Brrr!

It is so cold here! We had a blizzard yesterday, and went from nearly no snow on the ground to having some serious drifts--mostly in our driveway. Now we have a windchill advisory, and Joseph has no school tomorrow. Winter is most definitely NOT my favorite season.

Thank goodness that as cold as it is outside, it's warm inside. Weather like this makes me thankful for the things we have (i.e. a warm house, food in our stomachs, each other, etc) and helps me to stop worrying about things I have no control over.

Also, while winter is my least favorite time of year, Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. I love to remember the birth of my Savior, and the things we do to celebrate Christmas are awesome. We made sugar cookies today--I mixed up the dough and rolled it out, and the boys cut shapes out, at least until they tired of it. I later made mint frosting to put on them. We had turkey for supper, which smelled awesome all day as it cooked. And, last but not least, we decorated our Christmas tree today. This year we have a snowflake tree. Jereme and I tried to find ornaments that were kid and cat friendly, and these seemed to be the best bet. They are stiff and look like they were dipped in sparkly paint. Combined with the lights and the bead garland, I think we have a pretty nice tree. The best part of it all is the amount of family time we spent together today, and will continue spending as we celebrate Christmas.

I do have to say, however, that everyone tells me that each year without my dad will get easier. They are definitely wrong. This is my third Christmas without my dad, and I think it is the most difficult yet. I miss him more and more as each year passes, and each activity that I do that he used to do for my brother and me brings it home that he will never do those activities again. While I try to not dwell on those feelings, they are there and they are real. I am so thankful for Jereme and the boys, though, and that helps.

Anyway, to go back to happier thoughts, I am so looking forward to the baking and candy making that this time of year brings. The sugar cookies, the meringues, the fudges, and all the candies are so wonderful, it's no doubt that people gain weight through the holidays! I myself will be making cake balls and meringues this week alone...and I can't wait!

What did she feel?

As a mother, I can't imagine life without my boys. I can't imagine a single day without them, let alone a lifetime. This year I'm thinking a lot about Mary and Jesus. What would it have been like to be in her shoes--not only burying her son, but watching Him suffer on the cross? Not only having Him come back, but knowing He had to leave yet again, this time for good?

I've never believed that Mary should be exalted the way many exalt her, but it doesn't negate the fact that I would never have been strong enough to walk in her shoes. I admire her strength, and I wonder how she was comforted once Christ ascended. I know that we were sent the Holy Spirit in His place, but as His mother, did Jesus comfort Mary in a different way? How did she feel? What could one possibly feel in her place?

A friend of mine posted a song she might sing for a Christmas celebration at her church...I really like it, and it kind of fits my thoughts tonight.

You're Here (Mary's Song) by Francesa Battistelli

Hold on now, I gotta take a deep breath
I don’t know what to say when I look in your eyes
You made the world before I was born
Here I am holding You in my arms tonight
Noel, Noel Jesus our Emmanuel

You’re here, I’m holding You so near
I’m staring into the face of my Savior
King and Creator
You could’ve left us on our own
But You’re here
Don’t know how long I’m gonna have You for
But I’ll be watching when You change the world
Look at Your hands, they’re still so small
Someday You’re gonna stretch them out and save us all
Noel, Noel, God with us Emmanuel

You’re here, I’m holding You so near oooh oh
I’m staring into the face of my Savior
King and Creator
You could’ve left us on our own
Bbut you’re here, you’re here Someday I’m gonna look back on this
The night that God became a baby boy
Someday You’re gonna go home again,
But You leave your spirit and flood the world with joy

You’ll be here, I’m holding You so near
I’m staring into the face of my Savior, King and Creator
You could’ve left me on my own, but you’re here… You’re here
Hallelujah, You’re here
Hallelujah, You’re here


If you want to actually hear the song, here's the YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2xxqRm3Hyg

Bedtime!

I know that many parents believe that to put a child to bed one needs to just lay said child down and be firm that he not get out of bed. That works great in theory. It also works great before the child can climb out of his or her crib. It does not, however, work when the child moves up to a "big boy bed"--at least not in my world.

Joseph and Jacob used to be put in their cribs at bed time after a little bit of cuddling. They were always still mostly awake and once laid down would usually go to sleep on their own. However, once they started climbing out of their crib it was always a battle at bedtime. The battle only got worse once they moved to their twin sized beds. At some point Jereme and I decided that we would just cuddle the boys until they fell asleep. So, we lay them down and sing to them until they go to sleep. Obviously, we have parameters that we keep. If one of the boys is fighting sleep they will get in trouble after a certain amount of time has passed...but why make EVERY night a battle? Before we cuddled them until they were asleep, bedtime turned into a two hour battle every night. Everyone was stressed and traumatized, and who sleeps well after something like that? So, bedtime became our special cuddle time, and it's worked for us.

Our schedule has been a little messed up this last week or so because I had a hysterectomy a week ago Thursday. Instead of me cuddling the boys in their beds each night, whichever boy it was my night to cuddle came to my bed until Jereme had the other one asleep. Tonight I felt well enough to actually go back to the old routine, and it was my night to cuddle Joseph. I came upstairs and the boys started getting ready for bed, and I needed to go back downstairs for something. When I came back upstairs again, Joseph was in his bed, and he didn't want to cuddle. After a few minutes I checked on him (in the past he's said he didn't want to cuddle and he was always up and playing after a few minutes) and he was sound asleep! The time has come when Joseph is growing into such a big boy, and I'm going to miss our cuddle time at bedtime so much!

This just seems appropriate...

Year’s End

by Richard Wilbur

Now winter downs the dying of the year,

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell

And held in ice as dancers in a spell

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown

Composedly have made their long sojourns,

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze

The random hands, the loose unready eyes

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

These sudden ends in time...

It's been quite a while since I've had time to sit down with my thoughts. I remember thinking that the boys kept me busy when they were babies, and back then I believed that things would only get easier and less busy as they grew. How wrong I was!

Yes, things are easier...or at least some things are. No, I do not have to change diapers. That was a blessing. When you have two little boys, who are only born eleven months apart, you change a lot of diapers. It was wonderful when they started running to the potty on their own. They feed themselves, and they dress themselves. So, basic day to day needs for the boys are much easier.

However, as some things get easier, others become more challenging. Out of diapers and into trouble; at least that was the way it went with mine. As my boys grow they get busier and busier. I no longer have to leave the house to stay busy--I can do that at home. Chasing kids down off the outside of our twenty foot tall stair banister, cooking, picking up the house repeatedly, laundry, dishes, breaking up fights, etc...my days are busy. Some days I can hardly wait for bedtime because I don't believe I have even half the energy that my boys do each day, and I am truly exhausted.

No matter how exhausted I become, though, nothing will ever be better than when my busy little boy (whichever one it is at the particular time) crawls into my lap and says, "Mama, I love you. I want to cuddle." When the boys let me sit with them on the couch and read, watch TV, whatever, it's so very special.

I used to look forward to the changes that life would bring. I counted the days until my boys would do one thing or another. I have stopped doing that. I no longer wish the days away, and I no longer count time. Richard Wilbur wrote, "These sudden ends in time must give us pause," I am just going to cherish every moment I am given with my sons.

I know that the day will come when Joseph no longer wants me to walk him to the school, let alone hug him in public. I know that someday the boys will stop crawling into my lap. So for now, I hang on to the kisses they give me, the times they sit on my lap, and even the smudges of Doritos on my newly washed sweatshirt.

Tired, busy, sometimes cranky and seemingly unappreciative...but I am extremely blessed.

Time to Plan

It's nearing the end of the month. Do you know what that means? It means that it is time for me to sit down and figure out my menu for next month.

Groceries are expensive, and Jereme thinks that we need to keep our grocery budget way under what I think we need to keep it at. However, I totally understand the need for a budget...so I do what I can to keep our grocery bill as low as possible. I started about a year ago to make a grocery list before I went to the store, and did my best to shop only from that list. Yeah...that didn't work so well. So then I started making a menu 2 weeks at a time, making a shopping list from that menu, and ONLY buying what I needed to make what was on the menu. That helped...but then I decided about 3 months ago to try it a month at a time instead of 2 weeks. So, I started making my menus for the entire next month and I've started only buying what I need to make those meals. It's cut my grocery budget by about a third. When I say a third, I mean a third lower than when I was making my menus for 2 weeks at a time. It's amazing how much cheaper it is to shop for an entire month than one or two weeks! Of course, I do most of my shopping at Target and Sam's Club...but if I watch the ads the week I make my menu I can cut my bill even more. I love Sam's Club because to keep my budget low I make many things more than once a month (or similar things--i.e. chicken noodle soup, beef vegetable soup, and stew all take lots of the same ingredients) and I can buy lots of things in bulk. Obviously, there are things a person cannot buy in bulk or a month ahead because they will spoil, but I do my best to get what I can all at once. I've noticed that not only are soups cheap and easy to make, they go a ways, so I can either make two meals out of them as soup alone, or throw dumplings into them or make stew out of them for day two.

The hardest part of cooking for me is deciding what to make, so making a menu takes quite a bit of my time. I love to cook, and I love to try new things (although that's not always budget friendly), but I really have a difficult time deciding what to cook and/or put on the menu. So, after I put in the time once a month, the rest of the time is so easy. I love being able to go to the fridge in the morning and look at the huge calendar page I have on the front of it, and knowing what is for supper that night.

Questions

Today the boys and I went shopping for winter coats (which are REALLY expensive, by the way!) We shopped around, found the best deal, and headed home. On the way home the boys started asking about my dad, who died about two years ago. The conversation went like this:

Jacob: Mama, I love you.
Me: I love you, too, Jacob.
Jacob: I love you and Daddy and Joe and Grandpa and your daddy. But I can't see your daddy cuz he died.
Me: Yes, he did. But you know, he loved you very much.
Jacob: Yes, he did! But he died. And we can't see him anymore. Right, Mama? Your daddy died?
Me: Yes.
Jacob: Cuz someone shooted him?

That's all I will type out of the conversation, but you can see where my post is going. First of all, obviously I had to set him straight. No one shot my dad, he was sick. I explained that my dad had had a disease that made his body stop working the way it should, which was why he died.

However, it leads me to a major question--if I monitor what the boys watch, and we don't watch a bunch of shoot-'em-up type movies, where on earth did he get that idea? The best I can figure is that a man from our town, a football coach who is very well known nationally, was shot last year, and it's still big news around town.

As practical of an explanation as that may be, I am still thrown aback by the question. Death is such a difficult topic to address with small children. The boys saw my dad, but he was already sick when they were born. To them, it was normal for Dad to be in a wheelchair, and they didn't see, nor would they understand, the decline that led him there. However, they got to know my dad, they were able to say goodbye before he died, and they were at the funeral. In the past Joseph has made the connection that if Jesus is in his heart, and my dad is with Jesus, then my dad must also be in his heart. But, they still don't fully grasp the idea of death. To them it just means that someone is no longer around, they can't see them, and that's it.

As I type this I realize that I'm talking about the idea of death being difficult to grasp as a child...and yet I don't fully grasp it, either. Obviously, I know what it is, and what it means. I just still haven't come to terms with the fact that death has taken my dad. I want to be able to see him. I want him to be able to watch the boys grow. I want to be able to call him up and say, "Hey, Dad. How's it going?" I still haven't been able to bring myself to take Dad's phone number out of the contact list on my cell phone--it just feels too much like deleting him out of my life completely, and I can't do it.

How am I supposed to explain things to the boys when I feel this way? The best I can do is to tell them that Dad is in heaven with Jesus, and because of that, we'll get to see him again one day. At least, it gives me peace to know that, and hopefully it will give peace to the boys, too.

How ironic is it that Jacob would ask questions the day before Dad's birthday?

They call him Flipper

I've discovered that 1960's television is a great way to keep my boys out of trouble...at least for a little while. It's hilarious.

A while back we got rid of cable television and switched to internet only with Netflix. We can get as many DVDs through the mail as we want a month, and at the same time stream movies online and through the Wii. Why pay huge amounts of money for cable T.V. when Netflix is SO much cheaper, and we can still watch everything that we watched before? Add into that the fact that we can watch lots of shows that we couldn't watch before, and it's a great deal.

So, as we were browsing online the other night to see what was available to watch, Jereme and I discovered that we could watch "Flipper." I loved "Flipper" as a kid, and apparently so did Jereme. After adding it to our "Instant Queue, " we turned it on and the boys were totally absorbed. It is so funny to watch them watch it! Today as we watched the boys kept asking, "Mama, is Flipper going to save them?" and, "Mama, is that the bad guy? Where's Flipper? Maybe he'll save the day!" and "Where's the shark?" (I guess they already realize that it's predictable?) So cute!

I've been kind of thankful for "Flipper" today. I try to really limit how much T.V. the boys watch everyday, and when they watch it I definitely monitor what they watch--but I am SO tired of "Bob the Builder" that I could scream! What can kids watch, though, when everything has violence, sex, and lots of swearing? We're pretty much limited to "Caillou," "Bob the Builder," "Sid the Science Kid," and...not much else. So, it's been awesome that the boys are enjoying "Flipper."

They watched a couple of episodes (each episode is 25 minutes) and I did my housework. Good deal! Thank you Netflix!

Kiddos

I can't believe how big my boys are getting, and how fast they are getting there!

Jereme cooked supper last night (yes, I have one of those wonderfully talented husbands who can cook) and the boys helped him out. Jacob, who is my big helper, always wants to help when I bake/cook. He likes to help measure out flour, stir, and pour. The jobs don't have to be big; he is just happy to be helping in some way. I know they day will come when he will stop asking, "Can I do dishes?" and start saying, "No way, I'm not doing those dishes!" I'm sure it will come about the time I start saying, "Will you do the dishes?" because he's old enough to actually do it--but right now I'm just trying to encourage him when he helps.

Another thing that both of the boys are doing (they are 3 and 4, only 11 months apart) is making up songs. The songs are always super cute, and I appreciate their love for music. I also always enjoy the smile they give me with their songs. When Joseph sings and then says to me, "Was that beautiful, Mama?" I'm pretty sure it's the same as when he brings me flowers, which both boys also do frequently.

I'm not sure how the boys went from being little babies who relied on me for everything from changing their diapers to feeding them to comforting them to being big boys who just suddenly bolt from the room to run to the bathroom, who help cook dinner, and who want to bring comfort to those around them, but they did! I read once that with kids the days are long but the years are short. As I watch the boys daily it strikes me over and over how true it is. Many days, I won't lie to you about the number, I'm ready for it to be bedtime before it's even supper time. Sometimes the days just drag, sometimes the boys have been really busy and I'm just tired, and sometimes I am just tired of having to discipline over and over...but the days can be long. Many days we've had a really good day, but the number of activities we've fit into it can make it seem long, as well. Whatever the case, no matter how long the days can seem, and no matter how many of those long days we've had, when I I look at the boys I cannot believe that the years are passing so quickly.

I'm just cherishing the time I have with the boys while looking forward to each new milestone they reach. At the same time, I am simply amazed.

Here it is...

I just read a post written on a friend's blog about whether or not she should dedicate her posts to something. She's right--every successful blog out there, and yes, I would like mine to be successful--is dedicated to something: being a mother, pastoring, computer science, etc. My question is, do I know any one thing well enough to blog about it daily?

The only thing that I really know is my life. I am a mother. I am a sometimes nurse, cook, teacher, big ole meanie, and cuddler. I am a wife. I am also a sister and a daughter.

So, those things are what my blog will be about. I can write easily about my kids: what they're doing, how they're growing, the things they say. I can write about nursing them, cooking meals (mostly that because of how much I love food, and the fact that cooking/baking is cathartic for me), methods we use to learn the ABCs and such, and sometimes even about how I discipline.

I don't know how easy it will be for me to write about being a wife, because that role I'm not as sure on. I mean, I am secure in my role as wife, but I really think it's easier to be a mommy than a wife. Or at least, it's easier to write about the mommy role, mostly because it's less personal. However, I am sure that since my entire being revolves around my boys and husband, a post about being a wife will pop up once in a while.

So, in general, my posts, and my blog, will be not so much about me, but about family life. How does a family work? Or, how does MY family work? Food, budget, family time, couple time, in-law issues, discipline, etc, are all parts of making my family work, and that's all I know enough to write about.

So folks, here it is. I hope someone out there will find something I've written interesting, but if not, I can't change what I am...so I'll just keep writing.

It's Food Time!

Thanksgiving is coming! I know it's a month away still--but I'm already trying to figure out which dishes I will take to the huge family get together.

Something Jereme's family does super well is cook. And eat. And cook and eat some more. It's always a challenge for me to find something to take, because I am always looking for something new to try--something that everyone will like, but perhaps something that not everyone has had before. I actually really enjoy the challenge.

So this year I will try Taste of Home's Honey Thyme Butternut Squash. It sounds wonderful to me, because I like my squash a little bit sweet, and I am pretty sure that everyone in the family likes squash. The recipe is downstairs, and Taste of Home's website wants me to sign up to be able to access it online, so I won't be posting it tonight. However, if it goes over well at Thanksgiving dinner, you may just see another post about squash.

I love food, and I love new recipes. This year Taste of Home has given me a lot of good ideas. Since I'm not so sensitive about Jereme and the boys being my guinea pigs, I will also try out several dishes on them this holiday season. Champagne basted turkey and twice baked sweet potatoes sound awesome to me...so we'll have to see how my boys like them!

What do you plan on making for Thanksgiving dinner?

Who's Right?

I was told the other day that while I am not a "bad mother" I'm not a good one, either, because I'm not "firm, fair, and consistent." I beat myself up about this for a while. I even texted a few close girlfriends because I was so upset.

One of them said to me, "Oh really? And they know how 'firm, fair, and consistent' you are because they live with you all day everyday?"

The two people who said this to me are in my husband's family. His family is notorious for thinking that they are right, 100% of the time. No one is ever better at anything than someone in their family--but only people who were BORN into the family, not those who married in. So, that means I've spent a lot of time feeling inadequate in the four years since we've moved back to Iowa.

For the first few months of my sons' lives I had to defend my position on everything. It didn't matter what I wanted their sleep schedules to be, someone in the family had done it differently. It didn't matter what feeding schedule I wanted, someone else had set that up better in the past. As for discipline goes, of course I couldn't do that right, either.

Everything I said, thought, or did was second guessed by so many people that I began to second guess myself until I was crazy. I felt like the worst mother on the planet. I started to worry that maybe the boys would be better off without me if I was, indeed, so bad at mothering.

Things got better for a while, and now they're at it again. I began to drive myself crazy again last week when Jereme's two aunts told me what they did. Then when my friend reminded me that they weren't with me all day, everyday, I started thinking.

Does it really matter if the people in Jereme's family think I'm a good mother? Don't all mothers have faults? Doesn't everyone mess up some time or another?

I love my boys, and they know it. I work to keep a schedule for them so they know what to expect next. I make rules, and I enforce them as needed. Joseph and Jacob are fed, clothed, and clean. We play, go to the park, go to the library, and read together. I do the absolute best I can. My husband still feels like he has to earn his mother's love. My kids will NEVER feel that way about me.

The crux of the matter is this: I am their mother. No one knows what they need better than I do. I'm the one with them day in and day out. It doesn't matter if Grandma was feeding her kids peanut butter on a spoon when they were infants, I said not to, and that is what matters. It doesn't matter if everyone else on the entire planet puts their kids down to bed without cuddling them--Jereme and I have chosen that time of day (or night) to be our special time for cuddling with the boys.

I am as firm, fair, and consistent as I can possibly be. Perhaps if Jereme's family lived with us ALL the time they would see that--but they don't because there are times when kids need to be punished "later." Just because I don't pull out the fly swatter or take the boys' pants down to spank them in front of everyone does not mean that I don't follow up on the bad behavior when we get home.

So I've stopped beating myself up over what Jereme's family, and the world around me, thinks of me as a parent. No one walks in my shoes, and no one knows my kids the way I do. As long as I do my best, and I love them, then I am a good mother. It really doesn't matter what others think.

Watermelon days of summer are gone; fall is here

Although today was deceptively warm, fall is definitely here. There is always a hint of smoke in the air from someone burning leaves, harvest has begun and there is a cloud of dust almost everywhere you drive. The leaves have turned and are falling. Yes, fall has begun.

Where did the year go? How did the time go by so quickly? Every year is like this, though. January through about the middle of October fly by; the rest of the year crawls. I'll never understand, but I'll savor the time.

Like so many other things that I love that are also bad for me, I love fall. My allergies are the worst at this time of year, but something about fall makes me think of home. Autumn in Michigan meant a beautiful array of colors on the trees, the smell of burning leaves, and a crispness in the air. It meant that it was time to put away the T-shirts and pull out the sweatshirts. I love the way a hoodie feels when I put it on, and I hope I never outgrow that! Fall meant that when I got home from school there was a good chance Dad would have a pot of something that smelled wonderful on the stove, and nothing welcomed you home better than that. Walking in the woods, crunching on the leaves, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and listening to the breeze whistling through the evergreens and the river next to me was about as close to heaven as I'll get here on earth. How I miss that!

Time has passed, and I now live in Iowa with a family of my own. Some things stay the same--the burning leaves and the bite in the air. We don't have the trees here that Michigan does, but there are a few, and they make me long for "home." Dad has since passed on, but I made a pot full of vegetable beef soup today, and baked a batch of cookies--I hope my family and friends feel as welcomed into my home as I always did into Dad's.