MaeLyn's Musings

This morning was a challenge. It's hard for both kids and parents to adjust to having routines and schedules again after a relaxing summer, and today was evidence of that. I have one child who needs more sleep than any of my others. He usually goes to sleep earlier than any one else, and he still has trouble getting up in the morning. Seminary started yesterday, and luckily he isn't old enough for seminary yet, because he comes to family scripture reading at 5:30, with his pillow and blankets, and only lifts his head from the pillow when it is his turn to read. As soon as we finish, before Steven leaves to take Hannah to seminary, he is the first to return to his bed. I wake the kids up again at 7am. This is sufficient time for the kids to get dressed and get ready for school... or it should be. Two of my boys were dressed with lunches packed and shoes on and ready to go at 7:45, which is the time we aim to leave. The other one had stayed in bed until 7:30, and spent the n...

A few days ago, I read a blog which made me realize that I have made a serious mistake as a mother. I have unconsciously convinced my children that life is about having fun. I don't know exactly when it started. Maybe it was when they started school and I would send them off telling them to "have fun today." Maybe it was when I would try to begin a conversation at the dinner table by asking, "Who had fun today?" Maybe it was when my children would return home from school, an activity, or a friend's house, and the first thing I would ask them was, "Did you have fun?" At any rate, the damage has been done. In the children's prayers, they frequently ask, "please bless that we will have a fun day today." I have one child who has recently made a habit of asking, "What can I do that is fun?" And if I ask this child to do any chores, the response is frequently, "But that's not fun!" I'm not saying that there ...

I was putting Peter to bed a few days ago, and he was sad because he wanted his monkey to sleep with. "You have a pillow monkey", I told him... But he didn't want that one. "How about this one, from Christmas last year?" But he didn't want that one either.   "The one I want is smaller," he told me helpfully.     "Well, how about this one? Or this one?   Or this one? Or this?" "No, no, no, the one I want is brown!" "Like this one? Or this one?" "No! None of those are the one I want!" "That's all the monkeys I can find!                    Does it have to be a monkey?                                    Could you sleep with Elmo? Or his good frie...

A little over a week ago, on Oct 5th, a girl named Jessica Ridgeway disappeared on her way to school. Five days later, her body was found, dismembered in such a way that it took two days for authorities to say decisively that the body was hers. She lived only 7 1/2 miles from us. As of now, police appear to have no suspects. At my own boys' K-8 school last week a 14 year old boy sexually assaulted a six year old. The incident was immediately reported, the 14 year old was removed from school, and letters have been sent home to assure us that increased security measures have been put in place to keep it from happening again. Hannah usually walks with friends to her bus stop. She learned last night that one of those friends wouldn't be walking to school with her until Jessica Ridgeway's killer is apprehended. This morning, I made sure that the boys were ready earlier so we could all walk together to Hannah's bus stop, and from there to the boys' school. I refuse...

Last night I took the three older children to scouts and Young Womens. When I returned home, Peter was sound asleep in bed, but I could see what he had been doing. Several of Peter's favorite stuffed animals were lined up against the wall, each with either a backpack or a jacket. Facing them was the rocking chair and bench/desk with some books. Of all my children, Peter is the most attached to his stuffed animals. How many of your children set up elaborate games to play with their stuffed animals? (And how do you teach them to put the toys away when they are done with them - without being reminded?)

A week ago I was so happy. Peter seemed to be making progress. He was telling me when he needed to go. And then came this week. He still holds it for long periods of time, but he won't let it go when he is sitting on the potty! He'll wake up in the morning with a dry diaper and I'll have him sit on the potty, knowing he must need to go, but he doesn't want to sit on the potty anymore, and he won't let go while he's sitting there! Half an hour after I give up trying to get him to go in the potty he'll have an accident. Today he had three accidents before lunch, the last one while he was sitting in a clean laundry basket. (Luckily I had finished folding the laundry that had been in it!) At that point I snapped and put a diaper on him because I couldn't deal with accidents calmly anymore. I'll try again later, when I can remember that this, too, shall pass.

Today for the first time, Peter managed to stay dry all day, with no accidents. What is even more exciting to me is that (again for the first time today) he even told me, twice, that he needed to go potty - before it was too late! I am so thrilled! Over the last two weeks, he's been doing pretty well. I found a bath toy duck that can "pee" into the potty, and that seemed to motivate Peter to want to go in the potty, rather than just sitting on the potty for a few seconds and being "done" and then peeing on the floor a few minutes later. Peter is also really good at going long periods of time without needing to go. He lasted through all three hours of church today, and told me he needed to go just before we left, and he was still dry. I don't seem to need to worry about him having accidents when he takes naps, and twice this last week his diapers were dry in the morning. (I wish I could say the same for Joshua!) I cross my fingers and really hope that this i...

The idea of potty training is enough to send a shiver down my back and make me shudder. You'd think it would get easier after you've trained a few children and figured it out. Someone without children might think that. The fact is that every child is different, unique and special, and that a parent has to figure out different, unique and special ways to deal with each one, especially for something as personal, yet important, as using the potty. When I potty trained my daughter, it was pretty easy. I read a copy of "How to Potty Train in Less Than a Day", bought some M&M's for treats and some princess underwear and set to. It didn't happen in less than a day, but by the third day she had figured out what she was supposed to do and from that time on she was pretty consistent about using the potty. I don't mean to say she didn't have accidents, because she did, but they were rare and far between. And then came my sons. I won't go into details, bu...

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...