book stack

IT was a new years resolution I determined on at the beginning of this year that motivated my then pregnant self to resource a little more faithfully in the parenting department. I have always been a fairly even keeled pregnant woman, in fact, despite uncomfortable pregnancies, I was always pretty happy. Happy to eat whatever I wanted. Happy to have an excuse if I needed one to sit on the couch with my feet up, etc. Then along came my fourth pregnancy and I don't even know what happened. I was, how can I put it graciously, imbalanced. Even though I tried hard not to show it, I was ready to cry in my coffee, cry in my tea, cry in my yogurt, on my cereal and my other carbohydrate filled food in general, 95 percent of the time. Plus, I felt irritated all the time.
 I remember my husband looking at me and saying "what is wrong with you?"
"Well I'm pregnant duh. It's not my fault I've been an angel every other pregnancy and now you get to see what the rest of the male sex has to deal with". No, I did not say that. I took a tear filled look at myself with the intention of making the inevitable  remaining months of pregnancy more pleasant for everyone.

 Long story short ,I knew I needed to just remind myself of the principles of parenting, the reasons I chose to homeschool and why I was married in general (just kidding). I stacked every book I had ever purchased on those three things (parenting, homeschooling and marriage), ordered a few more and committed to read fifteen minutes every day out of that stack.

 Every single evening I lugged my largess to the treadmill  and walked my two miles at 3.5 MPH with a book in hand. It was one of the best things I could have done. I started feeling inspired, empowered and basically just encouraged. Very often I would read much more than fifteen minutes because the words were giving me the direction I was craving. Sufficed to say I have continued this habit all year even after my baby was born and happily my hormones went back to their regular balance.

Being a parent of four, my times of binge reading have faded into oblivion. I remember staying up till 2 a.m. in order to finish a riveting mystery I just couldn't put down or reading Pride and Prejudice over the weekend just because I felt a hankering for Mr. Darcy, or reading five books at the same time...successfully.

Maybe we as moms can't blast through a book in one sitting or maybe you never liked to read that way anyway, but I don't care who you are, everyone has time for fifteen minutes. I strongly recommend developing this powerful habit. If you have more than one kid you know they might have the same mom and dad but they are widely different.  Though our discipline should be consistent, different kids need different approaches.

Since we are talking about parenting, I won't include the stack of marriage books (save that for another time) but I will include some of the homeschooling recommendations because school is too intertwined in everyday living for me. The top six are wonderful reads and some of the bottom titles I have not yet finished but I intend to. Some were hard to find and I picked them up used. Glean what speaks to you. Sometimes just a little change brings about wonderfully positive results.

Home Grown Kids By, Dorothy and Raymond Moore
Hints on Child Training By, Trumbull
For the children's sake, By, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Home Built Discipline By, Raymond and Dorothy Moore
Child Training Tips By, Reb Bradley
If Jesus were a parent By, Perkins
Guardians of Purity By Julie Hiramine
Bring up boys By, Dobson
Bringing up Girls By Dobson
Home spun Schools By, Raymond and Dorothy Moore
THe strong willed child By Dobson
Dare to discipline By Dobson
The ten commandments of parenting By Ed Young
I love this thing called parenting...well, most of the time By. Wendy Treat
MomSense By, Jean blackmer

If you have some books to recommend I would love to hear them and add them to my ever growing stack. Much love.

When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out. ~Erma Bombeck

To blog or not to blog...that is the question

If the answer exists definitively it would have to be "to blave...", I mean "to blog", in my halting, periodic, irregular way. This blog is about parenting and about life and love and generally just whatever I feel like. Saying that, I'm going to do a bunch of posts on parenting. Not sure what they will consist of yet...but be assured they will be fabulous.

I don't know if I am the only mom who has read parenting books where they delineate how your child "should" behave but don't follow up with "this is how you get your child to behave" .  A child should wait patiently for your attention when in public, a child should ask to be excused from the table. a child should gladly share toys with younger children and give preference to older people. A child should eat vegetables and not come out of their room in the morning until 7. A child should refrain from being obnoxious in public. A child should not talk back, or argue.... and about 300 other "shoulds" both viable and ridiculous.

 "But how?"

 I have questioned the innocent paper on more than one occasion while shaking the book in a paroxysm of frustration. They all make it sound so cut and dry, so easy peasy.

 Well, based on my experience with four amazing, unique personalities in the journey I started over 8 years ago, I have some words to say. They may be helpful to you or just humorous, or maybe a bit of both.

 If I have been inconsistent lately in an internet presence I have been endeavoring to be very consistent in my home presence. My mental, emotional and physical pursuits have been focused on  my present purpose. I have been doing the mom thing with a vengeance. My cape is starched, my hair is flying and I have been working on a more graceful variation of a crash landing. This is real life people and we have to be on our game, we have to be "present".

So my word for tonight on parenting is this:
You can read the play book repeatedly but you have to have a minute knowledge of your individual players, a realization of their strengths, an awareness of their propensities, their personality, their individuality, their soul, in order to place them advantageously.
I hate the box kids get placed in, the labels they so often amass (believe me, I have a son who would be given five or six of these).  I had these little beauties and now I am called to parent them, to train them, discipline them, protect them and to love them. So watch, listen, observe, evaluate and do it all with an expression of love in your eyes and with the frequent words on your tongue "you are just so amazing to me".

Real moments, real imperfections, real life adventure.