August 9, 2006

The other day Emily did something she does just about every time she sits down to eat. She spilled her juice. I, as always, said “Clean it up!”.

Little Emily was sitting there, her hands in the air as the cold juice soaked into her pants, and she looked at me and said, “That wasn’t the nice way to say it Mommy. You should say it like this, her voice heightened a bit, ‘Emmy, will you please clean that up?’”

We work really hard to teach our kids manners – Joe is still learning and bound to be a challenge, but Emily is an incredibly polite little girl. So you can imagine that I felt like a big jerk after this, but she was right. I didn’t speak nicely the way that I’ve taught her. I corrected myself and said, “Emmy, will you please clean that up?”

Then you know what she did? She commended ME on a job well done. “Good job, Mom, that’s the nice way to say it.”

I think we can all name a time or two when our kids have taught us a lesson, but my specific topic is the way we speak to our children. We cherish them, but does our voice reflect that? We expect them to be polite, but are we polite? It’s so easy to yell, but does the situation really call for yelling? Would Christ raise his voice at us if we made a mistake?

My daughter has been on this earth for less than five years. How long have your children dwelt here? The little ones are still learning the ropes, yet we tend to snap at them at moments when we could be teaching them.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s so true and so important. Maya Angelou mentioned once, and not verbatim but this is the idea, that the way you look at a child when they enter the room illustrates to him/her how you feel about them. Do you look at them with an expressionless face, or not at all? Do you look at them with the happiness you felt when they first entered your life?

Make that your goal. When your child enters the room, remember the day they were born, or they day you first held them in your arms. Adults are complicated beings laden with stress on a daily basis. We know we love them, but if we don’t express it with our words and expressions, how do they know we love them? Saying “I love you” is never enough.

Children don’t understand sarcasm, and as much as we (myself included) enjoy it and find great humor in it in certain settings, it truly has no place in a relationship with children. It may satisfy our instant need for a laugh, but it often leaves a sad little soul in it’s wake.

Children misbehave, they sass, they lie…but speak to them as if they are the best version of themselves and you’ll notice that eventually that is what they’ll strive to become. They long to please you and there is no gift that you can give your children that would equal the warm feeling of your kind, loving words of approval.

“I … beseech you … with all lowliness and meekness … to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers …

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Eph. 4:1–3, 29, 31–32.)

March 19, 2006

My son is a mama’s boy, through and through.  I can’t leave the room without him screaming.  People are constantly giving me the “you’ve got to break him of that” look.

How??  How can I make him want me less?  Yes, it’s the lifelong battle I’ve had with the opposite sex.  Okay, I lie….but it was fun to pretend.

Anyway, he’s almost 18 months old and still nurses.  Not just in the morning or at night…and I don’t even want to talk about numbers. Yes, I let him nurse.  I do it for my own sanity. It’s the only way to shut him up. It’s the only way I can have a conversation on the phone.

People say “Let him scream!”  Well, that’s fine for you, but until you’re the one listening to these piercing cries, I don’t want to hear it.  It’s not a pleasant cry, not even irritating.  It’s painful.  It causes me headaches.

Okay, so the point of me writing this. My mom was over a couple days ago and I was complaining about how I would likely never get him to stop nursing.  She said something to the effect of, it’s not hurting anyone and he’s still a baby.  Who cares.

I soooo appreciated her saying that.  I feel constantly judged and sometimes guilty when I nurse him.  That’s so dumb!  I never care what other people think, but for some reason this really gets to me.

God gave me these boobs.  They are filled with milk ALL the time.  This milk is for my baby.  That is the sole purpose of boobs.  Aside from turning a few heads (ha, right!), and occasionally bouncing off of my knees like a bag of beans, they are for my infant (err…toddler).  That’s why we have them.

The other great thing about nursing…I haven’t had a period on over two years.  I love that.

My son adores me.  My daughter, who is very sweet, would always push me away when she was this age.  She was very independant, but it made me a little sad that she didn’t “need” me the way that he does. So now I have my needy, loving little boy.

Joe laid his head on my leg today and didn’t move.  Just stood there with his head on me.  I looked at Luke and he said, “You gotta love that!”  And it’s true, I love how he loves me.  And obviously there’s something within him that needs to be loved and cuddled and reassured.

I don’t nurse him for the nourishment, I do it because of the closeness.  And no, I won’t be nursing him when he’s 5, even though we joke about it! I don’t seek him out to nurse.  When he needs me, I’m there.  He’s got me wrapped around his itty bitty fingers…and someday I’ll miss this.

Feb 17 2006

I was just thinking…I mean, that’s what my blog is about really! lol

Isn’t it funny how, literally, one moment you’re a woman, wife…whichever, and in a split second’s time you’re harvesting human life?  All of the sudden in that moment your priorities change.  You become terrified of things you didn’t even know existed.  You gain love for someone that only just began to exist, who you don’t even know.

I remember when Amee became pregnant with Peyton she said that song by Savage Garden, I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You, really touched her because that’s the way she felt about Peyton – the baby they’d been trying & trying to have.  I always think of that…what she said, how she said it, and even though it’s “just a song”, it still really encapsulated the feelings of not only motherhood, but that anticipation and sadness in wanting to become a mother when it seems like it will never work out.  And POOF! ZAP!  Here’s your new human being!

Yes, people have babies every day, but it doesn’t make it any less miraculous.  I cannot understand how a person, especially a woman, can stand by and witness the formation of life, the combination of body and spirit, her baby’s first breath…and still doubt there is a God or some higher power.  It is an enigma to me.  Is it scientific?  Of course it is!  There is scientific reason behind most everything.  God is omniscient.  I’d be worried if there weren’t science involved.

I don’t know where I’m going with this really…I just think of it sometimes.  I think most parents do.  One moment it’s just you…and if one moment can be bigger than another…the one where you become a mother is.  Whether it be by birth or by adoption, the whole scope of life changes.

Yep.  I was just thinkin’ (out loud)!

1 Jan 2004

Firstly, I do have a serious side and a sentimental side, despite what some may think…so no picking on me because I’ll likely flick you in the forehead.

Anyway…

Yesterday I found a bunch of old jewelry and I was showing Emily.  She was oohing and aahing at it, but I picked up 1/2 of a mizpah.  Do you remember those?  Often they were a little heart charm, broken in two, and each person wore 1/2 of the charm.  Well, this particular one was a “best friends” mizpah, I had the second half, and though she doesn’t remember it, Laura had (has?) the other half.  Our boss gave it to us when we worked together at Kiddie Kandids several years ago.  She had just come back from Disneyland, and the charm, which was circular, had Mickey Mouse on the back–and someone else, but I don’t know because it’s on Laura’s side.

Well, this got me to thinking. I never use the term “best friend.”  I really don’t.  Laura, do you notice that? Laura’s always saying, “you’re my best friend…it’s your job!” or “you’re my best friend, we can kiss!”…something like that.  So, I was thinking about that and why I never say it.  It’s because it feels like high school to me.  Back when you had one “best friend” (Michelle) and then the rest were just plain old friends.  Well, I decided that was pretty dumb, because you can have more than one best friend.

So then I thought about how my “friend base” has gotten smaller and smaller over the years, and only the ones I’m closest to remain, or reenter my life to again become valuable assets to my well being.

Okay, that lead me to thinking about what a best friend actually is.  What is it?  I thought about the people that I was closest to and realized that it was this:

My best friends are the people that I can tell anything about me and they don’t judge.
They’ve seen my house dirty.
They’ve seen me without make-up.
They know that I’ve been cursed with a dirty mind that is often out of control.
They think I’m a good mom, even when I snap.
They know my insecurities, and always seem to know when I need encouragement.
They know what pills I take and why.
They’ve seen me cry
They’ve seen me pig out, and have often joined in, knowing that there will be no judgement when food is involved.
They tell me when I’m wrong and when I should shut up, and I trust them.
They’re just as off balance as I am, so it makes me feel not so crazy.
They confide in me, and know that I can keep my mouth shut.

Basically, I can tell them what part stinks, where I’ve recently grown hair that I really shouldn’t, what sin I’ve committed against animals…all of that…and yet they still call me, email me, keep me “in the loop”.  And it doesn’t matter if we haven’t talked in 10 days or 10 years, when we get back together it’s as if we never missed a beat.

So, that’s what I was thinking about yesterday when I was going through my old jewelry.  And it was then that I realized that all of my friends are my best friends, because as I’ve gotten older, they are the ones who “made the cut”, as I have with them…and I’m very fortunate, because my friends are the best, most diverse, most talented, sweet, spiritual, interesting and funny people I’ve ever known.

The End