Mother It Monday - Working the Swing Shift

One little insight I gained at Women's Conference came from a talk by Julie Beck. It is simply to be ready for and at the top of your game during the "swing shift". As mom's we put in at least 2 and sometimes up to 2 1/2 shifts per day. The "swing shift" is the most important shift of our day, it's the time from when our kids walk in the door after school until they go to bed. That thought combined with another simple thought "Be There" from another class I attended are what I'm focusing on this week. "Be There" = be in the present, pay attention, stop multi-tasking it causes us to miss things.
I have an amazing ability to tune things out. I think I came by this naturally - I remember my mom telling me once that when my dad came home from work he said something like "they're talking to you" in reference to one of us kids talking to my mom and her not even hearing us. As a mother this is a skill that helps keep me sane. Often my house has a dozen kids in it. If I couldn't tune out the chaos and noise out I'd go crazy! But this blessing can also be a curse. I miss things sometimes. The kids tell me something and I don't even hear it. Such as which friends house they are going to. More than once a child has been missing and for the life of me I couldn't remember where they said they were going.
So for this week I am going to be there at the crossroads making sure homework and chores get done, listening more, talking more, paying attention during those precious hours of the swing shift.

Mother It Monday

Ah I've fallen down on Mother It Monday. Since it is Monday I thought I'd share a great book I just finished reading. My SIL Kristen recommended it to me several months ago and I finally got around to reading it!
Mothering With Spiritual Power: Book of Mormon Inspirations for Raising a Righteous Family by Debra Sansing Woods

This is a fabulous book and worth buying. The author chose 25 "mothering" scriptues from the Book of Mormon and relates them to being a better mother. A great exercise in likening the scriptures unto ourselves. It's a short, quick book to read and is packed with wisdom, advise and hope for being a better mother. As I read each scripture I marked them in my own set of scriptures to help me remember what what within the pages of this book.

Teaching Kim to Cook

So one of my new goals is to teach my kids how to make some basic foods. They each have a week where they are in charge of helping with meal preparation. This week is Kim's week. Sunday she learned how to make chocolate chip cookies. Last night she learned how to make whole wheat pizza. It was really yummy! Good work Kim.

Mother It Monday

Maybe I should call it Slow Start Monday...
Kids are out of school and we are barely moving. I did make whole wheat waffles for breakfast but have yet to workout or start any chores.
Today I'm taking the kids to the park. The younger 3 love it and the older 2 will endure it. The park isn't my favorite but it's a holiday and we need to do something (and that something needs to be free). Perhaps we'll go on a bike ride too if all the tires are pumped up. Brian is off with 2 different buyers today so it's no holiday for him.

Mother It Monday - Work

Last night I sat down with each of the kids and had them set a goal. I told them I didn't care what it was brush their teeth, say their prayers, read, exercise, do a service for someone everyday.... They could pick whatever they wanted to work on. I had them make their own chart and told them if they kept track and reported back to me I'd pay them a dollar next week.

I've been thinking a lot about work. Keeping up with the house takes a lot of work. It lead me to think about what I am teaching my children. Sometimes it is just easier to do a task myself than to have to deal with the kids whining and complaining and having them doing a crappy job and hurrying just to get the job done. I know one of the welfare principles taught in our church is to teach children to work:

The foundation of self-reliance is hard work. Parents should teach their children that work is the prerequisite to achievement and success in every worthwhile endeavor.

Teach your young children to work, and teach them that honest labor develops dignity and self-respect. Help them to find pleasure in work and to feel the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.

~Joseph B. Wirthlin

So for my Mother It Monday task today I'm focusing on trying to teach my kids to work. They were each greeted as they came home from school with a list of jobs they had to do before playing the computer or playing with friends. Of course they resisted but I stood firm and they quickly got their jobs done. Hope I can keep this habit up because my kids need to learn to work!

Mother It Monday - Family Week

Each year around Thanksgiving the PTA sponsors family week. One of the things they do is have a couple of days where they encourage parents to eat lunch with your children at school. So today I ran through Wendy's Drive thru at 10:30 to get lunch for Brett and ran up to the intermediate school. I think I was the only parent there since they didn't advertise it at the intermediate school. I didn't take a camera in there because I was already walking a fine line between being the good mom and making Brett mortified that his mom and sister were at school eating lunch with him. Thank goodness I came equipped with a Frosty, hamburgers and french fries. After eating with Brett we went back to Wendy's to go through the drive thru again to get food for Kimberly, Bryce and Bradley. Note to self - If you eat lunch from Wendy's twice in one day it uses up almost all your calories for the entire day!

Once I got home and uploaded picture I realized the camera setting were not set on "auto" so most of the pictures didn't turn out. Gotta love technology.

Mother It Monday - Rubber Bands

I spent a few minutes with each of the kids yesterday. They all seem to love their few minutes alone with me even if it was only 5 minutes each. I'm definitely keeping Bradley... I asked him "What can I do to be a better mother?" His response "Well you're pretty much the greatest". Yep I'm definitely keeping him around!

Kim loves to play this game where we take turns starting sentences and the other person finishes them.

My favorite color is ___________
It makes me sad when ___________
My favorite thing to do is ___________
I wish I could ____________
I like it when ___________

I highly recommend trying it with you kids or spouse, just start a sentence and let them finish it then it's their turn to start a sentence and you finish it.

I've been thinking a lot about rubber bands the last few day. I know - weird thing to think about. I've been trying to be better in lots of areas in my life and feel that I am being stretched like a rubber band. I think that is a good thing because "life is like a rubber band; if you do not stretch it, it does not reach its full potential."

The problem is too much stretching and a rubber band will break. Unfortunately that happened to me the other night. I just snapped and it wasn't pretty. This normally level headed, patient person turned into something far from level headed and there was not an ounce of patience left in me. I've been trying to figure out how to be stretched without hitting the point of breaking.

This morning I have been reading quotes about rubber bands. If found a whole bunch of information on breaking bad habits by wearing a rubber band:
A simple method that helps break unwanted habits is to wear a rubber band around your wrist. Then, when you catch yourself doing that habit, pull the rubber band and give yourself a little "sting." (Yes, this really works!) The rubber band is both a reminder and an enforcer of your desire to break the habit.


The habit I need and want to break is raising my voice when I get frustrated. I remember a talk given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland where he said:
Wives, what of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind could ever in a turn be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? A woman’s words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people they love to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone in the beginning of that exchange could ever have imagined. Sisters, there is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks. Let it never be said of our home or our ward or our neighborhood that “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity … [burning] among our members.”

President David O. McKay said:
“The home must be the most sacred place in the world.”
Elder Shumway said the following in regards to what President McKay said:
For this to be accomplished, we cannot raise our voices or allow contention to dwell in our homes. Imagine what our homes would be like if each time we felt offended, hurt, or angry we acted with love and followed the Lord’s counsel to turn the other cheek.

“If I could do it all over again,” wrote a mother from Glendale, Utah, “I would commit to never raising my voice."

Elder Harold B. Lee:
“When you raise your voice in anger, the Spirit departs from your home.”

So my Mother It Monday goal for the day is to not raise my voice so that the spirit can always be here in our home! The goal is to make it through today and then for an entire week without raising my voice (and ultimately a lot longer than that). And yes I am sure I will have to start over but I'm going to keep trying until it becomes habit to respond with a soft answer and not snap like a rubber band.

I've got a rubber band on my wrist today to help remind me. Not sure if it will help or not but since this whole idea came from thinking about rubber bands it can't hurt (Unless I mess up and have to snap my wrist)!

Mother It Monday

The Mother in Me: Real-World Reflections on Growing Into Motherhood by Kathryn Lynard Soper

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is a compilation of essays and poems on motherhood. I could so relate to almost all of the essays! I'm not really a poetry fan but there were a couple good poems thrown in along with some that were a little bizarre.

Here is an excerpt from an essay I really enjoyed by Heather Harris Bergevin:
I still have my own questions about being enough. I'm still disabled. I'm still woefully lacking in housekeeping skills. I'm not very good at crafty things, and I refuse to accumulate the hoard of scrapbooking bits necessary to produce professional results. I can barely knit and I'm glad there's no dusting-proficiency test.
Mostly, though, I have no idea how to ensure that my children walk in truth, especially in a changeable world with unchangeable Truth. I don't know how to teach them modesty in the midst of nakedness, etiquette within rudeness, to be in the world but not of the worldly thoughts and gesticulations. I am daily unsure how to show them a rod that is clearly marked, but sometimes dimly lit or hidden by glaring neon signs pointing toward great and spacious surroundings.
But I do know who holds the answers, and I know how to ask the Teacher my questions, not with a raised hand, but with a bowed head.

One idea I took from this book and implements was from an essay by Emily Halverson:
Although my mother had seven little ones to love, she made each of us feel like an indulged, only child. Every night she'd come to my bedside with an hourglass in hand and a smile on her face that told me that for the next blessed while, she was all mine....
Life's sand is ever-flowing, but its supply is not unlimited, for the bottom of the hourglass is quickly full. You cannot stop the flow, but you can learn to notice, to touch, and savor each grain that passes.

I don't own an hourglass but plan to purchase one. Last night I took my kitchen timer and set it. One by one I pulled each of my children into a quiet corner and we talked about whatever they wanted to talk about. It took just over an hour but what a precious hour it was. They all wanted another turn. I don't know that it is something I will do every night but I plan to do it at least once a week and today being Mother It Monday I am going to give them each some personal undivided attention again today!

Mother It Monday

What to do to be a better Mother? The list is long but I decided the first thing I needed to do was get back to having breakfast and dinner together as a family. We started the school year off great but over time we started to slack. The kids got to bed later as did Brian and I and it became habit to turn the alarm off instead of getting up early enough to have breakfast together. Thank goodness for the end of Day Light Savings Time. That extra hour of sleep was a perfect time to get back on track and get up early to get breakfast on the table. We also read scriptures in the morning when we have breakfast together. It's the perfect time because everyone is much more mellow than they are at night.
Lately I've even slacked off on having dinner on the table every night at 6:00. Most of that comes from lack of planning ahead.
So I sat down and figured out our menu for this week with what I already have on hand so I don't have to run out to the grocery store:
Monday
B - Scrambled eggs and toast
D - Pizza
Tuesday
B - Oatmeal
D - BBQ Tri-tip - thanks to Grandpa sending a frozen tri-tip home with me!
Wednesday
B - French Toast
D - Spaghetti
Thursday
B - Breakfast Burritos
D - Creamy Garlic & Herb Chicken
Friday
B - Omelets
D - BBQ Hamburgers
Saturday
B - Aebleskievers - a family favorite!
L - Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
D - Taco Soup
Sunday
B - Bran Muffins
L - Pancakes (made by Brett)
D - Roast

I figure planning meals for my familiy plus throwing a birthday party for Kylie accomplishes my Mother It Monday goal for the day.

Mother, Tackle, Wash, Thwart, Fix, Scour & Savor IT!

So I love Tackle it Tuesday. It so works for me. There are so many things I just don't get done and having just one project to take on has really worked for me. Unbelievable my office is still clean! It feels so great.

My good friend Yoga drove down to visit me on Saturday. After and early lunch at Durangos a couple hours of shopping and then a late lunch at Outback I left feeling rejuvenated. I love you Yoga and am so grateful you went out of your way to spend and afternoon with me!

One thing we discussed briefly was Tackle It Tuesday. Yoga had been trying to come up with something for the other days of the week. She'd come up with Wash It Wednesday and Fix it Friday. It got my brain going and I wanted to come up with something for each day of the week because I thrive with motivation and love the sense of having something that I can accomplish and be proud of.

After church today with the help of a dictionary I enlisted Brian and the kids to help me come up with something for everyday of the week.

So we already had:
Tackle it Tuesday - Tackle any project that you need to get done.
Wash it Wednesday - Dishes, Laundry, your car, the spots on your walls...Lots of possibilities for something that desperately needs washing.
Fix it Friday - Fix something that needs fixing, mend clothes, repair something, replace something that is broken, etc.

The remaining ideas come from my husband and children. We brainstormed and voted on them and this is what we came up with.

Mother It Monday - We had lots of ideas from Mend it to Make it to Move it to Muster it... but it was unanimous that Monday should be Mother It Monday - Do something to be a better mother, read a book, take a walk with the kids, a bike ride, go to the park, sit and talk... Anything to better my relationship with my children.

Thursday was nearly impossible to figure out! Throttle it, thrash it, throw it, thrice it, through it... Ultimately we decided upon Thwart it Thursday. The definition of thwart included: to oppose and defeat, to hinder or prevent. We decided on picking some area of the house needed to be defeated. Clutter or chaos or even bad habits in any form that need to be thwarted.

Scour it Saturday - Anything that needs scouring or to be clear or rid of what is undesirable. Some sort of deep cleaning task from the oven to the soap scum to anything that is needing a good cleaning and scrubbing.

Savor It Sunday - Obviously not a day of work but rather a day to reflect on all that is good in life. A time to appreciate and relish and enjoy what we have been blessed with. (Brett says we should call it Sit it Sunday so we can just "sit" and rest all day).

I don't promise to tackle all of these each week but my goal is to accomplish at least several of them each week. I know there will be days when simply meeting the basic needs of my family is all I will be able to accomplish. But I hope to be able to get a better handle on thing by simply setting a small goal each day and accomplishing it.