Twilight Moms

Okay, I'm sorry I'm making this post. I've gone back and forth on this for awhile. I don't know how many of you have been sucked into the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer, and if you haven't-you will be. lol. These books are awesome! There's three right now and a 4th will be out in August.
To those that are obsessed like myself, I joined an awesome group called Twilight Moms a few months back. It's great! It's Moms from all over the world who are also obsessed. But, we talk about everything on here-family life, kids, etc. Lisa, who started it is also a member of our faith. She wanted to have a place to go to where people 25 yrs and older would talk without all the teeny drama.
When I joined the group is was like the 158th member and now there's over 2,000 members. It's a fun site to check out. If you haven't read these books yet, I highly recommend them. There's very clean and very well written. They're very hard to put down! lol. They are a quick read too.

Look how many visits!!!

This is so exciting! This blog has been visited over 70 times in the past couple of days! It is neat to see how many new people are checking it out, and also how many times the rest of us check it every day! I am kinda addicted to checking it. I have tried to cut it down to 2 times a day for a little while, so that I can see how many other people are stopping by! I hope this blog is helping out everyone else as much as it is helping me!

The complexities of the family...

Many of us that visit this site are active Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For those of you that are not, we would like to emphasize the importance of family here on earth. It seems as though the world would like to spend more time outside the home, rather than in the home, together as a family. When things come up about the church and the many misconceptions of it, I know that I cannot fully explain all the gospel principals to clear any of these. So, I often think that if I could only show the world how the church emphasizes the importance of having a loving family, maybe then a lot of the negative feelings would be disolved. I have never, and will never impose my beliefs on anyone, but I want to at least share a broadcast that may ease any ill feelings someone you may know has of our church.

You can visit Lds.org; world leadership broadcast (Feb 2008, roundtable discussion) to listen to the entire broadcast, or read the script. I want to post a few of my favorite parts.


This is a roundtable discussion which includes: Elder Dallin H. Oaks (quorum of the 12 apostles), Jeffrey R. Holland (quorum of the 12 apostles), Julie Beck (Relief Society General President, Susan Tanner (Young Women General president), Cheryl Lant (Primary General President).
Sister Tanner
I grew up in a home where there was a very good marriage, but I remember my mother saying over and over to me, “This is work; to have a good marriage is hard work.” She wasn’t saying that they didn’t have a good marriage, but she meant that you never let a day go by without thinking about blessing the partner in your marriage and working on this and thinking about his or her needs.

Sister Lant
You talked about being willing to do the work that it takes. Having children is a lot of work. And we have to not be afraid of that, because it’s that very element of working hard and being willing to do whatever it takes that makes us who we are. It’s the sacrifice that makes us who we are. I want to bear my testimony of the joy that comes from having families, from having children, because there’s not only the commandment from the Lord to do it, but there are great promised blessings.

Elder Oaks
While we’re talking about this, what does it mean that the family comes first? We say that, and we believe it, but what does it mean that the family comes first?
I want to use your eyeglasses to use a metaphor from Neal Maxwell. He suggested on another subject that we write something on the inside of our glasses so that whenever we looked at any subject, we see that message. And we might say that when you put your spectacles on to look at decisions about how the family will use its time or decisions about how the ward will schedule its activities, we have written inside of our eyeglasses, “The family comes first.”

Elder Holland
I love—we all love—the line from Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). We’ve only got so much time, but we all have the same amount. So I think if we work on priorities, we can make family first. I think we can do a better job.

Elder Holland
I introduced the word pattern in those brief remarks as we started. Some of these things that we almost take for granted should not be taken for granted, like family scripture study, like family prayer, like family home evening—we tend to dash those off as if they were understood by everybody, but those ought to become part of a family pattern.

Sister Tanner
One hopeful thing about patterns is that even though we sense our imperfections in trying to establish these patterns, it’s quite remarkable and fulfilling for us as we see our children then carry on those patterns, even though we didn’t feel like we were totally perfect at it.

Sister Beck
I was raised in a big family. My parents had a lot of children. And that means there were a lot of opinions and a lot of work to care for this family. But they used the tool of family home evening to really teach us. Every week we sang “Love at Home.” That was the opening hymn. And I remember as a teenager thinking it was really tiresome to sing that hymn every week.
Elder Oaks
Sometimes that hymn is sung through clenched teeth.
Elder Holland
And by assignment.
Sister Lant
Sometimes it’s the mother’s clenched teeth.
Sister Beck
It was more a belief than a practice. But every week, Dad would say, “Now we’ll sing our opening hymn, ‘Love at Home.’ ” And when I was about 14 or 15, in that age when you question everything, I asked my father, “Why do we have to sing this hymn every week? There are a lot of good hymns in the hymnbook we could sing.”
And he looked at me very sternly, and he said, “When you have learned lesson 1, I will teach you lesson 2.” And I don’t know what lesson 2 was; we didn’t ever get there, but I have to say that after the passage of many years, I look at my family, and we do love one another. We did, somehow, over the years, learn to love each other because that was lesson 1 my parents wanted to teach. They didn’t try to cover everything. They knew if they started with that, it would work. I had a wonderful young mother approach me. She had four children under the age of six, and she said, “We are being faithful in trying to have our family scripture study every morning, but it’s just a disaster. Somebody’s always crying; they don’t pay attention.” And I said, “How long are you trying to do this?” She said, “Well, we set a goal to do 10 minutes every day.” And I said, “Well, with the audience you have, you’re probably about 8 minutes too long.” She had the pattern down, and she needed to adapt a little bit to the age of her audience. Maybe start with a picture of Adam and Eve and talk about the picture and not try to help a two-year-old read the scriptures. But she was faithful, and I loved her for that.

Sister Lant
Elder Holland, I wanted to just say a word about judging other people. We look at other people, and things are not always as they seem. We think it’s one way, but it isn’t always that way.
We had a large family, and my husband was the bishop when all the children were still very young. I would work all day Saturday and all morning Sunday to get them to church, and I had to get them there early or we just didn’t even get there. We would line the whole bench—the whole center bench was filled with our children on the second row back—and we would be there before the meeting started.
I remember one day a sister came up behind me and leaned over and said, “Sister Lant, if my kids were as good as yours and if it was as easy for me as it is for you, I would have a large family too.”
Well, I started to cry, and I cried clear through the whole meeting. And my husband kept looking at me like “What is wrong? What is wrong?” I was a mess. I completely had a come-apart. And it was because it wasn’t easy.
We tend to judge one another. We judge harshly. Or we judge unfairly as we look at others—
Elder Holland
Unkindly.
Sister Lant
—unkindly. And we don’t really know what one another’s situations are. We just have to love each other.

Stranger Safety

Strangers. Gulp. Just the thought of having to explain to Jacob what on earth that really means sends shivers down my spine. I myself don't really even like thinking about it to be honest, but I know it's so important to teach my kids that they have a voice if the need arises.

I rented the video "The Safe Side: Stranger Safety" last week from the library and I was really impressed with the way that they address strangers without making it too scary. It was exactly what I was looking for. The main message is that just by looking at someone, we can't tell whether they want to help or hurt us. The host of the show "Safe Side Super Chick" (who Jacob thought was hilarious) encourages parents and kids to categorize people into three groups.

• Safe-Side Adult: Immediate family or someone your parents tell you is safe. She asks parents to make a list of three adults in this category. Those adults are the only people that can pick them up, etc. It reminded me of the password method when I was little. Same idea.
  
• Don't Know: Someone you don't know .
• Kinda Know: Someone you know, but is not your "Safe-Side Adult." like a teacher, doctor, coach, mom's friend, dad's friend, etc.
  

They cover a lot of other topics too (tricks adults use, your personal space, what to do when the doorbell rings, what you should say) but nothing uncomfortable or too scary. It's probably even better for school age kids, but Jacob really liked watching it. Even Luke got into the part where they make you practice saying "help this is not my dad, help this is not my mom" in his loudest voice.

I am curious to know how you have approached stranger safety with your kids and what has worked?

Baby Yeast Infections

I am pretty sure Kenadie has a yeast infection. She has a rash on her vaginal area that will not go away. I am going to try Lotriman (saw that on internet), but does anyone know if I have to take her to get a prescription? If the lotrimian makes the symptoms go away, is that enough, or do I need a prescription to kill the bacteria. I am also going to give her probiotics to up her good bacteria, I just need to know if that is enough. I don't mind taking her to the doctor, it just sucks when they tell me everything I already know, and nothing I don't.

Welcome new guests!

Well, it looks like we are at least as far as Rhode Island, now! Acte Gratuit said that she is a friend of Kim Brown, who is a friend of Megan's...thank goodness for being able to look up blogs from other blogs. I looked up Kim's blog, and it looks as though she is in labor today! How exciting! Fell free to email me if you are new, and I can give you the information so that you can post things yourself, and maybe tell us a little about each of you! I'd really be interested to know where everyone is from! Maybe we should do that for the next few days...write a little about yourself and where you are from!

JUST a stay at home Mom

"you've got nothing better to do..."
"you have more time than I do..."

These are a few phases that I have heard recently(and repeatedly) from a sister of mine that has a toddler and works full-time outside the home. (nothing against working moms). Hearing these two simple phases have bugged me and gotten under my skin so terribly bad. I would expect to hear these kind of things from a man(sorry guys) but a women. And a mom too.

I feel comfortable and proud to be a stay at home mom so why does things like this irritate me so much? I pondered this as I was having my own little pity party last night over hearing such things. I realized these comments made my self worth diminish. I felt less productive or like I don't contribute to society because I am not out working in public. In my eyes and through others eyes I suddenly had meant less to the world.

I don't believe it, I mean a ton to the world. I may not be out working but I am working in my home and for my community. My self worth is bounteous. I know being a stay at home mom is worth so much. More than we sometimes think. Why do stay at home moms get such a hard time about staying home?

Losing it...

Do any of you ever "lose it" with your kids? Earlier, Tye came in to show me how proud he was about putting some white stuff on his face, and I instantly thought...Desitin. He'd actually already had it once today, and I was sure that I had put it up, but that is the conclusion I jumped to. I was mad. I took him by the hand...not gently, really, and went all around the house looking for it. Then, I saw Kenadie, who I had just bathed after eating pizza. She had Tye's pizza in her hand and on her face, and clothes. Again...mad. I was so frustrated by this point, I was yelling, and I just put Tye in his room, and cleaned up Kenadie and put her in bed, too. I was feeling really bad by this time, because when I found Kenadie, I had also seen the ranch dressing that Tye had on his plate...the mysterious white stuff. I went into his room, he was curled up on his bed, and I sat with him and apologized over and over again. He finally turned over and smiled, but I still feel like crap (sorry...that's about the nicest way I can put the way I feel right now.) So, do any of you ever lose your temper, and what do you do after you have? Or, for those of you that manage to keep your calm, how in the world do you do it?

Toys, Toys and more Toys!!!

So, I am not the neatest person in the world. Never have been, probably never will be. However, I have gotten a handle on the toy situation. For almost 2 months now, I have been able to pick up all the toys and put them in there place in less than 5 minutes. I put away/ gave away some toys a couple of months ago, and everything I kept had to fit in my designated toy containers. It has been a lifesaver! The downside? Now the mess is all mine, and I can't blame it on the kids! Also, Amy and I were talking about this earlier...we all have family and friends that like to give our kids things. Some of us have kids that know how to manipulate people into buying them toys. Solution? For every new toy that comes in, they must give away or put away 2-3 toys. This way, they really have to decide it this new $1.99 toy that will break in one day is worth getting rid of something else. This may really eliminate the impulse toys at the checkout! Tye is barely old enough to start doing this, so I will let you all know how it works out!

THANK YOU!!!!!

I love all you girls so much......you have NO idea! Thank you so much for all your help and encouragement. I loved the talk during general conference by Elder Ballard directed to the moms in the church. Boosted by all your loving words, I spoke with Chauncey and let her know how I was feeling--OVERWHELMED. For now we worked out a scenario I'm happy with--I only have Mia 2 days a week, every other week, for half a day (only while she is on campus going to school....since she is employed in a day care center I encouraged her to enroll her daughter and take her to work). She agreed and things seem to be calmer now. I also cut down the days I'm working at Sylvan and moved all my clients to Mondays and Wednesdays instead of having them all spread out ( saves on fuel for the monster suburban we drive too! ). Mary, I can't tell you how much your words meant to me--I know you have given yourself to take care of other little ones as well as your own and I know you can empathize. You are such a talented wonderful mom and I miss seeing your sweet face and hearing your voice! Katie, I miss so much how you were my dose of daily medicine. You always make me smile and on my bad days I could always count on you for an immediate girls night at Cheddars for $2 soup and artichoke dip--I miss you dearly! Sara, (and I'm sure EVERYONE will agree) you are one of the most beautiful peacemakers in this world. I have never heard you utter a malicious word and your patience is incredible to me. I know a lot of things have been very challenging for you and I am amazed at how you deal with those. I think of you often when I am trying to go about being tactful about something. Alisa, I love how I feel such a connection with you and that we are so similar that I know you truly understand me when I tell you something. You bring me comfort because you are willing to be so open to me about yourself (which is a huge risk) and I'm so grateful for the level of trust we have with each other. You are such a treasured blessing in my life and I don't know what I'd do without you. You were a direct answer to my prayers during a very difficult time for me. I'll never forget how you pulled me through. AND to our new friends.....THANK YOU! Though we have never met in person, it was almost easier to find strength in your words because you have a totally objective view of the situation. You both are wonderful and I'd love to hear more from both of you.

Oh--and any of you are welcome to come up here (or down depending on your location) ANYTIME you want! Beware......you may have a little trouble leaving because I know I will want to keep you here indefinitely! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE y'all!

Introduce yourselves...

Hi Klevrkris and Poppie! Welcome to Happy Mommas! Tell us a little about yourselves and how you heard about the blog! Feel free to email me at address on right if you would also like to make posts.

And The Guilty Party IS.........

I have been recently struggling with feeling guilt. It has been a pretty vicious cycle and I feel like the car that has spun its tires in the mud so much that now it doesn't matter whether you're in drive or reverse--the tires will spin and the only thing you'll accomplish is sinking further in the trench! The first pressure is church. Yes, church.....and it shouldn't be! I know in my heart a loving Heavenly Father did not lay out guidelines to make us feel inadequate, pressured, and miserable. I know that we are supposed to serve within our capacity and I think that my problem is defining exactly what my capacity is.

Here is my situation now--I moved my grandmother (who is 90 years old) from Idaho to Burleson to give my sister who has been caring for her a break. She is in a minimal care "retirement community" so I have to go at least 3 times a week to make sure she has changed clothes, bathed, is eating, etc. and do those things for her if she hasn't. She is incapable of managing her finances so I also have to run around town to make sure all her bills are paid (pharmacy for medication and diapers, doctors, cable, phone, rent, beautician). This eats up a lot more time than I had initially supposed but I do like the opportunity to care for her. My kids are very involved in helping with this task and they have developed a love for elderly folks which I think is priceless.

I also work part-time in the evenings. I work at Sylvan tutoring kids and have just recently started branching out and tutoring privately. I love this too because most of the kids I teach think they are stupid or incapable of being successful at anything and I really enjoy proving them wrong. However.......MY kids have started resisting when it is time for me to go (there is a 1 hour lag with a sitter between my leaving and Bart coming home). So I feel guilty if I go to work leaving my kids upset, and if I stay with them I feel guilty because I'm letting down the kids I'm supposed to be teaching. Plus I feel guilty for "working" at all when I should be a "SAHM", then I feel guilty for beating myself up over it because the only time my kids are without a parent caring for them is one freaking hour a day!

Next......the never-ending "members are missionaries" challenge. I volunteered our home so the missionaries could hold discussions for a single mom with two kids by two different fathers who has had quite a run with life. This was fine but then she hit me up for some babysitting for her 3 year old (who has issues due to her very unstable short life). This has ultimately progressed to 12 hour days while she goes to work and school on alternate days. Oh--and did I mention I do this all FOR FREE!!!!! I'm starting to feel a little trodden on and like this mom just expects church members to do this for her. She constantly gripes about her finances (which I realize ARE in bad shape), but by the same token we are bouncing back from just coming out of school, being on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder, and having student payment loans that are more than twice the mortgage on the house we are living in! So after I am done feeling guilty about mentally accusing her of taking advantage of me, I feel guilty about being a pushover, which leads to feeling guilty about spending less time with my kids, which leads me to feeling guilty about whether I have taken on too much, which makes me feel guilty of being a whimp who needs to just suck it up and endure! There is no winning!

So here I sit with all my guilt......if I work and try to help ease Bart's burden of keeping up with providing for our family, I feel guilty that by doing so I am falling short on my part of the work in being there for our kids. But if I quit working and sit by watching Bart struggle to keep up with everything I feel guilty that I'm not being a help and support to my husband who should be my first priority next to God. If I refuse to help out a single mother with needs, I feel guilty that I am passing up the chance to serve in the kingdom and make a difference in someone else's life by "easing one another's burdens". Yet when I help her, I feel guilty when I am exhausted and using up my patience much quicker and being ugly with my own kids. Not to mention feeling resentful that I am not independently wealthy and have always paid a sitter to tend my kids when I go to work and earn money, AND that if I'm going to spend that kind of energy I should at least be getting a benefit for myself out of it like being paid. Then I feel guilty for being so self centered and wanting to get something for myself out of serving.

So anyway......as I sit venting ABOUT feeling guilty while I feel guilty about sitting here instead of cleaning my dirty kitchen or getting dressed for the day, I'd like to know how all of you get through your busy days and lives and feel peaceful about what you do! I think you are all such wonderful moms and I miss seeing all of you more than you know!