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Family,Lessons Learned

Relationships and Connections

posted on : September 23, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I grew up without a lot of family around. We didn’t live near any extended family and I didn’t have a sense of aunts and uncles, or cousins. I knew what they were and the genetic ties but they had little meaning to me. I had grandparents but I didn’t see them often. They lived far away and were not very involved in our lives. There had also been several marriages and divorces, and the new husbands were my “grandpa.” I remember being about 17 when one day I did some thinking about it and figured out who my real grandpa was.

Since I have married I have a better understanding of extended family relationships and their importance. When we were actually planning our wedding, my husband wanted to have his aunts and uncles at the ceremony. He grew up with them very involved in his life. He knew all of his cousins and there were dozens of them. His extended family gathered often and they even had family reunions. I knew about family reunions but had never been to one before.

Since space was limited at our wedding, and I didn’t have a good understanding of family connections, aunts and uncles were unimportant to me. So, we didn’t have them come to the ceremony. Now that I am an aunt I see it differently. I love my nieces and nephews and feel a connection to them. I love going to their weddings and family gatherings. I rejoice with them at the births of their children and other life events.

If I had it to do over again I would have found a way to have my husband’s aunts and uncles at our ceremony. I see the importance of family and family connections now. I see the value of having aunts and uncles involved in our lives.

I also like the titles of aunt and uncle, or grandma and grandpa, and I like these titles to be included with the person’s name. Titles tell us how we are connected to each other. They recognize that we are family. Titles give us a sense of belonging. They help you to know that your relationship is special and that love is there.

Recently one of my daughters referred to me by my first name with her child. I told her to include  Grandma with my name. I explained to her why I think titles are important. It’s because I want my grandchildren to know I am not just another person in their lives. I want my grandchildren to know how we are connected, that we  are family, that we belong together. I want my grandchildren to know that our relationship is special and that I love them.

 

 

 

Children

Simple Family Activities

posted on : June 24, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

I was fondly remembering the other day when my kids were little and we did projects at the kitchen table. I used to save seed and flower catalogs that would come in the mail. Toy advertisements and even magazines came in handy. My kids would cut out the pictures and make collages from them. Frequently they would make stickers from the flowers or fruit pictures. Sometimes they would cut up church magazines to make stickers too. Then at church they would quietly sit and lick the stickers and make stories using the stickers. It was a simple family activity.

We made sticker glue using 1 tablespoon of any flavor of jello and 2 teaspoons of water. Then the kids would paint the back of the picture they cut out and we let them dry on cookie sheets. I put them in plastic bags and placed the bags in the church tote ready for Sunday. Cutting out the pictures from the magazines and applying the “glue” was one fun activity and then we got another activity out of it at church. The really fun part for them was that the stickers tasted good.

I used to save Christmas cards that we received too. When Christmas was over and I would gather up the cards and toss them in one of the Christmas decorations storage boxes. The following Christmas when I pulled out the decorations I would find the cards. My kids would use these cards to make Christmas scenes on construction paper. They would cut and paste and add glitter or whatever else they wanted to make a nice scene. It was always a simple but fun activity. I actually enjoyed reading the messages in the cards again.

We also made a lot of play dough. It was easy to make, and a lot cheaper and better than store bought. I would make it and give it to the kids to knead when it had cooled a little. I bought different cake decorating colors to make more than the basic primary colors. We made play dough for birthday parties, church activities and for school classes too. This was another simple family activity.

The recipe is really easy. Combine in a pan 1/2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon Cream of Tartar, 1/4 cup salt. Add 1/2 cup water, 1/2 tablespoon oil. Stir over medium heat until too thick to stir. Add desired food coloring and knead a few minutes until color is evenly distributed. Cool completely before storing. I haven’t made play dough for many years but I remember this being the best recipe for the dough I have ever used.

Another simple but fun thing we did was make our own bubbles. Then it was fun to find different objects to blow the bubbles through. Kitchen gadgets, metal washers and soup cans with both ends removed worked well. The soup cans you need to swoosh through the air. Kids have lots of fun finding and trying different objects to see it they will work. To make the bubbles we combined 1/2 cup water, 4 tablespoons dish soap, and 1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup.

What I liked about these projects is that we usually had all of these ingredients readily available at our house and they were inexpensive.  It only took a few minutes to make them but provided hours of family fun. My family liked these activities and maybe yours will too!

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/children/resources/type/family-fun-time?lang=eng&_r=1

Down syndrome,Lessons Learned

Down Syndrome and What I Have Learned

posted on : March 20, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

I was 45 when my last child was born. Because of my age the doctors wanted me to do genetic testing to look for possible defects. I declined because even if the tests showed something I wouldn’t have had an abortion, so why bother. I really thought there was nothing wrong. I had had seven other children that were healthy and I knew this child was supposed to come to our home so I just thought there couldn’t possibly be something wrong. Actually, I’m really glad I didn’t know beforehand that she had Down Syndrome because I would have worried about it the entire pregnancy. I would have gone to the worst possible scenarios and possibly have felt bleak. Not knowing beforehand saved me from a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

I have always had c-sections and when she was being born I could feel what the doctors were doing so the anesthesiologist quickly put me out. Later, in the recovery room, in my hazy rousing, I could hear my husband say that the baby had Down Syndrome. This was also a blessing because my brain began to process that information. When I was fully awake I had already accepted the information and surprisingly I was calm. Mostly I think I was trying to figure out what life was going to look like now. This was really different from how I thought it was going to be and I was trying to wrap my brain around my new reality, in a little bit of a daze.

She was born in the early afternoon and that evening after my husband had gone home and I was alone, I sat there pondering the situation. I think because I was calm I was able to hear the whisperings of the Spirit. I remembered two things that had happened in the past. One, when I was 25, was a Relief Society lesson taught by a woman who had four children, three of them with major disabilities. She spoke about how she had prayed about her children and their lives she had come to understand that for some reason this was God’s will and that her children had accepted this assignment in the premortal world. Because her children had great faith and obedience they had followed the will of the Father. At the time of the lesson I had a very strong witness that what she was saying was true. So strong in fact that I wondered about why I had had that experience. Every so often I would ponder on it throughout the years, still puzzled about the depth of it.

The next experience was remembering an Ensign (April 1993, p 27) article I had read several years before. The article was about a man who was pondering about his daughter with Down Syndrome, looking for some kind of peace as to why she was born this way. While pondering he had a remarkable experience. He said that it wasn’t a vision but more like a scenario that impressed itself on his consciousness. In his mind he saw his “family” in the premortal world and our Father and came to them and said He had an assignment for one of them. He said that our Father went on to say that the one would experience earth life differently from the rest of the family and it was necessary so that they could learn how to love purely and unconditionally. The man said that the “brightest and most beautiful” among them stepped forward and volunteered. The volunteer was his daughter with Down Syndrome. He wasn’t sure that this really happened in the premortal world but the principle that he learned was important: she was Child of God and that they had much to learn from each other. I personally think experiences like this are given to us in terms we can understand and are not literal, but they teach us important truths. The truth here is that our children come to us with great faith and together we learn things that help us grow and become better than we could otherwise.

So, back to the night in the hospital when my daughter was born. These two incidents came to my mind with the thought, “these were to prepare you for her.” A great peace and sense of wonderment filled me. Everything would be okay and we would be fine. That experience with the Spirit that night taught me several things. One was that this was not an accident. For some reason this was part of the plan. She was meant to come to my family and because of her great faith she accepted the will of the Father and was born to a different kind of life. I often remind myself that she is the “brightest and most beautiful” among us even if I can’t see that right now. She can be stubborn and obviously is not perfect. Another thing I learned was that God is aware of the details of our lives and prepares us for the things that are going to happen. I was not aware that I was being prepared but that didn’t stop the preparation from happening. When she was born God had taught me what I needed to know in order to love and care for her, and accept her. I still had a lot to learn but the foundation was in place and we could go forward secure in the knowledge that we would have His help. I have also learned since then that no matter what child you have there will be difficulties, challenges and hard times. Each child is unique and comes with his or her own challenges, they’re just usually not as obvious as Down Syndrome. I have also learned there will also be joys, peace and love. Every child has the ability to bring joy to your life if you are open to it. So, having a daughter with Down Syndrome is not exactly what I expected or thought how it should be. It’s even better.

Family

The Simplicity of Family Fun

posted on : March 13, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

On The Nose

In my last post I wrote about how much work there was with a family and the importance of taking time for fun. I regret not spending more time just playing with my kids and enjoying them. I do remember some fun things we did together though. It’s funny that most of these things were spontaneous and unplanned yet they are some of the sweetest things I remember doing with my children. I’m not even sure how this one started but my children loved it. They would lie on the couch with their head on their dad’s lap and he would stack cheerios on their nose. My children would line up waiting for their turn in delightful anticipation. It was a contest between the children to see who could lay the most still and could get the most cheerios stacked. Each would carefully angle his or her head to figure out the best position. It was serious business! I was the one who supplied and counted the cheerios, and took pictures. A really simple thing yet when I talk with my children about it they remember it vividly and talk about how much fun it was. I still have the photographs and when I look at them sweet memories flood my mind. One picture shows my toddler lying there with someone holding her hands so she wouldn’t push the cheerios away. She had watched everyone else doing it and she wanted to do it too but didn’t actually want to have something on her nose. Her brothers and sisters were gathered around counting the cheerios as they went on her nose and cheering that she sat still. It is a priceless memory!

A Sweet Memory

Another sweet memory is when I had a daughter sitting on my lap and we made up different kinds of kisses. I had a couple of other children sitting next to me and each of them got involved and we were all laughing and doing the kisses on each other. One was the race care kiss where you zoomed your lips across the cheek of the other person, and of course you had to make a race car sound. There was the butterfly kiss in which you fluttered your eyelashes against the cheek of the other person. That one mostly tickled. An energetic one involved bouncing kisses off the cheek of your partner and we called that one the Pogo stick kiss. The most popular one was the ice cream kiss which involved licking the cheek of the unsuspecting person sitting next to you. Yes, I know it’s disgusting, yet somehow it was fun when done with my kids. The ice cream kiss turned out to be the most fun because everyone was chasing each other to “kiss” them. It’s been many years and I don’t remember all of the kisses we came up with but I do remember just enjoying my children. I remember being present with them and just having fun together.

Singing and Dancing

Something else I remember doing is singing and dancing with my kids. We’d put on a Raffi CD and hold hands and dance around while singing along with the silly songs. A couple of my daughters have really good memories of doing that so I found some Raffi CDs on Amazon and sent them to them so they could do the same with their children. Most people today don’t remember Raffi or know who he is, which is kind of sad because of the good memories I have of his music. I have always liked singing and sang a lot with my children. Using familiar tunes we’d make up new words to songs as we were driving somewhere or working together. We also sang a lot of Primary songs driving places and the added advantage to that was it cut down on the fighting and arguing in the car.

Funny Sayings

One last thing want to share is how we made up funny sayings along the lines of See You Later Alligator. Every morning as my kids left for school I would say In a While Crocodile, and See You Later Alligator. One morning, on the spur of the moment, I added a new one. Hit The Road You Silly Toad which spurred others, Remember To Laugh You Funny Giraffe and then That’s Preposterous You Crazy Rhinoceros! Some of my kids thought of other ones too. We had fun most mornings adding to the sayings. I still say these to my only daughter at home as she heads out the door to catch the bus.

No Expensive Gadgets

When I look at these fun things what stands out to me most is that none of these cost any money, we didn’t go anywhere fancy and it didn’t involve any expensive gadgets. It was just me taking the time to focus on my children in fun ways, and being relaxed and really present with them. I wasn’t worried about what needed to be done, teaching them something important, or working. Maybe because it didn’t happen too often these things stand out in my mind and the minds of my kids. Whatever the reason, to me it emphasizes the importance of enjoying my children. It also shows me the value of just having fun together and the love and strength that results. I’m glad to have these sweet memories.

Family,Lessons Learned

Work vs Family Fun

posted on : March 8, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

When my children were young there was always so much to do. I would wake up early to get kids ready for school or church, often after having been up several times during the night feeding a baby. I would work hard all day and late into the evening. There were always meals to fix, laundry to do and a house to clean. There was homework to supervise, children to bathe, as well as shopping to be done and music lessons to get kids to. During the spring and summer there was yard work and gardens to tend. During the fall there was canning and dehydrating fruit. I volunteered in the schools and there was church work to be done. I was always busy, busy, busy. Somehow I was self driven to try to do everything in my mind I thought I was supposed to do. Even when I was really tired it didn’t really occur to me that I didn’t have to do so much. I was a worker and work was what I did.

One day a few years ago I was talking with one of my daughters who told me she wasn’t sure she wanted to have children. She said it just seemed like a lot of work without any fun. She had watched me during the years and had seen all the work I did without really taking a lot of time for fun, and it seemed like drudgery to her. After talking with her for a while, I reassured her that she could make motherhood as fun as she wanted. This conversation left me feeling a little sad though. I felt sad that I had subtly conveyed the message that motherhood was all work and very little fun. I also started wondering about how much work is really needed to make a home run smoothly and how much is too much. Did I really need to do so much? I did do a lot of fun things with my kids. We had craft time, went to the pool and park several times a week during the summer and went to the movies often. We had halloween parties and celebrated birthdays with family parties and played board games. I read books with my children and we went to petting zoos and aviaries. But, even theses fun things were a lot of work because we often had not only my kids but half the neighborhood joining in. There were so many little fingers into the projects we did and getting anywhere with my crew took so much energy and work. I viewed having fun as work! And I was usually thinking ahead what needed to be done instead of being present and enjoying my family.

Now that my children are grown and gone I look at things a little differently. Perhaps I have learned to relax a little over the years. Maybe I see how fast the time has gone. Perhaps I have come to realize that work is important but that relationships need to be nurtured by doing enjoyable things together. Families do take a lot of work, even to have fun. But, having fun together is just as important as working together. Being together just for the pleasure of it without thinking about what still needs to be done. The kind of together that says I love you and I want to spend time with you. The kind of fun that says you are important to me. So, if I had another magic wand…

https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng&_r=1&old=true

Family

Funny Family Expressions

posted on : February 20, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

In my husband’s family there are some funny expressions, some of which I have never heard before. His family is from a small town in central Utah and I don’t know if these expression are common in that town or if they are unique to his family. Some of these expression defy logic because they just don’t make sense. My favorite one of these is “How come your eye’s out without a scratch on your face.” Loosely translated it means “Why did you do that?” He has tried to explain the expression to me many times and it’s inference. Usually he gives this example, “You’re eating some watermelon and you leave the room for a few minutes and come back to find that someone has eaten the heart of the melon. You then say, ‘how come your eye’s out without a scratch on your face?'” I know, it makes no sense. Because it makes no sense I can’t remember the phrase exactly and he had to repeat it to me again to write this. Another phrase his family says is “it physics me” meaning it gives the person diarrhea. That one I sort of get, or at least I can see the connection. They would usually say something like, “I can’t eat that because it physics me.” I don’t know anyone else who says that but older people in his family. I think the expression is dying out with the younger crew, which in some ways is kind of sad. Unique sayings give a family a distinctive personality.

An expression unique to my husband is something he’d always say to console one of our children after they’d get hurt. He’d be patting the child on the back and saying in a soothing tone of voice, “It’ll feel better when it stops hurting.” Somehow that always worked, or at least it did until they got old enough to really figure out what he was saying. Now our kids laugh about it and say it with their own kids. Another funny expression comes from a friend of my husband. Her grandmother always said, “I have a bone in my leg” when she didn’t want to do something that required her to move. Well, yes that one makes sense too because we all have a bone in our legs. Why she’d say that in those circumstances I don’t have a clue.

I’ve been trying to figure out if I grew up with any weird sayings in my family and I couldn’t think of any. I asked my husband if I use any weird or unusual expressions and he couldn’t think of any either. Probably I just grew up in a boring family. But, I think most of us grow up with these funny expressions and don’t give them much thought because we’ve heard them all of our lives. But when you stop and think about it, there are some very peculiar sayings out there that are only understood by the family who uses them. There might be some funny, unusual, or weird expressions in your family. If so, I’d love to hear them. If you feel like it, just tell me some of them in the comment section of this post.

Children,Family,Friendship,Life

Happy Birthday Dear Daughter

posted on : January 11, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 10 Comments

When my oldest daughter was a toddler she was a hand full at church. To help keep her quiet and entertained, my husband would take his silk handkerchief that matched his tie (an 80’s thing) and roll and fold it in such a way that it looked like a canoe with “babies” in it. He would rock it between his hands and she would sit quietly and play with it. One time at church he forgot to wear his handkerchief and as we were listening to the speaker my daughter started looking through his pockets, moving his tie around and getting in his face. Since she was being quiet we didn’t think too much about it until she loudly shouted, “Where’s that little thing you use to make babies with daddy.” That quickly got our attention, especially as the people in the pews around us started laughing. We immediately put our heads down in deep embarrassment and explained that daddy forgot to bring it. Of course we laugh about it now! When she was a little older, she and her sister opened a 20 lb bag of flour and had a “snow” fight. When I found them, all I could see were two white faces with big eyes looking at me. That was a huge mess to clean up! Another time she and this same sister blocked off the bottom of the door of the bathroom with towels and filled the floor full of water to make an indoor slip and slide. I was downstairs doing laundry when I saw water pouring down from the ceiling. I ran up stairs and found 2 girls having great fun. I was amazed at their creativity but not amused with the damaged ceiling. One time I found my electric skillet in her bath tub with dried up food in it. It turns out that she and her partner in crime (this same sister) would take my electric skillet into their bedroom and cook things when they were supposed to be asleep. All of these things were basically harmless but they kept me really busy because what one daughter didn’t think to do the other one did. Of course there were a few things that weren’t so harmless like when she let her 14 year sister take her car and drive around with some friends. We were really lucky no one was hurt with that escapade. The years have passed and now this same daughter just celebrated her 33rd birthday. She has grown into a compassionate, thoughtful person who champions the underdog (humans and animals alike!). She has this knack for reaching out to others and becoming friends with them, and still keeps in contact with high school friends. When she is your friend you will have a friend for life. She will always have your back and she tries harder than anyone else I know to improve herself. She cares about her family and reaches out to build relationships. She is an amazing person who brightens our lives. In spite of all of her antics, I am glad she’s my daughter. Happy Birthday!

Lessons Learned

The Parable of Bread Pudding

posted on : December 7, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

Many years ago I had a half a loaf of french bread and I thought I would make some bread pudding with it.  I had heard of bread pudding but I had never eaten it before or had even seen it so I thought this would be a new, fun adventure.  I found a recipe and went to work.  When I got to the part of the recipe where it referred to the bread, it was only one cup of cut up bread pieces.  I thought that wasn’t very much so it had to be packed bread.  I crammed as much bread as I could into the measuring cup and proceeded to make the bread.  It came out more like bread brick pudding but I never had it before so I didn’t know the difference.  I thought it was a little “thick” and couldn’t figure out why it was called a pudding when it was more like a loaf of bread.  My family ate it and I continued to make bread pudding occasionally. Then one time I had it for dessert in a restaurant.  It was creamy, pudding-like and delicious.  Nothing even close to a brick.  It was at this point that I obviously discovered that for years I had been making bread pudding wrong, very wrong.  So I tried it without packing the bread into the measuring cup.  It was light and pudding-like and delicious.

I have discovered that life’s like that.  Sometimes it takes someone showing me a better way, the correct way to get the results I want. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m doing something the wrong way, that there is a better way.  Of course I have to laugh at myself when I find out I could have been doing something different or easier or better all along.  This also reminds me of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the many times I’ve done something my way, out of ignorance or even willful disobedience, when His way is so much better.  When I “kick against the pricks” of conscience because I want to do something my way.  This reminds me that when I’m finally ready to listen to Him and discover my way is so lacking and His way is so much better.  And I finally discover that doing something my way just produces a bread pudding brick.  And of course once I have tasted of His better way,  just like the creamy bread pudding, I want to do it His way.  The parable of the bread pudding teaches me to not settle for bricks.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/yielding-our-hearts-to-god?lang=eng

Church,Family

Change Is Good and So Is Family History

posted on : October 23, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I have decided to do just one posting a week instead of two.  Sometimes I scramble to find something I think people will be interested in reading. Obviously I don’t know as much as I thought I did!  This will also free me up to work more on my family history which has taken a backseat to the blog since I started writing it a little over a year ago.  When I was younger family history seemed a mystery to me, and expensive.  I didn’t understand the process of finding information and knowing for sure it was the right information.  It was also expensive to send away for records and there was a lot of wait time.  My church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, places a lot of value and emphasis on family, both living and dead.  We believe that all need to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that those who have died without the opportunity to hear about the gospel are taught it in the next world after they die.  Since they weren’t able to receive saving ordinances while they were alive we perform the ordinances for them as proxies. They have the choice to accept the teachings or not, but we do family history to find family members who need to have their work done giving them the opportunity.  While in the past it was difficult to do family history, now it’s very easy.  Almost everything is available online and I have yet to need to send away for a record.  Since my family is second generation members of my church there’s a lot to be found and I have found many people in which I can have their ordinance work done.  I can spend hours and hours doing it, which is interesting to me because I never thought I would like doing it.  Sometimes I find so much information that I have to force myself to pull away and go to bed or eat or do necessary tasks of life. One of the things I like about it is finding personal information about a relative.  The person becomes real to me and I feel connected to them, and it’s interesting to see patterns in families that are carried out in subsequent generations.  I have had many spiritual experiences with family history, sometimes feeling like I have been guided to find certain information which had been so elusive.  Recently I have been blessed to find information about my great-grandfather who came to this country from Bulgaria in 1913.  Bulgarian records are hard to come by and we now have information that dates back to 1730, but it’s all in Bulgarian which is Cyrillic writing!  Studying this information and trying to translate it will take a lot of time. Somehow I feel driven to do it and so now I will have more time by only posting once a week. So, change is good and so is family history.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/04/family-history-and-temple-work-sealing-and-healing?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/generations-linked-in-love?lang=eng

Lessons Learned,Life

Dream Job

posted on : June 25, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

My husband absolutely loves his profession and he is lucky to have his dream job.  He likes being able to make a difference in the lives of others and the creativity he is able to express. He enjoys working with great people and learning from them.  But even with his dream job there are things he has to do that he doesn’t like.  He doesn’t like itemizing and submitting for reimbursement because it’s tedious and takes time away from what he really likes to do.  He also doesn’t like sitting in long meetings, traveling away from home so much, and the long hours the job sometimes requires.  Even with all of that he will tell you he loves his job.  I love my job as homemaker and mother.  I enjoy the freedom to plan my own day, to be able to help in my kid’s schools (only one left now), to take my kids to the park and the pool when they were younger, and to have time to make curtains and shop for home decor, to read with my kids (now grandkids), do family history and others such things.  I love planning fun parties to celebrate great moments in our family.  I love to decorate!  Those are some of the things I love and have the freedom to do but even with those things there are a lot of things I don’t like about being a homemaker and even sometimes a mother.  It’s hard to never quite get enough sleep, I dislike paying bills and balancing the checkbook, I don’t like to change bedding and I don’t like yard work.  It’s hard to always do everything with your children in mind-what time will they be home, where do they have to be and what do they need, and since I still have one at home I still have to do that.  Even with all of that I would tell you I have a great job. I love being a homemaker and a mother.  In talking with other people I have learned that no matter what job you have there will be things you like about it and things you don’t like about it.  Of course, if the things you don’t like are greater than the things you do like you may need to be in a different job.  Sometimes we enter a job or profession or even parenthood without realizing that there will be things we don’t like about it.  There are no perfect, stress-free, hassle-free, problem-less jobs.  Figuring that out allowed me to be happy doing what I was doing, and when there were problems, not focusing on the thought that if I was working out of my home I would be happier.  Really, no matter what or where I work there will be things I like and don’t like about what I’m doing, even a dream job.