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Category: Children

Children,Church,Lessons Learned

Sunday Mornings

posted on : April 19, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

Sunday mornings at our house were always hectic and chaotic while trying to get everyone ready for church.  My husband usually had church responsibilities that took him away from home Sunday mornings and it always seemed I had a new baby or was pregnant a good many of those crazy years, which meant I was extra tired!  Somehow we always had the 9:00 church schedule when I had a new baby which added to the difficulty of getting there on time and since my babies always nursed every two hours I had to feed a baby twice before actually getting out of the door.  It was stressful but I found a few things that helped Sunday mornings to go a little smoother.  Most of the time I got up earlier than my children and got myself ready in the quiet of the morning, and that left me free to  help my children after I got them up.  I usually made a simple breakfast which helped entice my non-morning children to get up, and I didn’t worry about cleaning up until after we got home from church.  After church I confiscated socks and shoes and put them away so they would be easy to find the following week, which actually worked most of the time.  Any older child that was ready was assigned to brush the hair of a younger brother or sister and help get his or her shoes and socks on them.  I read once that it sometimes helped to have your children pick out their clothes the night before and I tried this and found my kids changed their minds by morning, so it didn’t work so great for me.  The biggest thing I did to help everyone be ready on time was to set my ready-by time one half hour before church began.  So if church began at 9:00 I tried to be ready by 8:30 which then gave me time to look for lost shoes, missing ties and deal with any problems that came up.  One time one of my daughters had a talk to give and had gone outside after she was ready for church and had taken her talk with her.  She set it down outside somewhere on our 4 acres and couldn’t remember where she had put it.  That half hour even gave me time to deal with that as we frantically looked for, found her talk and got to church on time.  I think one of the reasons I tried so hard to be on time was that I was aware we were a large group and caused a commotion when we entered late, which detracted from the reverence of the meeting.  I also felt quite of bit of stress to be on time and if we were running late I found myself yelling at everyone to hurry up which is ironic to go to church yelling at your kids. It doesn’t do much to create feelings of reverence and love to enter the building having been yelled at.  Most of all, I really liked having about 10 minutes to enjoy the music and shift my thinking from chaos to reverence and focusing on the sacrament.  It didn’t always work and sometimes no matter what I did there were bad mornings where nothing seemed to go right.  But the sweet thing was that most of the time it did work.

Children,Lessons Learned

The Black Eye

posted on : March 22, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

When my oldest daughter was 4 years old she got hit in her eye.  I don’t even remember how she got hit or exactly what happened, but I remember telling her that she was going to get a black eye and then we put a cold wash cloth on it to help with the swelling.  She was very upset, wailing that she didn’t want a black eye.  I reassured her it would be fine and not to worry about it but that it was definitely going to turn black.  She went to bed that night still very upset, and the next morning she came running into my bedroom with a very bruised eye.  She jumped up on my bed and very excitedly said “Mom, I looked in the mirror and my eye’s not black, it’s still green.”  What was so obvious to me was not so obvious to her at all.  I had no clue that she didn’t know what a black eye was and that she thought I meant the color of her eye was going to change.  I’d like to say that was the last time I thought I was communicating clearly only to find out later that I wasn’t, but I have gotten better over the years at clarifying, asking questions, trying to understand and to be understood.  It’s always a work in progress but it helps when I remember this incident of the ‘Black Eye.’

Children,Parenting

One of the Joys of Motherhood

posted on : March 12, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I recorded the following incident in my journal.  “As I was getting dressed (my daughter) said to me “Mom, why is your tummy so big after having a baby?  Now (this daughter, who was 5 years old) had been saying several things lately of this nature.  She had just told me the day before that she was worried about me dying because I “wasn’t getting any younger and was looking pretty old.”  So when she said this about my tummy I said ” You know, if you’re not careful, you’re going to hurt my feelings.”  Well, you could just see from her face the thoughts flying through her brain trying to rectify the situation.  Then she said, “You’re not fat mom, you just look fat.  You just look fat.”  I still chuckle about this from time to time. The innocence of a child.”  That was the end of my journal entry and even now when I think about this it makes me laugh.  Children are delightful and a joy to have and you never know what they are going to say.  This particular daughter is one of the kindest people I know, and the great thing is she is now expecting her first baby and well, I think turn-about-is-fair-play!

Children,Mental Health

10 Minute Pick-up

posted on : March 5, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

This is not a post about how to get a date quickly, but it is a post about one of the ways I coped as a mom with the chaos that comes from having 8 kids and all of the clutter and mess that is inherent with a large family.  There were so many things I couldn’t control in my life but I found that if my house was tidy I could cope a lot better with those uncontrollable things, and the room or house didn’t have to be spotless, just tidy and picked-up.  I found that if everyone would clean the area where they were or ran the vacuum or something else similar for just 10 minutes it was amazing what could be accomplished by several people working together. Even my little ones could participate by carrying a dish to the sink or putting something in the trash or putting away a toy.  I would announce “ten minute pick-up” and everyone knew what to do (because it had to be done frequently!).  My kids didn’t really complain about it because they knew it was just for 10 minutes and I tried to time it between TV shows and other activities.  If they worked quickly it was usually less than 10 minutes and a room or area that was cluttered with clothes, shoes, dishes, books, toys and all kinds of other stuff was quickly transformed and I could cope better with the other kind of chaos!

Children

Fifteen Minute Warning

posted on : February 26, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

When my kids were little and they were enjoying an activity, as it neared time to leave whatever we were doing, I would give a fifteen-minute warning and then a five-minute warning.  I found that if I suddenly said “well, it’s time to go home” I got tantrums and fighting because my kids needed time to transition.  They needed time to wrap their heads around the fact that they were going to have to leave something they were liking and having fun doing.  Now as adults they laugh at memories of being at the pool or park with me shouting “Fifteen-minute warning” and then again, “five-minute warning.”  It was kind of awkward for me to make a spectacle of myself shouting like that but the result was no tantrums and no fighting, and cooperative kids.

Children,Husband,Life

Desert Cows

posted on : February 1, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

Many years ago, in an effort to be more providential, I decided I would use our powdered milk from our food storage instead of letting it go to waste which I had been doing.  It was a hassle to mix it and I didn’t like the taste of it so I had rarely used it. Through experimenting I did find that if I mixed it up at night and it got really cold and used it on cereal it was passable, and actually hard to tell it wasn’t fresh.  Even at that some of my kids didn’t want to try it.  So one night my husband was mixing up the powdered milk and he told the kids that this milk came from desert cows and that’s why it was dry and we had to add water to it.  He explained that there’s not very much water in the desert for the cows to drink so it came out powdery, and of course he was just having fun with our kids not thinking anyone would really believe him.   Well, our kids were fascinated by this and the next day my then 5-year-old said to me “mom, I want some of that desert milk” and then everyone else wanted to try it too.  After that the kids started calling it desert milk which made it a lot more fun than calling it powdered milk.  Seems like a little humor and creativity made even powdered milk something desirable.

Children,Parenting

Teaching Correct Principles

posted on : January 29, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

Joseph Smith once said “Teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.” I had heard this statement many times pondered about it when some of my children were making choices that I didn’t like.  I felt like I had taught them to do good and be good yet they were still making unwise choices and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.  Maybe I hadn’t set a good enough example or maybe I hadn’t taught clearly enough important principles to guide their lives by or maybe I just hadn’t taught them in the right way or taught them enough.  I prayed and pondered and stewed over it for several years and then one day while I was driving and thinking about it the thought came into my head “Teach them correct principles and then they get to choose.”  I had been interpreting the quote the wrong way.  I had always thought it meant “teach them correct principles and then they will choose to do right.”  What an eye opener and game changer.  Yes, I could probably teach more clearly and be a better example but as I continued to do my best to teach good principles to live their lives by I was doing all I could.  The rest was and is up to them.

Children,Parenting

A Lasting Gift

posted on : January 20, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

Many years ago I taught the Bee Hives in the Young Women’s program, a calling I loved.  I learned to love each of those girls and thoroughly enjoyed being with them.  One Sunday, on Father’s Day, I asked each girl how she knew her father loved her.  There was one response I particularly remember.  She  said “I know my dad loves me because he likes to spend time with me.”  I have thought about this response over the years.  I knew her father and he was a busy man.  He owned his own business, had busy church callings and had 5 other children beside her and yet she knew he loved her because he liked spending time with her.  And interesting to me is that he didn’t spend time with her while he was on his phone, watching TV or being distracted in numerous ways because she knew he LIKED to spend time with her.  He was really present when they were together and he conveyed the message that he really enjoyed being with her.  What a wonderful gift he gave her, and this is something I need to be better at.

Children

Love

posted on : November 10, 2017 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 4 Comments

When I was pregnant with my second daughter I wondered how I could ever love another child as much as I loved my first.  After she was born I quickly found out that my ability to love increased and it wasn’t an issue.  When I was pregnant with my third child I wondered how I could ever love a boy as much as I loved my girls, and of course he was born and I found out that I was worried for nothing.  I loved him just as much as my girls.  After that I quit worrying about it and never wondered again if I had the capacity to love another child coming into our home and lives.  In thinking about it I realized that love is like a lit candle that when I light another candle the first candle is not diminished at all in it’s flame and ability to give light, and the second candle’s flame is just as strong.  No matter how many candles I light the original and subsequent flames are not diminished and together the candles create even more light.

Children,Lessons Learned

Butter, The Real Thing

posted on : September 21, 2017 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

When one of my daughters was about 12 she came home after visiting a friend and very excitedly told me about her new discovery “margarine.”  “It’s this wonderful thing you can use instead of butter” and she went on to extol the many virtues of margarine.  I listened to her (and tried not to laugh) and then explained to her that butter was the real thing and that margarine was just a substitute for butter.  I then tried to explain to her that butter tasted better and generally was better for baking and cooking.  She looked at me like I really didn’t know anything.  I have thought about this conversation over the years about how some things that others have or use seem to be better than what we have, and how we are easily fooled to believe that substitutes or new things are better than the original or old ways of doing things.  Of course, some new things are better but just because they’re new or different doesn’t mean better.