, we were both a mess. In that moment, even as you’re grossed out that you’re covered in your kid’s vomit, it’s hurts your heart to see the panic in your child’s eyes when he or she first experiences this dismal fact of life: everyone upchucks once in a while. Most kids first learn experience this around 12-18 months. It’s no fun to be the sick kid, but it’s also no fun to be the sick kid’s parents. It’s even worse for everyone involved when the parent of the sick kid does everything wrong. Yes, that was me the first time I was the mom of a vomiting child. Three kids and nearly six years later, I’ve learned a good bit about how to deal with the abominable stomach bug in toddlers and preschoolers. When your child starts clutching at his middle and groaning, grab these three things: mixing bowls, beach towels, and wet wash cloths.

Step One: Grab a mixing bowl. One of the worst things about taking care of a toddler when he has a stomach bug is his complete inability to get himself to a safe place to throw up. Newsflash: he’s not going to run to the bathroom. It also doesn’t work to ask your small ones to use a bucket when they feel the urge to throw up, according to the data that you can view it now. Little kids cannot handle a bucket for throwing up in. They need something lightweight that can sit right next to them on the bed or couch to quickly grab. They also need something that’s not too tall for them to bend over from a sitting position. You need something that you can completely sanitize in the dishwasher when this is all over. Mixing bowls are your best friends.

Step Two: Get out your beach towels. Beach towels will save your sanity when your house is struck with a middle-of-the-night throw up fest. I don’t know about you, but there is a very limited sheet selection at our house and that is the reason behind this guide. Once I remove the initial destroyed bedding, I put down a beach towel instead of a sheet on my child’s mattress. Wrapping a bath towel around the pillow is also a good idea. Then I can save the clean set of sheets for when poor little guy or girl’s stomach settles down and she’s ready to get some sleep. I’d still recommend getting those yucky sheets washed right away, but at least this way if you are (miraculously) able to get some sleep, you don’t have to worry about switching clothes from washer to dryer until morning.

Step Three: Keep a cool, wet washcloth handy at all times. You know that point after your child has gotten out what needs to be gotten out and the heaving commences? (This is so fun to read about, I know. But I warned you!). To stop the heaving, wipe the back of your child’s neck with a cool washcloth. It’s also nice to have around to wipe the whole face down before lying back down in bed.

Those are three things I’ve learned to do when faced with stomach upset in our family. But don’t forget, I did everything wrong the first time. So as a bonus (woohoo!), here the six things I’ve learned not to do when one of my small children has a stomach bug:

1. Don’t give them a bath right away. I get it. Your child smells horrible, looks horrible, is outwardly quite horrible. My immediate reaction after my daughter’s first throwing up ever was to stick her in the bathtub and clean her up. But it’s always best to wait (if you can) until you’re sure the throwing up is done. You can cross your fingers and hope it’s a “one and done” deal, but it’s probably not. (Sorry). Your child is only going to get messier because most toddlers don’t understand the whole “throw up in the bucket” idea. Also, they are probably experiencing a mix of nausea and chills that makes taking a bath an unpleasant experience for them. Clean them up quickly with a wet cloth or wipe and let them lie back down and get whatever rest they can before they’re at it again.

2. Don’t turn on the TV. A movie or TV show is another thing your child may beg for in between bouts of nausea. But the eye movement required to watch TV could very well end up increasing the nausea instead of distracting from it. We are big fans of recorded books and stories during the stomach bug episodes.

3. Don’t leave your child’s side. I don’t even try to get back in my own bed at night if my kids are throwing up. In my opinion, it’s far better for me to lay on the floor next to their beds and be able to shove a mixing bowl in their faces as soon as they need one than to run from my room when I hear them gagging only to get there when everything within five feet is completely obliterated. I’ll take the crick in the neck over the laundry/carpet/sorry-about-your-favorite-doll any day. If it’s a daytime illness (which it hardly ever is for us!), I just forget about productivity that day and keep as close as possible to the sicky.

4. Do not give your child water right away. Yes, you’re worried about dehydration. But worry about that later. These stomach bugs want everything out of your kid’s stomach, and they want it to stay out for a while. Don’t ask me why, but that’s the way it is. I am aware that medical websites say you should give children who are vomiting small amounts of liquid to drink. So that’s my official advice: do what doctors tell you to do. But my experiential, mom advice is this: don’t give them anything while they’re throwing up. I’d love to know what other mom’s experiences are with that. In my experience, I have to let my kids throw up until there’s nothing left, and usually let them take a good nap before we start rehydrating. This is based on a normal stomach bug, though, not one that lasts more than a few hours. I’ve never seen my children get to the point of dehydration during a stomach bug when those scary symptoms you’re told to watch out for appear. Like I said, my unofficial, experiential advice is to let them get it all out and rest a bit before plying them with Gatorade or other electrolyte replacement drinks. But that leads me to this:

5. Don’t assume kids are all alike: take notes on how your children recover. If you’re like me, you’ll probably read a bunch of websites about how to help your child recover. Sadly, the advice you read might be all wrong for you. A few weeks ago, my 3-year-old son threw up every ten minutes for five hours overnight, then woke up, downed a piece of toast, and went about his normal, super hero action packed day. My 5-year-old daughter had a less intense version of that stomach bug that same night, and she ate nothing but Saltines for the next 24 hours and lazed around the house all day. Apparently, her physical and mental recovery after a stomach bug hits her is a bit more delicate than my son’s. Even after my daughter is asking for Gatorade and hasn’t thrown up in an hour or two, there’s a good chance it’s coming back up. I go ahead and give her fluids as soon as she starts asking for them, but I keep the mixing bowl nearby. This is the kid who after her first stomach bug as a toddler threw up ever day as if by habit for the next week-and-a-half at dinner. Fun times. But I now I know this…

6. Don’t give a toddler whatever food he wants after a stomach bug. Listen. She’s barely two years old. She’s asking for ice cream. You want to give it to her, but DO NOT DO IT! A week-and-a-half, my friends. That’s how long it took me to realize the first time I parented through a stomach bug that I should be giving nothing to my sick daughter other than the good old BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. But mine is more the BRACT diet because I dole out a lot of crackers in recovery times. After I backed off on a regular diet and gave her only BRACT, she recovered completely in two days. As I mentioned in the previous “Don’t,” every child recovers differently and older children can handle returning to a regular diet sooner than children two and under. If they’re under two, I strongly suggest you go extremely slow with introducing any dairy or protein right away. Not even pancakes! (yes,that’s experience speaking). Stick to BRACT for 24-48 hours and hopefully you’ll avoid the week-and-a-half of misery this first-time-mom experienced.

So there you go, information straight from the trenches on how to deal when stomach bugs and small children collide. Here’s hoping my mistakes will keep your sane in your own hour of need. On a bookish note, our favorite sick day book is this one.

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