Oh well.

With all of the duties, responsibilities and pressures on mothers, why, oh why, must we be subject to this curse of being emotional women?  I’m not talking about PMS either.  PMS is simply adding insult to injury.  And on the subject of PMS… if you are not a woman, here’s a word to the wise: keep your mouth shut.  Men without a medical degree are not allowed to diagnose, offer to treat, or even insinuate PMS when a wife/girlfriend’s opinion, mood, or state of mind differs from that of your own.  Don’t cast stones at her girl-parts or you might end up being justifiably prohibited from using them.

Whoa… back to the subject…

Women are complex creatures. 

We are strong and weak.  We are compassionate and firm.  We are sensitive and unyielding.  We are loving and defensive.   

Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming.

To all of you who have impacted my life this rough week.  Thank you for listening.  Thank you for not thinking I’m crazy.  Thank you for worrying when I didn’t answer your call.  Thank you for being honest. Thank you for not leaving peanut butter fingerprints on the suede couch.  Thank you for giving me space.  Thank you, God, for Colin Farrell. Thank you for suggesting books that make me giggle.  Thank you for always being an inspiration.  Thank you for making me laugh.  Thank you for eating your broccoli without making me yell.  Thank you for being the man that I love and for never accusing my girl-parts of any wrongdoing.

This week he drew me a treasure map at the gym daycare.  On the drive home, he became the captain of our Nissan SUV and commanded the lowly coxswain (Mom) to steer as the treasure map dictated.  Once we were on the interstate and I slowed down to take our exit, the captain began shouting.  “Argh!  The treasure map does not lead to our house!  The treasure is at the beach!”

I like this captain.

Lately, I feel like my personal pirate ship is just drifting in open water.  Sure, there is a destination out there; I’m just on hold getting to it.  Being on hold isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  It is actually helping me to navigate my course with clarity.  Too often, in the past, I have been guilty of letting my feelings call the shots only to arrive somewhere I didn’t want to be. 

Not this time.  I know where I want to be.  Everyday I’m more and more certain of it. 

Sailing toward the destination not only requires determination and hard work, but it requires sacrifice.  I want to do a lot of things in this life like get a glowing degree in literature, coach an Olympic swim team, and write a bestselling novel or ten.  While hopefully I will be able to accomplish some of those dreams, they aren’t what is going to matter to me when I stand on the shore of what is this life looking into the unknown of the next.  What I want to see looking back is a kind of success that isn’t measured in medals or by the New York Times. 

During this quiet season of my life, I’m learning to cut myself some slack.  I may not be holed up in a classroom working on that degree, but I did teach my son how to throw a baseball today.  I still haven’t started competing with the Master’s team, but I did help my daughter pass her swim test this weekend.  I haven’t completed writing a novel in almost nine months, but I did teach my kindergartner how to read. 

As far as I’m concerned, I’m still on course to my destination.  Apparently next, we’re headed to the beach to look for buried treasure.

Halfway through the school year I am running out of creative lunch ideas.  (That makes me sound like a mom who clips coupons and researches learning games online.  Oh wait… geez, I’m well on my way to have a soccer bumper sticker and matching minivan.)  My kids are creatures of habit and they could eat the exact same meals every. single. day.  Ham and cheese, peanut butter, and cold pizza are the staples in my daughter’s lunchbox but I desperately want her to branch out.  However…I NEED HELP!

What do YOU pack your kids for lunch??? Or do your kids prefer Mystery Meat Mondays and Flaky Potato Fridays?  My kid actually bugs me all the time to let her buy lunch, but I have too many coupons for buy one get one Caprisuns and granola bars…

I will admit that the experience has helped me to be a better mom.  After all, isn’t teaching one of our top responsibilities as a parent?  Teaching young children isn’t easy.  You have to figure out a way to be informative and more entertaining that Spongebob or iCarly.  In the same way that I hide allergy medicine in chocolate pudding, I find that my children learn best when I trick them into it. 

My daughter loves to play cards.  This is something fun we do together that is also a great learning game.  When we play we have a chalkboard to tally our scores.  As scorekeeper, she practices counting by fives and tens and is already doing 2^nd and 3^rd math adding and subtracting in the fifties and hundreds.  Not to mention the valuable lessons in bluffing, odds, and the power of Aces.  I’m going to make her a fake ID and start being her partner at the blackjack table soon.  In all seriousness… if you want to spend some fun, quality time with your kids and incorporate some stealth math lessons teach them how to play Hearts or Rummy.  Check out these links for info on how to play: Hearts or Rummy.

While preparing reading activities for my daughter’s kindergarten class I found this website that I must pimp out.  I don’t know this teacher personally, but her website is great.  I’ve started printing a new game every week.   All of the kids in class love them and they love coming to my reading group – FINALLY, I’m popular in school!  Kelly’s Kindergarten

At home, my son is learning how to wipe his own butt.  I haven’t yet figured out a fun/sanitary game to help him grasp it.  If anyone has any advice other than stock up on toilet paper, plungers and Spray and Wash, I’m all ears!

Through the photos I was able to document my journey as a Crazy Mom.  It began here, on the day I was wheelbarrowed into the hospital to deliver my daughter.  I told you I ate a lot of ice cream.

And then my screeching, tiny, blob of yucky happiness was welcomed into the world…

Just as though I didn’t learn my lesson of how much childbirth SUCKED the first time, I started hitting the ice cream churn again…

And welcomed another blob of yucky happiness…

Those blobs have since gotten bigger and more complicated.  Rather than screeching, they are opinionated and whiney.   While I don’t plan on falling off the Ben & Jerry’s wagon again anytime soon… that damn scrapbook certainly made me think about grabbing a spoon.

This post was contributed by a dear friend of mine.  I have known Noelle, literally, all my life.  My admiration for her, her faith and her family has only grown over the years.  She has an amazing story of motherhood.  I hope this will be one of many contributions of hers to Your Crazy Mom!  Bookmark her blog: http://www.triplesmiles.blogspot.com/

Before I became a full time Mommy I was a full time teacher. Over 9 years I had the great joy of teaching 4th grade, 2nd grade, and then my last year of teaching I took my 2nd graders  for another THRILL  ride and we tackled 3rd grade together:)

The first 6 weeks of school, a teacher always has the daunting task of figuring out her students one by one. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What makes them tick? What is their learning style? Usually by the end of the 3rd week a school, a teacher has grouped her students by ability and learning style. Although I could write a book on this topic, I will keep it short and simple. The bottom line is I know and understand how very important it is to teach on a child’s individual learning level and individually as much as possible! Over 9 years of teaching, I saw many students soar when given just a few minutes of one on one instruction! 

And today, I was given that JOY again. Any teacher will tell you, there is nothing more joyful than experiencing that “light bulb moment” in a child.

My children are almost 4, 3 and 2. I will admit most of my instruction to them is “group instruction” Most everything we do, we do together.  I have had difficulty at times getting one or the other to cooperate and concentrate while I am trying to teach them something.

Well today, the 2 youngest children were napping. Zachariah had already taken a “cat nap” and was resting in his room when I decided this would be a great opportunity to work with him. He had a letter “V” project that we needed to finish. So I called him out of his room and we went downstairs, just the two of us to work on Letter V. He has never cooperated so well. First, we pretended that Letter V was a road for his cars,

then he glued pasta noodles back to back on his V. Normally, he would have given me great resistance to this task. But without the siblings around, he loved the project!

Then came the light bulb moment! I had been working with him on sequencing for many weeks, it has never clicked, or at least I thought it had never clicked. After we finished the letter V, he ask if we could do “his letter” which is letter Z. So I thought I’d try to get him to sequence the colors and he did it! I would ask him after every noodle what color comes next and he got it right time after time! I was so proud of him!

So I must find a way to give each of my Triple Smiles individual learning time. If any of you moms out there have any tips on this topic, please please forward them to me!

And just for fun after supper, we pretended Zach was a Veterinarian and then he shopped  at a Vegetable Market!

“Vegetable Stand OPEN”

“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”

Hoover Dam was erected on the border of Arizona and Nevada along the Colorado River.  The dam was originally named the Boulder Dam and it took five years to construct.  Upon it’s completion, the dam was the largest concrete structure as well as the largest hydroelectric generation station in the world.  Since then it has been surpassed in size and strength and is currently 38^th on the list.

Beer Bread Recipe: 3 cups of self rising flour, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 can of beer (the darker, the better)  Mix and pour into a loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50 minutes to 1 hour.  Slice and serve.  YUMMY. 

What do Al Gore, the Hoover Dam, and my favorite beer bread recipe have in common?  Not a damn thing… except, I learned them all from the internet.  Were we just all stupid before the creation of Google or what? 

My kids started playing on the computer when they were old enough to sit upright.  It has taught them a lot, but Google isn’t going to replace a good education and discipline at home.  There are just some things that the internet, television, and video games can’t teach our kids.  I know, because I saw a lot of those kids who are now legal-age adults in Las Vegas this weekend.  Some of them had clearly skipped the chapters in life on integrity, self-control, and self-respect.

While I don’t encourage allowing your kids to continually glaze over in front of the light of the computer screen, there are some great kid websites out there that promote learning, reading, and fine motor skills. 

http://www.pbskids.org/

http://www.yahooligans.com/

http://www.starfall.com/

http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/home_tumblebooks.asp

www.coolmath4kids.com

When you spend days on end together you have to find things to do so you don’t strangle each other to fill your time.  After all, the family that plays together – stays sane together.

Movie Night
About once a week we have a movie and popcorn night.  Since we’ve had so much snow recently, we’ve had a LOT of movie nights and I regret not buying stock in Redbox.  The catch to this one is you might have to suffer through Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses in order to have quality time with your kids.  I think of it this way, regardless of the movie, it is generally an hour and a half that I don’t have to hear my name over and over and over again.  Where we live, we have a dollar theater close by and on Tuesdays they also have popcorn and drinks for a dollar. I think we may go there today.  Some movies that didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out this year were: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Planet 51, Aliens in the Attic, Up, Monsters Vs. Aliens, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Lessons in Good Sportsmanship
My kids love to play games and it’s my opportunity to give them a healthy dose of good sportsmanship because you have to earn your winnings in this house.  My daughter loves to play cards and as a result has learned how to add, subtract, figure odds, and count cards.  I’m tempted to take her to Vegas with me.  Just kidding.  Seriously, she does love to play Hearts and Rummy and regularly beats us all.  My son likes the staples of Go Fish and Old Maid – but he’s still terrible at both.  Some of our other favorites are Hungry Hungry Hippos, Disney’s Scene It, Hang-Man, and last, but not certainly not least – the Wii.  If the Wii is out of your price range and you have younger kids, the V-Motion game by V-Tech is a great option.  Both of my kids love to play it and the games are interchangeable with their hand held V-Smiles.

Culinary Experimentation
Everyone usually has a hand in dinner at our house – literally, so eat at your own risk.  I’ve discovered that if the kids help with the preparation, getting them to eat is usually less of a fight to the death.  Pizzas are a favorite around here and relative cheap to make at home. I buy the Pillsbury refrigerated dough, cut it into individual sizes and then let them run wild, piling them with toppings.  Other group cooking activities include cookie and cupcake decorating, muffins, any type of casserole.  The messier it is, the more they love it.

The Family Workout
Usually once a day you will find our little troupe involved in some sort of indoor calisthenics.  From running around the living room, to doing pushups off the coffee table there is a lot of physical exercise that goes on our house.  Ever seen a four year old practice yoga?  Come by after dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays and my son will show you a half moon pose – or maybe a full moon pose depending on if it’s post or pre bath time.  If he’s not working out with me, then he is sitting on my stomach while I do Pilate’s 100’s asking, “Mommy, how does your tummy feel?  Does it hurt yet?”

Bedtime with Mommy
My favorite part of the day is bedtime.  As much as I enjoy the quiet that ensues, I love spending time with my children before they fall asleep.  I’m not a co-dependent mom who has to smother her kids at bedtime, but we do read books and occasionally still rock and sing in the rocking chair.  My daughter is learning to read, so story time takes a lot longer, but I don’t mind so much.  I listen to their prayers, say prayers over them and tuck them into bed. When it’s time for me to turn out the light, each child has a routine.  My daughter gives me three kisses, says “I love you.  Goodnight. Have a great sleep,” exactly three times and then I tell her “No more talking.”  My son gives me one hug and a kiss and says, “Good night.  I love you.  When you gonna go to bed?”  I say, “Not for a long time. Don’t get out of bed.”  Maybe they’re weird.  I dunno.  If they are, they get it honestly.

Thankfully, we received a mild diagnosis of vision problems and my little boy was fitted with the cutest pair of glasses you’ve ever seen on a kid.  My friend’s nephew hasn’t been so lucky.  After a year of battling the disease, exhausting the family’s finances and enjoying a year in remission, at the age of six his cancer has returned.  The prognosis isn’t good.  The doctors are saying that the next course of action will be to remove the eye, it’s surrounding tissue and bone.  Even with those extremes, the odds are against them. 

I’ve never met this little boy and still, I cried today.

Over the past couple of years, I have learned the hard way how very FRAGILE this life is.  In the blink of an eye, our flimsy realities can shatter leaving us with only remnants of what used to be our lives.  The things that used to be important become irrelevant.  Dreams that once were sought after are abandoned.  Everything changes… the way you think, the way you live and certainly, the way you love.  While I never anticipated that I would grow up to be a crazy mom, I am so thankful that I did.  My little family is my whole world and they bring me more joy than all of the freedoms combined that a single life could ever offer me.  Even though my world is nothing short of pure chaos most of the time, it is EXACTLY where I want to be.

Tonight, before my head touches my pillow, I will sneak into my kids’ rooms and watch my babies sleep.  I will lean over their beds, kiss their cheeks and whisper in the dark how much I love them, how thankful I am to be their mom, and I will pray for their health and protection. 

Be thankful.

Back before I became a crazy mom, I didn’t quite mix in with my family.  In fact, I was like a drop of heathen oil in a vat full of Southern Baptist vinegar.  I can clearly remember looking at my parents and shouting at them, “I am going to choose the most difficult road in life possible and I’m going to make it just to prove to you that I can!”  Wow.  I imagine that they half expected me to sprout a second head at any moment.  My mother must’ve been wondering what she’d done wrong as a parent because even now, reading my insane statement, I’m left wondering if maybe she’d been smoking dope while I was in the womb. 

That’s a joke, Mom.  Don’t call and yell at me. 

Needless to say, I was wild and I worried my family to death.  But being the wonderful people that they are, they never gave up hope on me.  They prayed that someday I would come to my senses and I did.  That is what family does.  They hold out hope even for the hopeless.  They never stop believing, trying or loving.  They are always there with open arms, ready and willing to welcome the wandering back home.

Every day I worry that my children, particularly my daughter, will be just like me.  Even worse, I fear that she will not want to be anything like me.  Regardless of how I score on this life-quiz called motherhood, I hope that I will always live honestly in the eyes of my children. I pray that someday, they will look back and remember a mom that loved them more than life itself… despite the fact that she had an ugly second head from time to time.