I Am A Child Of God.

This was originally written and posted on October 14, 2011.

One of my most dear memories, and yet most heart wrenching memories, of Cali came to the font of my mind just now.

She was only three.

She was so small. And her tiny three year old voice...

Man I love my children.

But I feel such regret that I didn't know how precious they were at that young age, until they weren't that young age anymore. I feel such heartache over it. I feel like I've been such a terrible mom.
But I'm trying to learn from that, and curb the cycle. When I start getting frustrated, or annoyed, or overwhelmed, I stand back and think of how they looked, smelt, and sounded when they were about 18 months old, or two. And I take in the feeling that I have that I didn't appreciate them as much as I needed to at that age, and I hold on to that regret.

I look at my sassy 11 year old, and picture her at two. And knowing that I don't want anymore regret about the kind of mother that I'm not, I let that aching feeling into my heart, and it helps me bring to surface how much this child means to me in the heat of a tough moment. And I'm better able to react with love (which doesn't rule out disciplining if it's needed, it just means that my discipline is coming from a much better place than simply angry reaction), and to keep a dearness of them in the moment.

One of the moments I think of is when we were at Starvation Reservoir as a family with West and his kids. West and I were still dating. I was struggling with my activity in church. My divorce had knocked the wind out of me, and my bishop at the time of my divorce had knocked the last leg I was standing on, out from under me. I know I have a Savior. I know my Heavenly Father loves me. But struggle I was.

I was sitting in the bow of the speed boat.  We were driving fast and the wind was whipping through our hair. Cali was sitting across from me. In all of her innocent three year oldness.

And I heard it.

Blowing to me on the wind.

Her tender, small voice softly singing, "I am a child of God, and He has sent me hear, has given me an earthly home, with parents kind and dear. Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way. Teach me all that I must do, to live with Him someday."

I choked up with tears.

As she finished her song, completely unaware that I had even heard it, I pulled her into my arms and knew that I needed to teach her with all the love and understanding that I possessed.

I was thinking of that moment this morning. And though I was still hit with it like a sledgehammer, I found it was more tender than achy. Which I'll take as a sign that my efforts to curb my cycle with my children may be working. I'm loving and appreciating them now. All though I'm far from being the mother I think I should be, I have come a long way with them. And I will forever be grateful for the chaos they create in my life. They are my life. They are my biggest support group and my own personal fan club. And I am that for them. I love them with all that I am. And I hope I can show them that as I try my best to prepare them for life.

Our Own Kind Of Crazy

I remember the things that my mom used to nag me about when I was a kid:

Don't use so much toilet paper when you blow your nose.
Don't put sharp knives in the sink, set them behind the faucet.
Don't sit on the bathroom counter when you're doing your make up.
Don't be even a minute late for curfew.  Literally, not even a minute.

Sometimes it was embarrassing.
Sometimes I rolled my eyes.
A lot of times I got grounded.

And I looked at these things as I had kids and sorted them out in my mind.  Which ones made sense?  Which ones prove that my mom is crazy?

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Every time I blow my nose it haunts me, how in the world do I use less tissue?

I still haven't figured that one out. Because, frankly, what comes out, comes out.  And you bet I'm going to use whatever tissue I need to mop that mess up.

 I'm chalking that one up to my mom is crazy.

 And probably stressed about how much toilet paper we went through and her grocery budget. I get that part. Grocery shopping is my nemesis.  But knowing the stress that it still causes  me, even as an adult, I'm not going to pass that one on to my own kids.  Let's nag them about something else, like not pouring more milk than you can drink.  That one makes more sense on the grocery budget.

Don't put sharp knives in the sink.

This one had a good reason I suppose.  There was a time when my mom (and even myself) reached into the soapy dish water and sliced her finger on a steak knife that was lurking on the bottom, undetected.

I understand this one, but we have a dishwasher (ah, progression) and don't fill the sink with soapy water so it's become obsolete in my mind.

Don't sit on the bathroom counter.

My mom was afraid that I would break the counter.

Let me set this up for you, I started high school at the age of 15 weighing a whopping 98 pounds.

98 pounds!

Guys, I blew away in a hard wind.

And this bathroom counter was a solid block.  Solid I tell you.  sitting on it's own foundation of wooden cupboards.

There's no way.

No way.

I weigh more than 98 pounds now.  A lot more.  And I'm still sitting on my bathroom counter to do my make up.

My girls will never hear, "don't sit on the bathroom counter" come out of my mouth.

Ever.

My mom was crazy on this one.

As far as curfew goes, if I was told a time to be home, I had better be home by that time and not a minute late.  If I was told to be home at 9:00, and I pulled that backdoor open at 9:01, my parents were there, arms folded, and letting me know that I was now grounded for a week.

I wish I were exaggerating.

I understand that they were trying to teach me promptness.
How to be on time.

I understand the lesson behind it.

But for reals.

One week for a minute?

I'm about 50/50 on being on time as an adult.  It actually depends on the priority level of the event I'm trying to attend.  Work?  Doctor's appointment?  Classes? Movies at the movie theater? I'm there if not five minutes early, at least on the dot.

But if it's *ahem* church?  A dinner party?  Meeting someone at the gym?  I'm going to roll in five minutes late, at the least.

Besides, if you show up early to church they ask you to do stuff, like say opening and closing prayers.

*shudder*

The thing is, my parents (not just my mom on this one) expected exactness on this one.  And I didn't feel it.  What was so important at home that I couldn't be there at 9:03 instead of 9:00?

Nothing at all.

I think this is a personality flaw on my part, but I'm not following my parent's crazy  in this.  If I tell my kids to be home at a certain time, they have a ten minute cushion to be there out of respect.  I get that.  Being on time has a lot to do with respect.   I still expect them to be on time for school, and show them that we need to be on time for appointments, and catching that first preview in the movie theater is vital.

Vital I tell you.

You came home from playing at 6:07 instead of 6:00?  I'm cool with that.  Unless you needed to be home so we could go somewhere, then I'm going to be upset.  But if that's the case, I forewarn them before they leave.  Be home at 6:00, don't be late, we need to leave as soon as you get here.  And they make sure they get home on time.  And life is happiness.

So here's the thing.

I think my parents were crazy.  They had their "things," whether they made sense or not.  And I might say I'm not going to do it like they did it.

But in reality,

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I create my own kind of crazy.

You have to match your socks is a big one for me.

Why?

No reason whatsoever except for the plain and simple fact that it drives me up the wall when their socks don't match.

And my kids roll their eyes at me.

And continue to wear mismatched socks because in the long run, aside from my sanity, what does it really matter?  They know it, and I know it.

I'm sure my kids will grow up to be good parents who don't care one iota if their kids have matching socks on.

Our parents were crazy.

But let's face it, now that we're parents too, we're creating our own kind of crazy.

And so will our kids.

Life Lessons While Roller Skating

You can learn a lot by hanging out with your kids.  Luckily for me, we haven't yet hit that time in life when the circus doesn't want to hang out with me.  In all truthfulness, they are my best friends.  Well, them and The Man.  If I want to go and do something, it's usually The Man and the circus that I want to go and do it with.Yesterday Brynn got invited to go to Classic Skating with a friend.  And then Cas got invited to go with a friend.  And then Sean and Jayme got invited to go with their grandma.  Classic has a Thursday deal where it's only a dollar to get in on Thursdays, but what in the world was going on that everyone was suddenly picking this Thursday, of all Thursdays, to go?  Needless to say, Tay and Cali were feeling pretty left out so I told them that I would take them too.
From here a couple of things happened.
Firstly, Jayme and Sean didn't end up going to Classic, they went somewhere else so we didn't get to see them there.  Sad.
Secondly, Casidee's friend, D, called and told her that she'd gone to the middle school when she wasn't supposed to and had gotten herself grounded so she could no longer go to Classic.  No worries.  Cas could just go with me since I was already committed to taking Tay and Cali.
This story gets interesting when we found, after arriving at Classic, that the said friend, D, was there.  With other friends, including one of Casidee's bffs, A.  Not only had she lied to Cas, and ditched her, but she had walked there and met up with 7th grade boys.
Cas and I had a pretty good heart to heart, sitting right there on a hard bench in an overly loud skating rink.
We decided that even though it sucked, like really sucked (that's 6th grade language), to have been lied to and not been included, Cas had come out on the better end of the situation.  And she could see that. The walk from our house to Classic is longer than I would have allowed (three and a half miles, one way... that's too long of walk for a 6th grader in my opinion).  Especially in the dark.  I would have told Cas no if she'd told me she was walking to Classic with D.  When we got there and saw them, we noticed that A was looking pretty miserable.  They weren't skating, just walking around with these boys.  When A saw that Cas was there, she got some skates and spent the rest of the time with Cas.  Cas and I talked about, despite the being left out feeling, would she really have been having fun, now that she could see what D was doing there? No.  A wasn't pleased with the situation, and Cas wouldn't have been either.  Yes, she was left out, but this way she wasn't stuck being there and doing nothing with boys she didn't know.  And I loved that Cas would sit there with me, her nerdy mom,shoulder to shoulder, in front of all those kids, and really talk to me about the situation.  And that even though D was there with those boys, Cas and A would come and sit by me in between their skating rounds.  I hope this level of relationship will last with my circus.
A ended up telling D that she was going to get a ride home from us.  D didn't seem to care.  I don't think I'll be letting Cas hang out with D too much in the future.  Though I'm thankful to have been able to see that A is a good friend.
The third thing that happened last night was stinking cute Tayler bug got asked to "skate" not once, but twice during the snowball boys choice round.  I was sitting on my hard bench when I looked up and spotted Tay making her way around the rink... with a boy.  What? Super shy Tay is skating with a boy?  I tried not to be the embarrassing mom, and stayed put, but only until after the snowball was done.  I called her over when she was skating on her own and asked her if she had been skating with a boy? She denied it and I wondered if I had seen wrong, when a friend of Tay's skates up and blurts out, "she skated with two boys!" Two? I was so floored! My sweet quiet Tay skated with two boys? Tay just grinned.  I knew I had seen it! She had been asked by a boy her own age, and by a teenage boy who was being nice and asking littler kids to skate.
How grateful I am that I hung around at Classic last night, instead of just dropping the kids off.  I was there to help Cas through a tough friend situation, and I got to be there for a boy moment with Tay.  And Cali was full of hugs for me through out the evening.
Nothing can replace time well spent with my circus.