Keep them writing.

I remember as a young child my mother would say "Okay kids, it's time to get our your journals!" I was homeschooled for most of my elementary years and as part of our schooling she felt it was important that we journal. I remember moaning and groaning that she was making us write again! After all what interesting things could I say day after day? Well I kept those journals and while not every entry is interesting I am amazed at how many of them are! It turns out that the most interesting things I have written were the things that at the time I found the most boring.

Some days my journal started out like this...."Mom is making me journal. I don't know what to write about....Oh, hold on, I'll be right back...Okay I am back. Jamie pushed the nipple inside her bottle again and I had to go and push it back out cause she was crying. She does this all the time. She will push the nipple in and then cry that she can't drink her milk. So you have to go and push the nipple back out and then she will push it back in again and cry." Another day "My sister gets upset when any of us fight. If she thinks we are fighting she will sit on one of us and pin us down and then run her hands down one of our faces and say in a calming tone 'complicate, complicate'. She thinks it means to calm down"

The every day, in and out mundane things are the funnest to look back on. The funny quirks about a family member. The milestones of a younger sibling. The quarrels that always went on in the house. The funny stories my dad would tell in what we called his "preacher voice". The sayings my mom would say or the songs she would wake us up with. All of those things seemed like things I would never forget. For example, when I was 13 one of my friends slept over at my house and we stayed up until like midnight or 2 a.m. My mom being her cheerful self woke up the whole house yelling "It's 9 o'clock and all is well!!" My friend sat up with her hair in a mess and her eyes tired and puffy and said in a tired confused voice "Why is your Mom singing about whales?" Just one of many funny moments caputured in a joural that otherwise may have been lost to memory. 

I am so grateful to a mother who taught me the power of the written word and encouraged me to journal even if I fought her on it. I now have journals I can read to my kids. It has also encouraged me to start a journal for each of my kids. That has been a very fun and rewarding endeavor. Although my children are young I encourage them to journal as well. Sometimes I help them by writing things down for them, other times I have them draw a picture. They each have their own journal to write in themselves and sometimes I let them add to their journals that I write in for them. If it's not obvious; in time, I learned to lvoe to write. I eventually started writing poetry and even journaled for fun! 

So moms...Keep them writing! Give your children a safe place to express themselves. Give them the freedom to write about what they want and listen when they want to read what they wrote. It might be  the only insight you get inside their little heads. Who knows, maybe one day they won't be able to get enough of writing and they will have you to thank for it! 

Thanks Mom!