Tag: life

The Most Important Work

I overheard this conversation a couple days ago…

Lady addressing two young boys: “What have you been up to with no school today?”

Before the boys could answer, Mom answers: “Going crazy!”

Lady: “Oh I’m sure. I bet you can’t wait until tomorrow!”

It made my heart sink to watch. The two boys shrunk and didn’t say anything. Then one piped up and said, “Well I WANT to go to school anyway.”

Maybe he does like school, but I could tell it was a bit of a rebuttal against the adult’s comments.

Moms, Dads, let’s not talk like this about our children, in front of our children. Let’s do better. Let’s be better. Let’s show our kids better.

Our society portrays kids as a burden, a stress, and an inconvenience. Many can’t wait to push their kids off on others or school and look at holidays and summers as just something to get through. There’s nothing wrong with having a break from our kids, don’t get me wrong. I need them and enjoy them.

We simply don’t ever need to make our children feel like a burden or as if they are unwanted. They are always watching and listening. They are learning how to relate to others and someday their own children by what we model. When we make comments like “I can’t wait until they go back to school” we’re speaking loudly about what we think of taking care of and spending time with our children. And they pick up on that.

C.S. Lewis very wisely stated, “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”

If you choose to have children, remember they are little human beings that you have to raise to be big human beings. They someday have to relate to the rest of the world in some capacity and they learn from mom and dad more than anyone else in their lives.

What you say matters. How you spend time with them matters. Talking about them as a frustration teaches them something just like talking about them as a blessing teaches them.

Children are tough, don’t get me wrong. It’s not for the faint of heart to raise them up in the way they should go. But it is totally worth if it you stick to it. All of a sudden you have these amazing adults that count you as a friend, hug you when they see you with a big grin on their face, and are kind and generous to the world around you.

Believe me when I say, it’s worth it. When my adult boys hug me and say “Hi, Mom” or “I love you, Mom” I have to choke back tears. Every time. Did I do it all perfectly? Definitely not. Did I show them they were worth it and I loved them and they were a blessing not a burden? Yes. At least enough for it to sink into their hearts.

Even on the hard days, let’s choose to tell our kids, “I love you” “You are a blessing” “I love spending time with you”.

Digging Out

After three weeks of serious illness in our house, we’re finally healthy. Now it’s time to dig ourselves out!

Three weeks of illness in a large family doesn’t mean you get three weeks behind. It multiplies exponentially and quickly! If I cancelled three weeks worth of activities, playdates, appointments, and school, it’s not like I have three free weeks in which to fit it all after we’re better. Oh no, it just piles on top.

Guaranteed some things are just gone, fallen by the wayside never to be retrieved. It just happens. I got to the point where I was just happy there weren’t kids puking, piles of laundry ready to topple on me, and fresh food in the fridge again. The rest didn’t matter.

One thing that unfortunately happens is stuff gets set places, random places. Things get piled to be dealt with later and things get lost. I just found an envelope that was supposed to go in the mail a month ago…oops.

The worst of the worst is always our school room/ office space. It’s like a magnet for attracting all the things and then effectively losing all the things! So, needless to say, it got pretty bad. Okay, REALLY bad!

Before I show you photos, I need to tell you that minimalism is really, really beneficial in times like these. Though my office was a nightmare, it only took about 2 hours to put it to rights again. Before I learned how to pare down, it would have taken days. Truly.

Here’s how it started this morning. I cringed just walking into this room. The kids had to walk on rice and beans (from busy bins) and climb over stuff to find their school books. I felt so claustrophobic in here.

You can totally tell kids’ personalities by their cubbies. It cracks me up every time. I have some really neat children and some, well, not so neat by nature. But once the floor was clean they all came in and tidied their shelves.

After a couple hours, I’d say it’s passable again. I would love to have less stuff in this room but we really do use the majority frequently. The books on the shelves aren’t all used every year, but I have a lot of homeschooling years left so I’m not willing to part with it all yet. But, every spring I do go through each item and decide if it’s still worth keeping. And now, at least we can walk in here and find our school stuff!

Nice, clean shelves for school. Now that everyone is feeling better, it’s back to the books. At least for the morning hours. We’re all feeling the spring fever in a big way and are loving these warm afternoons.

Nature is calling and we must go! But, when we do hit the books at least we can FIND the books!

Mamas, this is your encouragement. Just do something. Pick a room, grab a garbage bag, broom, and a donate box. Clean it out and make it usable. And if, like me, you are feeling buried because of circumstances, take heart. You can get there a bit at a time! It feels so good in our office again!

Raising Boys

It was just my sister and I growing up. We spent most of our time playing dolls, Barbies, and coloring. Even when we played outside, which was a lot, we played house with blankets and our bikes. More often that not, our play was calm, gentle, and quiet.

For some reason, the Lord decided to bless me with six boys. Six. They are wild, loud, dirty, and reckless. There is always something broken and someone always has a wound. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but let me tell you, it’s been a learning curve.

I’ve always had the rule that my boys can’t wrestle in the kitchen. So guess where they always want to wrestle. Yep, the kitchen. One evening while I was making dinner the big boys came into the kitchen and were horsing around. Pretty soon it turned to full on wrestling with each trying to get the other to the ground.

I had just said you aren’t supposed to do that in here, when one threw the other through the window of the front door. Glass shattered everywhere. The looks on their faces were priceless as they stared at me stunned, paralyzed in place. They still had arms locked around each other.

There have been so many moments like this I don’t even try to count them anymore. And, they hardly faze me anymore. Oh you’re hurt again? Ok, let’s clean it up. That’s broken? Maybe we can fix it, maybe it has to be thrown. I try to not let it bother me because it’s just going to come. It is what it is.

Another part of raising boys that I had a steep learning curve with is the puberty years. We always think of girls being hormonal as they develop, but guess what? There are hormones raging through boys during that time too.

And did you know that testosterone actually destroys pathways that were previously created in the brain and then the brain has to rewire?

Makes sense why they sleep, eat, argue, sleep some more, doesn’t it?

When my older ones were in those years, it was so difficult for me. I hadn’t had to live with a boy going through all those changes and I had no idea what to expect. Everything was so new and I thought it was all abnormal.

Not only that, but I took it all personally. Every argument and snotty remark I felt I needed to combat. I felt like all I was doing was arguing with them. It eventually ruined (thankfully temporarily) my relationship with one of my boys. We’ve spent years repairing it and I’ve regretted a lot. Especially my response to everything.

I learned a lot raising my first two boys. I’ve always told them, you were my guinea pigs and I messed up way more on you than the others. Thankfully the Lord knows that before he gives you your firstborn and He creates them to handle it!

One of the biggest lessons I’m learning is to not take everything so personally. I’m learning to let the snide comment roll off my back. I’m learning to keep my mouth shut and not respond.

Through it all the most important lesson I’ve learned is to put relationship first. In the midst of those moments when they are wanting to argue or roll their eyes or ignore me, I try to remember that long term I want a good relationship with this person. Someday they will be an adult on their own and I want them to desire to come back and spend time with us.

This doesn’t mean I don’t address the attitude and the comments. It does mean I’m learning to practice pausing and breathing. I tend to be a hot tempered person so this is a long learning battle for me. I fail often. I just had to apologize to my young adult for yelling in the heat of the moment. So please don’t think I’ve arrived and have this down perfectly.

I am improving though. I’m learning to find those moments when we can have a conversation about the attitude, the eye roll, the comment. Timing is so important. When they are frustrated and heated, it does zero good to add more frustration to the mix. That’s the moment I have to walk away and breathe. That’s when I have to pause and let it slide off.

I’m also learning to just have good conversations with my young adults. I don’t want every interaction with them to be frustrating. I don’t want every conversation to be serious and difficult. I try to joke with them, ask them what they enjoyed about their day, and just spend time with them.

Building relationship isn’t easy. It takes daily diligence, not just once in a while interaction. It takes a lot of deep breaths when you’re dealing with a young man going through all the changes. It takes many moments of conscientious action and not just “come to Jesus” moments as some call their rants at their children.

Again, I don’t have it all perfect. I’m a work in progress too. But God is a God of relationships and I want to be a mom of relationships. Even the failures can help build the relationships if we’re willing to say “I’m sorry”.

Romans 12:18 reminds us, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.“

This means we moms should live peaceably with our kids, as much as we possibly can.