What can I say? I love my little guys, like I do all my children. All of them are growing up way too fast. These are photos of my little guys and some of their animal pals from the past couple of weeks
I’m about as proud of my boys/children as these puffed up turkeys! 😉
Like most mothers, I want what’s best for my children, but conveying that is difficult sometimes especially when there are other factors involved and a pull from other directions. This means knowing when to be soft and when to be strong through the different situations that arise as a parent.
Life has taken me through many twists and turns. When I was young all I could think about was being grown up, but what I didn’t realize then was adulthood is so much harder than I ever thought it would be. I remember wanting to be a mother and having lots of children. Yes, you read that correctly. You see, I grew up babysitting and being around some amazing children. I was a Sunday School teacher, Nursery worker, Youth Group leader, camp counselor and I eventually “graduated” to become a teacher at the camp I attended as a kid and worked at as a teen. Those experiences helped me know I wanted to be a mother from a young age. The thing is, the parents around me never prepared me for what being a mother all entailed, after all I could leave the children that were in my charge in every situation I worked. Nothing can prepare you for being a full-time parent. While it is the hardest job I have ever tackled, it is the most rewarding job I have ever had. Especially when the fruit of our labor starts to show itself….years and years down the road. Try like 12-15 years. That’s a long time to wait after pouring your heart and soul into another person. Or multiple people. I know I spent countless hours in prayer and agony worrying about how my girls were going to turn out. I still worry, part of being a parent, I guess.
When to be Soft
As a mother, there are times when I am a big softie. I love buying my children things and seeing them delight in those things. I don’t usually go overboard, but when I have eight children to buy for a simple trip to the store can pretty expensive if I cave and get them each something they ask for. That’s why we have established a rule they are not to ask for things when we go into a store. There are exceptions of course, especially if it’s something we have been talking about getting and just never have.
I tend to be a softie when it comes to allowing my children to explore and create too. This translates into our basement being a complete mess, er, I mean a masterpiece of “creating”. Part of my philosophy of homeschooling is to give our children freedom to find out who they are and what they enjoy so they can discover their life’s work in the process. I don’t want to force my children into a square peg if they are a circle. An example of this is our older daughter, who has been given ample opportunity to write. Her goal is to become a published author. The world needs good authors and I believe she can and will become one in God’s timing.
Yet there are other times when as a parent I need to act strong and establish authority and discipline in our children’s lives.
When to be Strong
I think being the authority and disciplining is what I find most difficult about parenting. As I said, I am a huge softie, that also translates into being pretty sensitive. Yet, as a mother I want to do what is right for my children so that overrides my soft heart when it comes to making sure our children are being steered in the direction of being responsible, God-fearing citizens. For example, if Junior is screeching for his way that means I don’t give in to his demands because that would go against our goals for him as a person. It is much harder to remain strong than it is to give into him. My older daughters would say that we have grown soft over the years and while that may be true, our desire is still the same, we just may be adjusting how we reach the ultimate goal. After all the girls were our so-called guinea pigs, unfortunately.
I need to be strong when my children oppose my authority or else I am going to raise spoiled brats and they will never learn how to listen to anyone in their lives. Whether or not they work for themselves or for someone else they have to learn to take direction from people in authority. After all, don’t I obey speed limits out of fear of a speeding ticket from the police, an authority in my life? Children need boundaries and I need to be strong when establishing and enforcing them.
Soft or Strong Charmin Vote
Charmin knows about the soft and strong dilemma and invites you to cast your votes for your favorite Charmin: Ultra Soft or Ultra Strong on their Facebook page.
You may also connect with Charmin on their website:
http://www.charmin.com/
and
and
Follow @charmin on Twitter
We all have areas in our lives where we need to be soft and to be strong. The key is to determine those times in advance and stick to it through the hills and the valleys, especially as a parent.
“I am being compensated for this blog post as part of the SocialMoms and Charmin blogging program. The opinions and ideas expressed here are my own. For more blog posts on this topic, click here.”
On Sunday we went to the Day Out With Thomas (blog post coming soon!) in our area and the children played at the playground. Our oldest, RJ, took this cool shot of our four year old, “Nookie”.
What do you think of RJ’s cool playground photo?
Silly boys, silly boys underwear. 🙂 One day last week or the week before my two little boys somehow got baby’s new training pants and look what they did? I think all my children wore underwear on their heads at some point or another. All I can say is goofy!
Have your children worn underwear on their heads? Let me know!
On Tuesday I took my youngest daughter and oldest daughter shopping for children in need for a Champion For Kids campaign I am participating in. We will probably donate the items to our local food pantry or women’s and children’s shelter, such as Turning Point, they accept donations on behalf of women and children who have been victims of domestic battery. Both are right here in our town and are always in need of things. The last time we were at the food pantry was when we picked apples and delivered them in the fall. I had my boys carrying milk crates full of apples and the lady working there was so appreciative and impressed with the boys help that she gave them these little treats they have on hand for the kids. I thought that was so nice….but would have preferred my boys to feel good about being big helpers with words of appreciation not a treat. Not that a treat is wrong, but I want my children to learn to do good out of the goodness of their hearts and because it’s the right thing to do. Know what I mean?
Our Shopping Trip
We shopped for a laundry basket, a measuring tape, new UNO cards, socks for one of my sons, a few groceries and my oldest daughter wanted to look at blouses since she still had birthday money to spend. Guess what took up most of our shopping trip? Yep, my daughter and the blouses! 😉 We tried looking for Happy Baby products since I still had coupons for FREE products, but Walmart did not have them. We settled for Buddy Fruits instead since those would provide fruit for the kids who come to the food pantry or Turning Point.
We also used coupons for sliced cheese, cereal, crackers, tuna and baby wipes. I clipped some this morning from the internet and then found the tuna coupons in the All You magazine, which was good because the one thing the food pantry is lacking the most is protein and I noticed that Turning Point also has it on their list of needs. I think this is the first time I have consciously “couponed for good” and will definitely consider Couponing for Good again. It would be great to make it a monthly habit, as a way of giving back to our community and being an example to my children of how to make a difference with such a small SIMPLE service project.
You can see my whole shopping trip story on Google+.
Food Pantry Drop Off
I forgot the Food Pantry is closed on Tuesdays, so we will have to drop off our donations another day. But am now leaning towards dropping it off at Turning Point since finding out they have more regular hours that would accommodate my husband’s work schedule and allow me to run over after he gets home from work. My husband was home on Tuesday and I had the car so I could get our Azure food pick up at the Farm & Fleet parking lot, stop at the Secretary of State office to see what I needed to do to renew my license, returned to get my license renewed/replaced and then my oldest daughter and I also went to the animal shelter to check the status of a puppy we were interested in but she got adopted. 🙁 Then we ended our day by getting our hair cut.
Definitely a busy, but fun day.
Champions for Kids
To learn more about Champions for Kids visit:
Website: http://championsforkids.org/
Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/#!/champions4kids
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChampionsForKids
This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. #CBias #AllYouCFK
In our home it is hard to find time alone and I am sure many of you with young children have the same problem. Lately when I have found a quiet spot and settled in, one by one a child inevitably finds me, starts talking or asking me questions or just to play in the same room I am in. If I happen to express my frustration over being followed by stating, “Why do you all always follow me?” my older daughters have been saying, “But Mommy you are a magnet and we want to be with you.” And I dubbed myself the “Mama Magnet.”
As moms we should actually desire to be a Mama Magnet, it’s indicative that we are doing something right. If our children don’t want to be with us, then we should start worrying.
Part of motherhood involves giving of ourselves when it is not convenient or even desirable at times. It means my giving my 3 year old the kisses he wants to dole out even when I feel smothered by the 20th one. It means talking to my girls late into the night when I want to work or go to bed. It also means taking the time to watch my sons play with their new airplanes even though it is not new to me.
This week my motivation is to be a better Mama Magnet.
I captured some shots of our children at work and at play yesterday. I used the flickr slide show again. I just wanted to try it this week to see how I liked them and how you all liked them. Might try something different next week. Not sure what yet.
The first photo is of one of our older daughters (the third oldest) playing with her horses. I snapped a shot because soon enough she won’t be playing with them any more. Sniff. Sniff. She’s growing up! The second one is of our youngest daughter with our reading lesson book, 100 Easy Lessons, which I have used with all six older children to teach them to read. Blondie is doing wonderful and I really believe that the foundation that ABCmouse.com – Over 3,000 Educational Activities – First Month Free – Click here! gives the children has helped her supersede where she would have been otherwise. She is nearly sounding out the words silently and saying them fast – we are only on lesson 14! We are very pleased with ABCMouse.com. I don’t have to conj-ole or bribe the children to do their school work on ABCMouse. It’s that much fun. Ok, enough of my shameless, unpaid plug! 😉 (Update: I have since added an affiliate link above due to the amount of searches for it leading here! So we earn a few dollars if you click on our link and purchase a subscription.)
Back to the photos…next comes the blocks that were scattered on the floor. And if I was participating in my old friend’s “The Children Were Here” posts this is one that I would post as we always seem to have these blocks scattered. Then I shot one of a couple of school books that were laying around.
The next photo after that is of our two older boys shoveling the driveway for their Dad. The thing is I didn’t send them out there to do it, they volunteered. Granted they have always loved to shovel snow for some reason, but still it does this mama’s heart good when they do things like this without asking and especially thinking of their Dad who had to drive home on messy roads!
My oldest daughter has taken a dislike of being caught on camera, she’d rather be behind the lense these days! So when she put her laptop up in front of her face today as I was snapping a picture I told her I was going to post it! So that’s why that one is there! She’s a hard worker that one and has some solid work ethics already. She won’t go to the barn if she has too much work to do, nor will she goof off until her work is done. We are proud of her.
The rest of the photos are of two of the younger children doing their best to help shovel a little bit, the snow plow (the boys wanted me to get one of all the snow flying over the truck but I kept missing it) and just of our time outside.
The last photo is of a masked man…not sure where he came from or what he was doing in my house but my daughter caught him red handed! Isn’t he positively evil looking? Ha! 😉
If you are observing the birth of Jesus this Christmas, you may want to check out this free Nativity booklet from Answers in Genesis:
Merry Christmas!
As you all know, we have four little boys. (well, two of them are not so little anymore!) These boys bring a lot of joy to our lives, but they also cause a lot of pain – inflicted on themselves and others, like their siblings.
Our boys seem to enjoy doing things that are dangerous. They are always wrestling and one of them inevitability ends up getting hurt. It’s unfortunate they never stop their antics. They just keep going and going and going and….you get the picture.
Our sons are currently obsessed with super heroes since allowing them to watch the animated versions of Iron Man and Spider-Man. The two older boys are both tweens and have grown out of the Thomas the Tank and Sesame Street stage (just in time for my little boys to grow into it them!) and are constantly asking to watch super hero cartoons. If they aren’t playing Spider-Man, Thor, and Hulk then they are trying to find a way to re-enact their favorite cartoons. Those re-enactments usually involve using whatever dangerous stunt their favorite super hero pulled.
Our wild boys are open to jumping on conveyors, climbing tall of trees, climbing out their bedroom window, making bows and arrows and shooting them at one another, and my personal favorite – sharpening sticks and hitting/poking one another with them, while I am saying, “Don’t do that someone is going to get hurt!”
Thankfully with all the pharmacy automation it’s easy to purchase the products that we need to fix up our sons from one of their latest escapades. When they get hurt we handle them with much care, much like you would handle a material handling system.
You’d think they’d learn…..I swear they have nine lives instead of just one. We do try to stop them from pulling these stunts. But some days they just do stuff without my knowledge and I find out after the fact from another siblings or when they come running asking for a bandage. You know that old saying…..boys will be boys…..is very true!
