New Beginnings

Ah yes! School has begun again. This year JJ is in third grade, Hannah in first and Asher began preschool. It is weird to think of them all leaving the nest this year and there isn't a little one still at home to occupy me. That means I don't have any excuse for having a dirty house right? I am really am going to try and be better about getting the boring jobs done. I really hate housework more than I can say. Week day evenings are busier than ever. Mondays are, of course, family night. Tuesdays are Lance's elders quorum presidency meetings and JJ's cub scouts. Wednesdays are Hannah's soccer practices and will be her dance class too. Thursdays are JJ's soccer practices and some of the time there will soccer games on these days. Fridays are blissfully free! Saturdays for the next few months will have soccer games on them. We will be squeezing in book club, scrapbook group, relief society nights and PTA meetings into the days and nights in the coming months. It is a lot to work out but I do enjoy being busy.

The first day of school went well for each of the kids. They all enjoy school a lot. I am a little concerned about Hannah this year. The teacher she got this year wasn't my first choice (and JJ decided to let the teacher know that fact at the Open House {gringe}). Hannah has been coming home saying she is bored and today she confided in me that she doesn't really like the boy she sits next to. He kicks her under the table and is loud. I am not sure I am getting the full story. I really couldn't offer her a solution to this problem other than to suggest she talk to the teacher about her concerns and politely ask the boy to stop. My first inclination with this sort of thing is to make her work it out her self. There will be plenty of things just like this in life and the sooner she figures out how to manage them herself the better.

JJ is doing well so far. He has several friends in his class and seems pretty happy about life in general. He is busy with his soccer team and scouts and is looking forward to starting up choir again.

My baby started preschool today. It was weird to think of him being old enough to go off on his own like that. He did really well and have any problems with me leaving him. He was so excited to start school he asked me every five minutes if it was time to leave from the moment he got up in the morning.

Get Ready Set GO!

I can't believe that the kids start school this week. I am excited for the new challenges they will face and all the things they will learn. I do love the beginning of school - there is so much promise and excitement in the beginning of something new. I will miss having them around (I know! Amazing huh?) They really do make my life so much better just by being in it.

We went to the County Fair on Saturday with my mom. I confess I was a little disappointed but I know you really can't compare it to the State Fair. It was sweltering hot but the kids still had fun and my mom really enjoyed herself. She was the main reason we went. I knew she really wanted to go. She doesn't get out much these days but when she does it is amazing the difference in her spirits. She was so happy!

I decided to create a schedule poster to help us stay on task. Hannah is the main reason I thought this was important to do. In the mornings she has a tendency to just stare off into space until someone reminds her what she is supposed to do next. Maybe this won't make a difference but I am willing to give it a try.

I have read my self hoarse the last couple of days. We are nearing the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It is pretty exciting! JJ begs me to read and read. I admit I am enjoying re-reading it as much as he is hearing it for the first time! I figure we won't have as much time to read after school starts so I want to finish this book by tomorrow. Reading out loud takes so much more time than reading to your self. I am also reading The Mysterious Benedict Society which is pretty good but pales in such close comparison to Harry Potter. I really should wait to read it when I am not also reading a Harry Potter book but it is on loan from a friend and I don't want to keep it forever.

JJ and Hannah have each had their first soccer practice. They are both going to be sporting green uniforms. JJ's is neon green and Hannah's is forest green. I am happy that Hannah will be practicing at Bandwagon and playing her games at Lehi Elementary - we could walk to her practices and games if we wanted to. JJ will be practicing and playing at Freedom Elementary which is within walking distance of Jake and Carolyn's house. None of their games conflict this time but one practice conflicts with a game and one of Hannah's games is on JJ's birthday. One game also conflicts with our Back to School Night. Oh well that is the way it goes as the kids get older. We are going to through Hannah's dance class into the mix too when we get the info on signing her up. I know that this makes things busy for us but I like the kids doing stuff rather than sitting home watching TV. There has to be a balance between keeping busy and being so busy that more important things get forgotten. Every family has their own way of striking that balance.

So today's key word is: (drum roll please) BALANCE. How do we achieve and maintain it in this hectic crazy world?

People who need people

Is it really true that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world? Or am I misquoting that song horribly? I am beginning to think that it is just the opposite. Interactions with people can bring great joy but can also bring lots of heartache. Maybe it is just the gray sky outside but at the moment all I can think of are the heartaches, disappointments and annoyances that have accompanied my interpersonal relations of late. In the case of family extended relationships - I have felt very isolated of late. I envy my girlfriends with close relationships with their sisters, brothers, cousins etc. Not that I have ever had super close relationships with my brothers but I communicate with them rarely and only in reference to dealing with my mom. Speaking of my mom. . . I am at my wits end to know how to deal with her right now. She has always had the some interesting quirks - suspiciousness, fatalistic negativity and a passive aggressive way of dealing with everyone. These quirks would pop up here and there but lately she is completely obsessed or possessed by them. I call her nearly every day and every conversation consists of her telling me about the various ways her neighbors are trying to drive her crazy - from allowing the leaves of thier trees to litter her yard to sending her an anonymous card expressing caring and friendship. The world is out to get her and her way of dealing with it is to say she should be dead. She has always expressed this desire to be dead as long as I can remember any time she was angry or upset by anything which was a lot of the time. It was terrifying for me as a child and just made me angry as I became a teenager. Mom and I have always had a close relationship but she is not the person she used to be. She complains that she has no one - no friends at all but she pushes away everyone who wants to help her or be her friend. She is quite inventive when it comes to the reasons she is angry at different people. Her irrationality is driving me crazy right now. The only time she seems her old normal self is when she is with my kids. Threatening to not let them be with her is the only thing that will bring her around when she goes off on one of her crazy obsessive kicks. She is threatening not to return to church because she has been offended by nearly everyone in her ward. I guess my greatest fear is that I will turn into her someday. I really don't think I will - I am enough different from her that I can't see that happening but I do find myself tending toward the passive aggressive way of dealing with people and isolating myself when I feel hurt or insecure.

Speaking of hurt - we had an uncomfortable experience this week. Lance is coaching Hannah's soccer team again this year and it is an all girls team in an all girls league. He got the rosters late last week and we noticed that a girl from our old ward was on the list. I wasn't thrilled because I am not a huge fan of this family but thought it wasn't that big a deal. Well Lance sent out email notices to the team to set up practices and introduce himself as the coach. Less than 24 hours later he received notice from the soccer league that the girl had moved off his team. Good riddance I guess but we thought it was pretty rude, with no explanation or anything. Upon reflection I wasn't too surprised that this happened - it was typical of my experience with this family which was the reason I don't like them that much to begin with. I guess I am just surprised when seemingly "good" LDS people behave in such a crude way. No one is perfect but there is no reason to not to be courteous and kind in you every day interactions with people.

So my goal for today is when life gives me gray rainy days I will raise my face to the rain and enjoy getting a fresh drink just like the flowers (and kids) do!

Already?

Since I don't think many people read this I have decided to try and write more often and more as a journal. I apologize if this isn't as politically correct as it used to be. I want to include more of my real feelings, worries etc.

The summer is nearly over. I have mixed feelings about this. It will be nice to have the house stay clean for more than 2 minutes. Lately I feel like I am constantly yelling at the kids to pick up their toys. Right now I am just letting them play even though I know the mess is just getting messier. I have thought a lot about the virtues of just letting them play no matter the mess versus having a clean house. I guess you could say I am siding with the "messy but having fun" side of things. The kids have spent a lot of time together doing imaginative play. And when I say imaginative I mean it with a capital I! Yesterday they were playing that their stuffed toys were characters from Harry Potter. Voldemort was a pink bunny holding a carrot!

Speaking of Harry Potter, we have been working on our goal of reading the whole Harry Potter book series before the new movie comes out. JJ has become slightly obsessed with having me read to him. He would be happy if I would read non stop all day. Hannah sits and listens too but is totally fine if we stop reading after one chapter. Lance and I are both thrilled to share our love of reading with our kids. It has always been very important and we have made it a priority to read to our kids. We are seeing the fruits of our labor with JJ who I believe has begun a life-long love affair with books. He now reads large chapter books on his own and has several series of books that he loves. He has read about 5 or 6 of the How To Train Your Dragon books by Cressida Cowell. He also likes reading the Magic Tree House books and is just finishing number 20 in that series. During school he read the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and some of the Junie B. Jones books. We are always on the look out for great kid-lit books. I have been sharing some of my other favorite books with him- we read The Lightening Thief early on in the summer.

Last week I went through Hannah's room and hauled out multiple bags of garbage and laundry baskets full of toys yet her room (which is the tiniest one in the house) is still a mess. We have an organization system for her room -plastic bins that fit into a set of wire squares in her tiny closet. JJ and Asher's room is bigger and feels more organized. JJ cleans it up on a fairly regular basis and so it doesn't get too bad. I also purged a lot of stuff a while back from the boys' room. Lance and my bedroom is like a black cave- dark and dusty, with lots of stuff to trip over. I don't even bother making the bed most days. My house needs a make over from top to bottom. Both our bathrooms have carpet in them. The front one is especially bad because certain little boys can't seem to hit the target. We have some left over tile from the laundry and office rooms downstairs and from my mom's bathroom remodel. I just need to motivate "someone" to move that project to the top of the list. I feel totally inadequate to organize the basement. I go downstairs and just turn around and come back up - I need a team of organizers or to be on one of those HG TV clean up shows. Could someone nominate me??

We have been in the 12th ward now for several months. The dynamic is just so different in this ward I can't get a handle on it. I have tried really hard to step out of my comfort zone and introduce myself to people. Which is pretty much the hardest thing for me to do. Initially people will say hi but then once they have done their duty to welcome us once into the ward they pretty much ignore us. Lance and I spoke in church on Sunday and I was really sincere when I said that I hope to get to know the people in this ward. As I have said before for the kids this move has been wonderful. The kids have adjusted really well. Lance is doing ok too - but he doesn't really care if people say hi to him or not. Me on the other had . . . Economically we are much more similar to the other people our age in this ward. A lot of them live in older homes like us and don't have extra money for "toys" etc. But this fact hasn't made it easier for me to get them to include me in their conversations. I really notice it at various ward activities where I would normally have any of a dozen or so people to sit and chat with and now I have maybe one or two. I know it will take time but in the meantime it has been a little difficult.

Another situation arose that I am still not sure I handled in the right way. In the rental house next door lives a young couple and a single mom of two boys who is the sister/sister-in-law of the young couple. The boys are ages 8 and 12. JJ, of course, made friends right away with the boys. They have played with them quite a bit this summer. A week or so ago the older boy (who really likes playing with Hannah and Asher more than JJ, weird) had a huge fight with JJ - not fists - just yelling and screaming at the tops of their lungs. I never could quite get to the bottom of what happened because the boy and JJ were both blaming each other and were so angry that they couldn't seem to tell it to me straight. I made JJ come in the house to calm down and tried to talk to the boy- it was pretty useless, he was too angry to be coherent so I told them both they couldn't play together until they were better able to control their tempers. The next day I thought things had calmed down so when they wanted to play I said ok. Sure enough not to long later I hear another screaming fight commencing. I broke it up again and again tried to figure out what had happened. All I could figure out is that they were blaming each other again for various things. At that point JJ's other friends came to play and although I warned him not to do it, it became sort of a war with the boy's younger brother siding with him and JJ's friends siding with JJ. That was the end of play that day. Lance came home and tried to talk to all the parties involved too but didn't get anywhere further than me. So I just said that the kids couldn't play for a while. About a week goes by and JJ really wants to play with the younger brother (who by the way has always gotten along just fine with JJ). I talked with JJ about how just like he, Hannah and Asher are kind of a package deal when it comes to kids playing together - so were Gage and Kyler. I am not a fan of one sibling being left out. Later that day I made some fresh salsa from tomatoes in our garden. It was pretty tasty so I put some in a container and let JJ take it next door to Gage and Kyler's house. I didn't tell him to make up with them or anything but I guess he did because they have been playing together the last few days. The situation with Gage is still a little tense but so far things have been ok. So my parenting dilemma is how far to go in resolving my children's confrontations. I want them to learn how to deal with the issues that inevitably come up in life in a positive way. In so many ways I feel like I am even less equipped to deal with these types of issues then they are.

Along those lines I dealt with some confrontation issues my self recently with a close friend of mine. I was surprised at how much I allowed that confrontation to rock my own world. I firmly believe that we choose our own way of reacting to situations but I also know my own limitations include allowing myself to be hurt by things other people, especially people I really care about, say. As always it was a learning experience. I can't say that our friendship has come out unscathed. I know I am holding back because I don't want to be hurt again. I am hoping that time will help us be even better friends than we were before because we know ourselves and each other just a little bit better.

I have been thinking about the friends I have lost over the years and I wish I knew how to gather them in again. I do miss some of them quite a bit. Time marches on however and I have to admit that I think the time limit for certain friendships is over. So I am just grateful for the memories and the things I learned from those friendships along the way.