Learning the hard way and maternal instinct

I made a bad choice today. Sadly the older I get the more bad choices and mistakes it seems I make. They say "The more I learn the less I know" It's so true. The more I learn the more I realize how fallible I am. Today we went hiking with some ladies in the neighborhood. As we walked on the trail four ladies went ahead chasing after my twins, Jaidyn and the other little girl that was running ahead. As they tried to keep up with the kids ahead I stayed back with Carl James. He struggled to keep up with their pace and they were quickly far out of sight from us, which worried me with me not being able to see my twins and Jaidyn. So I tried to keep him moving without leaving him. We got a mile into the trail which took half an hour and ended up at a park. They wanted to go ahead and see if the trail continued past the big field of grass and up past the parking lot. My gut told me that I needed to turn around for Carl James but I followed them. It did not lead to a path. They wanted to walk down a road and then up a road to look for the path. I told them I needed to turn around. Four ladies kept walking ahead, 2 stayed back with me (one of them I gave a ride to). Things were fine for a while since Carl James got to rest while we chatted about what to do. Then we stopped for a snack and then we kept going. The 2 ladies that turned around with me started to walk ahead and my twins followed. Jaidyn was whining about her legs being tired at this point and I started to give her a piggy back ride (I am 19 weeks pregnant). I watched Carl James. His gait was getting more sloppy, his face was bright red, he was dripping sweat off of his forehead and he started to breathe more heavily. He needed a break but I wanted to catch up to the twins and I promised this lady I would have her home around 12:30 and she seemed anxious to get home.   

I should have slowed down. I should have called the ladies ahead and told them to send my twins back. I should have told the lady that I gave a ride that I needed to slow down dramatically but if she wanted to she could ride home with the other lady from out neighborhood. What I should have done was look out for my son and my family. The way I pushed him today was unacceptable. I thought my heart was breaking because they didn't understand and they weren't waiting, I thought my heart was breaking because I was realizing how much the world will pass him by and not wait, I thought my heart was breaking because I was being misunderstood and I felt torn between being with my twins and being with Carl James. That is all probably true but later today I realized my heart was breaking because I wasn't making the right choice and it hurts to make the wrong choice. Something inside of us knows when we are making the wrong choice and our conscience won't let us settle. My heart was breaking because my son needed me and I was failing to see his needs first. The lady I gave a ride could wait an extra half hour or ride with the other lady from our neighborhood. The twins could slow down, I could have chosen him first but instead I was worried about her feelings and my obligations.

I want to be strong enough to choose my family's needs first. I want to be wise enough to trust my maternal instinct and trust that my children need me first. I want to have a clear head when my child needs me and not an anxious jumbled mess. I used to be strong enough to assert my needs. One day that changed, one day I decided to listen to other people first, that my needs weren't that important. I don't know when I just know that there was a shift. Today was hard. I went home crying. Feeling misunderstood and frustrated. I went home sad that my child doesn't have the freedom of movement that I wish he had. I went home frustrated that I had to have such a craving for movement yet the Lord gave me a child that severely limits my ability to get out and move like I wish. But today was good because I realized....I didn't choose my family and it was a clear enough example to help me recognize it and to face that knowledge and to analyze my life. This must be a pattern for me (to worry more about the needs of others) and I must need to remedy it or I wouldn't have experienced what I did today.

I am sorry Carl James. I am sorry that I didn't slow down more for you. I am sorry that I let you suffer in silence because that is how you are. I am sorry that I didn't choose you. It wasn't a conscious effort; had I seen this clearly in the moment I would have chosen differently but you gave me the opportunity to see a flaw and a weakness I have and for that I am grateful. Thank you Carl James for teaching me today. All of you kids teach me everyday. Thank you Kylee for the hugs while I sat on the couch crying. 

I am going to do better by you guys. I am going to be strong enough to choose right for my family even when people don't understand. I am going to choose you. I am going to make a conscious effort to choose all of you. Another good thing that came of today is that I realized I might not be as horrible of a person as I thought. I know that I always push Carl James when we are hiking. I want to get further up the mountain and I want to not slow the twins down too much. So i push him even when i can see that he is tired but today I saw how much faster I COULD be going but I don't. It made me realize how much I do slow down for him. How much we do enjoy nature and the scenery. It made me realize that yes I push him but I also put his needs into consideration. I realized that I am better at showing him I love him than I thought. I might feel impatience inside but I fight it and I take the time to enjoy the scenery and usually we have a much better time doing so.

I love hiking far and exploring more but today I realized I love hiking with my family. I like the little groove we have going and it's okay that we stop and we explore the nooks and crannies and the bugs and enjoy the shade. Life is good. 

The life of words

Each year as I prepare to homeschool my children I am thoughtful and prayerful as to what they may need that year. I look for an overall theme that each child needs to learn or know for themselves and I look for an area of improvement for our family. When I first started this I thought it would be more of a list of subjects that they needed to study further but as I prayed for what to teach them and what to focus on my list was much less simplistic and much more deeply rooted than handwriting or math.

I heard things like...."He needs to know his needs are important. She needs to know what she has to say matters. She needs one on one time playing on the floor to facilitate guidance in her pretend play." The first year I started homeschooling my whole theme for the year was to "improve his confidence and to help him conquer his fear of trying something new." It changed the way I did everything. If I was losing patience and knew I was about to lose the spirit of learning then I stopped. It didn't matter that the lesson or the page wasn't done. What mattered was that I helped him gain confidence and if I was going to be backpedaling on that  then it wasn't worth that lesson in that particular moment.

Looking back on the years I saw how much it helped to have a general theme about how I wanted to approach each child throughout the year. It made our year more productive and more smooth sailing. Even though at the time it didn't always feel like it. ;)  After seeing this I got to thinking "Maybe I should do this for my life and not just their schooling" Instead of a long list of new year goals my main goal was to find a new year theme. Something that I could work on to improve myself and how I approach or see things in my life.

So I have been wanting to find a theme song. Something that can remind me of what I am working toward. I still hadn't thought of a theme though but as I was struggling through some things and I was praying about what to do the answer came very distinctly "Language". It was clear that in order for things to change in my life the way I wanted I needed to watch the way I talked. Specifically I needed to focus on the positive and to honor my loved ones by always speaking about them in an uplifting and honoring way. I was tempted to ask...."Okay but what can I DO? I mean what specifically?" I started to but I realized that, that question mostly came out of avoidance of doing the hard thing. Watching my tongue and my attitude moment by moment, day by day, week by week.

I thought back on the days that I wrote poetry more regularly and remembered how alive the words felt and how alive they made my emotions feel. I thought about how loved ones speak to me and how damaging it can be when they say words out of frustration or anger. I thought about the times that I have not watched my tongue in parenting my children and I have seen their eyes become dull and their faces sullen. It's like with one sentence I took the breath out of them and each moment that I make that mistake I vow to never do it again.

So my theme song this year is....Speak Life by TobyMac

I love how in his video he gives life to the words and shows the impact of words in our lives. I hope that this year I can "Speak Life" and welcome into my world an abundance of happiness and joy. I hope that I can bring light into my children's and my spouse's eyes and never diminish them again.



Tell them stories

I had a grandfather who was suffering with cancer when he made a trip from Texas to Utah. I noticed on this visit that something was different about him. Not only his physical appearance,  but he felt different as well. More peaceful, more calm, he felt good to be around. What I remember most about this visit was how his stories had changed. He had always been a story teller and I loved hearing his stories. He was lively and fun and I loved listening. This time his stories were every bit as interesting but they seemed to have more depth and he seemed to want to tell them. I say he was always a story teller but this time it was different. Something caught my attention and I suddenly wanted to know everything about his past, and about my family heritage. Had I known it was the last time I was going to see him I would have asked more questions and dug deeper into who he was and what he enjoyed. I will never forget that moment sitting at that table surrounded by my family, holding my infant son as he told us stories from the past. In that moment I felt more connected to my family than I ever had before. Something unified us.

My father got his father's love for story telling. When we were younger it was my favorite thing to sit around my dad as he would make up a story right there on the spot and tell it to us in all different voices or accents. If we were lucky he would use his preacher voice which always got us laughing. Story tellers are fun people but I have found something even more important about story telling. In that moment with my grandfather I noticed that I wanted to know a little bit about where I came from and who I am. Some of my favorite stories my dad told and the only ones I remember are the ones of his childhood. 

My parents have always been kind of private people. They didn't ever argue in front of us and they never complained of any financial struggles. Life was good as a kid but they also never told us about their struggles, about their triumphs and where they came from. I loved the moments they would tell us about how they met or some of their dating stories. I especially loved when they told us about the awkwardness as they got to know each other's families (the in laws). Like the time my mom didn't know the lid on the ranch bottle was just sitting on top and not screwed down. She was at a dinner at my dad's parents house and  shook the ranch bottle and got ranch everywhere! It showed me that it's okay to laugh at our mistakes. I also loved the stories my dad told about him getting in fights as a boy  or teen. It meant to me that we stand up for ourselves.

The stories I wish I knew more of maybe weren't meant for my childhood and maybe aren't gather around the table kind of stories but I long to know what it was really like growing up for them. What they struggled with, how they felt misunderstood, how they reacted to rejection or failure, the time they felt they had really achieved something meaningful, the moment or moments they decided to live for themselves and not the rest of the world. That's what I am longing for now but as I long for this it reminds me how important those stories were for me when growing up.

I needed to hear how my parents met to help me know of their love for each other, I needed to hear how my dad fought as a teen cause it helped me understand the anger inside myself, I needed to hear how my mother goofed up in front of new people and they still loved her, I needed to hear about my grandparents cause I never got the chance to know any of them the way I wished that I had. I knew my grandparents from my parents point of view. It was important that I knew where I came from.

So I'm reminded to tell my children stories. I am reminded that some of them should be funny, some should be tender, and some should be serious. I am reminded that my children's relationships with their uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents will help them understand themselves better. I am reminded that inside of family my children will find someone who can understand or relate to them and it's important to keep that line of communication open. So I tell my children stories. I tell them about how me and their father met, about when they were born and when they were little. I love and enjoy that my husband is a story teller and has such a great memory. I sit back and listen to him tell the kids stories that I may be hearing for the first time or for the dozenth time but I enjoy it nonetheless because as his story unravels I can see our family being tightly woven together. 

He tells the kids stories of when he put his little sister in the dryer and he can hardly breathe as he talks about how she went "thump, thump" as she tumbled inside. When the laughter is over he tells them it's not a safe thing. He tells about the time his sister and him were fighting and he suddenly got a sharp pain in his back and it was his little brother biting them to get them to stop fighting.  He tells stories of his father that passed and I do my best to piece together what type of man he was. As he and his family tell stories I get an insight into who they are, what it means to be an Eddy and I get to see how my dear husband grew up and why he thinks the way he thinks.

So tell your children stories. Tell them about moments, tell them about successes and failures, moments of triumph and defeat. Tell them about quirky and funny family members. How you met their father (or mother) and how they came into this world and you were so excited and nervous. It's okay for them to know that you were nervous. It helps them know that you knew and know parenting is a big and important job and they are important. Because they are important and so is telling stories... :)

Trading spaces (gratitude for my body)

We all do it as women. Admit it your body is underappreciated if not despised. We complain about minor and major details and get those confused all the time. :) We wish we were taller, shorter, thinner, curvier, bigger boobs, smaller boobs, etc.

Last night I had an interesting dream about my body. In my dream I wasn't in my body any more but another body. It was everything I had ever wished for...I was shorter, curvier, had large breasts and a nice rump buttox and I was miserable! The world looked different being shorter and I longer for my normal view. I felt disconnected with my body and we were not in unison. Every movement that usually flowed out of me easily felt awkward. I longed for my long limbs and to be able to really reach my arms out. Something I rarely do for fear of "taking up too much space." I didn't feel like me.

I worried about connecting with my family in the same way I once did. This wasn't a fear of them recognizing me it was somehow known to me that they wouldn't know me as any different, as if they had forgotten my old body; but I hadn't, and I wondered how my looks and mannerisms might change our relationship. Something that had never occurred to me in my waking hours. Not in the same sense at least.

What stuck out the most was my longing for my old body back, for that connection we have. We have been together a long time after all. I have always felt as if I looked like a man with my small breasts and my height but I longed to be tall and thin again. I longed to feel my own walk again. I longed for my small but round butt and suddenly appreciated the looks of my own bottom. I missed the way it felt to be me and me and my body felt so intertwined, I lost myself when I lost my body.

I woke up intrigued. Grateful to have a body that moves with such ease. Grateful for my health and even my looks. I am who I am, I look the way I look, I got this body for a lifetime and so I might as well enjoy it.

Thanks body for everything you do. For the abuse you put up with on a daily basis, for the love you share and for the children you bare. :) I'll try to be more grateful to you in the future.

Imagine potty training for 7 years

 I hate potty training. It's messy, it's time consuming, it's frustrating and it's never immediate. You get messes on your bathroom floor, or worse your carpet, you have extra laundry and extra stinky laundry. It wears on  your patience and you know losing your patience will only make matters worse. You always have to pack an extra pair of clothes anywhere you go and ideally if you are potty training you should be home all the time for a given amount of time (each child is different). You make progress and then sometimes go backwards. A diaper can be such an easier way to live for a while. No rush to the bathroom, rarely accidents on the clothes, less laundry to do and hopefully no poop or pee on your floor.

So I usually wait to potty train. If my child acts interested we will go to the potty and we will do several trial potty training sessions from 1 day to a week depending on the child's interest but I always wait until my child seems motivated to potty train. My daughter is 3 and just this week decided it truly is important to potty train. She has been interested since she was 18 months or younger but it wasn't always consistent and she wasn't very successful. I am not good at the constant reminders or setting an alarm and if I do set an alarm I usually miss the window of when the child actually  needs to go. This is my fourth child and I realized I'm just not a good potty training mom. So I wait, I wait until my child is pretty much able to potty train him or herself. Sometimes I feel guilty as I hear other mothers talk about how they are potty training their child that is younger than mine. Sometimes I worry I made the wrong decision not pushing potty training more as I see their 2 year old being successful taking care of their own toileting needs but then the  day finally comes when my child is ready to figure this out by him or herself and I realize all is well. It worked out fine.

Now imagine all of the struggles you have found with potty training and imagine...you have done it for 7 years. The messes, the trial and error, the extra laundry, the stinky smells, the feeling that you are failing, the impatience at your child for not being able to succeed and the guilt for feeling that way. Then imagine...it will NEVER go away. There is no hope for a different lifestyle only maybe an improved lifestyle but still it will always feel like a little bit of potty training. That's part of what it's like to have a child with spina bifida. You ache for their frustration and you want to scream for yours.

There are times I feel selfish as a mother, because I am not wishing the spina bifida will go away for him, I am wishing it for me. Wishing he could independently go number 2 and I would never have to know about it. Wishing there was less laundry and that his bed didn't smell like urine from leaking out at night. Wishing I wasn't cleaning up poop stains, wishing I didn't wake up to do a cone enema first thing in the morning. Wishing we weren't fighting about catheterizing or diaper changes. Wishing life were simpler and pooping and peeing were easier. Wishing for the days when I took bowel and bladder control for granted.

The supplies gathered for a typical trip to the bathroom for him

Amongst the mess and the trial and error, we are able to bond. The time needed to care for his toileting needs is time that we have to set aside. So we make the best of it. We talk about what he wants to do for the day or how his day was. I ask him about his dreams last night and tell him about mine. I wish we were doing something different, I wish he didn't need this special care and that life was easier for him but at least it gives us something many families struggle to find and that is TIME.

There is humor and humility in imperfection

What does it mean to be perfect? Does it mean that we are never afraid? It seems only natural, only human to be afraid but fear cannot exist where faith is. So being afraid would mean that we lack perfect faith. Does it mean that we never feel sadness or sorrow, because then our joy would not be full. Does feeling sadness or sorrow mean that we are not being grateful? I have a hard time understanding perfection. Sometimes I try to think of what would create a perfect world then I think of the type of people we would need to create this perfect world. At times perfection seems a little boring. Don't we after all love many of our family members FOR their quirks and their imperfections?

For example, I have a friend who lacks tact and I find some of her bold conversations quite humorous, a brother who always jokes even when sometimes he shouldn't but there are certain things I tell him or certain ways I tell him things just to hear his remark or reaction, I have a father who gets angry when his children are mistreated and therefore he understands my frustrations when I feel my children are mistreated and so I share those moments with him.  I have a sister who is very dedicated to whatever she chooses and loves to plan ahead and expects things to go perfectly (or at least hopes) and so she understands when I get frustrated when things don't work out the way I want and when all of my dedication and hard work didn't pay off like I had hoped. I have another sister who often sees things as black and white and has many a time been upset when the world didn't fall into that category but because of that I know where I stand with her and more importantly I know where she stands and I respect her for that grounding.  I have a mother who is not easily offended and so she may not always be careful with her choice of words and sometimes offends others but it is her who teaches me  to give others the benefit of the doubt. Nothing is personal to her, she understands that people have their reasons and they very likely have nothing to do with her. I have a brother who often fails to plan and you can usually depend on being late but it is his spontaniety and his relaxed attitude that will allow him to totally be in the present with you when you are talking to him. Sometimes my husband rattles on and forgets to let people have a turn to talk but it can be so nice when I am feeling antisocial or less talkative and we have company over or we are at a social gathering. Even after 8 years of marriage he can still find a story from his childhood that he hasn't told me yet. He can make everything a story. Whereas in my mind the event would have been either unimportant or over in one sentence.  Sometimes I can be controlling, possessive or angry over my loved ones but it also means that I am protective, thougtful and that I care. 

When I look at the peopel I love I don't know if I have learned more from their strengths or their imperfections, but I do know that I learn from BOTH. So while I am busy messing up every day of the week and likely every day of the rest of my life just remember I am here to show you a different way and the benefits or consequences of that way. So if all you can do is be grateful that I am here to show you the way NOT to do it then be grateful for that. Everyone in our life crosses our path for a reason and if the only reason is to learn what you do not like or how a certain style doesnt work for you then that is okay. You are not meant to be deeply attached to every person in your life. Nor are you meant to adopt every one of their styles or habits but some people are here to show us the way. Some people reflect back to us our imperfections and instead of resenting them for that thank them and learn to improve. Your parents, siblings, spouse and children will most definitely uproot your most needed areas of improvement. What a wondeful gift, cherish it and be grateful that they are not perfect and forgive yourself for not being perfect. We have time to master perfection. Until then lets enjoy the humor and humility imperfection brings.

Trusting the learning process

My twin girls are in kindergarten. They learned all of their letter sounds before kindergarten. A little in preschool, a little from homeschooling but what really helped them get it down concrete was a leap frog movie. It made it fun for them and gave them a tune to remember, along with fun images and games in their heads. Now they are in school and are writing their letters again and being exposed to sight words. A couple weeks ago they brought home their first book but long before that they were walking around the house with notebooks copying every word they could find and coming to me and asking what the words say. They are writing notes on their own and surprising me with them. They are writing notes to extended family and asking me how to spell their names or certain words. They love to read to me and me to read to them. They are engrossed in reading. I never saw this with my son. He never had an interest in writing or reading. Over time we did reading lessons and flash cards and he learned to memorize really well but the love of learning just wasn't there.

Looking back I can see now how I was killing his love of learning. I was so concerned about whether or not we would see learning problems as the Spina Bifida clinic pretty much promised we would. I wanted him to "stay on track" and not "fall behind". He already has so many physical issues. I didn't want him to have learning issues as well. How hard would that make it to find a job in the future? I was trying so hard to push it all into him. I think he felt my anxiety and therefore exhibited some himself.

I wasn't like this with any other subject and especially not math. I could see that he understood math pretty well but reading stressed me out! In time it stressed him out too. I rubbed off on him. It took a while for me to notice what I was doing and even longer to stop. I still worry about him but I am realizing that there is a healthy, helpful worry (better put as concern) and a not so healthy and obsessive worry. In time I learned to take deep breaths and really calm myself down before we started our reading session. I had to tell myself that he will learn and that I need to trust that he is trying. I worried I was an awful teacher and that added to my stress, I also had to trust that when the Lord told me to homeschool he knew mine and Carl James' limitations and Carl James would learn what he needed to learn, when he needed to learn it. Watching my twins learn to read has been really healing for me. We haven't done anything different for them yet they are picking it up so much faster and with much more accuracy.

I realized that they learn different and what didn't work for Carl James worked for the twins, but that's not totally true. The twins never had the pressure, they only had formal school in preschool and this part of kindergarten, they never got formal homeschooling from me, they were only 4 and I was too busy with Carl James. Yes they were involved but I wasn't stressed about their learning, they had time and so when I did teach them it was carefree and fun. There were so many of the things that were the same in their schooling. Same preschool teacher, same mom, same games and reading lessons but even the things that were the same at home were really and truly different because they had a different feel to them.

As I have eased off and tried to make reading fun, he has learned to relax as well but it doesn't take much to get him tense again. As the twins have gone around the house writing things, so has he.

He wrote this being silly. I was so excited when I saw it because he actually tried to take a guess at the spelling!



Just this year he started to enjoy drawing pictures. We tried to expose him to writing utensils and even finger painting at a young age but he never took interest. He finally enjoys coloring and drawing! So it's no wonder he didn't enjoy writing. He has started to write funny words with the magnetic letters on the fridge and leaves them up for his dad to see. The words may not be spelled right but you can tell he has got a pretty good handle on phonetics.

It's hard to put into words the subtle yet very crucial changes he has experienced. It's hard to explain the anxiety I have felt to give him the best possible chance at life but even harder to explain how I suddenly don't feel the urge to push him. How I suddenly have this trust in his ability and his timing. I have been blessed, I stopped a cycle that could have been more detrimental than his learning disabilities. I am learning to trust the learning process and to enjoy the ride!!