fraud

I have a new song stuck in my head... "I am a fraud. A big, fat fraud."

I felt this way when the crazy nurses let me bring a six pound baby Logan home from the hospital.

I felt this way when Logan started kindergarten.

And I feel this way now that Logan and Madison are entering their tween years. 

During the day I pretend I am a mother of small children. When 4:00 p.m. rolls around I am a mother of children who need to wear deodorant. Children who don't need me to help with their homework anymore--well, I don't have to sit down with them, anyway. Children who are figuring out how to navigate through their school-issued computers and the Internet...maybe better than I can. Children who can be so incredibly helpful and kind one minute, and angry and door-slamming the next. 

So I'm going to keep on playing house. Sure--I've got this! No problem!  I'll keep feeding them and taking them places. I'll listen to them talk, and then I'll pretend to have valuable advice. One of these days I might actually know what I'm doing. 

Lucky Ammon. 

oh what a night!

The school the kids have been attending for the last 3 years was closed in June, which meant the kids had to go to a new school. We were really hoping that their move to a new school would coincide with our move to the new house, but it was not to be. So instead we applied to the new STEM school (science, technology, engineering, and math). All three of them got in, which is great. The only problem is the 40 minute bus ride, which I can't really complain too much about because my bus ride was an hour long (to and from school) when I lived in Pennsylvania, and I guess I survived ok.

I often find myself wondering how my parents kept their sanity with all five of us in school with homework and way too many extra curricular activities. Both parents worked full-time jobs, had big callings at church, and still managed to make whole-wheat homemade bread from scratch each week. I'm struggling to keep up with the 3 I have in school, with homework and reading every night and activities like scouts, activity days, tae kwon do, and piano lessons. But I'm trying not to have too big of a pity party because holy moly I know it's going to get worse! I do have to remind myself that my parents were both teachers and they got home around the same time that we got home from school, so there were TWO of them to get dinner on the table and everyone to their responsibilities, and I am trying to do it all alone, as Joe doesn't get home until 7:00 p.m. most nights. 

Anyway. So Mondays are crazy because the kids get off of the bus at 4:09 and Logan has tae kwon do at 4:30. So as soon as they walk in the door it's a mad rush to get everyone to use the bathroom (because some of my children refuse to go at school, which I also can't complain too much about because I did the same thing), get a snack, send Logan to do a 30 second clothing change, and to holler at everyone to get into the van. Ammon went down for his nap kind of late this afternoon, so he was still asleep when the kids got home. Logan woke him up and told him to get into the van.

Finally, at 4:26, we are on our way to tae kwon do. We manage somehow to miraculously make all of the lights, there is little traffic, and we are only 1 minute late. I drop Logan off and take the kids to the park. When we get out of the van I notice that Ammon has ONE flip flop. Awesome. Well, I'm not going home, so I gather my confidence and tell him to go play. Grant and I find a shady picnic table and alternate homework pages with 5 minutes at a time to climb or swing.

I notice my phone buzzing but don't recognize the phone number. I answer anyway. It's Logan's teacher. My heart kind of flip flops, because why is his teacher calling me after school? I mean, I love my kids and I think they are wonderful, really GOOD kids, but I also see them in their worst moments--name calling, karate chop your sibling, angry moments--and I think to myself, "He used tae kwon do on someone who was bothering him. Great." But instead she clears her throat and says, "I just wanted you to know that I am so, so blessed to have Logan in my class."

And I laugh a little bit, because it's not really what I was expecting to hear, but it is what I needed to hear. So I tell her thank you, that hearing how great my kid is makes my job so much more worth it. I didn't even think to ask her how he's doing, or what prompted her to call, it just didn't cross my mind. But that's ok; I'm just glad that she did.

45 minutes later and I load everyone back into the van, pick up Logan, run into Aldi to grab a bag of salad for dinner, and hurry home. Logan carries the groceries into the house (that kid really is great) and he takes the trash out while I stick the roast that has been marinating in the fridge into the oven.

Then I head upstairs to start a bath for Ammon. Somehow he managed, with his bare feet, to step in knee deep mud while we were at the park. I wash his hair and let him play for 20 minutes while I sit on my bed with Grant and listen to him read me a story about goats.

Madison and Logan finish their homework and then take their showers. There is a knock on the door, and I send the neighborhood kids away. No time to play tonight, unfortunately. I get the salad made, the table set, pull the roast and sweet potatoes out of the oven. Ammon may or may not be running around the house naked. 

Dad calls me as he is pulling into the driveway at 7:00 to tell me that there is someone knocking on the door. I let him take care of the salesman while I holler for everyone to get to the table. We eat dinner. Finally.

Everyone helps to clean up, and at 7:40 it is time for Family Home Evening. I read them D&C 109:8. A house of order. We gather in a circle and there is a volley of 6 loads of clothes that I washed today being thrown to their owners, and finally the clothes are folded and put away. Then there is a rush to pick up the play room floor that is littered with legos, cars, Star Wars characters, and lots of other random stuff.

Time to take a breath. It's clean. Well, cleaner. Another human circle is made as we say family prayer, and then everyone runs down the stairs to eat the chocolate cupcakes that Ammon and I made. Well, everyone but Ammon, because he didn't eat his supper.

Now they are all in bed, almost an hour past their bedtime. But their homework is done, they have been fed, they have clean clothes--that are put away!--and we weren't yelling at each other the entire night, so I guess I could call it a success.  

And I will do it all over again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And I love it because it's the choice that we made, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. It's just another day in paradise. 

music analogy

I finished my class and I stopped writing. For some reason when you are writing everyday there is always something to write about. But the longer you go without writing, the harder it gets to come up with something to write about. I suppose it's like that with all of our talents--the longer we go without using them, the harder it is to use them.

For example, I haven't really played the piano for months. Oh sure, I'll play the organ for church, or I'll sit down to help my kids with their songs, but I haven't had the desire to sit down and pull out my music and play song after song after song, so I just haven't played. The last few nights (weeks?) Madison has asked me if I would play the piano at 8:00--the time that they are in bed and supposed to be sleeping. She says she likes falling asleep to classical music. So tonight I sat down and played for about an hour. My fingers were a little clumsier than usual, stumbling too fast over notes they used to have memorized. I should start playing again. I should start writing again.

I hired someone else to teach Logan, Madison, and Grant piano lessons. I just wasn't being consistent enough. Not to mention it's just a lot frustrating to teach your own children. So I drop them off once a week for lessons, and then I hustle them during the week to practice. I still need to sit down with Grant. I still have to remind Logan and Madison to count, or I tell them that something doesn't sound right, that they need to check the notes.

They almost always say something like, "Mom, I'm playing it right." "No, you're actually not." "Mom, I AM! This is what the music says."

Those are the moments that I want to bang my head on the piano and shout, "I have been playing the piano for almost 30 years, so LISTEN to me!! That is the wrong note! You need to hold that longer. SLOW DOWN!"

Actually, this happened just the other day. But I didn't shout; I whispered. "Madison." She just kept telling me why I was wrong. I whispered, "Madison. Madison. Shut your mouth and listen." And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "What kind of a mother tells you to shut your mouth? I can't believe you just said that!" And I whispered back, "I need you to close your mouth so you can hear what I am trying to tell you."

And while I was playing the piano this evening, I had this thought. Sometimes we try to go too fast, play the wrong notes, insist that we know what our life-music is supposed to sound like. But our Heavenly Father--he knows. He knows. 

getting to a place where no on can hurt you

When the economy crashed and Joe lost his job in Cleveland, we said to ourselves: what can we do so that we never, ever, have to depend on a single person for our paycheck? We created a business. It took over a year before we could even pay ourselves. It took two years to feel financially safe again. Owning a business is hard, but so worth it to know that your job is secure as long as you do your part.

We left a home we loved in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to a nasty fluorescent rental house in Garland, Texas. At the end of the 18 month contract, our landlord sent us a 30 day notice. They were moving back in. 

So we scrambled, with a 2 month old baby, and we moved to another Dallas suburb an hour away. We told our new landlord we wanted to stay here for 3 years; we were hoping to buy a home by then. That was 2011. In April 2014 we signed up to build a home. We asked our landlord if we could extend our time until it was finished. He agreed. "Stay as long as you need," he said.

Yesterday he told us that he needed to move back in. 30 days. Deja vu.  

We are trying to negotiate, to make it worth his while to let us stay a few extra months. Anything to not have to move twice.

I guess we'll do whatever we have to do, and whatever happens, happens.

But here we are again, asking ourselves: what can we do so that we never, ever, have to worry about where we are going to live?

We're going to wait for our home to be built, and we're going to move into it. And then we will get that house paid off as quickly as possible. Because I'm tired of this. I'm tired of other people dictating what we're going to do, and where we're going to live, and how we're going to spend our stress. So just like we took control of our income, we are going to take control of our home. I feel myself hardening, reaching out to create this box of safety, working to get to a place where no one can hurt my family.