May/Decmber Romance

May is a lot like December here at The Zoo.

Some might argue that the weather is similar where we live - clouds, rain, wind - but it's more than that.

We romanticize the thing that we are looking forward to.  In December, it's Christmas. There is so much we want to accomplish before the 25th. We want to be sure that our children understand the significance of the reason that we choose to celebrate Christmas, but I am talking about the things we do leading up to the party.

We want to get the gifts bought, wrapped, and delivered.
We want to get the cookies baked, the fudge made, the eggnog chilled.
We want to get the photos taken, the cards printed and mailed.
We want to put up the tree, hang the decorations, light the lights.

We feel giddy with anticipation. We make even more plans. Lets go drive around and look at other people's lights! Let's make gingerbread houses! Let's make soups and goodies for the elderly and infirm in our neighborhood! Let's go caroling! (there are nine of us, it's a big group).

Suddenly, the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas can be overwhelming.  All of the things we wanted to do, because we see them through peppermint lenses, are burdens that distract us.

Well, here it is...May.  We aren't donning hand crocheted scarves and hats, but we are pulling the shorts out of storage, taking stock of flip flops, hoping our sunglasses made it through the winter intact.
Children are shouting about playing in the sprinkler, setting up the pool, going swimming at the river.  They are trying to leave the house in the morning in tank tops without a sweater.  School will be out soon, and the residents at The Zoo see no reason to continue their studies.

 The sun shines down on us about twice a week now. That's 200% more sun than we saw last month!
The boys want their hair buzz cut, the lawn screams to be mowed, the flower beds beg for attention. Spring isn't over yet, and we are acting like summer is just around the corner!

We are distracted from what is important, looking through leisure tinted lenses at what lies ahead. 

My best memories of summer vacations are of climbing a tree with a book, sitting there for hours -if I could get away with it.

My Zoo wants to go, go, go, go!  They have romanticized the coming warm months. They have forgotten about going to bed when daylight still shines, and neighbor children still shout outside. They don't remember that their chore lists don't dissolve when the thermometer reads over 65.  They do not care that fuel prices have risen dramatically.

I do not want them to despise the summer months for what they can not do, so I let them allow them to continue to romanticize through May.

June will be here soon enough.

It's Finally Clean!

It's clean, It's clean! It's finally clean!

The bedroom that I share with my husband has been clean a few times over the 11 years that we have been in this house. But that's it.  We have a teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy, wee little dwelling place. With seven children. And a dog.

The parents' room, sadly, became the dumping grounds.
"Mom! Where do I put this?"
"Just put it in my room."
This conversation has been had hundreds of times. Too often, something comes into the house that doesn't yet have a place of it's own. Often it's something that needs to be safe from little hands, or stored until further use. When there are three children in one bedroom and four in the next, you can be sure that every corner is used carefully.

Not in my room. Packed, perhaps, but not carefully.

Here's how it happened: Two of the boys are growing, therefore, the clothes they were are also become increasingly longer. The clothing was not longer fitting in the closet the way it was set up. I needed a new solution, but still had to fit clothing for four  boys in the same amount of space.

My solution was to pull out an old trick that my Step-Mom taught me. Re-purpose the furniture.
We don't us bureaus because they take up precious space. Instead, in my closet, hubby and I each had a tower of wire baskets bought at Ikea. I looked through them and found that Most of my clothes hang, so my baskets were filled with all sorts of  'stuff'.

You guessed it, the boys ended up with my set of baskets, and their jeans now reside comfortably.
As a result of removing my baskets, I changed the configuration of our closet, got rid of a bunch of stuff that turned out to be junk. Since I was cleaning up the closet, I figured I would clean up the other corners piled with stored items.

It turns out that much of what was stored now had a 'place', we had just forgotten that we had the items. I found some things that I had put away for Christmas and birthdays, so it looks like I get to trim that budget this year! I also found things that I wasn't entirely sure I had ever seen come into the house.

By the end of the day, I had removed six bags of stuff from my room. I didn't know I could fit that much stuff in there!

It's actually nice to get out of bed in the morning and not look at all that stuff!

When A Word Goes Awry

Do you discipline your children? Why, or why not? 

It is important that we teach our children to practice discipline, and that we practice discipline with our children.  

Undisciplined children become undisciplined adults.


There are a great many parenting articles, books, and speakers teaching us to manage the growing up years of these amazing blessings, our children.  Most of them are currently in agreement that discipline of children is cruel and misleading.  


Is it possible that the very word discipline no longer means what it used to?


Take a look. 

The first set of definitions is from Webster's Dictionary 1828.  The second set is from the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary online.




DISCIPLINE, n. [L., to learn.]

1. Education; instruction; cultivation and improvement, comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals and manners, and due subordination to authority.

2. Instruction and government, comprehending the communication of knowledge and the regulation of practice; as military discipline, which includes instruction in manual exercise, evolutions and subordination.

3. Rule of government; method of regulating principles and practice; as the discipline prescribed for the church.

4. Subjection to laws, rules, order, precepts or regulations; as, the troops are under excellent discipline; the passions should be kept under strict discipline.

5. Correction; chastisement; punishment intended to correct crimes or errors; as the discipline of the strap.

6. In ecclesiastical affairs, the execution of the laws by which the church is governed, and infliction of the penalties enjoined against offenders, who profess the religion of Jesus Christ.

7. Chastisement or bodily punishment inflicted on a delinquent in the Romish Church; or that chastisement or external mortification which a religious person inflicts on himself.DISCIPLINE, v.t.

1. To instruct or educate; to inform the mind; to prepare by instructing in correct principles and habits; as, to discipline youth for a profession, or for future usefulness.

2. To instruct and govern; to teach rules and practice, and accustom to order and subordination; as, to discipline troops or an army.

3. To correct; to chastise; to punish.

4. To execute the laws of the church on offenders, with a view to bring them to repentance and reformation of life.

5. To advance and prepare by instruction.

 Definition of DISCIPLINE

1

: punishment

2

obsolete : instruction

3

: a field of study

4

: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

5

a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order b : orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior c : self-control

6

: a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity

Did anyone else notice that Mr. Webster chose the definition pertaining to punishment as number 5, while the new Mirriam-Webster authors and editors chose to use punishment as a single word defintion in the number 1 spot?

In fact, the definition in the new dictionary has been whittled down to as few words as possible, few of them having any positive meaning at all.

Which definition are your children learning at home, at school, at church?

Grumpy Wednesday

Jump out of bed.
Open doors and shout to get children up.
Slap together lunches and snacks
Throw some diapers and wipes in the diaper bag.
Change two diapers.
Get two littles dressed.
Get clothes out for one more little.
Help three bigs gather backpacks and shoes.
Put the dog out back.
Make sure all seven people have breakfast.
Woops, run back and slap on some deodorant and pat hair down so it doesn't look so scary.
Coach a little out from the corner of the couch and out to the van.
Jump in the van and drive to school.

This covers the first 20 mins. of the day here at The Zoo.

This is what happens when one little just can't sleep until 2 a.m.

I hit the snooze on the the 6:30 alarm, but it wasn't the snooze, it was the 'off' button.
At 8 a.m., the warm, happy sunshine wakes me, I stretch thinking I have a leisurely few minutes to begin Thursday morning. Deciding what to fix for breakfast, which chore I will tackle first, what fun thing we will do before heading off to classes---then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Wednesday. We have to be at school at 9 am, and we live half an hour out.

Fortunately, the  rest of the day has been uneventful. So far.

Angry Posts?

I've been writing blog entries, getting them polished and ready to post.

Then I read through them. I don't want to post them anymore.

The posts I wrote are angry. The voice in those letters is grouchy, complaining. Blaming. Bitter.

I don't want to be that person. Not for the whole world, and certainly not for my family.

Yes, of course there are circumstances that induce anger and frustration. The problem I am seeing is that I didn't let it go, or take care of it. I must have kept it stored away long enough to write several angry pieces.

There will be times when angry pieces are appropriate, but these were written with a bitter attitude.  Bitterness that inspires a meanness in my voice.  Gross.

I want to take the idea that began each written piece and rewrite in a way that resolves the anger. 

When there isn't a resolve for the circumstance, there can still be a resolve in my attitude, and sometimes anger is still the outcome - as long as it isn't bitter.

No Time to Grieve (2)

I left you last with the horror birthing a baby that I would never hold in my arms, into a toilet.

I now take you to the next day.

It was just that. Another day.

My girlfriend came over to make sure that I was resting. she put the children to the chores that they were trying to wiggle out of, she prepared dinner, and helped me put together a birthday cake for my husband.

You see, October 26th, the day I labored and bled and lost a blessed life to the sewers, was my husband's birthday.

Now, the date reserved in our family to specifically celebrate my husband's life will also be the date that I remember as filled with pain and grief.

And. Yes, there's more. And, my husband's uncle died that day. His uncle was that kind of uncle that all the kids love. The kind whose relationship didn't dim or end as the children grew. He was a good friend. A man who always had time to listen. A man for whom a surprise visit was never an imposition.

I hope Uncle Tony is rocking our baby.

No Time to Grieve

*Please note that details regarding this miscarriage are not withheld, and may be viewed as stark, grisly, and overwhelming.*

The last time I posted, I was expecting. My family was planning for a new baby. We were choosing names, deciding how to rearrange closets, planning the purchase of a new stroller, marking the calendar.
Now, when we flip the 2012 calendar over to May, we will see the due date marked, but we won't have a baby that is due on that date.
Our baby was born on October 26, 2011. She shouldn't have been. She had already died at 7 1/2 weeks gestation, but she stayed with me for another 6 weeks.
I had been to the OB, and and two ultra sounds confirmed that the baby was far too small, that there was not growth, and no heartbeat. I walked around for a month and a half knowing that the baby we had been planning for and had grown to love already, was dead.
For six weeks, the hormones that the baby's tissues and the pregnancy products put off rendered me still morning sick. My breasts were still tender, and constant hunger continued to plague me.
We told our children that the baby had died. They had many questions, good ones, too. They wanted to know if the baby was coming home soon, whey did the baby die, and would they get to see the baby. It helped to answer their questions. I didn't have a definite answer for all of them, but they accepted that, too.
I had a decision to make. I needed to decide if I would allow things to progress naturally, with out a defined time frame, take a pill that would induce labor, or have a D&C. None of those options sounded good to me.
So, I waited.
Then, I began to bleed. And I cried. I have miscarried before. Last time, that baby was only 3 or 4 weeks gestation, and we hadn't had time to adjust our emotions to expecting and loving a baby. That miscarriage was, physically, very easy. More like a heavy period and embarrassingly easy to dismiss. At least, I thought I had dismissed it.
Now, though, I called a friend, and told her that I was bleeding. She came to my house and picked me up, along with my little ones, and took us to her house.
Then, the surprise came. I started having contractions. They were hard, painful ones. Just like labor.
I bled and bled and bled. I'm not sure I have actually seen so much blood. Every time I had a baby in the hospital, the blood was cleaned up before I was up and around to see any of it. This time, there was no doctor, no nurse, no orderly.
So I labored, over a toilet. I already knew that the baby was too small for me to recognize. That even if I bled into a bucket and saved everything, I would never find it. So, I didn't. I bled into the toilet instead.
I flushed my baby down the toilet.
This slays me. This hurts, and disgusts me.

*more to come...*