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Wishes and Obstacles

children, choices, memories, motherhood, priorities, struggles May 1, 2016 1 Comment

I turned 40 years old in April.

I am probably about halfway there, if I live until I’m 80.

A little backstory to my wish. When I was 8 years old my cousin, who was 6 years old, spent time with us pretty often. Things were rough at her house. My aunt had made another bad man choice and I’d say odds are pretty good that my little cousin was being abused. She was definitely being neglected. I grew up on the good side of town. But my cousin, she was on the poor side of town. The times I went to her side of town and stayed are burned in my memory. The games we played in the trailer park where we dug for treasures in the dumpster. The times we stayed outside as long as possible to stay away from her “step-dad” and all the smoking and drinking. Her mom and step-dad fought a lot. They screamed and threw things. Then as we got a little older, they had a baby. He was left next door with his grandmother for hours or days. They preferred the baby boy so my little cousin was treated even worse into her preteen years.

As I got older, my middle school, middle class attitude caused me to draw a line in the sand between myself and my cousin. She was over there with THEM. I was over here, where things were clean, quiet and comfortable.

When I left college to work in a group home filled with girls in state’s custody, I encountered more girls like my cousin. More children who had grown up not just in poverty, but were growing up with abuse, neglect and hopelessness. For every teenage girl that came through and stayed at the group home, there were a many younger siblings they had left behind. They were old enough to run away, or get in trouble so that they were removed from the home but their younger siblings were still there. Or had been scattered among foster homes.

At 23 years old, I knew that I would be a foster parent. What I really thought was that I would open my own group home. Then the state decided every child should be in a home, not an institution, so true long-term group homes have been all but eliminated. The vision, the dream, the desire I had then looked like this: A safe, stable, clean place that any child could find refuge in for as long as they needed it. This vision included meals together, chores and outings, hugs and encouragement, protection and spiritual guidance.

My belief system is anchored in the belief that God has a plan. He knew my childhood, He knew my early working years, He knows my marriage and family now. He is in control.

What I also believe is that I have to move forward with my wish. So that He can show me how the obstacles can be removed. I cannot stop moving forward because of what other people may think, because of discomfort or inconvenience. I will not stop moving forward. If God wanted me to have a different dream, He would have given me one.

My inspiration for this post came from this TED talk.

Getting ready for 2016

CASA, children, choices, motherhood, Photo365, priorities, reading, writing December 27, 2015 Leave a comment

2016 is almost here and I’m excited!

Personally, I’ll be challenging myself to continue to add balance to my life. Somehow, when I began to have children and then decided to stay home and educate them myself, I made a dangerous trade-off.

Not only did my husband and I decide to become a one income family but I lost something much more valuable than a paycheck. I lost myself.

This is a risk for all mothers, I believe. Whether they mean for it to happen or not. Some women pride themselves in throwing their all into their children’s lives, thinking and feeling like their children and their husband should always be first and be given the focus of ALL their energy and time. I did this at first. I decided to stop pursuing a career in the social work world to instead stay home and raise my first baby boy.

I have never regretted my decision. Our family grew quickly, five babies in 7 and a half years and I was BUSY. Busy with nursing babies and changing diapers, chasing toddlers and teaching preschoolers. Busy learning how to home educate. Busy learning how to be married when the shiny and new wears off and the hard, lean, trying years crowd out romance and time together.

In all that busyness, I did forget to add in a little margin for myself. I let old friendships die, I stopped reading almost completely, I did not write my thoughts or my favorite quotes anymore. I did not go out to eat with a friend and sit and talk for hours on a regular basis. I did not ask for what I needed, I did not seek out ways I could continue to fight for children in foster care and meet the needs of a population I feel most called to help.

I let it all get lost and while I can (and have over the years) blame circumstances and my husband and others for this, the responsibility lies with me. This TED talk really sums up the gist of it. It is up to me to get what I want.

If I want to read, I need to take the time and let the people around me know that it is a priority. If I want to write, I need to do just sit down and write. I have participated in and won NaNoWriMo 2014 and 2015 and that has done wonders for me. In 2015, I challenged myself to read 48 books. I won’t make it to 48, not for lack of trying but because my spinal fusion recovery caused me to miss more reading time than I planned. I am on my 43rd book of the year so I feel like I’ve still accomplished a lot!

Deciding to fight for my health, to fight against my own fear of surgery and the feeling of “who will do it all if I’m out of commission for that long”. Making the decision to have spinal fusion surgery – that was another accomplishment for 2015.

So why I am so excited for 2016?

First, I’ll be adding a photography challenge to my current reading and writing challenges. I know NOTHING (a big, fat zero percent) about photography. All I know is that when I look at some of my talented friends’ photos, I am inspired to be creative.

My children are always asking me, “What do you get if you win?” They aren’t very impressed when I explain that I just get the satisfaction of knowing I’ve done it!

Second, I’ll be training and working as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer again. I did this for a short time when I left the Blount County Children’s Home in 2002. I am so passionate about this organization and advocating for children. I can’t wait to get started!

And last but not least, I turn 40 this year. I plan to celebrate the whole year, but so that I don’t drive everyone around me crazy, I’ll try to limit the blatant celebrating to the month of April.

children, homeschooling, imagination, siblings, Uncategorized, unschooling December 9, 2015 1 Comment

A few days ago, a giant box arrived with a Christmas gift for the kids. Foster spied it outside first and called “dibs” so he could have the first shot at playing with it. So I when it was emptied, I respected his “dibs” and gave it to him alone. As you can see from the pictures above, he didn’t keep it to himself for long. He realized quickly that playing alone isn’t as much fun as designing a tank and fighting a war with fellow soldiers. They all had their roles to play. Katie helped with the tank design and decoration, Foster used his knife to carve holes for the front guns, Jonah and Parker had missile launchers so they could walk alongside or behind the tank. Theodore was allowed to drive the tank with Foster. I’m not sure what their exact jobs were once they were navigating the battlefield.

I shared one of these pictures on social media yesterday with the hashtags imagination and homeschooling. I should have added siblings to the mix.

Recently, our decision to homeschool has once again been questioned. Even after 8 years and obvious success, there are naysayers who either don’t approve or just really don’t understand.

So when I labeled the picture #homeschooling, I wanted to double check myself. Was this 3+ hours of experimental, imaginative, building, teamwork play able to happen because we homeschool? Couldn’t any 5 siblings ages 4-11 have an experience like this?

The answer is no. While it is possible they could, it is not likely. Children, once grouped with peers for a number of years, do not “play” with much younger children and they have less tolerance and patience with their younger siblings.

Foster and Katie have their patience tested multiple times daily by the three younger brothers. The reason they persevere is because these three younger brothers are also their most common companions and playmates. They don’t have to just deal with them for 3 hours at night and then escape them to be with their same-age classmates for the majority of their days. They have an internal motivation to get along with each other.

The other reason this is not likely to happen is because time is finite. Our schoolwork is usually done by noon. This gives ample free time for this kind of creative play. Unfortunately, not only are kids in school all day following a tight schedule, they are often times overscheduled afterschool with sports, music lessons, church activities and more.

If there is no unscheduled, being at home with nothing to do time, then children won’t have the opportunity to turn a heap of cardboard into a tank, a yard into a battlefield and brothers into an army.

Grayton Beach 2015

adventures, blessings, children, Family, field trip, Grammy, Grandad, gratitude, homeschooling, unschooling, vacation December 4, 2015 Leave a comment

My parents’ generosity allowed the kids and I to experience another adventure. We left 2 days after Thanksgiving and made the 9 hour trip in their RV to stay at Grayton Beach State Park. This park has a lot of restrictions like no pets on the beach, no walking on the dunes, that kind of thing. Also, you either pay to stay in the campground or you pay by car to visit for the day. The restrictions didn’t bother us and we were thankful for the pristine, peaceful beaches. It was the prettiest beach I’ve ever visited. Even on the weekend days, there were maybe 30 other people around. Filled with plenty of places to bike and walk nature trails, it was an excellent destination for people who aren’t looking for a lot of partying or shopping. There was a Publix close enough and some small little shops around but it wasn’t overgrown or overcrowded. Of course, we were there in December so that could have a lot to do with it. We lucked out and had 3 days that were above 75 degrees. While back home our friends and family were virtually floating away from inches and inches of rain. The last day there the rain caught up to us, so we decided to watch the new Peanuts movie at a local theater.

The kids had a wonderful time. And I enjoyed being with the people I love most in the world. But, I missed Chris (he was bear hunting and working). I also missed personal space, quiet and solitude. With 8 people (5 of them under the age of 12) in an RV you don’t have much of that. Being an introvert has its challenges.

NaNoWriMo2014, four stitches and Halloween

3 year olds, children, writing November 1, 2014 Leave a comment

What in the world is NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month (it happens every November) and I am participating this year for the first time!

I’m excited, nervous, determined and intimidated but I’m doing it.

It’s about time I stop talking about writing a book and start writing it.

I had planned on using yesterday, October 31st to move a desk to my room and get a little nook set up so I can have an official work space, however, Jonah decided a trip to Children’s hospital ER would be a better way to spend the first 5 hours of our day.

He is three so nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that he does should surprise me. I’ve been through this 4 times before, 5 if you count when I lived with my 3 year old brother who tried to die several times but is a living, breathing 23 year old right now.

He comes into the kitchen, while I was trying to finish my coffee and read a message from a fellow mom/writer I’ve recently met. He had on footy pajamas and decided it would be a good idea to go outside in the wet and cold and jump on the trampoline, which I tried to discourage by saying no, but as I said, he’s three.

He decided to go out anyway, except he couldn’t get the door to open. He got angry, I was laughing inside thinking “curses! Thwarted by the door again!” When I made no move to leave my coffee and open the door for him to do something I already said he couldn’t do he grabbed a heavy kitchen bar stool and threw it down to, I assume, make the level of his anger evident. However, he dropped it on his big toe.

The ER visit was fun. It took 4 adults holding him down to get the 4 stitches he needed. After the wrestling, screaming match the nurses and “child specialists” brought him a popsicle and left so we could wait on paperwork for the next 20 minutes. I was sweating and stressed and needed the down time before lugging him back out of the ER and down the street to the ER parking lot which has moved further away since the we were there for his burned hand a few months ago. I thought it was interesting that he got offered his choice of popsicle but nobody asked me what kind of coffee and chocolate I would like after such a disturbing experience.

We made it home by midafternoon and the weather started to get uglier. My kids had costumes and they weren’t very happy about the fact that it was 45 degrees and starting to rain. We invited a couple of friends down for pizza and trick-or-treating anyway.

It was cold and wet and the 10 pounds of candy I bought didn’t get passed out. Halloween 2014, the first one in our new house and new neighborhood is in the books.

the big snow 2014

children March 8, 2014 Leave a comment

homeschool and public school families can’t get it right

children, choices, homeschooling February 6, 2014 Leave a comment

For the past six months or so I’ve been serving in a communications role for our local homeschool support group and I started leading a “Homeschool 101” class within the same group.

Part of my job is to help those who are thinking about homeschooling or are new to homeschooling with all those first-timer questions. Ones about which curriculum to use and where to get it, how to do all this legally, how you are supposed to actually get school work done without killing each other…and so forth and so on.

I’ve spoken to many moms and each situation, family and circumstance is so different. Some families have always sent their kids to public school and some have always homeschooled. Some have children who aren’t even school age yet but they are planners and want to have it all figured out.

What I realized after almost an hour on the phone with one mom (who has very young kids) is that homeschooling families and public school families have more than one thing in common. We actually have it all in common and that is, as parents, none of us know the “right” way to educate our children.

Oh, we think we do.

If we start them in the right pre-school by 18 months, fast track them to Kindergarten in a private school and start college dual enrollment by 9th grade then we are definitely doing it right.

If we never put them in daycare or pre-school and don’t start book work until they are 8 years old and feel like working on something…then we’re doing it right.

If we keep them home, teach Bible 3 times a day, eat organic and serve in our local soup kitchen once a week, then we’re doing it right.

If we send them to public school and in the afternoons sit beside them and do their homework for 2 hours each night before they are allowed to play a video game, then we’re doing it right.

We know we are.

We would never let our kids watch TV before the bus comes.

We would never send our kids to public school.

We would never homeschool.

We would never let them eat processed food.

Those people who do that are just wrong. THEY are definitely not doing it right.

Then again.

Maybe they are.

Maybe they love their kids as much as you love yours. And maybe they do have their child’s best interest at heart.

Because I know I do, whether we spend $700 a year on curriculum or $5,000 on private school tuition, I love my children and I strive to do what’s “right” when it comes to their education and growing them into decent, God-fearing humans.

And knowing that we are all in the same boat…that none of us are actually doing it “right” takes a lot of pressure off, doesn’t it?

the newest member of our family

children, pets January 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Well we did it! The kids and I (and Chris) decided it was about time for a dog in our home. We started saving and now 4 months later, we brought home Dart!

Dart is an 11 month old black lab/huskey mix. He already weighs 48 pounds! He is definitely a ball of energy and fast! His name fits him. We adopted him from the Blount County Animal Shelter.

They said he was an owner surrender, the reason the owner gave was that they had too many dogs, but since we’ve been home we’ve seen that he is timid and afraid of Chris which leads us to think he may have been mistreated by a man in the past. We are doing all we can to gain his trust and show him that we love him and want him to be a part of our family.

Foster is the one who is the most concerned about getting a dog. He has struggled with fear of dogs as long as I can remember and so I am hoping that having his own pet will help him with this.

Katie, Theodore, Parker and Jonah are all excited and ready to play with him but aren’t quite strong enough to walk him on a leash yet. It’s more like Dart walking them at this point.

So now our family has 2 girls and 6 boys! 🙂

do what I say

bullying, children, choices, church, Foster May 22, 2013 Leave a comment

One thing I have realized in the short 9 years I have been a parent is that, like many things in life, you must be willing to evolve.

This is easier for some personalities than others. If you have a type A personality (as both my husband and I tend to have) it makes evolving that much harder.

Another thing that makes changing difficult is the outside pressures all around you.

In church this past Sunday the pastor called everyone who was age 22 and under to come up on the stage. He was relating to the congregation the importance of ministry to young families, children, etc.

Jonah, Parker and Theodore were in their nursery classes, so that left Foster and Katie to go up.

As soon as he made the announcement, Katie bounced right up and headed to the front of the church.

Foster inched closer to my side. I think I could actually see him shrinking. I could tell he didn’t want to go without him saying a word.

I didn’t want to tell him to go, but I knew I “should”. After all, the pastor had made a request and every other child was going. Our following exchange went like this:

Me: (in a hushed, calm tone) “Go on up there Foster.”

Foster: (in a hushed, bewildered tone) “Why do I have to?”

Me: (in a hushed, forceful tone) “Go now, Foster, because he wants all of you up there.”

Foster: (in a hushed, pleading, frantic tone) “But why, it doesn’t matter if I go up there. He doesn’t need me up there.”

Then the window had passed. All the other kids and young adults were on the stage and the pastor was speaking.

I had several emotions going on. First, I was uncomfortable that the people around me could see my kid didn’t go with the crowd. Second, irritation and a little angry that Foster didn’t just “obey” me. Third, shame that I had tried to bully my own son into doing something that in 20 minutes wouldn’t matter anyway.

Have you ever felt uncomfortable, irritated, angry and ashamed about a situation?

Do you know which emotion is more powerful and least selfish?

Yep. Shame. There was no reason I should have tried to push Foster to do something that was so inconsequential in the grand scheme of life, yet so detrimental to his emotional well being and our relationship.