Belonging

The other day, my little Lucy wanted to play with our globe. I pointed out fun places, like where Daddy went on his mission (Spain) and where we live. But then she looked up at me and said, "Where am I at?" I said, well you live where we do. And she looked at me again and said, "But where am I at?" So I pointed on the globe and said, "This is where Lucy is." She put her stubby little finger on the spot and grinned and for the rest of the day, she kept dragging the globe up to me and asking, "Where is Lucy?" I would show her and she would say, "Yep, there's Lucy!" It was such a pointed reminder to me of how important it is for little children to feel like they belong--that they know their place in the world. That they matter.

This summer, we attended a large family reunion on my husband's side of the family. His mother is the youngest of 13 children and there were hundreds of people there. We all had name tags that said our name, plus which child of the 13 we were descended from. My 7 year old, Emma, walked into the building and saw all of the people and you could tell it was a little overwhelming for her. A few minutes later, she looked down at her name tag and smiled and said confidently, "I belong to Nadine." And she was fine. She knew who she belonged with and who belonged with her. Her source of belonging was her family.

As children get older, this sense of belonging can become more complicated, as they see both the positive and negative aspects of belonging to a group (or family :)). About a week ago, we finished listening to dramatized scriptures and my 9 year old son Ethan asked,"Why are the boys always the bad ones?" I explained that there were surely bad women during that time, too, we just don't know about them because they weren't written about in the scriptures. He reiterated, "But why are the boys always the bad ones?" And he went on to talk about how the boys were always the ones to get in trouble at school and how there were more men than women in prison. And what he wanted to know is "Why?" What he didn't ask, but I knew he was thinking was, Am I going to end up doing bad things because I am a boy? I told him that I really didn't believe that there were more "bad" boys than girls, but that boys are often more outspoken and violent in their responses and that gets them in more trouble (long answer condensed). It made it even more clear to me how important it is that boys have upstanding examples of their gender. Unlike many of those young men in prison, Ethan is blessed because he has his father to look up to--someone who mirrors every quality of a good man. And he will be able to see that we can all choose how we will behave and who we will be both because of the groups we belong to, and sometimes, in spite of them.

Lots of Little Things

There have been lots of little things in our house the last month. Little things that to little children mean a lot. Here are a few of them:

Lucy turned 3 years old! She got to wear her Cheetah costume all day and even into the grocery store. The very next day, she rushed up to her Daddy and said, "Daddy, Daddy, look at my legs! Look at them! I'm bigger now!!"



Emma lost her very first tooth. She was wiggling it furiously every day for at least a week. When I pulled it out, she cried and yelled that it hurt, but she was very proud. The tooth fairy has a hard time remembering to come to our house, but when Daddy helped her look in her room, he magically found a whole dollar for her very first tooth. Sometimes the tooth fairy has had to leave notes of apology and explanation for failing to appear. Apparently, the Tooth Fairy Company can sometimes get understaffed and overwhelmed and they are very sorry for any inconvenience.





Well, by the time we remembered to get pumpkins for carving, everyone was all out. But we still did our caramel apples and dipped them in chocolate, to boot. Here is a picture of some very happy chocolate faces!



And here is a picture of our sweet little Halloween gang:



One funny story--My husband asked my son, Ethan, if he remembered to change his alarm clock due to daylight savings time. Ethan said he didn't want to do that since he would just have to change it again the next day. "Why would you do that?" my husband asked. "Well, isn't it for just one day?" Ethan answered. So Brady explained that it was for another six months. "Oh," Ethan replied. Then he thought for a minute and asked,"Do people who aren't members of the church do it, too?" We think that he thought that because they are always announcing and reminding us about it at church and it always starts on a Sunday. So there you go--Daylight Savings Time is just for Mormons and just for a day!

As for me and my shenanigans, my friend Tracy and I transformed 6 bushels of apples into canned applesauce, apple pie filling and frozen apple pies. I just baked one of the pies today and it was quite yummy. You make the pie just like normal, but instead of baking it, you put it in a gallon bag and place it in the freezer. Then when you want a fresh baked pie, you just pop it into a hot oven straight from the freezer and you have pie heaven. We each have a dozen pies in our freezer! That was a lot of pie crusts, my friend!

Money Chores

I originally had this as part of my other post, but I think it deserves a space of its own.

We had a special family meeting last Sunday about money. Brady had gotten after the kids for not doing their chores right and one of the children (I won't say who, but you can guess) said, "Maybe we would do it better if we got paid." WRONG answer. We tried an allowance once, and we regretted it. It started a whole entitlement issue, with the kids starting to say that we "owed" them money. Parents do NOT owe their children money and I was not going to have them speaking to their father that way when he is working so hard at 2 jobs!

So we got all the kids together and told them that if they wanted, we would start paying them for their chores. But if they wanted to get paid for their work, they would also have to pay for the goods and services they receive. I took a white board and had them list all of the goods & services they would have to pay for. Some of the things included food, clothing, electricity, laundry, television, etc. They realized real quick that what they receive from Mom and Dad far outweighs their chore contributions. We talked about how chores are something that we do because we belong to a family and everyone needs to help out. I pointed out how ridiculous it would be if I told their Dad that I wanted money for the chores I do around the house and how it's just as ridiculous for them to do it.

But we understand that they want a little spending money and it's good for them to learn some financial skills. I asked them, "What did Dad do when we needed more money?" They answered that he got a 2nd job. I asked them,"What did I do when we needed more money?" They answered that I started selling hats. So we told them that if they wanted extra money, they could also get a 2nd job. We are now instituting 2nd chores which we call "money chores." I will pick extra chores every week that they can get paid for if their regular chores and homework are caught up. We have got to free our kids from the epidemic of entitlement and the quest of "something for nothing" that is so prevalent in our society. I really feel that parents who give without requiring are saddling their children with a future handicap in both their professional and social lives. For a great discussion on this, read an essay entitled "The Cornucopia Kids: Giving Children Too Much May be Giving Too Little." It's by Bruce Baldwin and it's a 16 page article published by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. If you can find it, it's awesome! I'll get down from my soapbox now.

Catching Up

Earlier this week, after a day of botched peach jam, kids with diarrhea and a husband out of town, I plopped down on my bed with a pan of Rice Krispie Treats and the remote control to see what was happening in the world of Bravo Reality TV. Then I started thinking that I'm not keeping up with this blog like I want to. I really like it, but it can end up feeling like homework at the end of a day when I am completely exhausted. And I am completely exhausted almost every night. So I am lowering my expectations of becoming a great and powerful blogger. I am hoping that the lowered expectations will make me more relaxed about it, which in turn will actually induce me to produce more posts. I'm practicing psychology without a license here, but it's worth a shot.

So, here's a little bit of what's been happening in my life. The canning adventures have continued, yielding both grape juice and some yummy pear butter. Have you ever used a steam juicer? Those things are SO COOL! I don't have one, of course, but a huge thank you to Tracy and Heidi for letting me use theirs. It is now on my wish list. I have also been crocheting my little hats until my fingers go numb, but I am really happy about their success.

Little Lucy has been running around in a cheetah costume for weeks now. I have put my foot down about wearing it in a store, but I admit that she did walk in a church with it on. She wears it and sleeps in it until it is dirty or peed in, and then digs through the hampers when I do laundry looking for it. When she wants to wear it, she comes to me and says, very emphatically, "I hate my clothes! I HATE THEM! I want them off!" She has a hard time taking the costume off to go to the bathroom, so we've had lots of accidents, which is making me HATE the costume. Sigh. She turns 3 tomorrow and is super excited. Here is a picture of her in the costume.

Got Me Some Skills!

Well, I decided to be brave and attempt to do some canning. I have zero canning skills. I've never done it by myself, I only helped my Mom when I was a kid. And I use the term "helped" very loosely. On Wednesday, my friend Liz gave me a box of apples and I decided to do applesauce. So I borrowed my friend Tracy's Saucer and my friend Tyra's water bath canner and after scrounging up some jars from my basement, I was ready for the fun to begin. And, again, I use the term "fun" loosely. It was very satisfying, but after about 5 hours, it was no longer fun. Brady took the kids and slept outside in the camper, so it was a one man job. I had to scrub the kitchen in the middle of the night because applesauce hardens into industrial strength glue. (After 6 kids, I've had applesauce on almost every surface imaginable.) But I got everything cleaned up and I was so happy to get some new skills! Here are some pictures of the process:

Then, yesterday, I got another box of apples and decided I would do apple pie filling. Which sounds reasonable, except that I started the project 5 hours before we were supposed to leave for family pictures, thinking "I can do it! It won't take that long." HA! Famous last words. (Insert Brady's "I told you so!") So of course, I'm still slicing apples while hollering instructions to children about what clothes to wear and timing my shower while the last batch is cooking and we were all running late. I did not have time to clean anything, so I left the kitchen looking like this:

But in the end, we got some yummy apple pie filling and had a great time doing our family pictures. We always dread getting our pictures taken. It is just plain awful. Someone is always pouting, someone is always crying, Mommy is always frazzled and Daddy is always mad. But this year, we had our neighbor and friend, Tyra, take them at the university gardens and it was great! The kids liked being outdoors and picking where they wanted their shots. We had to hurry because it was overcast and we were losing light, but we were still able to get a lot of fun shots in. I'm really excited to see how they turn out, especially the individual shots of the kids. We also took some pictures up by the Rexburg temple. In a quiet moment, I looked at all of these people around me, all happy and dressed in matching brown and cream, and realized that they were all mine. And I loved them all and they loved me. I thought my heart was going to swell out of my chest with contentment. It was a fleeting personal moment, but I hang on to those. That's the stuff that moms cling to when we wonder "Why am I doing this again?" So a big thank you to Tyra and also to all my friends who let me borrow and mooch for my canning education. I finally got me some canning skills!

Bryce is #1!!

Bryce turned 1 yesterday and I still can't believe it. Where did all the time go? Why is it that the most precious baby years fly by? All I could think about all day was a beautiful quiet moment between the two of us in the hospital after he was born. Everyone was gone and he was in my arms and we were drifting asleep. For some reason, that memory is burned in my mind. I can still feel his soft, even breathing. That was the moment that I made up his song. All of my children have a baby song that I create for them and sing lovingly and off-key. They are very (VERY) simple and here is Bryce's:

Oh, my beautiful baby Bryce,

Wouldn't it be nice if we could stay this way forever, you and me?

And I could rub your fuzzy head

And kiss your chunky cheeks--

Hold you for a while and say your name and see you smile.

Yes, my beautiful baby Bryce,

It's going to be so nice, for I will love you for forever, wait and see.

The kids love for me to repeat their special songs, even when they are older. And the big kids can all sing the songs of the little ones.

Bryce is a beautiful and sweet child, although being the youngest of six, he has evolved an incredibly high-pitched scream that he feels is necessary for his survival. He simply will not be ignored! He says WOW and Uh-Oh a lot and occasionally Da-Da and sometimes (rarely) Ma-Ma. He loves to play peek a boo and a new favorite is Patty Cake with Daddy. He points his little finger to mark it with a "B" and puts his chubby arms high in the air for "Throw it in the oven for Baby and Me!" Very adorable. I must remember how adorable when he is Lucy's age and telling me what a poopy head I am. But for now, I am his favorite person in the whole world and that is a wonderful feeling. Happy Birthday, Bryce!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Saturday was my birthday and although turning 33 is not super special, I had a fantastic day. My mother and sister came to visit and we spent the day shopping and having fun. We got to play neat games like "How Long Will It Take For Amy To Make Up Her Mind" and "How Many People Does It Take To Help Amy Try On Clothes." We went out to lunch and that night we made a bunch of homemade Chinese food. Here's a picture of us at the beginning of our adventures:

My husband took the kids to get me some flowers. Here is a picture of the card with all of their signatures:

On the back of the card Brady wrote down the gifts that the kids said they wanted to give me. Here is what it said:

Alanna: Do the dishes twice

Ethan: Watch Bryce for 3 hours

Emma: Rub your feet every day for a week

Zach: Scratch your back every day for a week

Lucy: No more messies

Bryce: Drink from a sippy cup

Is that cute or what?!