Born to Mother

I recently had a friend tell me she used to wonder how people with large families did it and then she met me. Now, she said, she understands. (Needless to say, at this point I was REALLY wondering what she thought she'd learned!) She said that I am a born mother, that she can tell that mothering is my special calling and she felt that she (with three children) did not have the same thing.

I have a different perspective. I was not a "born mother." I know people who have always wanted to have children and I know people who just love babies. I was neither. I was never drawn to be around children and didn't grow up desiring children in any numbers. People who are like that are, in my mind, "born mothers." They just naturally like the mothering stuff. I'll tell you right now, I had a night last night that wasn't really all that bad relatively speaking. One of my little ones was up a few times in the course of about 2 hours crying about her leg hurting. It was nothing compared to what some people have with newborns and really, I can't say that if I told people they'd have that much sympathy but I was ready to go nuts! My husband saw that I had ZERO patience and sent me to bed! My lack of giftedness at nighttime parenting (my gift has been God allowing me to find ways to NOT be awake for any amount of time at night) is one huge sign to me that I'm not a "born mother".

I do believe my friend is right in one sense. Mothering is my calling. But it's also the calling of any woman to whom God gives a child. The key is that I have "embraced" that calling, to steal a phrase from Nancy Campbell of the Above Rubies ministry.

That's the reason some might perceive a difference. It's all about perspective and actively deciding to alter your attitude to enjoy what God has most obviously planned for your life. Too often we just do what we have to do, enjoy the nice moments and complain about the difficult ones. We often fail to see the bigger picture of what we're doing and wonder why WE have to be stuck with these small and annoying things. We look at others doing what we think are more significant tasks or perhaps more enjoyable things and we wish that our lives could be like that.

When I look at my children, I see potential. Potential that God wants us (my husband and I) to help equip and direct! This is the future of our family, of our society, of His Kingdom. What I do with these children, every little thing could be of greatest significance!! It could be of little significance but I don't know! I don't know what enormous plans God could have for these children but I know that I'm a part of those plans and some of those plans rest heavily on what I do or don't do with my children. As you catch that vision and just imagine the ways God COULD use your children in the future, you start finding more purpose and significance in what you're doing. As you start to see that you have an impact on your children that you couldn't have on anyone else in the world, you start to see the value of this relationship! The longer you think along those lines, the more you get caught up in the bigger picture where, before, you focused on piles of laundry, dishes, messes, arguements and runny noses but now, you can get lost in thought about the view of that big picture while you're doing the little things that go into that big picture.

Isn't it exciting to be a part of something God is doing?! No, I wasn't born thinking how awesome it would be to mother. I didn't even start thinking it was awesome until I was two children into it but now I can say that there's NO job as awesome, significant and blessed than this!

Mudpies and Mary Janes

I'm not big on just browsing through people's blogs but from time to time my searches for something takes me to a blog that is a jewel. Mudpies and Mary Janes seems to be just that sort of thing. Check them out at http://mudpiesandmaryjanes.blogspot.com

This blog apparently has give aways ALL the time! And for people who love to win free things, that's definitely a plus. But for me, what really draws me in is the ideas that are sparked from the things they give away. About a week ago I was inspired by their Emmie Cakes Giveaway! I'll have a picture of the resulte of my inspiration before too long!

Bingo - Reading Games

Yesterday morning we went to Chick-fil-a for breakfast. Chick-fil-a resturants in our area are giving away one free breakfast item every Wednesday morning of this month and it was a chicken biscuit yesterday. One of my children looked at me like I was nuts and said "Chicken isn't for BREAKFAST!!" Well, it was yesterday.

Apparently they have Bingo every Wednesday morning and we got to join in. It reminded me of a game that I had made a while back for reading and I decided to make a new one.


While phonics is very important for reading words we don't know, MOST of our reading as adults is from having memorized words that we've seen many times. Our beginning readers, however, have to struggle through sounding out each word as they go along. While I would definitely not stop teaching them phonics, it's helpful and makes reading more fun for them (and us) if they have more words memorized so that they can recognize them instantly. Word Bingo is a fun way to help your kids get familiar with words.

Today I made two different games, one for my beginning readers and one for readers a bit further along. I picked 24 words. I chose words they struggled with from a recent story they read or words from a list of most frequently used words. I put the same 24 words on each card (construction paper) in a different order, with the usual free space. Then I wrote out the words on index cards (not shown). To play we stack them up and have the child draw a card and read it out while we both cover the word on our card. We continue until one of us calls out bingo after having covered 5 words in a row. If you have more than one student on the same level, they could do this together. This is a FUN way for them to get a little reading practice!

Solving Front Seat Wars

My friend, Kendall, was unable to leave her comment but here's her idea on solving the "who gets to sit in the front seat" delima for anyone who has kids sitting in the front seat.

“here's a thought on the justness of who sits in the front for which leg of the shopping trip. Have each young person who is old enough to be allowed to be in the front seat have a week in the front. on Sunday a new week begins and a new child has their week in the front. It ended all arguments when Mum implemented that regime as I was growing up.”

We not only have front seat wars but also wars over who's turn it is to sit by the baby. This is a great idea! Thanks!

Okay, yes, I do have my hands full!

In exactly the sense that they mean it! My day isn't long enought to do all the things that ought to be done. Thankfully, I'm not one of those people who stresses terribly over that kind of thing. All the same, things need to be done around here, ya know?!

I have to admit that I really do more than I personally ought to be doing with all the other little hands in my home. The older kids do some simple chores around the house. Make beds, of course, empty trash, unload the dishwasher, vacuum to an extent, clean out pet cages. It's time to pass some of those on and have the older ones doing some more difficult things. Yesterday I had my 2 and 4 year old kiddos unloading/loading the washer and dryer (with a little kitchen step ladder) and they also emptied the dishwasher while I had the 6 yo load the dishes in. The older kids helped fold laundry but they're horrible at it. That's going to need some work. Sweeping the floor is something else that I need to train some kids to do. While I ask them to sweep from time to time I always have to go back and do it over. I guess the key would be for me to make THEM go back and do it until it's done properly. Ugh!! So not my idea of a fun time. But it's not about fun, is it?

Do any of you have other suggestions for what kids ages 9 (almost), 7, 6 and 4 could be doing around the house? And while you're at it, how do you go about training them WELL? Somebody, give me some thoughts!!

Friday - Grocery Day

I don't like grocery shopping. Nope, no I don't. I have to plan, I have to go, I have to spend, I have to put away in a half organized fashion. However there are a great many things in life that are much worse and it's not doctor appointment sort of misery or anything like that. Our grocery day is currently on Friday which also happens to be produce day.

Here's a glimpse of grocery day. Hopefully I've checked the sales at Winn Dixie and Publix on the internet on Thursday and finished my list mostly if not totally. Often, however, I haven't and I have to do that Friday morning. Then we load up in the car and set off for the three stores we visit. We go to the one furthest away first JUST in case I feel the desire to quit after the first and closest store. Last week I wanted to quit before we GOT there. Yeah.

Publix is usually the first store. I usually spend the least there because we ONLY hit the sales there. Even buy one, get one sales are often more expensive than the generic brand at Wal-Mart and unless it's something that we just can't have substitutes for, we don't get it. But you know, I enjoy Publix. The people are nice and even the customers are nice! You really feel like you've been to your neighborhood grocery store. Of course, NO trip to the store would ever be complete without a comment or two about our crowd. This is normal...the comments started when there were only two but obviously there's a few more exclaimation points on the end of people's comments now. Today we had three people say something about the number of kids in our family from the start to finish of Publix. When we got in the car (the last guy poked his head in my car as I was loading everything/one up) my kids commented on the number of people who said something today. It's so precious their point of view. As they are wondering why so many people say things to us, one suggested it's just because they like our family. When I pointed out that most people only have 2 kids (give or take) and they just don't see families with more very often, one of my kids said "It must be hard to have two kids." That one definitely made me smile.

Next is usually Winn Dixie. They generally have great meat sales but today there weren't too many things we were needing from there so it was a quick run. I will take this time to say, one of the reasons I don't really like doing grocery shopping is the getting in and out of the car. Not a huge deal, of course, but slightly bigger when you have to buckle people into carseats and deal with people discussing the pros and cons of sitting in the front seat and how just it is that one should sit all the way here from home, while another only sits from one store to the next and so on. And yes, if I only went to one store, it would indeed cost me more to shop.

Now, the Winn Dixie part reminds me that I really have to share that another reason I don't like grocery shopping is that it's not as calm and orderly as people perceive. On a number of occasions I've had someone from church say that they saw us at the store and the kids were so well behaved and I looked so calm and when someone else came down the isle the kids just moved to the side without a word from me and so on. I try not to look TOO shocked when people say this to me. That they would have that impression is miraculous to me. I won't go into great detail but suffice it to say, sometimes I feel like I have a small tornado whirling about me as I walk up and down those isles. A lovely, joyful tornado, but still a tornado.

Today, standing in line and following a little tug-of-war with Abby over the blasted, strategically placed candy during which she shrieked her piercing, glass breaking sort of shriek followed by a whine (only quieted by the threat of calling Dad, *sigh* at the lack of influence on my part), two of my kids crowded into the little area where the cashier would stand for the line next to us and they turned on the conveyor belt. Folks, I've never worked at a grocery store and I have no idea where they turn those off and on. For a brief moment I thought "Maybe I can ignore that and we can check out and leave and be long gone before anyone realized this conveyor belt is running." But no, I wouldn't want to do that AND of course, my kids would spend the next five minutes trying to turn it off and in the process they would turn on the light, turn on the speaker (price check on isle 4 please), and who knows what else. Luckily, I am not altogether lacking in intelligence and mostly good at undoing things that shouldn't have been done in the first place and I was able to turn it off without too much delay but it's just one of those things. After you've walked through two stores with little boys bouncing off of each other and a little girl having a fit when her shoe falls off and trying to stay out of people's way, that's just not something you've got a lot of patience to spend on.

Finally there is Wal-Mart. There are always too many people in the isles and I always wonder how I spent as much as I did and by that point I'm really ready to be done. When I go to Wal-Mart, I walk FAST. It's a huge store and I always need something at both ends so, to make up for the fact that I have to cover the whole thing and that I'm ready to be done, I walk fast. Apparently I'm the only person in this store to do this because I'm always getting behind those who stroll. Argh, matey!! Me thinks they should stroll the plank!! Today one of my little guys asked why we were running. I pointed out that I was walking (see my legs...they're longer than yours and THIS is a walk) and that HE was hopping (which is what he does anyway) and so his question wasn't a valid one. So, got our goods, loaded in the car, realized we forgot cereal, went back to get it. Took it home, loaded the fridge, got back in the car to go get the produce (got 3 avacados which we've never gotten before and guess what I bought at the store today? yep), dropped by a friend's and visited for a bit, went home, threw people in bed and went to work on the horrid mess that this day creates in my home.

And that, my friends, is a more-than-you-wanted-to-know post on grocery days.
I am not spell checking because I've got company coming and still have a mess to finish working on.

My Favorite Baby Carriers

My last post was talking about cooking which I am not an expert in. I figured that this time I would share about an area where my experience exceeds the experience of the average mother in my country.

In my nearly 9 years of continuously mothering little babies, there is one thing that I think is absolutely indispensable. A good baby carrier. I'm a baby carrier junkie, so I'll share my top three.

My first carrier was a sling called The Over The Shoulder Baby Holder. My sister in law gave it to me when my first was about 3 or 4 months old. The first few days I didn’t think I’d ever figure it out and during the time I couldn’t figure it out, my little Wee Boy was not enjoying it. However, I didn’t give up and then it became a part of my life. I also found that USUALLY it depends more on the mom than the baby. I've demonstrated sling wearing a number of times to mothers who have been unsuccessful with theirs (I think everyone has a hard time right at first) and the baby does just fine so I really think that once mom figures it out, baby is good. Usually. Anyway, I used that sling for 4 children and can’t imagine what I would have done without it!

When I was pregnant with my 5th I got a new sling. A Maya Wrap. Because I’m the one who wears it and I’m the one who takes pictures, the only picture I have of it is not me wearing it but it IS my baby in it.

Crying babies were always easily calmed by carrying them in the sling while I went about doing whatever needed to be done around the house. One baby napped in it because he had reflux and couldn’t sleep any other way (until I defied doctors mandates and laid him on his tummy). They were always perfectly content on hour long grocery shopping trips, often falling asleep. Because they were used to being held in a sling they would always sit contentedly in them while holding them in my arms would be like holding a crazed monkey. I used a sling every where…the park, sightseeing, church, the mall. Even now that I have a different “most used” carrier, I use the maya wrap frequently. I always use it for church, I usually take it along if we’re going out to eat… I use it for anything where I’m going to need to have it on and off quickly or frequently. One big plus to the maya wrap sling is that it’s also a nice cover should the baby need to eat while we’re out and about. I think I bought it for about $45 on ebay. It has definitely been worth the money.

Now, my current most used carrier is the Ergo. Again, pictures are limited for the same reason as before AND the fact that when we take pictures I usually get her off my back so she can be IN the picture! In this picture

you don't really get a good look (you could of course go to the official web site http://www.ergobabycarrier.com/) but here I am wearing our teeny tiny at Disney. She's leaning back to look at the carosel we're about to get on.

This carrier was more expensive. I'd heard about it for a while but the price turned me off. However, with Christmas money in hand and testimonies of friends, I decided to look and see if I could find one a little cheaper than a new one. My dear SIL that got my first sling found one for me on Craig's list in her area for $70 I think. Again, way worth the money in my opinion. This carrier is the most comfortable one ever. I can wear a 20+ pound baby in it ALL DAY and not feel it in my back because the weight is carried around the waist. With a sling I have a limit of maybe 1.2-2 hours at a time The awesome thing about this carrier (other than the comfort) is that with the baby happily on my back I can easily do laundry, lean over students while we're doing school work, do house work, wash dishes, start dinner, pick up another baby and a great number of other things that are difficult with a carrier that has the baby in the front! And my two smallest people who often get crabby in the evening when I'm busy are VERY happy to be carried on mommy's back. One at a time of course.