Thoughts

So many thoughts running through my head about life. I know, big surprise right? Been doing that a lot lately.

My life has been so crazy lately. (Yes, I know, I have not kept up on the weekly blog I promised. I haven't had time or energy!) My diet is not on track, my sleep isn't on track, my exercise isn't on track, and it seems I will never get on track with anything. This is exactly what life was like when Mo was a toddler. When I think back to her toddler years, I instantly remember the awful. I didn't know it at the time, but we were raising a child with Sensory Processing Disorder. Everyone told me that I wasn't hard enough on her, that I didn't punish her enough. On occasion when we had to force safety things, I even heard that we were too tough. It takes some deeper thinking or looking at pictures for me to remember all the good times in her toddler years. Bubba's toddler years were wonderful. So many good memories. We had a great time! Now, as we go through Squeeks toddler years, it is like repeating Mo's all over again. Yes, we are now raising our 2nd SPD child. The difference though is this: we KNOW this time. I now know the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown. I have a much better understanding of my daughter's brain and nervous system. I know why she does what she does. I know.

Knowing is huge. Knowing means that it can be different this time.  I don't want to look back and instantly remember the bad. We have 3 kids this time around. I don't want the memories of their childhood to be overtaken with the stressed out life of raising SPD kids.

We have already been on a journey of changing churches, schooling, food, and some activities. It has been a wonderful journey thus far. However, I feel like we have barely seen anyone. I hate feeling secluded, even if I do it to myself. I blame it on my crazy hectic life with an SPD toddler. That excuse is more than valid. Tonight though, as I sat at a life celebration, I was reminded how many people we have known who have passed many years younger than most of us would expect to live. The pastor talked about life being more quality than quantity. I have heard statements like this many times before but it really hit me tonight. My motto lately has been to just survive Squeek's toddler years, one day at a time. Today I even told a new friend that I probably won't have anyone to my house in like a year because I can't seem to ever keep up with cleaning. Like not at all. It has seemed like one step forward, ten steps back. This is not quality!

I want quality. I want my kids to be able to have friends over whenever they want. I want to have my friends over whenever I want. I want to have dinner parties, barbeques, and bonfires. I want good memories with not only our family but with friends.

I don't want the life to be full of bad and stressful moments. I want to embrace my daughter's toddler years. I want to make the best. Tonight they talked about legacy, and how children can be a great legacy to leave behind. I agree. I want to take hold of those legacies and do anything and everything I can to make sure they are great. As a stay at home homeschooling mom, I have felt that God called me to to do this. We have sacrificed a lot for me to stay home because we know this is what God wants. However, at times I get caught up in the stress of it all and forget this. I now have a new drive. My legacy. This is my life's work. They are my legacy.

Weeks 2 & 3

Last week seemed to fly by and I never got to post. Last week was great! The kids and I had a really good week. It is amazing how much closer the kids are getting already. I didn't realize that keeping a schedule and separating them for school was keeping them from developing a deep friendship with one another. I used to always tell them "You better learn to get along because your siblings will be your best friends you will ever have". I haven't had to tell them that once in the last week. Instead, I am hearing them say things like "But mom, why do we have to quiet down?! I am just playing with my best friend!" or  sarcastically running into a room saying "Oh, my best friend! I haven't seen you in so long!" As a mom, this makes me so happy. I had felt like I had done everything possible to try and get my kids to have a close relationship. Some days I felt they had this, other days they fought constantly. In the last week, they have gotten along every day. Of course they have little spats here and there, but I think they are finally developing the relationship I have longed for them to have. And to think, all it took was for me to give them a little more freedom.

So you would think that since we went to unschooling, our days would be wide open with not a lot going on, except kids playing. It has been the opposite! We have done more "schooling" than we have in a long time! I love that everything we are currently studying, the kids are engaged, having fun, and retaining what I am teaching them. I love that Kayla is involved in almost every single thing we are doing. At this time, the only thing we do without her is art, which is about 2-3 hours a week. We do this during her nap. She is able to get plenty of other art time with us, but during this separate time, we are learning to sketch.

So, I guess I better to get to writing about my challenges...Week two I did really well on the yelling challenge. Week three, not so good. I yelled at Kayla every day. With the combination of sensory issues and getting into the terrible threes, we are having lots of issues with her. I should know that yelling at her will do no good, but sometimes I just yell before I even realize what I am doing. She is just such a handful right now!

Health challenge - Neither of the last two weeks have been great. Kayla has had me up four hours in the middle of the night quite often. When I am tired, I don't do so well with my diet. I know I shouldn't use excuses but I just don't do well when I am tired. However, I have lost two pounds! I don't know how, maybe it was the few workouts I got in or something. I have no idea.

Well, I am too tired to think of how to wrap up this post, so Goodnight!

God's perfect timing

We are leaving our church.

Ah, the words I have dreaded admitting out loud to the people from our church. The last five years there have been wonderful. The kids and I have made some good friends. The oldest two are just 5 1/2 & 8, so they have had the same friends most their life. I have also taught some wonderful children and enjoyed it very much. However, my husband never quite got connected, for whatever reason. Much of it has had to do with his weird schedules over the years. He just always dealt with the feeling of not fitting in, because he knew how much the kids and I loved it there...

I have been in churches long enough to know that people will talk, speculate, and gossip about why we are leaving. So I will just tell everyone the honest truth here.

Everyone is well aware that we have looked for other churches once or twice in the last 5 years. Each time we felt adamantly that God was telling us to stay put and not change churches. Each time, we were blessed again and again, and affirmed in the decision to follow what God was telling us. Including my husband who still felt like he wasn't fitting in. This summer, like every summer in the past, we attended VBS at another church. But it was different this year. This year Daddy took the kids every night (I went a few times as well). They had refreshments for the parents to sit and fellowship while the kids were in class. After the first night my hubby came home feeling like God had placed us there for a reason. Then he asked me to sit and talk to people with him. These conversations weren't deep conversations but just killing time type conversations. But for whatever reason we just really felt like God was calling us to this church. We decided to visit on a Sunday. There was just one problem. Due to being out of town and having 4H commitments, we wouldn't be able to visit for another three weeks. This also meant that I would have to take more time off of teaching at our current church. I dreaded that and the questions it would bring up. However, when those questions came, my children's director was incredibly understanding of the situation. During those three weeks we prayed a lot about this whole church thing. Before we even went on Sunday, we were pretty sure it would be our new church home, which was almost frightening to us. We felt so strongly that God was telling us that this would be our new church home. That is scary when you have never even heard the preacher preach. So, that Sunday finally comes around and it isn't the main pastor speaking, and the service was not a normal service at all since they were interviewing a new youth pastor. We both came out of church saying "That's it. Doesn't matter. God has confirmed over and over again that this is where we need to be. We don't even care how the normal pastors preaching is because if God is calling us here then we know it will be good." (We have now been another week and heard the head pastor preach.)

So, That's just it. God has told us to and that's all that matters. Anything that has or hasn't happened at our other church in the past doesn't matter. Cause if this move wasn't something God wanted us to do then we wouldn't. God is telling us to make this change in our lives and so we are.

Week 1

Well, week one of my challenge is over. I feel like it went pretty well. The yelling challenge was the hardest at first. By the end of the week I did go a good 4 days with no yelling. Today I ruined it. I would love to say that in my defense they were back talking and wouldn't stop and so I was forced to yell. However, in reality I probably could have still dealt with it differently. I will get there though. For now, I will celebrate 4 days of no yelling.

My thoughts thus far on the yelling challenge: I didn't mention anything to my husband, but just changed my habits. I assume he read my blog though since he immediately improved as well. The benefits happened immediately. Within a few short hours I noticed my older two talking nicer to each other and having less attitude. This got better and better each and every day. Along with the better attitudes came children who were helpful, thoughtful, and caring. They worked together, played together, and just had a fun week. Oh, I must also remember that I also took away the remotes to the Playstation and Wii. Since we don't have cable this meant that they only had access to a few educational shows and not everything on Netflix and Hulu. Taking away the shows and all the attitude, yelling, and fighting that they watch was also huge in this no yelling effort. I brought the remote back out for the weekend. Things got worse again. So, I have decided that the remotes will be hidden again during the week. I don't know about the weekend yet, but we will definitely have to regulate it more than we did this weekend.

Healthy Challenge: I am finding that it isn't as easy to get into the routine this time around. I don't know why. The cravings are worse than before. I have had a few desserts this week (though they were portion controlled), way too many carbs, and not enough fruits and veggies. I did great on water intake and only had pop once! Now, thoughts on pop.....bad bad stuff!! We took the kids to the movie theater yesterday. Afterwards we picked up Subway and went to the park to eat and play. I forgot to get myself a water and so I ended up drinking some of my hubby's Mt. Dew (maybe 12oz at most). It tasted gross. Thought that since it tasted so bad that it wouldn't set me back, because I wouldn't be craving something that is too sweet for my tastes. Then later on everyone goes to bed. Here I sat till 1:30am wide awake, not even tired at all. I still didn't feel tired when I finally did get in bed. I finally did sleep, but not well. I tossed and turned all night. I had a really hard time getting up this morning. So of course I was then craving caffeine!! Stupid soda makers have us all hooked on caffeine!! It is so addictive! Did I go get a pop? Nope. I grabbed my water bottle and started chugging the water. Thankfully I didn't have any headaches like I had earlier in the week.

So, as I go into week 2 I am hoping to improve some things. I would like to go more than 4 days without yelling. I would like to go the entire week without pop. I would like to eat more fruits and veggies, while cutting back on the desserts.

Thanks to my hubby for encouraging me and going through all this with me. Thanks to my accountability partner who has been with me through the last few months and is still doing this with me. It is so great to have those texts at all times of the day encouraging me, holding me accountable, and sharing the good and bad.

Life changes

I am really not a person who likes organization, lists, schedules, or anything of the sort. I like a flexible, fly by the seat of your pants sort of lifestyle. However, since having our 3rd child, I have realized that I can no longer live like that. We NEED organization in order to survive these years.

I have created detailed schedules, detailed chore lists, detailed behavior lists, and a detailed perk system for the kids. A section of our hallway is devoted to these things. When I follow them and make everyone else follow them, life if great. House is clean, people are happy and feel proud of their work, and we even have more fun and spare time! When life gets busy and I don't make us stick to the routine, then everyone is cranky, yells a lot, house is a mess, and so on. I am slowly learning that we can not stray from these lists.

A few months ago I went on an 8 week weight loss healthy challenge. The focus is more on health than actual weight loss. In those 8 weeks of getting healthy I lost 22 pounds! It has almost been another eight weeks since it ended. Wanna know how much I have lost in these last couple months? Four pounds! How crazy is that that once I no longer HAD to keep track, then I just stopped and completely fell off the bandwagon?! I have been drinking pop, eating junk, and not drinking water. I KNOW that I felt incredible when I was drinking a ton of water, and yet I still slid back into my old habits.

Something else that I have noticed is that when I stopped taking care of myself is that I became "mean mom". Though my kids have never called me that, that is how I feel. I am so much more tired now that I stopped eating healthy. Tiredness = Crankiness = a mom who yells way too much. I yell at my kids. I yell at my husband because he is yelling at the kids. It is a vicious cycle. If I am the main provider of the kids and I yell at them during the day, night, weekend; then of course they are gonna be cranky and yell and scream when dad is home and he will get cranky back because all he wants is a fun relaxing time with the family. I can place the blame on so many things but in the end, it boils down to one thing. I have not been using self control. Self control over my eating, sleeping, or exercise habits, as well as my emotions.

So, I have concluded that starting in the morning, I am going back on my healthy challenge. Since 8 weeks obviously wasn't long enough to engrave healthy habits in my brain then I am making it longer. I am making it a 21 week challenge. That will put the end just before the new year. My hope is that by then I will have created new life long habits that I will stick with.

I have also learned about a No yelling challenge. Yeah! Just what I need! With this challenge, if you yell, then you start over. If you have a rage type yell, then you start with -2 days. The goal is to get to 365 days with no yelling. For me right now, that seems IMPOSSIBLE. So, I am setting my goal as this: Go as long as I can without yelling. When I yell and start back over, then I try to make it further than before. My hope is that I will get farther and farther each time. My second home is that as a side effect of me not yelling, my children and husband will stop yelling as well.

So, here goes nothing. I am posting this publicly so that people can ask me how I am doing and help to hold me accountable. I need all the support I can get if I am going to change. If anyone wants walk beside me and do these things with me, then that would be great as well.

Links to the challenges in case anyone is interested:
 http://theorangerhino.com/about-the-orange-rhino/
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/01/8-week-printable-weight-loss-get.html

Spring activities

Wow, can't believe I haven't been on here in a couple months! Life has been so incredibly busy. I am going to attempt to do a quick recap of the last couple months.

I joined a Healthy weight loss competition. It was 8 weeks long and focused more on creating healthy habits than on weight loss. During this 8 weeks I walked/ran over 10 miles, biked around 100 and did many hours of cardio and strength activities. I ended up with a loss of 22 pounds in those 8 weeks. After it was over, I kept in contact with my accountability partner but didn't stick to the "plan" anymore. During the next 3 weeks I drank pop (though not much), ate sweets (also, not anywhere near as much as I had previously) and didn't count calories. I lost 3lb in 3 weeks. How frustrating but also how eye opening! I realized that I really have to stick to this plan of eating healthy, drinking tons of water, working out, and most importantly, not drinking pop. Pop is so highly addictive. When I was off the pop, I didn't crave sweets at all. As soon as I had a single pop, I was craving pop and other sweets like crazy. I also felt constantly tired and depressed. So, I am now back on the plan, staying in daily contact with my accountability partner, and off of pop. Hope to start dropping the weight again!

Baseball: This was Bubba's first year playing t-ball. My how he loved it!! He is so good at baseball and was one of the best on his team. The first few games he got almost every ball the other team hit. He was really focused on the game and wanted to learn as much as he could. Unfortunately his coach had never coached before and he had many teammates that didn't care to play well, or even stay on the field. The coach spent a lot of time just rounding kids back onto the field. These things make it hard for Bubba to learn as much as he would have liked. However, we worked with him as much as we could ourselves, and he hit off the T in our own backyard almost daily. By the end of the season he was consistently hitting his balls into the outfield and did not need a T anymore.

Swimming: This was Mo's 3rd year on the Swim team. She really enjoyed reconnecting with friends from previous years and grew closer to them over the season. She learned many hand clapping games from them. Since we spent so much of the last year with a knee injury and in therapy sessions, her swimming had seen a negative effect. At the beginning of the season she was frustrated and wanted to quit since she wasn't as fast as she thought she would be. After some very hard work though, she became better and faster. She really worked on her form and breathing. Her rotary breathing for freestyle is very good. However, since she is taking a breath every other arm, it slows her down. I am sure that the more she practices she will learn to wait four strokes instead of two. This will help her speed up a lot. She also is trying to perfect the other strokes. She has an adorable little double head bob while doing her breast stroke. It is cause she is focusing so much on the legs and body movement that she doesn't realize what her head is doing. Very cute though! I hope that this year we will be able to work swimming back into our normal routine so that she can practice year round. Not only will this help with her swim times, but it is also great therapy for her.

We also celebrated our 9 year anniversary! We went on a 20 mile bike ride for our date. It was so much fun! However, it proved to be a bit too much for me and I had to cop out at 17 miles. I was so frustrated. It was a good ride and my longest yet, but I felt like my muscles were sluggish to start and I totally blame that on the pop. I am almost positive that if I hadn't been drinking pop that week then I totally could have finished that ride.

Mo also turned eight! My how fast time flies. Of course she was sure to remind me that she is half way to being able to drive a car. She is turning into such a beautiful young girl. She is 4'6" and 73lb! She is very tall for her age. She has many friends that are 9&10 who are the same height or even shorter than her. She wears a size 6 women's shoe already. But like all kids, she can't wait to grow more. She is so bright and full of life (and attitude at times). She loves photography, American girls, playing house, biking, swimming, knitting, and many other things. She is always interested in learning a new craft. She is constantly talking, singing, or doing something to make noise. It can drive us nuts at times but we love that she is so full of life. The other day she decided to write down a song. It was a love song! When she asked dad for help he refused to help her write a love song so she changed it to be a love song about daddy. It was cute. She is definitely going to keep us on our toes for years to come but with a steady amount of training, discipline, and therapy, hopefully she will blossom into a mature young lady with respect for herself and others. I know that God has big things planned for this bundle of energy!!

Mother's Day & my Birthday!

Well, typically we don't have much money for a birthday present for me from my family so they just get something small. This year was different. This year I am in a weightloss healthy challenge. I am trying to lose weight and get healthy. My husband decided that he would get me a new bike for my birthday, but give it to me a couple weeks early to help with my workouts. I LOVE my new bike! It is geared so much differently and has a much more comfortable seat. I love to take long rides on it. I currently can do about seven miles in 45 minutes. I hope to one day be able to much more than that without having to stop and rest. This is a great start though!

Since I got my bike early, I didn't have anything to open on my birthday/Mother's day. A child did hand me a water bottle cage (for my bike) but it ended up being the wrong color. I hated to tell them but it was the only thing left that I wanted and they had driven to four stores to find what they thought was the right one. When they asked if it was the right one they could just tell from the look on my face. I felt bad cause they had tried but on the other hand I felt jealous. Jealous of all the mom's on Facebook. Jealous that they all were posting these pictures of cards, flowers, and presents they were given. Jealous that their husbands and kids were pampering them by giving them a day off. I didn't get any of that. Here I was struggling to get kids ready for church, a house cleaned and dinner ready for my mom to come over for her Mother's day dinner. I was working my butt off while reading how wonderful all these mother's felt being spoiled. I also was getting texts from a cousin stressing about having dinner at her home. This just added to my jealousy. Why is she complaining? She doesn't have kids. She doesn't have a 2yr old's messes to clean up. I was so frustrated. Here is was not only Mother's Day, but my birthday as well. Feeling sick didn't help at all either...In the end, I realized that I shouldn't be jealous. I shouldn't even bother to get on Facebook and risk having those jealous feelings. It doesn't matter what these other people got. Before the internet, people never shared all those things, and people didn't care what other's got. So why should I care now? I knew going into marriage that my husband wasn't a very romantic person. I knew that he gets me practical things because he knows I am a practical person. While I am a girl and would love to be spoiled with frivolous things every now and then, it really isn't something that I want very often. So for future, I think I will just stay away from Facebook on holidays because if I don't see things then I won't feel jealous.

Now, though my actual birthday I felt sick, tired, jealous, and frustrated, the two days prior were the exact opposite. Friday we had a great day at home. The kids were wonderful, got along, helped with chores, and did school great. In the afternoon we took them to gym and art class. While they were there I went and spent time with my Grandfather, and Skyped with my brother. That was very special for my Grandfather since he really misses my brother. After we picked the kids back up from their class, we went and got Ellie (a friend's teenager). We had a great evening with the kids, and I stayed up late talking with Ellie. The next day we got up, and had to be at the ball field for Bubba's baseball game. It was only 44 degrees and so Ellie stayed home with the girls. It was great to be able to watch the game just us without having to chase after a 2yr old or hear Mo complain about how boring it was. When we got back we got some things done around the house, and then everyone except Squeeks and myself went out shopping (for that one present they planned to get me). Squeeks took a nap and I layed around since I didn't feel well. When they all got back, Ellie told us to go out for my birthday date. We went out to dinner, ran errands, went for dessert, and then a drive. It was wonderful to get out for a few hours and not worry about kids. They all had gotten along perfect all day and we knew that they were fine at home.

I was feeling so incredibly blessed on Saturday. Blessed that we have three beautiful children. Blessed that even though we may have rough days, we also have many many great days. Blessed that my children love to spend time together and are great friends. Blessed that I have a husband that loves to spend time with his kids, teach them new things and skills, and cuddle with them. Blessed that we also have a fourth child that while not our own, chooses to call us mom and dad. Who comes to our home to spend time with us and our children cause she loves us as her own family. Bless to be a mentor to her, an open ear/shoulder for her, and to have an extra sibling for our children. We have gone through some big fights with her and our children in the past, especially our oldest. To see their relationship go from fighting, bickering and complaining, to finding common ground, talking about things, crafting together and playing together is such a beautiful thing. I am so glad that they have this loving sibling relationship now. I feel so blessed to have these four beautiful children in our lives and to call us mom & dad.

I didn't really have a plan to wrap this post up so I guess it is this...While the world tells us to celebrate on certain days and to make people feel special on certain days, that is not always necessary or work out right. My family had no intentions of making my birthday a rough one, nor did my friend's on Facebook. It was just a normal day that got lost in the happenings of life. It is almost more special and beautiful when things happen the way they did the two days prior. When life becomes beautiful and special just happening on their own, that's when you know true happiness. I don't need a card or flowers to tell me that I have a beautiful family who loves me.

Oh, and I almost forgot. In the end, we did pull off a great lunch for my mom. We had a great time talking, eating, and hanging out for awhile. We hadn't done that in awhile and it was even better to do it in the comfort of our own home where we didn't have to worry about kids messes, restruants, or getting into things. It was just a wonderful relaxing time.