Bronc Bustin'

Quite often I feel like a bronc buster.  I'm the buster, and my kids are the bronc.  As I go from one hardhead to the next, I picture myself on a bucking bronco with my head down and right arm up in the air, holding on for dear life.  I never imagine myself falling off because I remind myself that God has my back.  He is holding me on the horse as steady as can be, and as long as I can remember that, I can be faithful. 

Today was a day that I had to constantly remind myself of that.  Our six-year-old has decided in the last two weeks to stop doing his chores.  And right after I wrote that glowing post about how wonderful the kids are to keep up with their chores!  Isn't that just the way it goes?  Every day last week, and then again yesterday he just refused to do his chores, and we have piled on the consequences to the point where today, I just about didn't have the heart to pile on more.  More for my sake, than his.  I got to the point where I just didn't feel like punishing him anymore....I was tired of being the strong arm and just wanted to stop.  But I pressed on because I know that if I give up, that ol' bronc will buck harder next time the same issue comes up.  

And I'm praying for him.  Something that has finally occurred to me over the last couple of months is that my kids are not a spiritual extension of me.  They have their own journey to make with God that has nothing to do with what I think they should do, or how they should do it.  So I pray for each of my kids and in a lot of situations, I am learning to take a step back and allow God to work on their hearts after I've prayed for them.  And I pray for them out loud and in front of them!  They hate it, but I got the inspiration from listening to a Little Bear CD.  He was talking about a missionary, and I can't remember who it was right now, but the missionary wrote about what a deep influence his father was on him, and that when he was growing up, his father would do the out loud prayer thing, and he said that nothing else could bring on the remorse better than that prayer.  This guy may be a little less hardheaded than my kids.  So far, I haven't had them fling themselves down at my feet and ask for forgiveness, but I'm expecting it any day now.  ;-)   

Book Meme

How fun!  :-)  Not something I ever expected.  I guess that' why it's called being "tagged." 

Shonda from Creator's Creation is the one who tagged me.  Congratulations on your pregnancy, Shonda!!!!!!  What a blessing!

So here's what I have to do:

1) Grab the book closest to you
2) Open to page 123, go down to the fourth sentence
3) Post the text of the following 3 sentences
4) Name the author and book title
5) Tag three people to do the same

Here goes:

"All monks have shaven heads, but he let his hair grow long and, as well, grew a mustache and a bushy beard, until it was said that his own mother would not know him.  He took off his monk's costume and put o the clothes of a knight, wearing a gold chain and carrying a sword.  He changed his name to Junker George."

This excerpt is from a book titled "Martin Luther" by Harry Emerson Fosdick.  We are studying the Reformation and Rennaissance right now and this book was recommended by Christine Miller in The Story of the Renaissance and the Reformation. We are using that for the spine of our study.

ON ANOTHER NOTE:

I am fairly new to the blogosphere, and the term MEME is new.  I have no idea what it means.  I just looked it up on Wikipedia and this is the information they have:

The term "meme" (IPA: /mi¢°m/, not /mɛm/ or /mimi/, to rhyme with "theme"), coined in 1976 by the zoologist and evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins, refers to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another. Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. A meme propagates itself as a unit of cultural evolution and diffusion — analogous in many ways to the behavior of the gene (the unit of genetic information). Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes.

The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right, achieving a degree of penetration into popular culture rare for a scientific theory.

Proponents of memes suggest that memes evolve via natural selection — in a way very similar to Charles Darwin's ideas concerning biological evolution — on the premise that variation, mutation, competition, and "inheritance" influence their replicative success. For example, while one idea may become extinct, other ideas will survive, spread and mutate — for better or for worse — through modification.

Meme-theorists contend that memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes which replicate the most effectively spread best; which allows for the possibility that successful memes might prove detrimental to their hosts.

Hmmmmmm.....I guess I can make a sort-of connection from that, but if anyone has a better clue, please leave a comment!  :-):-)

Older Brothers and Sisters

I've decided that every baby should come with an 11 year old brother, or an 8 year old sister.  Even a 6 year old brother is a good thing to have around when there's a baby in the house.  Since having our new baby boy 10 months ago, life has been amazingly less stressful than I was imagining it would be.  Part of that is getting the baby on a good schedule, but a huge part of that is my older children who do so much to help me out around here when they do their chores and when they go beyond the chore list.  It has been such a blessing to me!  Because they are so helpful, there have been a few times when I have had to let them know that I'm the Mommy!  ;-)

I just read a great post by Laurie Bluedorn that touches on this subject.  She wrote about the role of the older daughter in the home.  It's a must-read for all of us with up-and-coming girls.

Write-Away Contest

The results are in!  :-) 

Scribbit has posted the results for her recent Write-Away Contest.  Thank you, Scribbit, and Daring Young Mom for the Honorable Mention!  I definitely feel honored. 

Please go read the winning entry.  It is really good!  It is from Nicole at Subarctic Mama.  Her post is titled Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking  What she wrote is so true.

If you're in the mood for something a little offbeat, click on over to The Zeus Excuse and read Goal-Setting 

There is sure to be lots of good reading in the posts that were submitted!  Here is a permanent link to the Write-Away results to access all the links for those who entered.

2007 Goal Update

I wrote about my goal for 2007 being to connect more with my daughter through chores done together.  So far, this is going well! 

To start, I kept my eyes open for an opportunity.  It's not logistically possible for L to do everything with me, or me with her.  But I found an opening with my laundry chore.  I have to do 1-2 loads of laundry per day to keep the dirty clothes from taking over.  During the day I wash and dry the clothes and when they are done, I just pile them on my bed until I can get to them after dinner.  So now instead of L disappearing into her room to play with her dollhouse, she comes with me to fold laundry.  We have been having a great time together!  It has turned into a fun game and today when I told her to come with me so we could take care of the laundry, she said, "YES!"  I never thought I would hear that in response to a chore around here!

The game is this: when I leave the room to go hang up something in a closet, L hides.  When I come back, I have to find her.  So simple, but she loves it, and is she GOOD at hiding!  I keep thinking that there is no way she can find a new place to hide in my closet, but she keeps finding new places!  I have walked right past her many times.  Yesterday she left the room to go put on her sweater, so I hid.  She wasn't expecting that, so when she saw that I was nowhere to be seen, she also hid!  I was hiding behind the bathroom door when I heard her go into the closet.  I could barely contain my laughter, thinking she would find me at any second.  When she took longer than I thought she should have, I couldn't control it anymore, and I laughed out loud and L said, "Come and find me!"  That made me laugh even more, which got her laughing, and we couldn't stop.  So there we were, both in our hiding places, laughing uncontrollably, refusing to leave our spots to look for the other.  It was hilarious.  We both finally left our hiding spots vowing to use them next time we had a chance to hide. 

And yes, we are getting the laundry done!

Will the Real Leader Please Stand Up?

We were celebrating yesterday afternoon.  The thermometer had dipped below 70 so I whipped out our Ghirardelli Ground Chocolate (so much tastier than Swiss Miss!) to make some hot chocolate.  L and J were sitting at the table working on their math. 

L said, "I'm the head of the family because I'm sitting in Daddy's chair."

J quickly replied, "No you're not!"

L insisted, "Yes, I am.  I am sitting in the chair of the leader of our family, so that means I am the leader of the family."

"You are NOT the leader of our family!" J said, getting more tense by the moment.

At this point, I couldn't ignore the conversation.  I had been in my own little la-la-land, but this brought me fully out of it and I began to panic.  "Oh man!  Does he think I am the leader of our family?  What have I done to make him think that?  Is it because I am the one who is home with them all day long?  Am I undermining Darin's authority in subtle ways without realizing it?  What a nag I am!  Darin and I are going to have to find some way for him to interact with J some more!" 

L responded, "If I'm in the leader chair, then I'm the leader!"

J finished the debate with, "You're not the leader. GOD is the leader of our family!"

The end.  L had nothing more to say to that, and all I had to say was a mental, "WHEW!" 

Tackle-It Tuesday

I haven't posted a Tackle-It Tuesday in awhile, but not because I haven't been doing them!  I just haven't had time to post them each week, so you get to see three Tackles today - I guess that makes this entry a Tackle of its own.

First off is THE LID DRAWER.  Ugh.  These pictures really don't do justice to how scary our lid drawer was.  It was packed.  How packed was it?  So packed that usually when we opened the drawer, some of the bigger lids would get caught on the top and get flung down into the cabinet below.  Anyone else had that happen?  It was something that needed taken care of, but was one of those little, irritating projects that no one wanted to take the time for, so I finally bit the bullet and went for it.

This first picture is the lid drawer before.

Here is the pile of lids that I threw into the recycle bin.  Woohoo!

Here is the lid drawer after!  It is SO nice!  We love putting lids on our bowls now. 

My parents came for a two-week stay in December and brought two bushels of apples for us to make into applesauce.  Man, no one wanted to tackle those apples because we were trying to be Christmasy and the apples were getting mushy even though my parents bought them at the end of apple season from an apple orchard near their hometown.  But we did, and when we finished, we had 36 quarts of homemade applesauce to put up on our shelves in the garage!  Applesauce is a great thing.  It's the perfect side for just about everything.  Remember The Brady Bunch episode when Bobby asked Alice what was for dinner and she replied with "Pork shops and appleshaushe."  Oh, the good ol' days.....

Finally, here are two dishrags I knitted for our new neighbors.  They were scheduled to move in the third weekend of December, so I had to hurry to get these done in time.  What a geeky welcome gift, I know, but hey, it's from the heart.  My friend Julie told me about a Yahoogroup that is totally devoted to knitting dishrags and I joined.  The owner of the group sends out the pattern for a dishrag in ten rows each day until the rag is done.  Works for me because I don't have time to do more than 10 rows in a day.  I learned how to knit last year (because Julie made me go to the class with her!  ;-) but haven't graduated past dishrags.  At this point, I am content with dishrags, while Julie has gone on to socks and shawls.  One day, Julie!!!!!! 

Anyway, I don't know if you can tell, but the purple dishrag is a rocking horse and the white one is a snowman. 

 

Write-Away Contest

I was visiting my pal Julie's blog and saw an entry for the Write-Away Contest that Scribbit is having.  Julie always find the fun stuff.  :-)

Anyway, the contest is to submit a post that you have written about Goals.  Goals from the past, or for the future.  Deadline to enter the contest and have the chance to win the groovy prize that Scribbit is offering is January 20th. 

Go here for details.

Girl's Day Out

My daughter won two $5 gift card to Chili's at our annual family gift card exchange over the Christmas holidays.  She is so sweet.  She brought one to me and said, "This one's yours, the other one's mine.  We're having a Girl's Day Out on Saturday!"  So sweet.  I couldn't be anymore pleased that she chose me to use her gift cards with, rather than with one of her friends.

There are so many ways that I want to be able to connect with L.  Right now she's eight.  I keep hearing that when she's a teenager she won't want to talk to me anymore, but I don't think that has to be how it goes.  I think that sentiment that so many share about teens and their parents has become the status quo, and in so many ways, I see how dangerous it is to agree with the status quo.  I am not content with letting my relationship with my daughter slip into limbo just because she hits her teenage years.

All day I've been thinking about my Mom.  She loved her Mother very much.  She tells such great stories about her Mother.  I would have loved to have been able to meet her.  My  Mom's parents had to work very hard.  My Mom was born in 1935 - the middle of the depression, in a very rural part of Tennessee.  My grandfather was a foreman of a sawmill.  He also farmed the land that my grandmother had inherited.  My grandmother was constantly busy.  My Mom said that the day before she was born, her Mother canned peaches.  (Wow - that's a whole other topic of conversation there!  Usually the day before I give birth, I can be found crying, and begging God for relief!  LOL!)

Every story that my Mom tells about my Grandmother are stories where they were working together.  It was a necessity!  There was so much to do.  Laundry, field work, house work.  My Grandmother could not take my Mom to a restaurant for a Girl's Day Out - there was no money for stuff like that!  So instead, she brought my Mom alongside her and they worked together and formed a bond that I can literally feel when my Mom talks about my Grandmother today. 

That is the kind of bond that I want to develop with my daughter, and yet I find it difficult to do so.  Certainly not because I don't have any work around the house to do!  Oh, I've got plenty of chores to take care of during the day.  My hang-up is that too often I make the choice to do the chore on my own because it's easier that way.  Meanwhile, L wanders off to her room to play with Barbies or her doll house.  Ugh.  So not only am I not teaching her the value of the work of a mother, but I lose another chance to form that tight bond with her that I am hoping for. 

I am not a big one for New Year's Resolutions, but man, am I making this a resolution!  So to make it official:

My New Year's Resolution for 2007 is to bring L alongside me as I do my daily chores around the house.  And I don't want to just nag her with directions for the work, but I want to connect with her while we work together so that her teen years become just more time to add to the memories that we make together as Mother and Daughter.