MaeLyn's Musings

Today was a fun day. On Friday mornings I usually play volleyball with a bunch of friends. We meet at a local church building and play in one half of the gym while the kids play in the other half. It is usually a highlight of my week. Today it didn't really happen as planned. We showed up, and two other girls showed up, but because of spring break, or sickness, or whatever, we were the only ones. Four just isn't enough to get a good game going so after about forty five minutes of waiting to see if anyone else would show up we took down the net. Meanwhile, some other ladies arrived to use the church for an activity--relay races and games and such for the kids. They invited us to stay, and since I had nothing better to do we stayed. The kids enjoyed the relay races with pool noodles. They batted balloons around with fly swatters, they popped balloons to get candy out of the middle. They traced around their bodies on huge sheets of paper and then colored them in. They made paper a...

I am ready for this week to be over. Today has been a long day. The cleaning this morning went fine. The kids finished almost all the job strips that I had. I think the only one they didn't finish was "Clean Peter's chair". I don't really blame them; the food is stuck on and the chair is filthy. I guess I'll have to do that one myself. After the hour of cleaning the public areas of the house, I told the kids that if they could get their bedrooms clean before noon, I would take them out for ice cream. That was motivation enough for Hannah. She cleaned her room pretty well, although her closet still needs work. The boys, on the other hand, were not motivated by ice cream. At noon, I don't think they had even picked up one thing. They spent most of the afternoon in their room, playing. It wasn't until about 5pm that John started picking up some things. Hannah spent much of the afternoon complaining that she was bored, and that she doesn't get to go ge...

We made it to the park today! Today has been the best so far. The cleaning went smoothly, and John even asked if we could keep the job strips until Summer. I guess he really likes this way of doing the work. I like it because the kids help with the cleaning and it doesn't feel like just me. After the house was clean we packed up buckets, shovels, sandwiches and water bottles and went to the Sensory Park in Westminster. The kids had fun there and we actually stayed for about 3 1/2 hours. I brought a book to read while the kids played, so the time seemed to pass quickly. After about 3 hours, Hannah was ready to leave, and it took a while to convince her brothers that we had been there long enough. When we got home the kids watched TV for a while and then John went to a friend's house and I played Hide and Seek with the kids in the yard until Steven got home and I had to make dinner. This has really been a fun day, even if I did get a lopsided sunburn at the park!

Day two of Spring Break is drawing to a close and the biggest question on my mind is, "Will we ever get to go to the park?" This morning the hour of cleaning went well. Hannah did ten strips, but one was put back in the bucket because it wasn't done well enough. John did five strips. I had an appointment to go to the park at 10am to meet a couple sisters I visit teach. About 9:40 I was ready to go out to the car, kids were dressed to the shoes, I had a snack packed, we were ready to go. And John threw up. So I called my companion and let her know we couldn't be going after all. Hannah was really disappointed, and blamed John, who proceeded to throw up twice more in the next hour. The remainder of the day was not fun. We couldn't go anywhere with John sick. After a while I tried to do some things on the computer and the whole time John, who was feeling better by then, was asking, "When are you going to be done?" and "What more do you have to do?...

Today was the first day of Spring Break: four kids at home all day, instead of one or two, twice as many kids to keep entertained all day, twice the mess. Today actually wasn't all that bad. Last night I made a list of all the things I could think of that the kids could clean, wipe, dust, organize, sweep or wipe in the public areas of the house and then cut the list up into strips. I ended up with over forty items; most things could be done in five to ten minutes. Then I consolidated all the candy in the house to one large jar. This morning during breakfast I explained what we were going to do. From 8 until 9 the kids could pull job strips from the bucket and do them. At the end of the hour, they could trade in their completed job strips (I had checked them for completion as they did them) for candy. I had intended to do some of the job strips myself, but ended up doing things that weren't on the strips, helping Joshua do his job strips and checking and instructing Hannah and J...

One day each week Hannah and John have an early dismissal day where they get out of school over an hour early. Being the mean mom that I am, I don't let them use the extra time to play with friends or watch TV or even play games on the computer. No, early dismissal day is the day my kids are supposed to clean their rooms. They aren't supposed to play or do other fun things until their rooms are clean. (By clean, I just mean the clutter is picked up enough that the floor can be thoroughly vacuumed.) I assume my children are somewhat normal when I say that they don't like to clean their rooms. Instead of picking it up quickly so they can join their friends who are constantly knocking on the door asking if they can play and if they are done yet, my children will play with the things they are supposed to be picking up, occasionally making a worse mess than the one they started with. Sometimes they try to ignore me, and don't clean their rooms at all, hoping I'll forget...

This morning we were driving home after dropping my older two children off at school, and my four year old son asked me, "When we get home, can we have lunch?" I looked at the car clock, and realized I hadn't changed it for Daylight Savings Time yet. It read 7:42. AM. Joshua had just finished eating his breakfast maybe forty minutes before. I hadn't even gotten around to clearing his cereal bowl from the table yet! I've been a parent for about eight and a half years, and I'm still trying to figure out kids' eating habits. Here are a few rules that I've found apply to most kids. Remember that all rules, especially ones that pertain to children, have plenty of exceptions, usually when it is most inconvenient. Rule #1: Any time is (or should be) snack time. Kids always seem to be hungry. It doesn't matter if they just ate a huge meal half an hour ago, or if dinner is in five minutes, they are hungry now . A few days ago I was putting the finishing to...

I wanted to sew today. It is Monday, and Monday mornings are busy with cleaning up from the weekend (I don't do much picking up on Sundays.) Steven painted the master bathroom on Saturday, and so this morning I needed to take down the newspaper around the edges and tidy up in there. The floors throughout the house were also in desperate need of vacuuming, and since I did the shopping for the month on Saturday, I also needed to straighten the pantry and get the food cans in order. (For some reason my kids like to play with the cans, stacking them and who knows what?) So most of the morning was spent cleaning, straightening and vacuuming. I also made Jell-O (Joshua's choice) for dessert for our Family Home Evening tonight and I've got chicken stock simmering on the stove. On top of everything else, John has caught some kind of stomach bug and was throwing up much of the morning. Finally, about 11:00 I could begin the project I had hoped to do today. I'm using Simplicity ...

My newest hobby is sewing. Last year I got a sewing machine for my birthday. I was thrilled! I started learning how to quilt, but lacking any knowledge about quilting, or my own rotary cutter and rulers, it was rather slow going, having to wait until my friends were available to let me borrow their tools and show me what to do. But it was fun. For Christmas last year I received a gift certificate to Joann's, so not only was I able to buy my own rotary cutter, mat and rulers, but I could buy fabric and patterns. Since then, I've really enjoyed sewing. One of my first projects (besides the quilt which is still in progress) has been a renaissance dress. I don't know why, but I've always wanted one. Maybe it is just something that has stayed with me from my childhood--the love of dressing up, the romance of the past. But for whatever reason, I decided to make one. I finally finished it on Friday. The pattern I used was a simplicity pattern . It was easy enough to follow and...