Back to School
Just this morning while sitting in what I'll call 2nd church, the preacher commented on the thrill that many parents feel when school starts back up and you finally get your kids out of the house and out of your hair. Well, I politely disagree. I love my kids in my hair. Much to my sisters dismay, I also enjoy poorly executed music lessons and even being the head of the event planning committee.
Two years ago, we made the decision to home-school. It was easy to decide we wanted to spend more quality time with our children. It was easy to find a plethora of curricula to choose from. The hard part was retraining.
About this same time, I began to feel exhausted-more than usual. I had pressing fatigue that was often overwhelming. I was having trouble staying awake to work with the kids, take care of the house, even more frightening-I often was too drowsy to drive. I have had 2 varieties of Epstein-Barr viruses, and was told that chronic fatigue was a potential ongoing side effect. This was more. I could barely walk some days, I ached and small things (like opening jars) became very difficult. I am a fairly active person. I had been advised to quit running after #7 due to hip pain, but I have always loved to ride my bike. I regularly work out with weights. We actually have a fairly well outfitted, dedicated work out room. This was not normal for me. I don't like to feel weak and I rarely give in to physical challenged. This had me beat. Several vials of blood given for testing later...I tested positive for the factor that typically accompanies Rheumatoid Arthritis. It runs strongly through my family. Ever the optimist, I saw this as an excuse to take the kids on field trips when I drove to a the highly recommended specialist 2 hours away. Even now, I don't think my family really understands what I feel like and none of the protocols have work well so far, but worse, it took away so much I wanted to do with my kids, because I truly just CAN'T. Ugh. Stupid RA.
I have always loved getting up very early and staying up very late and except for a few bouts of the lingering E-B fatigue, I have mostly been happy on just about 5 hours of sleep. Now 8 doesn't exist, but I desperately want it. True sleep eludes me, but if I get near the 8 hour mark I am fairly functional.
So that brings us back to "retraining". First, I had to retrain myself to a better sleep pattern (still not even close). Second, I had to convince the kiddos that they had to get up and get rolling even if I couldn't. That is also not perfected. We refine our routine often, but it is always improving. The best part is including more prayer in our day, bible reading as a family and learning to be a loving family and not just a bunch of people that eat and sleep here.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Starting over
I feel like I am in a spinning door and I can't get out. All of my laundry, dirty dishes and general mess is in here too. I can see a beautiful world where I spend time in thoughtful meditation every day, go to bed at 930 and run every day. I just can't get out of this spinning chaos.
I have to do something to make a change. I am in a constant state of extreme exhaustion. I am in horrible physical condition. I can't get just my daily chores done, much less anything extra.
I tried a year ago to live by a rule. I realize now that I was trying to embrace something without meaning. I need to seek the meaning. I watched a video yesterday, sent in an email, of a man named Nick Vujicic. It was so moving. How can he do so much, and I do so little. Faith. I am a shallow person. I seek faith, but I never quite open up to it. Something is holding me back, I always feel like I am just going through the motions.
Today is a new day. God help me.
I have to do something to make a change. I am in a constant state of extreme exhaustion. I am in horrible physical condition. I can't get just my daily chores done, much less anything extra.
I tried a year ago to live by a rule. I realize now that I was trying to embrace something without meaning. I need to seek the meaning. I watched a video yesterday, sent in an email, of a man named Nick Vujicic. It was so moving. How can he do so much, and I do so little. Faith. I am a shallow person. I seek faith, but I never quite open up to it. Something is holding me back, I always feel like I am just going through the motions.
Today is a new day. God help me.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Which came first the chicken or the egg?
While being a wife and mother often go together, they are not mutually exclusive. You can definitely be one and not the other. You can also be a placeholder in the role of wife or mother while not being either.
I often feel that is what I am doing. It is part of the great fraud. I wake up and feel like I am in a dream. Am I doing this right? Is there some secret club meeting I missed that told you the instructions for this job.
I thought when I married Jim that we would have so much fun. He had it all going on: good looking, Harley riding , redneck romantic with a 4x4, tight jeans and a penchant for Jack Daniels. It was like a dream come true. He opened the car door, guided me with his strong hand on the small of my back and gave me kisses that made me melt. I imagined a few years of fun dates and setting up house together. Instead I got pregnant 3 months after we eloped and spent the first year of our marriage nauseous! I tried to do my duties as I saw them and I think I did a pretty good job. I cooked and cleaned and handled the finances. It wasn't very hard. We both had old bills to pay off and we got by and even got it all paid off after a few years. Jim worked all the time and I realized that I would rather have that than a jobless hanger-on. But it was hard to be home alone so much. I went from having two jobs and a very busy social life to sitting at home pregnant in a town where I didn't know anyone. I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. My life had changed so dramatically in just a few months. It felt like a bad movie. I was sooo ill and playing house with someone I soon realized I barely knew.
Some things came easily to me.
I really like my house very clean and organized so that part was simple. I love to cook, but Jim ate very differently than I did so I had to figure out how to find a middle road in the kitchen. It was a challenge and for the first year or so we had a lot of bad casseroles! There were a few things we agreed on and Taco Tuesday is a tradition in our house to this day. I have gotten the family to expand their palette to include chicken, pork and even fish tacos which helps me enjoy cooking them more.
So to my question: the chicken or the egg. I became a mother so quickly after becoming a wife that I didn't really get to master the one before taking on the other.
Now, 17 years later, I feel like I have been hanging on to the edge of a cliff and barely pulling myself up a handhold at a time and slipping down as often as climbing up. I want to be a good wife, but I want to be a good mom and it is often hard to know which trumps the other. These two vocations seem to be in conflict more than they should.
I will defer to Jim in all situations, even if I believe he is dead wrong, because he is the head of our family. He has earned that much. I have a hard time doing that, but it has become a very important point for me. I am not good at giving up control of anything, so deferring to Jim, especially when I think he is wrong goes against my basic nature. (If you can read The Temperament God Gave You and The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse, preferably together) Do not for one minute think that this deferral plays out easily. It takes a concerted effort on my part and sometimes an argument followed by some cooling off time before I completely give in. I may still try a new logic on him when we are both calm, but ultimately I have to give in. It is my God directed duty. I do believe that. It would shock most people I know to hear that. I deeply believe that God gave Jim to me to take care of and share my life with. It follows that as a gift from God he is to be treasured above all else. My duty to him is first (after God).
This same logic also applies to my children and this is where the conflict begins.
So do I try to be the best wife to my husband or the best mom. It can seem like a choice between being an astronaut or a mine worker.
I know that the only way I will be successful is if I can figure out how to make the two things one. They came they way they did, just like the other six children we had. All of the moves, job changes, houses bought and sold, tragedies and triumphs, they came when God gave them to us and it is up to us to learn from those experiences the best we can.
I often feel that is what I am doing. It is part of the great fraud. I wake up and feel like I am in a dream. Am I doing this right? Is there some secret club meeting I missed that told you the instructions for this job.
I thought when I married Jim that we would have so much fun. He had it all going on: good looking, Harley riding , redneck romantic with a 4x4, tight jeans and a penchant for Jack Daniels. It was like a dream come true. He opened the car door, guided me with his strong hand on the small of my back and gave me kisses that made me melt. I imagined a few years of fun dates and setting up house together. Instead I got pregnant 3 months after we eloped and spent the first year of our marriage nauseous! I tried to do my duties as I saw them and I think I did a pretty good job. I cooked and cleaned and handled the finances. It wasn't very hard. We both had old bills to pay off and we got by and even got it all paid off after a few years. Jim worked all the time and I realized that I would rather have that than a jobless hanger-on. But it was hard to be home alone so much. I went from having two jobs and a very busy social life to sitting at home pregnant in a town where I didn't know anyone. I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. My life had changed so dramatically in just a few months. It felt like a bad movie. I was sooo ill and playing house with someone I soon realized I barely knew.
Some things came easily to me.
I really like my house very clean and organized so that part was simple. I love to cook, but Jim ate very differently than I did so I had to figure out how to find a middle road in the kitchen. It was a challenge and for the first year or so we had a lot of bad casseroles! There were a few things we agreed on and Taco Tuesday is a tradition in our house to this day. I have gotten the family to expand their palette to include chicken, pork and even fish tacos which helps me enjoy cooking them more.
So to my question: the chicken or the egg. I became a mother so quickly after becoming a wife that I didn't really get to master the one before taking on the other.
Now, 17 years later, I feel like I have been hanging on to the edge of a cliff and barely pulling myself up a handhold at a time and slipping down as often as climbing up. I want to be a good wife, but I want to be a good mom and it is often hard to know which trumps the other. These two vocations seem to be in conflict more than they should.
I will defer to Jim in all situations, even if I believe he is dead wrong, because he is the head of our family. He has earned that much. I have a hard time doing that, but it has become a very important point for me. I am not good at giving up control of anything, so deferring to Jim, especially when I think he is wrong goes against my basic nature. (If you can read The Temperament God Gave You and The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse, preferably together) Do not for one minute think that this deferral plays out easily. It takes a concerted effort on my part and sometimes an argument followed by some cooling off time before I completely give in. I may still try a new logic on him when we are both calm, but ultimately I have to give in. It is my God directed duty. I do believe that. It would shock most people I know to hear that. I deeply believe that God gave Jim to me to take care of and share my life with. It follows that as a gift from God he is to be treasured above all else. My duty to him is first (after God).
This same logic also applies to my children and this is where the conflict begins.
So do I try to be the best wife to my husband or the best mom. It can seem like a choice between being an astronaut or a mine worker.
I know that the only way I will be successful is if I can figure out how to make the two things one. They came they way they did, just like the other six children we had. All of the moves, job changes, houses bought and sold, tragedies and triumphs, they came when God gave them to us and it is up to us to learn from those experiences the best we can.
Monday, March 7, 2011
What is my Vocation
Dictionary. com defines Vocation as follows:
[voh-key-shuh
n] 
Show IPA
The vocation I am referring to today is the last one.
My station in life is wife and mom. I look back at when I met and married Jim and I realize that I chose this station. I told him I always thought I would be a stay at home mom. I said that because I thought that stay at home moms send their kids off to school, tidy up, have lunch with friends, run errands, come home, cook dinner while helping kids with their homework and finally meet their husbands at the door with a smile and a kiss and dinner on the table(hot).
Wow was I DELUSIONAL!!!!!
I realize now that a real stay at home mom has a very different day... I start my day by brushing my teeth, starting a load of laundry and brewing coffee. I empty the dishwasher and pour Jim's coffee, I eat something quick because I never know how long it will be before I eat again. I wake up my oldest daughter (who hates morning and me and getting woken up) for the first time and then start breakfast. I take Jim his coffee and get his lunch order. Then I wake up my oldest daughter (2nd time). I check on breakfast and get out lunch items then go to my oldest daughters room where she is just now jumping up to act like I didn't almost just see her still in bed for the 3rd time. Now it is time to wake my boys. They are more agreeable, but no more enthusiastic to get out of bed. I take more lunch orders and head back to the kitchen. Now I get breakfast for Jim and wrap up lunches. I head to the bathroom to make sure my eldest son doesn't take a 30 minute shower. On the way back to the kitchen I check in on Girl 1 who is usually redoing her hair or trying an elaborate hair-do on Girl 2 (6 years) who is crying and begging for her to let me do it (which I don't have time for, but will do considering the alternative). I try to locate and clean Jim's travel mug so I can get his cup-to-go ready. He usually comes strolling through about this time, oblivious to all of the action around him, and acting like the house is on fire and he's late for escape. The funny part about that is not that he's in a hurry to get out of the house, but that he is a workaholic and compulsively needs to be the first one to the office. Whew! One out the door 5 to go. Girl 3 is at the breakfast bar demanding food she will not eat until everyone else has left, but nonetheless wants now(!). About now boys 2(9yrs) and 3(11yrs) are milling around the kitchen, not sure what to do even though I have asked them to get up to the counter and eat at least 3 times. They begin to remind me of those cars we had as children that went in a line until it hit something and then backed up, turned and went off in random new direction. Meanwhile I am trying to dodge them while getting glasses of milk, plates filled, lunches packed and at least 2 more trips in to motivate Girl 1. Boy 1 is now dressed and turning on the computer to print some urgent information for school (AKA: syncing his ipod). Everyone needs to brush their teeth at the same time someone has a #2 emergency and uses the kids bathroom instead of mine so that no one can get in to brush. This makes me want to take the doorknob off and hope they learn to plan better if they want privacy. How much privacy do you have when there are 4 people standing outside the door knocking and waiting impatiently for you? Hopefully I will get most of them out the door in time for the bus. Just barely, and have the bunny and dogs been fed? No, that'll be my job today. Boy 1 drives more than he rides the bus due to sports. Jim's schedule is to erratic for me to count on him to pick kids up from sports. I don't like to have to drive to school just to come back (not a good use of my time or gas) and 10 miles is to far to make the kids walk home. So it makes sense to let him drive, but it has also become a crutch for slow siblings who miss the bus. Finally, everyone is out the door. My first major achievement of the day. Also, the first guilty pleasure. It feels wrong to be so relieved that they are gone for most of the day. Just as I think I am going to get the kitchen cleaned up right away, I hear the call of girl4(7 mo.). She is in my bed, so I have to grab her fast before she has time to scooch off the bed.
The rest of my day is equally chaotic.
So if being a wife and mother is what God has called me to do why do I feel like it is punishment for something I must have done very wrong, and if I change how I feel about it will it change how I do it? Am I truly honoring God in my calling? What does that mean to honor God in all I do? How do you change diapers to serve the Lord?
I often feel like some kind of fraud going through the motions without knowing what I'm doing or how to do it. I have this nagging fear that I will do or say something or even worse that my children will do or say something that gives me away and then everyone will know what a charlatan I am. It's like driving without a license, only with a blindfold and both hands tied behind my back. How long can I keep steering with my knees before I crash?
I have decided that I need to do something about it. I have tried many things over the years to get myself together, but I haven't yet found the system that works for me. I plan to try making several changes in how I run the house and hope the family and I will embrace them and that our daily lives will improve as well as our family life overall.
vo·ca·tion
n] Show IPA
–noun
2.
a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity orcareer.
The vocation I am referring to today is the last one.
My station in life is wife and mom. I look back at when I met and married Jim and I realize that I chose this station. I told him I always thought I would be a stay at home mom. I said that because I thought that stay at home moms send their kids off to school, tidy up, have lunch with friends, run errands, come home, cook dinner while helping kids with their homework and finally meet their husbands at the door with a smile and a kiss and dinner on the table(hot).
Wow was I DELUSIONAL!!!!!
I realize now that a real stay at home mom has a very different day... I start my day by brushing my teeth, starting a load of laundry and brewing coffee. I empty the dishwasher and pour Jim's coffee, I eat something quick because I never know how long it will be before I eat again. I wake up my oldest daughter (who hates morning and me and getting woken up) for the first time and then start breakfast. I take Jim his coffee and get his lunch order. Then I wake up my oldest daughter (2nd time). I check on breakfast and get out lunch items then go to my oldest daughters room where she is just now jumping up to act like I didn't almost just see her still in bed for the 3rd time. Now it is time to wake my boys. They are more agreeable, but no more enthusiastic to get out of bed. I take more lunch orders and head back to the kitchen. Now I get breakfast for Jim and wrap up lunches. I head to the bathroom to make sure my eldest son doesn't take a 30 minute shower. On the way back to the kitchen I check in on Girl 1 who is usually redoing her hair or trying an elaborate hair-do on Girl 2 (6 years) who is crying and begging for her to let me do it (which I don't have time for, but will do considering the alternative). I try to locate and clean Jim's travel mug so I can get his cup-to-go ready. He usually comes strolling through about this time, oblivious to all of the action around him, and acting like the house is on fire and he's late for escape. The funny part about that is not that he's in a hurry to get out of the house, but that he is a workaholic and compulsively needs to be the first one to the office. Whew! One out the door 5 to go. Girl 3 is at the breakfast bar demanding food she will not eat until everyone else has left, but nonetheless wants now(!). About now boys 2(9yrs) and 3(11yrs) are milling around the kitchen, not sure what to do even though I have asked them to get up to the counter and eat at least 3 times. They begin to remind me of those cars we had as children that went in a line until it hit something and then backed up, turned and went off in random new direction. Meanwhile I am trying to dodge them while getting glasses of milk, plates filled, lunches packed and at least 2 more trips in to motivate Girl 1. Boy 1 is now dressed and turning on the computer to print some urgent information for school (AKA: syncing his ipod). Everyone needs to brush their teeth at the same time someone has a #2 emergency and uses the kids bathroom instead of mine so that no one can get in to brush. This makes me want to take the doorknob off and hope they learn to plan better if they want privacy. How much privacy do you have when there are 4 people standing outside the door knocking and waiting impatiently for you? Hopefully I will get most of them out the door in time for the bus. Just barely, and have the bunny and dogs been fed? No, that'll be my job today. Boy 1 drives more than he rides the bus due to sports. Jim's schedule is to erratic for me to count on him to pick kids up from sports. I don't like to have to drive to school just to come back (not a good use of my time or gas) and 10 miles is to far to make the kids walk home. So it makes sense to let him drive, but it has also become a crutch for slow siblings who miss the bus. Finally, everyone is out the door. My first major achievement of the day. Also, the first guilty pleasure. It feels wrong to be so relieved that they are gone for most of the day. Just as I think I am going to get the kitchen cleaned up right away, I hear the call of girl4(7 mo.). She is in my bed, so I have to grab her fast before she has time to scooch off the bed.
The rest of my day is equally chaotic.
So if being a wife and mother is what God has called me to do why do I feel like it is punishment for something I must have done very wrong, and if I change how I feel about it will it change how I do it? Am I truly honoring God in my calling? What does that mean to honor God in all I do? How do you change diapers to serve the Lord?
I often feel like some kind of fraud going through the motions without knowing what I'm doing or how to do it. I have this nagging fear that I will do or say something or even worse that my children will do or say something that gives me away and then everyone will know what a charlatan I am. It's like driving without a license, only with a blindfold and both hands tied behind my back. How long can I keep steering with my knees before I crash?
I have decided that I need to do something about it. I have tried many things over the years to get myself together, but I haven't yet found the system that works for me. I plan to try making several changes in how I run the house and hope the family and I will embrace them and that our daily lives will improve as well as our family life overall.
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