Listen up

Hey, Today I got up thinking about how fast time is going. I know everyone always says that... But is is so very true. I do not know where the time has gone. Casey is almost 17 and I do not know where the time went. Robby just turned 7 and Abby will be 3 in less them 3 months. Where has all the time gone? I am trying to do the best I can for all of you. I am homeschooling all of you so that your talents can shine through. I want to be able to help mold you and guide you into loving, thinking adults who are able to reason out for themselves what is right and wrong. I want to raise adults that will be motivated to work for the changes that need to take place in this world. I am giving you Casey so much more freedom them I ever had. I just want you to show some direction. Show me that you are growing, thriving and changing... That you have some drive. Besides video games and your girlfriend. I think you are so smart, so talented, so creative and so unmotivated. You behave like someone that has given up on moving forward. My little bird that has looked out over the edge the nest and doesn't like what he sees so your staying put. Son, you do not have to leap today, but at least show me that your growing and changing in that direction. Your favorite excuse is "I'm just Lazy"... No son that is not true, your just scared. You do not know what Adulthood brings and are afraid of the changes that are to come. You will be fine, you will excel and you will be the wonderful adult I know you are meant to be. May you change the world with your brilliantness. Robby I am having to push you. You are SO very smart, scary smart sometimes but you have no drive to excel on your own. You are happy to play, watch TV and fight with you siblings most days. When I push you however the changes are amazing, the level that you can grow to has no limit. I will continue to encourage you to become the great mind and the great person you are meant to be. Abby you amaze us every day. You KNOW things all on your own that we can not believe you know. You hunger for more and more knowledge. You seek me out to work with you, teach you , interact with you. I can not even begin to image where you will be in a year or ten or twenty. You are all so smart, so wonderful, so talented, so brilliant. I am the luckiest Mom in the world to have you as my children. I love you and adore you all. Mama

Cleaning house...

Children,

Today I am doing a major over haul clean up job. I am washing down the walls and shampooing the carpets trying desperately to make our home look like those beautiful show homes we go and ogle at on the weekends sometimes.

Part of me realizes that spending to much time on this is a mute point at best because it will not stay clean long enough to really enjoy it. The other part of me is terrified that if I do not at least try to keep up with this never ending battle that one day I will wake up and be over come by a huge pile of dirt, dust and filth and I will not even be able to get of my room. I will be on the six o'clock news like one of those crazy ladies I have seen off and on through out my life that have twenty years of trash, newspapers and old food cartoons in there homes because they just let it get away from them! YIKES!

So I dash around washing and scrubbing, putting away, picking up, doing wash and changing sheets... And pausing to cry here and there... As I wash away a small handprint from the full length mirror I think that same little hand print will never be duplicated, the little kiss prints on the back door that are so hard to wash off are physical memories of the day I sent you outside to play and you all wanted back in so much that you stood at the back door pressing your faces against the glass and made kissy fish faces to get my attention, all signs of moments in time that have come and gone.

So I go back to cleaning, dusting, vacuuming, washing dishes and shampooing carpets but maybe, just maybe I will leave a few of those little hand prints, just for now so I have some tangible memories to look at.

Always,


Your Mama

Friends and Family

My Children,

Here is but one more lesson I can try to pass on to you. Work hard on your relationships, choose carefully, choose well and then work on keeping a relationship with the people in your life.

Relationships are like a garden that must be watered, nurtured, allowed to grow in the sun and weed as needed.

It seems that I have been so focused on being a mother and a mate that I have forgotten some of my skills of making and keeping friends. I am now finding it harder to make new friends then I ever did before. Partly age, partly being settled in my ways and not having the youthful patience for others drama.

In addition I have lost the relationships I thought I had with family over the last few years (who knew my parents getting a divorce would be so hard on all of us adult children) finding out who my relatives really where and are is not always easy. I still suffer bouts of sadness from the loss of this extended family.

I have to be quite honest however when I say that many of these relationships I have lost or let go over the years have happened for the best. I have protected my children, myself and sometimes my very identity by refusing to have unhealthy connections to others.

Now I am building new friendships, building new ties to others. It is work, and I am sometimes fearful causing me to bounce between being to clingy or not attentive enough.

If you can learn from my mistakes and from my successes then you will always have a strong net work of people around you. The idea that blood is thicker then water is poppy cock, sometimes the family you make out of friends is stronger then the family you are born to.

Choose well my children and may you always be surrounded by people that love and support you to be the best your meant to be.

Always,

Mama

My Children want to play

My children want to play.

They want to laugh and jump and sing and dance.

My children want to play.

Today I let go of all the I have to do's and I let my children play.

It is so easy to get caught up in the should's and have to's. It is so easy to run into trouble playing the "my kids are the greatest" game. I do not even think I mean to get into it. I start by saying how smart or funny or cute one of my children are and soon it turns into a ranking... My kid did this, well my kid did that two years ago now they are doing this, and that. My child is so funny, well mine makes my laugh all the time. It is crazy making created out of fear by all Moms to assure themselves that they are matching up to the same high level as their fellow Moms, extended family and peers. BUT are their peers telling the truth or is everyone inflating the good and down playing the negative to each Mom's advantage?

As a mother who homeschools, I find myself having more "fear" based days. Am I doing the right thing? Is this the BEST thing for my kids? Do they know enough, are they smart enough, are the being challenged enough, have I gotten them into enough extra activities? I am so much busier now as a homeschooler then I ever was as a Mom that sent her kids away to learn. I just struggle daily with making sure that I am doing the right thing. I constantly ask myself am I really doing this, am I enough?

Then I take a deep breath, I kiss and hug my kids. I am enough.

So today my kids want to play, and I am letting go and letting them play.

Maybe I will even play with them and just be alive in the moment.

Mama