MamaBlogga

And my first twenty things to be grateful for:
Yesterday:

1. Rain—don’t have to water the garden! (Borrowed from my friend Elisa, who’s also participating!)
2. My garden (okay, my sugar snap peas) is growing.
3. Ryan just cut both yards and they look very neat.
4. Hayden’s drawings—today he drew me an awesome cow .
5. Getting things done with the rest of the Executive Committee of my writers’ group.
6. Chopped!
7. Chatting with my sister, which I missed today.
8. Contact lenses and glasses.
9. Already having my pineapple CUPside-down CAKES, done and posted on Wayward Girls’ Crafts for this week!
10. Sleeping in! (relatively)

And today’s:

1. Naps, even if in theory only.
2. Rachel kicking with delight!
3. Checking things off my to do list (like this post!).
4. Putting the kids to bed early-ish.
5. That Rebecca’s hair will grow. (See last picture.)
6. Potty training! (And being done!)
7. Finishing off the cookies we made last night—no more temptation.
8. Left overs and Ryan reheating them.
9. Tuna salad sandwiches with celery, making me think of my mom.
10. Hayden including his sisters in playing with his blocks. And his blogs. But more about that next week.

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One day—it was a Friday, but that doesn’t matter—there was a little girl—and that does matter—learning to use the potty. And as she sat on the potty, she perched her fingers on her knees, with her pointer fingers out.

“Dees are my wobots,” she informed us. So these are Rebecca’s Robots:

(Her hands. Also note the plate of shredded cheese, which is pretty much all the child will eat for dinner.)

Her robots talk and help her do all kinds of things (being her hands). They love their mommy robots (my hands) especially.

Some cute things Rebecca has said lately:

• Teese neveh wive in cups! Teese wive in bowws! (Cheese never lives in cups! Cheese lives in bowls!)
• Wohwa’kates: roller skates
• Yeh weww: yeah, well (at the beginning of a sentence)
• Beebee: I’m not even sure what the exact translation of this would be (baby?), but it’s something she says a lot when she’s playing with Pinky, her stuffed animal. It’s either what she called Pinky, or what Pinky calls her. Or maybe both.

And some more:

Another favorite game is MontahINK! (Monsters, Inc.) Rebecca is Suwwy (Sully) and Pinky is either Boo or Mike ‘Akow’ki. I’m usually whatever Pinky isn’t, though sometimes Rachel gets that honor. Hayden has played Mike and Wannaw (Randall). Once I was even Wannanoos (Mr. Waternoose).

Her hair, obviously, spends a lot of time in her face, so today I did this (she cried, but she’s come to accept it):

I’m not really thrilled with how I did, but cutting my kids’ hair too short is something I’m good at.

What do you think? What are you grateful for? Isn’t Rebecca pretty much the best little girl in the world?

Rachel has cut two new teeth this month, and she’s pretty happy about it:

We’re just happy to be done with teething. For now.

She has also discovered that walking isn’t just something you have to do when Mommy and Daddy make you walk between them, and she is now taking up to 4 or 5 steps away from furniture to get to toys or to get around her siblings.

Today we had an adventure. We have a trumpet in a case on the edge of our tub in our room. It’s pretty secure there, but today Rachel was trying to pull it down. I was worried she’d hurt herself, so I tried to move it. But when I picked up the case, it opened (it’s broken) and the trumpet fell out.

Right on her face.

She has a little cut below one eye, which might also develop into a black eye. This is what I get for trying to keep my child from hurting herself: I get to hurt her instead. Great.

Par for the course in a pretty crappy day. The older two begin every other sentence with “Mom.” Mom mom MOM mOM MoM mOM Mom mom MOM mOM MoM. “Mom, can I have some milk?”

“It’s right by Dad.”

“Oh. . . . Mom, could I have some milk?”

“No.”

weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth

In fact, the one who probably needs me the most is least demanding:

I told them today to stop saying my name. Unfortunately, this didn’t end the requests, though Hayden did “take out the ‘mom.’”

Thanks, son.

What do you think? Is this something they outgrow, or can I work on them with this?

On Sunday, I was watching TV when I saw someone I knew addressing the BYU–H student body (alongside her father, the university president). Mindy Brown told a story of visiting her parents years and years ago. Her father was the leader of a congregation of unmarried adults 18-30 years old, and Mindy attended with her children:

I was feeling particularly disheveled and discouraged that morning. I had a demanding toddler pulling on my wrinkled dress and an infant spitting up on my shoulder. I remember feeling overweight, under-slept, and generally unattractive as I walked into that building filled with intelligent, lively, handsome young people, many of whom were about my same age but seemed to have a whole lot more going for them. As I stepped into the chapel, I distinctly recall thinking to myself, “So, this is what I’m missing.” At that very instant, a loving Heavenly Father allowed the Spirit to teach me a very important lesson through my mind’s eye, as I had a fleeting vision of every one of those students turning around and looking at me with my beautiful children and saying, “So, this is what we’re missing.”

via P.S. What is your dream? Eternal Roles and Responsibilities

Over the weekend, I attended a writers’ conference. It was fantastic, even though right now I’m kind of frustrated in my “career” because I have so very little time to devote to it. It feels like I’m missing out. (And yet I’m blogging? Yeah, brilliant.)

But after spending two days away from my family, I was really happy just to see my wonderful husband and children. As I sat with my family for dinner, it hit me very powerfully: this is worth more than all the “success” and all the time in the world. While I’ll always love writing and have my own personality and life, it’s always good to know I’m where I belong.

What do you think? When do you most appreciate the worth of family?

By Danyelle Ferguson

Motherhood is a peculiar journey. We never know what our children will be like, what their future holds, nor how it will change our path in life.

I certainly never expected to have a child with mental disabilities. The last nine years have been filled with experiences I would never imagined could be a part of motherhood. But along with the frustrations and stress, there were many joyful moments of success and pride. There are a few lessons I’ve learned during this crazy journey called motherhood.

Love Yourself

The most important criteria of being a good mom is loving yourself. We give so much of our time and energy to our children that it’s easy to get burned out. Don’t be afraid to take time for a girls night out, a long soak in a hot, bubbly bath, or just some quiet time in your car with a drink and book. Whatever relaxes you or makes you happy, find a way to squeeze it in. I’ve had to pick and choose which hobbies or talents to make time for over the years.

For many years, I went once a month to a weekend scrapbooking event. Then my focus changed to writing, so I figured out some time during the week that I could take a few hours to go to a bookstore and write without munchkins pulling on me. If you take the time to decompress from the everyday routine of being a mama, then you will be a much happier person, mother, and wife.

Cross Perfection Off Your List

I used to get so discouraged after visiting a friends whose homes were always spotless. I felt like such a failure that I couldn’t keep up with all my mommy duties and housework like these other women I looked up to. But then, my Relief Society president gave a lesson one Sunday and told us that we needed to cross perfection off our lists. Our Savior Jesus Christ is the only perfect being who ever lived on Earth. While we need to strive to keep the commandments and be good Christian women, having a spotless house, perfect highlights & nails, or the kids with the best grades are not things are not requirements to get into Heaven.

It’s perfectly fine to have mountains of laundry to wade through, toys strewn across your house, and be in desperate need of a haircut. In fact, its absolutely normal! In the last four years, I’ve rearranged my housework. Every Saturday, our family works together to clean the house. Everything gets picked up, vacuumed, and scrubbed. Then during the week, I try to do one or two loads of laundry each day—taking the weekends off. My laundry baskets are never empty and the weekend is the only time my house isn’t cluttered with toys, but I have so much less stress because I’ve accepted that our house isn’t perfect. It’s lived in and the family living there is happy and loved.

Laugh Often

Be quick to laugh, rather than get upset. This is actually difficult for me and I am constantly working on it. But our family is definitely happier when mom’s not a crank. Looking back at some of the most stressful mommy moments, I can see that when my hubby cracked jokes and made me laugh, I relaxed enough to think things through better. And my shoulders weren’t constantly tied up with tension knots. Shared laughter is something the whole family will remember forever.

One of my favorite quotes is “Live, Laugh, Love.”

Remember to live your life rather than be focused on perfection, share laughter with your family, and love yourself so you can give the best of yourself to your family.

About the Author
Danyelle Ferguson is the mother of four angels-in-training and the author of (dis)Abilities and the Gospel. You can find out more about her on her website: www.DanyelleFerguson.com or on her blog: www.QueenOfTheClan.com.

Photo of girl hugging herself by Evan Long

I love the new phrases little kids use!

My favorites from Rebecca:

• ackshee . . . (actually)
• s’uw (sure, but without the sh. Or the r.)
• Kudaihav . . . ? (Could I have . . . ?)
• Pe-p’ease? (Pretty please?) (This just recently advanced from “Me-mease?”)
• Mayme we can . . . (Maybe—Rebecca is generating alternatives)
• F’iends (Friends)

But I think the most surprising recent words were this:

Last night at dinner, we were talking about our visit with Nana (my mom). I asked my son Hayden what his favorite part of the visit was. He decided his favorite part was getting new blocks from Nana.

“Here’s the backstory,” he said. And he proceeded to explain in great detail the shopping trip a week ago when we bought the new blocks.

“It’s great on so many levels,” he concluded.

(!!)

What are your favorite kid phrases?