Clean up , clean up, every body do your share.

What is it that makes us lash out at others when we are uncomfortable?

The main cause for me is my house being a mess. I am much better then I was when I first got married, but there are days that it makes me so angry. Obviously I am not picking up after myself like I should, but does that give everyone else an excuse to leave all of their stuff all over the house too? In my opinion, I have to clean up my stuff and take care of the daily maintenance of our home, so if I leave some of my stuff out sometimes who cares? I am the one that still has to clean it up! But if Jared or the kids leave their stuff out on the floor, who eventually has to clean it up? Me, that's who. But if I get mad at Jared about leaving his stuff wherever, what is his response? "It's not like I am the only one that is doing it." No, Jared, you are not the only one doing it, but I am the only one (for the most part) that is cleaning any of it up, so I think I have the right to get a little angry about it.

The other day I was, let's face it, yelling (screaming maybe?) at Grace and Abi about how I am sick of cleaning up all of their toys. I don't play with them so why should I be the one that has to clean them up? About five minutes later they left all their stuff all over the living room floor and ran off to their room to play with something else. I got mad again and said (yelled) "HELLO! I just told you that you need to clean up after yourselves. I don't like being ignored!"

A day or so later, Abi was playing nicely at the table with the Polly Pockets (her favorite toys). She decided to go upstairs and play with Grace, so I told her she needed to put the Polly Pockets away first. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.


Abi- "I want you to help me clean up. I know it's not your stuff that you played with, I just want you to help me clean them up."
Me- "Ok, you go start cleaning up and I will come help you." (Abi brings me three Polly Pockets to put in the bucket that was right next to her.)
Abi- "Here you put these ones away."
Me- "No, you go put them back in the bucket and then I will come help you clean up." (Abi runs back to the bucket and toys.)
Abi- "Actually, I just want to keep playing with them because of the flowers. I'm not ignoring you, I just want to play with the flowers."

It's nice to know that, sometimes, at least someone is listening to me.

There but for the grace of God (goes Abi?)

Grace asked me today why we named her "Grace."

When we were choosing names we felt like we should name Grace after my grandma Louisa. I have heard stories about her from my dad. He said that she was the kindest woman he has ever met. She always helped others and sounded like she was a great example to name my second born after. (Dad, if you read this I would love it if you would post a comment about a memory of her, we do save this as part of our family history and I have a horrible memory for stories. If something happens to you, my kids might never hear a story about your mom.)

Later we also added Martha to Grace's name. Jared's great grandma (I think) was named Martha and had the same qualities that my dad talks of Louisa.

Grace seemed to describe these women well and we felt (and her baby blessing affirmed) that Grace would have similar characteristics and would benefit from sharing her names with her ancestors.


How do you tell all that to a five year old in the 10 minute ride home from dropping her sister off at school? I paraphrased and said "It means you are nice to everyone."

Grace replied, "I'm nice to Abi because she's my little sister. Scout can handle it."

Maybe we need to talk to her more about her namesake.

Why do you "stay at home?"

Before I got married I don't think I was planning on having a family. I wanted to go to grad school, get my PhD, and teach, with some research on the side. When I did get married, it just felt like the normal, right thing to do was to have kids. We decided to have them right away and also decided I wouldn't go to work full time so we would never get use to having that extra income. We knew it was difficult for people to go from two jobs to one and we didn't want to have any mixed feelings about doing it. We were poor, it wasn't going to make any difference whether we made five dollars an hour more then the five Jared was making. We were both used to not having money before we got married so it wasn't much of a change.

So why did we (I? I'm not sure what Jared's reasons are exactly and probably can't assert my reasons onto him.) decide that I would be a stay at home mom? Right now I often think it's because I don't want a job that I have to show up for every day whether I want to or not, but that's only true with the jobs I can currently get. If I had stayed with my original plan that would not be an issue. I love to teach at colleges, and I don't think that will ever change.

The real reason I think is two fold. 1) I worked at a various daycare centers for a few years and I saw how it effected children to be there. 2) As a young adolescent and teenager I didn't have a stay at home mom and I know how that effected me.

Working at a daycare center was interesting. Most of the kids didn't cry (or stopped crying after a couple of weeks) when their parent's dropped them off, but their behavior spoke volumes about how they felt about being there. A lot of the kids start acting "goofy" to get attention; it usually only got bad attention from the adults but the other kids thought it was hilarious. There was one boy in particular that I remember. He had been labeled as the problem kid before I started and all the teachers treated him like crap. He was maybe 9? 10? Alisha, who was the director when I worked there, saw it and made sure he hung out with her a lot of the time so he didn't get blamed for everything. One day he had a particularly bad time with the other teachers and was pulled into the office. He was so angry. He knew he didn't deserve to be treated the way they were, but he didn't have anyone to stick up for him. He started throwing things all over the office and Alisha let him. After a few minutes of that he just started sobbing and collapsed into a chair. He said "It's not fair. I'm not a bad kid but they treat me like I am and then nobody believes me when I try to tell what happened, not even my mom."

There were other kids that I remember too, but mostly I know that the people working at daycares are making slightly more then minimum wage and don't care if the kids are learning anything or making progress in life. They just want to get through the day of work and go home to their own families.

Obviously some are better then others, Angela was lucky to have a great one while she was in school but I think most of the time it's just not the case and often I can walk into a room and tell you the kids that have been in daycare verses the ones that stay at home with a parent.

I didn't have a horrible time with my mom gone, but there are specific things that happened that wouldn't have if she had been home (which wasn't an option, I don't blame her at all for not being home, but as long as I have a choice in the matter, I won't work if I have kids home, regardless of their age.) Some are minor things, like always coming home to an empty house. Angela would hang out with friends after school and I have no idea what Trisha did, but I would come home to an empty house every day. I always felt like a loser with no friends once we moved to Utah and this just confirmed it in my mind.

Another time Angela and I left for school too late and missed the bus. Mom always left before we did so we didn't have a ride. We were standing there just thinking "Crap, Mom is going to be pissed," when a lady pulled up in her car. She said that her kid missed the bus and she was on her way back from dropping him off and it looked like we missed ours too. Would we like a ride? I don't think either of us was comfortable saying yes, but what other option did we have? We got in her car and just never told Mom that we did. We didn't get kidnapped, but I certainly don't want my own kids to feel like they need to get in a strangers car because nobody was home to make other arrangements.

Over all, my mom just wasn't ever around when we were older kids. When she was around she was stressed out from being at work all day and having to come home to us "rotten kids." :-) Eventually, Angela and I just started scheduling things so we wouldn't be home at the same time she was. I don't want my kids to feel like they were a nuisance like we did.

I'm far from being a good (much less great) stay at home mom, but I would never be able to lie to myself and say that kids that grow up with parents that work and are not home when they are will be (and are) just as well adjusted as the children with a parent that is home when they are.

Is it possible my house has been ransacked and we just didn't notice because of the mess?

My house is a disaster.

The entire thing. I spend way too much time on the Internet lately reading debates about whether there are actually pros to moms staying home with their children instead of going to work and "making a difference in society."

I recognized the irony of my situation today. I am a stay at home mom and a strong advocate of it. How can you better influence society then to raise children that will be good members of it? However, lately (and maybe it is partly due to being pregnant and not just laziness) I have been home with my kids but not interacting with them. While this has helped their creativity, I certainly don't feel like I am doing my part (although I still greatly appreciate Jared's gratefulness for keeping our home running. I laughed because it has been a disaster for a while but his point was that we all end up dressed and fed to our various responsibilities, we have clean clothes, albeit ones you have to look for, and food to eat.)

I have also noticed the messier my house gets, the more uncreative and comatose I would like my kids to be. Grace has grandiose ideas and is recently figuring out how to implement them in our house. It's great for her to be creative but it is just increasing the clutter in our house, I know it's hard to believe it could actually get worse. I feel bad for telling her "No, you can't keep the extra sink you made for the bathroom. I know you want to have two in it but that bowl of water is just going to get spilled and I am going to have to clean it up." It's the same with her wanting to make fruit salad cups for the whole family by herself. I don't want them to do anything that is going to make more of a mess then I already have to clean up.

What I really want is for the kids to just spend all of their time outside playing with just nature. I don't have to clean up after that. Yesterday they did spend time outside but it still made a mess because we had to get out all of the snow stuff again, and of course it all ended up on the floor by the front door after they came in.

Stupid weather.

I wish I could keep them home forever and they would be happy with just their sisters for friends

I've been looking at home schooling helps forever now, when Scout was a preschooler, Grace and now I am thinking about it with Abi also. Nothing I find is quite what I want, except one which is what I want but way too elaborate for me to pull off when I am pregnant and not very fun for preschoolers but would be awesome with say a 2nd grader, but that's not going to happen for a variety of reasons, the primary one being there are younger ones at home to "get in the way."

It has made me think about what it is I really want to teach my children while I have them in my home. My kids will go to public school, at least until they start having problems, so what do I want them to know before they are sent off to an institution that I have no control over their environment or how they interact with people, or how people interact with them? It's changed what my goals are with with my "home school."

Socially and Emotionally- This is the one I most worry about. Scout is so shy in groups and struggles making good friends. Grace over compensates for her lack of friends by being really loud and overly interactive with people she wants to make friends with. Abi is afraid of one and two year old boys. Personally, I stink at making friends and talking to people, even people I know. How can I teach my kids to be open, inviting, friendly and accepting of others when I am not able to be an example? Maybe this is why we are encouraged to do service in the church, since it forces you to interact with others in a positive way. I think it's very possible that is the best way to each your kids social skills, but I lack the experience in service to verify that hypothesis.

On a slightly different note, how do I teach my kids that they deserve to be treated with respect and thus have a responsibility to treat others that way too? How do you prepare your child for the possibility that they will have nobody to hang out with at lunch and recess, or that the kid they want to be friends with might not want to be friends with them, and how do you teach them not to take it personally? How do I convince them that is what they are doing to the neighbor when they just want to watch tv instead of play with her?

Scout has recently made a "best friend." I'm glad, and hope next year they will be in the same class since this year they aren't. We had her over to play this week and it's great to hear that they are real friends, they don't fight or quarrel like I did with my best friend at that age.