Motherhood 101: A Crash Course in Anxiety

I don't know about all you other mothers out in Weblandia, but my journey to first-time motherhood went a little something like this:

1. Visit OB for pre-pregnancy check-up to make sure all systems are GO. Instead get told that due to previous history of poly-cystic ovaries (not PCOS), the recommendation is to forgo all attempts at making a baby without medical intervention, begin a regimen of clomid, and ta-da - there will be a baby!
1a. Get furious with doctor for being presumptuous, "fire" him, find a new OB.
2. Visit new OB, wait 5 hours (yes, hours) for doctor who is "running a little behind" to complete initial new-patient exam. Get TVU, identify poly-cystic ovary on one side only, get the run-down on getting pregnant and my options.
2a. Start prometrium followed by femara, see doctor for mid-cycle TVU to check for follicles, get told there are no "good" ones and baby won't happen this time around.
3. Ignore doctor, listen instead to my own body.
3a. September 29, 2007 pee on a stick, immediately see two very dark pink lines, cry, call husband and swear him to secrecy until we make sure everything is "ok" (whatever that means), cry some more.
4. October 5, 2007 start puking, end up in hospital 3 times for hyperemesis gravidarum, puke daily (as in ALL day) until January 26, 2007 2008 (in addition to anxiety, you also become forgetful...and can't proofread, apparently). Also experience excruciating heartburn, car sickness, and near-constant intense hunger and cravings for all things chocolate accompanied by 55 pound weight-gain.
5. Begin having the Braxton Hicks contractions February 18, 2008. End up in hospital a couple of times for monitoring and once for pre-term labor in the antepartum unit (that was fun...).
6. Wake up at 3:30am one morning late in May thinking I was having more Braxton Hicks and told hubby to go on to work. He instead timed my contractions for the obligatory one hour, during which they were barely 5 minutes apart. When he called my OB, she shouted at him to get me to the hospital nearly an hour away (ha...ha...ha, more like 30 minutes that morning). By the time we drove one mile across town to pick up my mom, we were at 2-3 minutes on the contractions. It was GO time for real.
7. Labor takes relatively little time, and then there is a beautiful baby girl and lots of tears, and ANXIETY.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am no stranger to anxiety. We go way back. The thing is, prior to becoming a mother, the anxiety was typically short-lived and centered around things like - why did I think 3 graduate level classes that involve a ton of computer work would be a good idea to complete while 5-9 months pregnant (it was not easy to type laying on my left side while drinking a glass of water...I hate you Braxton Hicks)?
After I became a mother, that all shifted to this tiny little creature that had lived in a protected environment inside me for 9 months. I was ok (most of the time) during the day, but as evening approached the anxiety set in. I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I cried...no, I sobbed. I clutched my baby to me as I sat in my sage green marshmallow-fluff glider chair, rocking and crying and praying. I prayed aloud, and it soothed her.

It's been 6 1/2 years, and I hate to break it to you, but the anxiety doesn't get any better. Now there are even MORE things to be anxious about. Truthfully speaking, anxiety is a worthless response as a parent. The Bible tells us in Matthew 6:34 - "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." In other words - don't worry about tomorrow, it will take care of itself; there is enough trouble to deal with today.

It's hard, though, not being anxious. It's a first response for me. I try not to even watch the news, because it just gives me one more thing to worry over. There are nights where I feel as if I remain in a twilight-like sleep. I never sleep deeply on those nights, the anxiety hovers above me waiting to consume me, and I wake frequently and pray God will take the anxiety away and allow me to rest. These days it doesn't just happen at night. I worry about my children all day - my daughter more so than my son, simply because she isn't with me all day.

That is all about to change. My original plan, long before the wailing cries of a newborn kept me awake all night, was to homeschool my children (all 4 that I planned to have). They would never know the constraints of sitting at a desk doing busy work day-in and -out. They would know the joy and love of learning that I experienced as a child. Then my daughter grew a little older, and I realized that our personalities were both so strong (and alike) that we butted heads on a lot of things. She is undeniably stubborn (like me), but she is so intelligent and my desire is to cultivate that instead of killing it with boredom.

Last year she insisted on going to public school for kindergarten. I had taught her to read over the summer, and I thought, "Ok, we'll do kindergarten. Then we'll homeschool." Little Miss burst my bubble when she also insisted on going to first grade at "real" school with her friends. I was a little bit on the devastated side of things. After a few weeks of school it was painfully obvious that no one in our house was happy. Mysterious tummy aches every morning, dark circles under eyes, begging to stay home - insisting she didn't have to go to school, bad attitude after school, exhausted and cranky... I could go on. I kept insisting that she couldn't "quit" school because she had to finish what she started, even though my heart was screaming - YAY, homeschool! We could always change our minds next year, start off fresh at the beginning with a second-grade curriculum. As the weeks turned into a month, then two months, I could see there was no real change in the way either of us felt. I desperately wanted her home with me, learning with me, having fun with school instead of being bored. That begs a question...

When is the right time to let your kid drop out of school? I set the deadline for change at the Friday before her fall break. That deadline came and nothing had changed enough to satisfy me. Fall break was glorious (after the first day), and I saw a glimpse of the child my daughter was before she started school last year. She was happy! I started homeschooling my son with Sonlight PK 4/5 six weeks ago, so while my daughter was on fall break she got to witness what homeschool could be like for her. I did some research on my options, and I just couldn't justify paying so much for a curriculum I would only use for half a school-year. There are so many homeschool groups, and I finally found a few that service my area and joined them. Those Facebook groups are how I found out about Christianbook.com having homeschool curricula at a discounted rate! Joy of joys!

I had heard good things about ACEs PACEs, so my husband and I decided that would be a better idea to get our daughter through the remainder of her first grade year - Christmas break is going to be our disenrollment date. It was less than half the cost of the Sonlight curriculum, and honestly some of it seems more like kindergarten (maybe just for my kid, though) than first grade. I ordered it. It was delivered today. We unpacked everything, put the binders together, and then we moved on to a 10-months-belated gingerbread house making extravaganza...at our dining room table. We ate dinner, the kids got ready for and into bed, I turned on Ludovico Einaudi's Nightbook cd (which is a Godsend, by the way), and when I walked back into the living room and saw the packets of PACEs spread across the floor that useless emotion flooded my body (not for the first time today).

What the HECK was I thinking? This is going to be a disaster. What if my mom is right and we butt heads so much that she ends up HATING me? I couldn't stand it if that happened. I guess it's good this is a trial run...kind of...and that I can always re-enroll her before second grade. Oh, Dear Lord, please tell me this was the right thing to do!

After that mental breakdown, it hit me - WHY am I anxious? Is it the cost? Am I truly afraid my daughter is going to refuse to do her work and then be behind her peers by half a school-year if/when I re-enroll her? Am I disbelieving in my own abilities to teach...even though that is what I went through 6 years of college for? Am I not fully trusting that GOD will be with me each minute of each hour of each day that I spend educating my child?

Anxiety is not 100% useless - sometimes it alerts us to real danger. This is not one of those cases.
Lord God, take this useless anxiety away from me, give me peace and faith that this is Your will. This is going to be an adventure...maybe the second-greatest one of my life. I'm already living my greatest adventure - motherhood. Thank you for blessing me with these wonderful children and trusting me with their care.

What Makes You Happy Mommy?

This question is enough to bring forth a flood of words, but also a bit of panic.  What if I couldn't think of an answer?

Last night, my son (who just turned 4) looked at me and said, "What makes you happy, Mommy?"  I don't know if he was genuinely curious, or if he was scared that nothing made Mommy happy - he'd been in trouble quite a few times yesterday.  My general response was, "Lots of things make me happy, Jaxson."  Of course that was not a good enough answer, so he countered with, "Like what?"

After I caught my breath (crickets chirped briefly in my mind), I couldn't stem the flow of things that make me happy...

Getting to see a sunrise or sunset, rainbows, dancing in the rain, listening to rain, reading a good book, watching a movie with my loves, snuggling with my kids, cooking, eating really good food, dark chocolate, black coffee, making things with my hands (crafting, sewing), going to church, learning something new, making something for my kids, reading to my kids, Jaxson, Emelyn, spending time with my parents/brother/sister-in-law/husband/kids (especially when we all get along), the beach, taking a walk, experiencing a first with my kids, seeing my kids learn a new skill or get one "right," taking a nap, sleeping on clean sheets, a hot shower, dancing, singing (even if I am off-key), hot cocoa with lots of marshmallows, waiting for the first snowfall, watching icy snow glitter in the glow of street lamps, spending Thanksgiving with my family, our annual "special cabin" trip, camping, playing a game, gardening, canning, sitting on Mamaw's porch swing listening to the sounds of the woods, finding a perfect leaf in fall colors, butterflies, hearing birds sing, seeing a wild rabbit, having a home, still having more brown hair than silver hair, the sound of tree frogs chirruping instead of croaking, going fishing, eating a bowl of popcorn, driving through the country, seeing a dolphin, watching an electrical storm over the ocean, making shapes out of clouds, writing, drawing, coloring, flowers, handmade pottery...

I guess to that list I should add - having children who remind me that I have more things to be thankful for and happy about than things that make me sad.  I asked him what made him happy, and one of the first things he said was, "Hugging you and loving you."  All I could do was hug him and tell him that those two things make me very happy, too.

What would you say if your child asked you?

School Days, School Days...

...Dear old golden rule days.  Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic, taught to the tune of the hickory stick.

It's back to school already.  When I was in elementary school, we didn't go back until around the third week of August, and it seemed that we only went for the last 2 days of that first week.  Now, school starts earlier each year, and gets out later each summer.  Our kids have had one day shy of exactly 2 months off school for summer break.  That's not nearly enough time!  While I can't control the school calendar and requirements (which for the most part I disagree with), and while homeschooling was once an option, it doesn't really suit our present personality and learning traits.  The only thing I can do is try to make our down-time at home a little easier to manage and more enjoyable.  

I'm big on planning ahead and making schedules (that are not always kept to).  I am not big on cleaning, so please don't think this is going to detail how to get your kids to do chores without complaint or how to do a month's worth of cleaning in 10 minutes a day.  That ain't this blog...  What I will tell you is my self-devised plan for making our mornings and evenings run like clockwork.

I am a cookbook collector.  I also love to cook (see my other blog That's 'licious, Mommy!).  Before the birth of my children, my husband and I fended for ourselves at home.  Oftentimes that meant that we ate corn dogs and mac 'n cheese multiple times a week - hey, we were young - and we just didn't keep a lot of food items that required large amounts of time-consuming prep work.  Then, during my first pregnancy, I ended up in and out of the hospital from extreme morning (aka all-day) sickness and later from the evil Braxton Hicks contractions and eventually pre-term labor.  At that point I was also enrolled in 3 very intense Library Science master's level courses trying to finish my degree in as little time as possible to keep my student loan costs down.  Long story short, my husband and I were relieved, and grateful, to eat with my family every night.  It kept me off my feet, kept baby happier, kept the contractions down.  After baby arrived we didn't go back to cooking at home - we had settled into a routine.

Fast forward 5 years to our daughter's kindergarten year.  This routine we had settled into meant that most nights we weren't getting supper over with until nearly 10pm.  For a kid who requires amounts of sleep rivaling a newborn, that wasn't going to cut it.  There was no way I would be able to get her up and at school before 8am.  She's a very slow mover in the mornings and, like me, doesn't always wake up hungry.  Something had to change, and it had to start with us staying home more so our kids could stay on a consistent routine.

I pored over my Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook.  I looked at every page.  I made a spreadsheet of recipes that sounded like something my family would eat.  I color coded each section of recipes by main ingredient:  bean, pork, beef, chicken, vegetable.  I printed it out, stapled it, and kept it in the cookbook.  Then each week I picked 3-4 different recipes, went grocery shopping over the weekend, and cooked at home Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and sometimes Friday.  Dance class was on Wednesday, so we decided that was Breakfast night at my parents' house.  Each recipe I cooked was rated - up to 5 stars - and I wrote the date and any notes I had about what I changed, liked, or disliked about it.  I noted in the index which recipes had been tried with a check-mark and the date.  Somewhere around Christmas it all fell apart.  We had a harsh winter, missing nearly 30 days of school, and it threw everything off balance.  We fell back into our old routine of cooking at my parents' house every night.  The only difference being that I did most of the cooking, and I made sure that we were still home by around 9pm.

My daughter is at a new school this year, because our school system has divided the schools by level - PK, Elementary (Primary, 1-2), Intermediate (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12).  Since we are a low-income county, every child in every school receives a free breakfast and lunch.  We took advantage of that last year, sending a lunch very rarely.  This year she requested that we send her lunch more often, and I can't argue with that.  I hardly ever bought a school lunch - mostly pizza on Fridays - until high school when I could get a salad and a pretzel or pizza/hamburger every day.  

Thankfully we get the school breakfast and lunch menus a month ahead, so menu in hand she and I went through every day and I made her choose which days she was going to eat a school lunch.  This was my first step toward streamlining our morning routine.  If I knew which days she was eating at school vs taking a lunch, I would be more prepared.  I wouldn't be scrambling the morning of a take-your-lunch day wondering what to fix her.  I brandished my handy-dandy pink highlighter and set to work identifying the main dish of each lunch she would eat a school.  Then I got to thinking...

...I know what she's eating at school, but what about the stuff I'm sending from home?  This can't be a last minute decision, folks.  So, I made a list of 10 lunches I knew (beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt) that she would eat.  She is not a picky eater, but there are some things she prefers and will eat willingly more often than certain other things.  If I could pack her a PBJ every day, it would be all-good.  So that left me with a highlighted calendar and a list.  How was I going to synthesize the information into something easy to read, easy to use, that I didn't have to spend hours changing every month?

I was envisioning a calendar with only 5 days.  Something that would allow me to note the days she planned to eat at school and what she planned to take from home on the off-days.  Then I got to thinking that packing a lunch wasn't the only hang-up during our morning routine.  What about breakfast?  If I left it up to my kids they would eat PBJ three times a day, every day.  So instead I asked her for 4 breakfasts that she loved that were quick to prepare.  We settled on Muffins (Monday, leftover from Sunday), PBJ (Tuesday/Friday), Cream of Wheat/Oatmeal (Wednesday), and Yogurt/Fruit and Cereal Bar (Thursday).  This is not apt to change unless we have a special leftover breakfast item from the weekend - waffles, biscuits, pancakes, etc.  

Taking that into consideration, I created a calendar that was simple yet displayed all the necessary information.  I wrote in the days she would be eating at school, and then I filled in the blanks with the 10 lunches I know she loves.  I tried not to put two meat-sandwiches or two soups in the same week.  I didn't ask which lunch she wanted on which day, I just randomly assigned lunches to days and filled it in.  I tried to list everything that I would need to pack in her box or bag.  The morning of (or evening before) I also try to remember to include a disposable spoon, a napkin, and a straw so she doesn't have to try to remember to pick up anything in the lunch line.  I taped the list of lunches to the cookbook shelf beside the refrigerator, and I taped the calendar to the door of the fridge where it is in plain sight.

Here's a link to the document I created:  Breakfast/Lunch

As I mentioned before, I like to have my meals planned out.  Last year I chose enough crockpot meals to see us through the entire year with a few alternates.  With the winter we had, the amount of school we missed, I didn't get through all of them so they are on reserve for this year.  However, I didn't want to rely just on my crockpot (shhh, don't say that too loud).  Sometimes it's a bit boring to use the same kitchen tool every single day, and I should know because I have a LOT of kitchen tools (and I'm a Pampered Chef consultant :]).  Plus I have all these gorgeously illustrated (and written) cookbooks with mouth-watering recipes that I have been dying to cook.  Cooking and making things for people is how I express my love, and I really wanted to be a chef - it was second only to being a mommy!  Sorry, tendency to ramble...  

I pulled a few of my cookbooks:  Taste of Home Winning Recipes (2010), The Everything Meals for a Month Cookbook, and Taste of Home Cooking for Kids/Kids Party Food.  I sat down and went page-by-page through Winning Recipes and wrote down 100+ recipes that I want to try.  I realize I can't do them all this year, but my kids will be in school for the next 14 years, so I've got plenty of time.  I just needed a similar calendar to plan out our dinners.  I haven't started filling it in yet, but I will over the weekend.  There is a space for Main Dish and Sides for Mon-Fri.  I can have my shopping list made out for the entire month, and when a certain cut of meat or other food item goes on sale I can see how much I need for the month and freeze what I'm not using immediately.  An update will follow after I have a picture of my completed dinner calendar.

Here's a link to the document I created:  Dinner

Thoughts On Frozen

I love Frozen.  We saw it for my 30th birthday, and every day until it was released on DVD my kids asked if we were going to get it.  Of course, I pre-ordered it as soon as I could, because I loved it, too.  They have watched it nearly every day since it arrived in our mailbox.

My daughter has this thing with Christmas songs (she gets it honestly), and since she was about 18 months old I've sung a selection of Christmas songs at bedtime (upon request) in lieu of lullabies, which she calls her "summer songs."  The Christmas songs, and mind you I only sing one verse if there are multiple verses, are: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Holly Jolly Christmas, The First Noel, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Silent Night, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting), I'll Be Home for Christmas, and O Little Town of Bethlehem.  In case you're curious, her "summer songs' are:  Hush Little Baby, Rock-a-bye Baby, Brahms Lullaby, and The Riddle.  On occasion I throw in the verses I can remember of Scarborough Fair.  Anyway, back to last night...

I started singing Rudolph, and since my son had been pretending to be Sven (the reindeer from Frozen) all evening, I changed the lyrics to include Kristoff and Sven in place of Santa and Rudolph.  Then it hit me like...Wow!  Frozen is in part Santa Claus is Coming to Town!!!  Oh, my goodness!  How did I not see this before?  Keep in mind that the characters I'm comparing are from movies - Frozen and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

1. The legend of Kris Kringle originates in Germany, which is a stone's throw from Arendal (Arendelle), Norway, where Frozen is set.
2. Kris Kringle was raised by toy elves; Kristoff was raised by love trolls.
3. The Winter Warlock wouldn't let the toy elves pass the mountain until Kris Kringle gave him a gift (toy train) which thaws his frozen heart and turns him human; Elsa the Snow Queen can't unfreeze Arendelle until Anna gives her the gift of true love which thaws a frozen heart.
4. Kris Kringle flies in a magical slegh and talks to reindeer; Kristoff drives a sleigh (which flies off a cliff) and talks to a reindeer.
5. Sweet, tender-hearted, school teacher Jessica (with reddish-brown hair) becomes Mrs. Claus; sweet, tender-hearted Anna (with reddish-brown hair) is loved by, and loves, Kristoff.
6. Olaf the singing, dancing snowman is either Frosty or Sam the Snowman from the beginning of the Rankin/Bass Rudolph
7. It's a stretch, but Hans is the Burgermeister

Did I miss any connections?

Lent pt 2

Just out of curiosity, how do you define yelling?  Is it vein-popping, loud, screaming, scary momster?  Is it raising your voice and using your Mom tone?  Either way, apparently I do a LOT of it.  For Lent (see previous post) I decided to work on giving up yelling.

To me, yelling is in-your-face, voice level 10, forehead-vein-popping, steam rolling out of ears, screaming, scary (possibly terrifying) momster.  Those moments were becoming all too frequent, and it was hurting everyone.  I did not like who I became when my inner momster reared its head.  I did not like the looks on my kids faces when the momster made an appearance.  I did not like what it was doing to my kids...or to me.  They say the first step to fixing a problem is to realize you have one.  Well, I realized a problem existed a long time ago, and several times I have half-heartedly attempted to address it and fix it.  There's always an obstacle standing in my way, though.

For starters there are some people in my life that no matter what I say I'm going to attempt (learning to sew by jumping right in with a huge project, starting to exercise most days of the week, being more patient and positive, yelling less, eating better...) they laugh and say, "You'll never do it."  Or they just give me that look, the one that says, "MmmK.  We'll see how long that lasts."  That used to make me more determined than ever to prove them wrong (for instance with the sewing - which I did), but with some things it made me start to believe maybe those people were right.  Maybe they know better what is at the core of who I am.  Maybe I am just a mean mom who yells all the time.  Maybe I'm broken and don't have the ability to be patient and positive.  Maybe, though...maybe it's those people who are wrong.

I don't have a lot of self-esteem anyway, and it's easy to let others' negative opinions of me and my abilities negatively affect my life, which in turn negatively affects my kids' lives.  That is why for Lent I determined that I would not be telling anyone what I was giving up.  Have you figured it out yet?  I gave up yelling...well, I tried to at least.  For the most part, I did ok.  Far from perfect, but ok is somewhere to start.

The first week was really easy.  I lowered my voice, I didn't yell, even when my daughter was having some kind of a major melt-down hissy fit and being very verbally abusive (at least as much as an almost-6-year-old can) towards me.  I was in tears, and yet I kept my cool (by a hair's breadth) and tried to diffuse the situation without going Momster on her.  Past that point it got much more difficult.

There were a few times that I lost it, but I could count on one hand the number of those times.  I started paying more attention to how kind and loving my kids are.  I started being able to have fun with them again.  We were happier.  The last time I lost it was Friday night - consequently the last night of Lent.  It made me feel like all the work I had done, all the progress I had made was just thrown out.  My three-year-old son has started hitting, and punching, my daughter.  If I call him down for it once a day, I call him down for it 5 times or more.  He doesn't just hit arms and legs, he punches her in the belly.  I honestly don't think he's doing it to be mean and to try to hurt her.  He does it because he still isn't quite sure what to do with his anger and frustration.  The last thing I want is for my kids to turn out like me emotionally - easy to anger and unable to deal with it in a constructive manner.  I have prayed for a longer fuse, more patience, better ways to deal with emotions.  I still have a lot of trouble with it.  At any rate, Friday after I picked my daughter up from school, the kids picked at each other and fought all afternoon.  It was tiring.  I had dealt with it level-headedly as much as I could.  My son pushed my daughter and then started punching her.  And.  I.  Lost.  It.

My son ran to another part of the house, hands clamped over his ears, bawling his eyes out.  Then I got a tongue-lashing from not one, but two of my near-constant-audience-to-my-parenting-screwups.  I didn't even have time to process what had just happened before I was being told (in no certain terms) that I was a bad parent and needed to apologize to my son.  Let me first state that anytime I lose it in front of or because of my kids, I do apologize for my behavior.  I do not want my kids to think that I don't have to be accountable for my actions and words because I'm Mom.  There is nothing wrong with a parent admitting they were wrong and should not have done "that."  But, at that point I just needed some time to myself, maybe just 5 minutes, to decompress and figure out what had happened and what to do.  Instead I had two other adults talking down at me, telling me how badly I'd damaged my kid, possibly for the rest of his life...and yet they wonder why I think I'm a bad parent.  Tell me how many of you have never once lost your cool with your kid, and I'll tell you how big of a fish-tale you're telling.

Friday night was spent depressed and broken-hearted with an irrepressible flood of tears, a stuffy nose, a flurry of texts between me and one of those people (who also happens to be one of my biggest champions).  My kids were so incredibly sweet during that time - they brought me tissues, shared stuffed animals to cuddle, told me they would do everything for me from helping me get dressed to cooking and washing dishes.  I came out of it with a new resolve that this is not who I am.  I will not allow myself to be that person any longer.  It is a daily struggle - believe me.  It is going to take time - lots of it.  But this, this coward's way of dealing with my kids' misbehavior, of not dealing with any underlying issues that cause my hair-trigger, short-fuse, ticking-time-bomb inner momster, this has to end...n-o-w yesterday.  I have a good start.  It was not a perfect Lent by far.  I'm only human, and I fall down a lot.  Let's just pray that I will fall down less often and not as hard when I do.  Maybe I can get to a place where I only trip, stumble, but catch myself.  Maybe there is a place in my future where I will walk gracefully, peacefully, and parent without even needing to raise my voice.  Here's the thing, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me, and He does just that, daily.  I just have to remember to take a breath and ask for His guidance and patience before I deal with difficult situations rather than ask for His forgiveness after I've dealt with it poorly.

Lent

I've grown up hearing about Lent but never really understanding what it is.  We are Baptists, and as such we don't participate in Lent.  As I've matured, Lent has held more appeal.  It is about sacrificing something, typically a luxury, for the six-week observance period of Lent as a form of penitence, reflection, and drawing closer to God.  Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert, during which time Satan tried to tempt Jesus.  Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the desert are symbolized by the 40 days of Lent.

Lent 2014 began on Ash Wednesday (March 5 - yesterday) and goes through Thursday, April 17 (the day before Good Friday).  I did not realize that Sundays are not typically counted as part of Lent.

In years past I have had a difficult time deciding what to give up for Lent.  So much of a difficult time that I ended up saying, "Forget the whole thing, I'm not Catholic."  This year something just clicked for me.  I had a friend giving up Facebook, which I thought extremely admirable, though not likely something I would be able to abstain from for an entire 40 consecutive days.  I had another friend ask me for suggestions:  refined sugar, bread, caffeine, chocolate.  I have already sacrificed a LOT of foodstuff since September, when I started Weight Watchers so I could watch my weight creep slowly down instead of steadily up like it had been prone to do my entire life unless I starve myself and exercise frenetically.  I didn't really feel like that was an option for me.  I don't smoke or drink, so I couldn't give that up.  

I wasn't so much praying for an answer as just pondering it while washing dishes when I felt a lightbulb hovering over my head.  Call it an "aha moment," an epiphany, a subliminal conflict resolution, a smack in the face, or a "still, small voice" speaking what I needed to hear (that's what I'm going with).  It was an "Oh!  I could do that!" feeling that I had after I heard those words in my heart.  They weren't in my head, they were in my heart.  This thing I am giving up is going to have a much larger impact on my life, my kids, my husband, every person I come in contact with.  It is so very hard, and I think that is part of why the challenge was given to me.  I have tried giving up this particular thing before, and it has always either backfired in that those around me picked up the bad habit in its absence from me, or it has lasted a few days and then come back with a vengeful, make-up-for-lost-time presence.  

Today is only day 2, and already I have struggled several times.  Yesterday was easy, today has been challenging, tomorrow will be worse I'm sure.  However, I will not allow this to be a failed first observance of Lent.  My hope and prayer is that by the end of the six weeks I will have forgotten about this bad habit, and the new habits that form in its stead will begin to heal the hurt caused by this bad habit.  As a personal preference I am not going to divulge what I am giving up for Lent - I don't want any positive or negative commentary, I don't want a betting pool on how long it will last.  I want to see if it makes enough of an impact that someone else in my close circle can look at me and say, "Hey, when did you stop..." or, "Wow!  You don't...anymore!"  Check in with me April 17, and I will reveal what I gave up and how it has changed my life.  I already noticed minute changes happening yesterday.  I can't begin to imagine what the next month will bring.

Operation Beach Bucks part 2

You didn't ask for it, but here it is anyway - our first update!  Yay!

The first week has ended, and already I've reached a very important conclusion.  I will be broke by July.  No kidding!  The way my kids are putting in extra effort and being recognized for the good things they are doing encourages them to do more good things (i.e., things they ought to be doing anyway) which results in them earning mucho dinero mas rapido (sorry if that is in the wrong order, I'm a bit rusty on my español).  My son is earning 50¢ every time he tries a new food, and he has decided that trying new foods is not all that bad.  So far he has tried scrambled eggs, barbecue sauce, chicken nuggets, Cincinnati chilighetti, and fresh pineapple (which was his idea, in the produce section by the way - as long as he didn't have to eat "those pokey things").  My daughter could earn that much as well, but she is a much less-picky eater already, so there are not that many "new" foods for her to choose from.  Either way, they are consistently earning at least one dollar each day, and with approximately 150 more days they can earn Beach Bucks before tallying up their dizzying amounts of money, I could be out well over $300!  That ain't chump change in this house.

After having this epiphany two days ago, whilst taking our kids on a much deserved outing to see "The Nut Job," I had a second epiphany.  I can use the Beach Bucks like tokens that the kids have to trade in if they want to engage in certain activities while on vacation.  A short list of activities that we ordinarily engage in, as well as a few extra special treats thrown in, was easy to mentally compose:

1. SnoBalls
2. The Shake Shop
3. Smugglers Cove Adventure Golf
4. Egmont Key ferry from Ft. De Soto
5. Dolphin Quest on Boca Ciega Bay from John's Pass Marina

For the less expensive things that we always do at least once, the token amount will be small - maybe $10 worth of Beach Bucks for a small SnoBall or milkshake.  For bigger things the price will be more like $50 worth of Beach Bucks.  That may seem steep, but, hey, they are going to have Bucks to spare.  I'm only going to reserve $20 that they can exchange dollar-for-dollar and spend on whatever souvenir they want.  We will likely souvenir hunt at John's Pass, or if we are lucky enough to get to visit Tarpon Springs again they can spend it there.

Additionally, I may make them work harder each month to earn the coveted Beach Bucks.  For example, instead of getting 10¢ each time they clear their dishes from the table, they will get 10¢ for clearing dishes after every meal for one entire day.  If it is getting to school on time, it may be two days in a row to earn 25¢.  On second thought I may keep that one the way it is!  We don't want any tardies.

So, what format am I using?  Well, you're in luck because I am going to share my Beach Bucks chart and money.  I printed one chart and slid it into a page protector, which I taped to the wall at kid-eye-level.  Each day I use a dry erase marker to check off what they have accomplished so they can see what they are earning.  I also use a STAR stick, which I mentioned in Operation Beach Bucks.  This is because my daughter's school uses this as a behavior/classroom management tool.  I painted a paint stirrer and colored clothespins for each kid.  That way it is a constant visual reminder of how they are behaving.  Most of the time I make them move their pins so it (hopefully) makes them think about what they did that was good or not-so-good.

Beach Bucks envelopes

For the envelopes, I used what I had on hand - #10 (business size).  I simply taped one piece of each value of Beach Bucks to the front using clear packing tape.

STAR stick, start every day on GREEN

Each day you start out on GREEN.  If my kids behave they get to move up a color.  If they misbehave they move down a color.  It is not a static stick - in other words they don't get stuck on a color.  If they make it to red and then do something wonderful (or even mediocre if it is good behavior), they move back up.  If they are on purple and misbehave, they move down to blue.  If they are perfectly behaved all day (yeah, right), they get to move up to the star.  I used basic red, yellow, blue, and purple acrylic craft paint from WalMart.  The star is gold glitter glue on a silver background.  The black space is no-man's-land basically.  It is either used for nothing, or if my kids are being horrible and are on red and still misbehaving, I move them to black - which they can NOT get off of unless they exhibit some exceptional behavior.  I have been using this for a month or so now, and only once has one of them been on black.  Then again, only once have they made it to the star.  There have been plenty of days where they stay on green, though, and this momma is thrilled with an all-green day!

Please keep in mind this is only a suggestion.  You will need to tailor it to fit your lifestyle and expectations of your own children.  I printed five copies of the money so I could be sure to have enough to last for a while.  When I run out of the smaller Bucks, I will trade them in for the larger ones.  I'm not sure if you can edit the documents using the same fonts I did - mine were from a font program (Cosmi Print Perfect Fonts), and the style is called JI-Drapey.

Word Document:
Beach Bucks Pricing List

Beach Bucks Money 

PDF:
Beach Bucks Pricing List
Beach Bucks Money

Operation Beach Bucks

As most parents experience at some point, I have been stuck in a rut with my kids' misbehavior and the consequences that go along with it.  Time Out does not work for us, and spanking (while a controversial practice for some) is a short-term fix - it stops the behavior for about 10 minutes.  I want to change the way my kids behave through positive reinforcement so that I don't have to yell, threaten, take away toys, or spank bottoms.

Last week I was catching up on some reading.  My daughter was finally back in school (for 2 days) after 12 snow days since Christmas break was over, so it was just my son and me at home.  He was watching a cartoon, and I found myself with a few minutes to relax and indulge in mommy reading time.  I had a back-issue of Family Fun, so I read it cover-to-cover while the cartoon played.  One article talked about how a mom created a system of paying her kids for chores that would allow them to earn "money" to spend on souvenirs on vacation.  That set my thinking wheels in motion.

We have a family vacation coming up this summer (if my daughter isn't still in school...), and while I do not do much souvenir shopping, my kids love to bring home little trinkets.  I always balk at the idea of spending "that kind of money" on something like that, i.e. something of poor quality that is going to break before it makes it home.  I was also trying to think of what kinds of "chores" my kiddos could do that would allow them to experience success on a daily basis.  I've learned that if the reward is not immediate, at least in the beginning, my kids are not going to put in the work it takes to earn the reward.  I also had a hard time figuring out what kind of graduated payment system to use.  I didn't want to make everything worth the same amount of money and then trade in a certain number of bucks for real money.  That just seemed like trickery.

Enter Operation Beach Bucks.  I made a list of everyday type things that needed improvement (cutting back on time spent in the bathroom, etc.) and made those worth a dime, bigger daily things like bath time without complaint and getting to school on time are worth a quarter, homework/good behavior (green) all day/cleaning up toys/trying new foods are worth 50 cents, and then we get to the big things - folding laundry and putting it away/staying above "good" behavior (blue) are worth $1, staying two spots above good (purple) is worth $2, and making it to the STAR is worth a whopping $5.

Obviously this is going to have a rate of diminishing return.  I can't keep paying out lots of money every day for the next 5 months, or I would be broke just trying to exchange their Bucks for real money.  Once a month I plan to reassess which items on the list have been mastered, and they will be moved down the list of value.  Most likely they will either be worth less money, or the kids will have to do multiple consecutive days to receive the same pay.

Day 1 (yesterday) turned out grand!  The day started horrifically with yelling, arguing, and refusal of basic daily duties.  After I explained and implemented OBB, my children were transformed (for most of the day).  My daughter earned $3, my son earned $1!  Part of that was for TRYING NEW FOODS!!!!  That is a huge accomplishment for my son, less of one for my daughter.  After overhearing my mom say she wished someone besides her liked to drink buttermilk, my daughter came to the kitchen and exclaimed she wanted to try it.  I poured her a tablespoon of it into a glass, and that little booger drank it and said she loved it.  Whether she actually liked it or not remains unknown, but she said it tasted like cottage cheese, and she does love that.  She proceeded to call my mamaw (her great-grandmother) and tell her that she had tried it and liked it.  Then she tried chicken tortilla soup, which was new for her!

My son, bless his heart, is a very picky/stubborn eater.  His main dietary staples are peanut butter and jelly, Ramen noodles with cheese, oatmeal with butter/sugar/cinnamon, and fettuccine alfredo.  There are a few other things he eats when they are available, but those things are his day-to-day foods.  I didn't give him the choice in what his new food to try was, because I knew he would say "jus' nuffing."  My husband scrambled an egg, and we plated it with a small pile of shredded Mexican cheese, a tablespoon of honey barbecue sauce, and a tablespoon of ketchup.  He immediately pushed his plate away and declared he was not hungry.  I took a very small bite of his egg, to show him that I was not afraid to try his "new" food, which isn't a new one at all, just one he hasn't eaten since he was 18 months old aside from one bite he took of an egg sandwich I ate last month.  After that he tolerated his plate being in front of him.  Then he picked up his fork, and I thought, "This is it.  He's either going to take a bite or rake it all in the floor."  He had a large bowl from their play kitchen, and he said he would eat his food if it was in that bowl.  I'm sure he fully expected me to refuse to put his food in a play bowl.  Instead, I had my husband wash and dry it, and I asked my son whether he wanted all the egg or one bite in the bowl.  He said one bite, and he wanted the ketchup, too.  It took him at least 2 minutes to work up the nerve to eat that first bite.  He put it on his fork, played with it in the ketchup for a while, counted to four a few times, and then after we all hid our eyes so we couldn't watch him, he finally put the bite in his mouth, chewed, and SWALLOWED!!!  I almost cried!  No kidding, I felt tears stinging my eyes when I saw the look of joy on his face that he had tried something new and hadn't gagged or spit it out.  We all clapped and said how proud we were of him.  He ate about 3 more bites of egg dipped first in ketchup then in barbecue sauce (which is another NEW food for him), and each time he counted to 3, 4, or 5, chewed, swallowed, and beamed with pride.  Each time we clapped and told him how proud we were, this included his older sister.  After he had eaten about a fourth of the egg, he said, "I'm done."  I didn't push him to eat more, I was satisfied.  He earned that 50 cents!  I had told them that trying a new food meant they had to take one whole bite, chew it, and swallow it, or it wouldn't count.  They both more than earned the Beach Bucks for that particular task.

The other big thing that Beach Bucks has (so far) helped with is homework and practicing piano.  Day 2 and homework is done.  We haven't practiced piano, yet, but we will.  Fingers crossed that this alleviates some of the stress and frustration we all feel every day.