Help! Help!

My life is pretty much consumed right now by my children. So are my prayers! Each child has such different struggles we are trying to help them with. Sometimes we just have no idea what to do for them, so we are quickly learning to go to the one who does. I can't tell you how many times I have said, "Father, you made them, tell me what to do!" and I can't tell you how many times I have been given simple answers, in quiet ways, that made the difference.

For the last month I have been pretty worried about one of my kids. I have prayed more than I ever have for a child, asking for insights and ways to help them. Last week, I was trying to find an answer in the scriptures, needing one of "those" moments, when "D&C" popped in my head and I thought, "That's funny, I don't really like D&C and I am probably making that up, but I'll turn just in case." So I just flipped to the back of my quad. Immediately, babies woke up, started their daily destruction and wanted food. I read two verses quick, had no idea what they said and went to shut the book when that so still voice in my mind said, "Wait, what if the answer really is right here?" So I sat back down and started reading from some verse Bob had highlighted in his scriptures. As I took the time to concentrate, my Heavenly Father was able to teach me and help me parent. I cried off and on the entire day.

We are all facing the same problem as we raise our kids in this world, being slammed by the influence of the adversary. We don't listen to a lot of popular music at our house because there is so much sexual innuendo in everything. But my kids come home singing the songs because they play them on the bus to school. We are fighting inappropriate internet ads, even if we have filters. So many commercials are offensive to the spirit and even some of the shows on Disney and Nickelodeon have 12 year olds dating and kissing.  Trevor keeps saying, "Mom! How come they have Thor on the kid's meal when it is PG 13 and kids aren't even supposed to watch it?!" The world it blurring out all the lines of propriety. We are so flooded by images of violence and suggestive material, we can't see how wrong they are anymore, we don't even notice them.

But the Lord is aware of what is going on here. This is part of what I read that (tearful!) morning last week:

"And now, Holy Father, we ask thee to assist us, thy people, with thy grace...that thy glory may rest down upon thy people, and upon this thy house, which we now dedicate to thee, that it may be sanctified and consecrated to be holy, and that thy holy presence may be continually in this house: And that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord's house may feel constrained to acknowledge that thou hast sanctified it, and it is thy house....and that they may grow up in thee, and receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost...and no unclean thing shall be permitted to come into thy house to pollute it...And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them...that no weapon formed against them shall prosper....That no combination of wickedness shall have power to rise up and prevail over thy people...and if they shall smite this people thou wilt smite them: thou wilt fight for thy people as thou didst in the day of battle, that they may be delivered from the hands of all their enemies."

This is part of section 109, the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. How many times have we been told our homes and bodies are temples also? I have to be honest, when my kids go to bed, Bob and I stay up and watch shows, on regular networks, that we would NEVER let our kids watch. Because we think we can handle them. I had a bishop tell us there is no way we should let the spirit of those shows into our homes, even if the kids are not watching them. The adversary is just too real.

Rats! I feel like that's a lot to give up! But I was singing Saturday at our Stake Women's conference and when it was over, the Stake RS presidency brought me a frame that said, "The Stookey House" at the top. Then it says, "A house of Prayer, a house of Fasting, a house of Faith, a house of Learning, a house of Glory, a house of Order, a house of God. D&C 109.8. And I cried again because I know my Heavenly Father is paying attention to me. I think He knows I will try to do whatever He asks me to do.  For us, I think He means we need to get rid of the TV for now.

HELP! HELP! It's almost summer and I have 5 kids and I'm getting rid of my TV!  But last night I walked in and the kids were watching a discovery channel type show about a girl that got kidnapped, raped and murdered!

HELP! HELP!

I guess He is, isn't He?

Things I am Not Going to Miss -Part 2 (and some that I will)

More complaining.......spills, purposeful dumping, hitting each other, take home reading books, science fair projects, people dragging food through the house, all my furniture slimed all the time (wait, when I get my own web cast, that is going to be the title, "Slimed All the Time".  Everything is gross, the walls, the furniture, the fridge, the floor, the table, the door jams, the windows, my clothes, the light switches, the door handles, the glass panes on my hutch, the toilet seat, the side of the tub, the tv, the vcr, the carpet, the toys, the car.....Slimed All the Time.)


I am not going to miss everyone's junk in my room, or Brock dumping out the laundry soap, the chocolate milk mix, or the garlic salt. I'm not going to miss changing diapers or feeding people or kids throwing the pillows and cushions off the couch. And I am ready for the bed wetting to stop.


But I am going to miss the minute I get my 2 year old out of bed when his face is hot and he smells like lotion and baby morning breath. Oh, it's like Christmas every day for one minute. I kiss his squishy cheeks, and when I say kiss, I mean I bury my whole face in one of his cheeks and I kiss and kiss and kiss him and close my eyes while I inhale him. I know, sounds a little creepy. He does this funny thing where he pulls his jaw forward so his teeth are straight up and down and he makes this hilarious strained face, then he closes his eyes and puts one of them on my nose. I don't know why. But we both love it and melt into each other. I feel bad for everyone else in the world. Yah, I'm going to miss that. 


I'm also going to miss watching them play 
soccer, volleyball, tennis, golf, dancing, singing and playing the cello. I'm going to miss how they all climb on my lap still. I am going to miss sitting around the table talking at dinner (I won't miss cooking the dinner or the dinner fights over chairs, though). I am going to miss being the most important person in the world to 5 people. Nobody in the world is loved more than I am. I am going to miss being the first one they want to tell about all the great things in their lives and the first one they want when something bad happens. I will miss Bob making no-bake cookies and them jumping up every 2 minutes to see if they are set up yet. I'm going to miss the screams coming from my room during Sunday Night Wrestling with Dad. I'm going to miss their little voices and that innocent way they look at things they have never seen before with wonder and awe. I'm going to miss Lenny the Leprechaun, Easter baskets, Christmas Eve and having my 
very own monsters on Halloween. I am going to miss Brock climbing into my bed while it is still dark and falling back asleep while he is laying on me. I am going to miss Whitley's confident little laugh and wit and how her feet turn in and she runs so cute. I am going to miss Trevor's innocence and naive goodness and how purely beautiful he is. I am going to miss Rilee calling me every day from school to chat it up and how she puts flowers next to my bed everyday after school. I am going to miss watching them all play at the river, and Rilee figuring out how to skimboard. I'll miss their little kid giggles and how they are positive I make the best Snicker Doodles in the world. I am going to miss watching them barrel down the giant water slide and when they laugh with each other. I am going to miss round squishy faces, button noses and long eyelashes. I'm going to cry when Brock stops the "I love you more" battles, he really thinks he does! I am going to miss playing "Down By the Bank" after we have family scriptures and prayers. 

 I am going to miss them.

But I am NOT going to miss making them clean the house.

You Can't Be a Beauty Queen Forever

Once upon a time, I was a princess. A real princess, as in the Washington City Princess. It's ok if you didn't know, I don't wear my crown anymore. And I guess I thought for that reason I was going to be something really special, and different and maybe famous. Which by most standards, I am not. I am a stay at home Mormon Mom in Utah, like every other girl (Yes, GIRL) in my neighborhood.  But alas, here I am in the sweats I went running in this morning, dishes on the counter, toast and gum wrappers on the floor, being Not Famous. Instead, I chose BABIES!

I love babies and I am really GOOD at babies. Even my first one was easy like cake for me. Three year olds, not so much.  But those first years of motherhood and wife-ness were really hard for me for other reasons. A cute young friend of ours was over the other day with her two little boys and I spun back to that time in my life.

I remember being at a softball tournament watching Bob when my oldest daughter was just a baby. I had spent the entire day watching him play softball, and probably the night before, and probably the thursday before for league night and also that tuesday before for co-ed. We were walking behind one of the fields in between games that night and I was crying and said, "What am I doing here? My life has completely changed. I dropped out of college, left my performing group, quit as Miss SUU, gave up my scholarship, moved into YOUR condo, left my friends at college and gave up everything I had to get married!" Poor Bob. I'm sure he had no idea what to do for me.  But he didn't understand because he had the same job, the same friends, the same house, the same hobbies and the only thing that had changed in his life was I was conveniently located in his condo  and spent his money (and all his trophies had been taken out of his bedroom.) Suddenly, I wasn't special anymore, and I had no idea what I was doing!

My life had become this new blank canvas with only a baby and a husband painted on it, and I had to figure out what else to add. But most of the things that were on my old canvas couldn't be put on my new one. So I got creative in my search for paint. I tried selling Mary Kay to see if that was my calling. For 6 months I was going to be a millionaire.  I started a band. I tried sewing. I taught kids modeling classes.  I built a house. I decorated it. I had more kids. I learned how to play the piano. I built some more stuff. I jumped into a hundred church projects. I took night classes.  I had more kids. I started writing music. I taught my kids to read. I sold baby stuff at the Dicken's Festival. I taught tiny kids dance. I took guitar lessons. I volunteered with the Foster Care Citizen Review Board and Heart Gallery.  I tried working out (and hate it). I taught some girls how to walk on stage. I did the PTA. I became the "Director of Fun" at Staheli Farm. I played co-ed softball. I started getting asked to do firesides. And before long, I realized I was becoming.......Me.  Not the Me I was before I got married where everything I did was for myself, but the Me I was trying to become all along. And I would never have been able to find this Me if I had stayed where I was.

I sympathized with this cute girl who had quit her career to become the best mom ever.  She has more stress and less money than she ever has before. I'm sure she is seriously missing her old life. But what I know that she doesn't, is that motherhood and these years are the refiner's fire. And though she feels lost in a new world right now, she is becoming the person Heavenly Father meant her to be. She is being strengthened and trained and all those things she loved before gave her vital experience and will find a way to help her in her new life.

When I had my first two kids and I was figuring things out, I was asked to sing for a Young Women activity. They gave me the song they wanted. The final hook says, "Will I Want to Be the Person I've Become, When All is Said and Done." I wrote that on a paper and put in by the door so I saw it when I was doing laundry and walking out to my car. It became a part of my prayers everyday, "Make me who you want me to be."

Now there are a million more things I want to try adding to my canvas. Heavenly Father and I are not finished with the Me paining yet, but I am getting a better idea of who I am going to be. I am not sparkly or very pretty anymore, but I'm strong and solid, and that was always more important to me.

Man am I glad I decided not to try and be a Beauty Queen forever. I'd be like, the oldest, most wrinkled city princess EVER.

"Fencing" by Brock

K Folks. We're gonna have a quick "How To" session here on Fencing: While Your Mom is Home.  In just three easy steps, you can be flinging swords at another child in no time.

Step 1 - Choose the Right Time: The first and most important step is to find the right opportunity when  the Mom is distracted and there is another child around to impale. Laundry and cleaning are good options, but the best time for sword fighting is when mom is really wrapped up in a project, like painting a room or writing music. A good fencer will study his or her mom's habits to find what she loves to do, and will therefore be the most distracted.

Step 2 - Obtaining Swords: This step has to be done quickly and quietly. If you are able to potty on the big boy, you are too big to fight with plastic swords, butter knives or sticks which are easy to get and for 1 year olds. This lesson is for the serious Fencer, who is ready for serrated metal blades. To begin, place a chair next to where your mom thinks she has hid her knife block. Placing the chair must be done earlier in the day so she doesn't hear the chair slide across the floor when you are ready to fight. You MUST avoid the temptation to climb on it right then. She will see you, take you off, and return the chair to the table. When a golden opportunity arises, climb quickly, open the cupboard and pull all the knives out. Set them on the counter, pick out FOUR of the biggest, most dangerous knives. I prefer CUTCO brand. They are guaranteed to be sharp enough to cut an aluminum can. Climb back down, leave the noisy chair where it is. Hand two knives to your little brother, or whomever you intend to play with, and take two for yourself.

Step 3 - Fighting Quietly: If your little brother is a big baby, this is difficult. Try to find a playmate that doesn't cry every time he gets stabbed, but take whoever you can get, because anyone is better than no one. With a "sword" in each hand, begin swinging blades. The longer you hit blades instead of each other, the longer you can get away with this game. If your  opponent gets hit and starts to cry, you have to hurry and put your arm around him and talk to him in a baby voice so he will stop. I say "Bwakey, it'th ok. Thee? It tho funny, BONK!" Then I bonk my head with my fist and waddle it side to side until he laughs, then we start back fighting. 

Well, there you have it friends. Good luck and don't forget to have fun! Join me next time when I share the Secrets of My Escape, a comprehensive "How To" guide for anyone wanting to get in a locked door, out a locked door, out a locked window or through a door with a child safety handle on it. Until then, this is Brock the Rock saying, Don't Fence Me In.

Fighting Back

I read an article on Yahoo that caught my eye because it said something like, "Parents Who Hate Being Parents: The New Trend".  It incorporated stats about how people with children always talk about the joy of parenting, but they aren't really happier, according to the "statics", (which we must not ever argue with).  But I'm going to.

Are they really trying to compare the joy you get from spoiling yourself with vacations, cars or fine art to the joy you get from a child? Did they put electrodes on the peoples' brains to measure the difference in the joy of a nice apartment with glass nick knacks on the coffee table vs. the joy a mother has when her baby is laid in her arms? Are we comparing a week in Hawaii with watching our kids on the soccer or football field?  What about when a child crawls on your lap and snuggles into your chest to calm down?  How can you even compare the two worlds? I can say without reservation, that there is no career, fame, vacation or house that would give me more joy than my children have. Compared to a 34 year old without children, I am sure I have more frustration. I think I have more stress. I probably cry more. This is hard stuff! And I am sure the "statics" recorded that part, because We Are At War. 

Satan doesn't like the power of families.
Families = Power
Families = Security
Families = Love

He is attacking families. Have you noticed the amount of mothers around us giving up their husbands and sometimes children, because they want "more"?  Most of the time, I see them on the outside of what they left, wishing they could get back in. Most of the time it is too late, and Satan is laughing at them for believing him. (Yes, we do need to get away from men that are dangerous.)

Every once in a while, I get in a rut. Like, I'm really ornery for a few weeks, and my kids are terrible (a reflection of me, for sure).  I remember being in this place when my oldest daughter was about 6.  I had my third baby and Trevor was 3, the hardest age for me. I must have been pretty terrible, because one day, while I was doing Rilee's hair she said to me, "When I grow up I'm not going to have kids." Shocked, I asked her why. She said something like, "I don't want to be a mom. It makes you mad." I cried for two days, but it changed my whole perspective. I had gotten so swallowed up in a pity party about me not getting to do what I wanted, that forgot that THIS was what I wanted. I chose to have each child. THEY were exactly what I wanted.

Satan is so crafty. He is really good at getting us to focus on what we don't have. He is really good at getting us to focus a what is wrong with our husbands. This is how he destroys families. And we contribute to one side or the other. We help those around us see the good, or we help them see the junk, like the author of that article. How many people read it and decided to agree that having children was a curse?  What would it be like to be the child that was treated like she ruined her parents' lives? The great destroyer wants us to do his work. He wants us to convince each other that families are too much unnecessary work.

Well girls, let's fight back.
Let's get the good stuff out there.
Let's support each other in making our marriages stronger.
Let's help each other with great ideas about making our families tight, and let's NOT judge each other when we are not perfect.
Post your ideas here and on your blogs. On FB and in emails.
Build your sisters up while you walk.
When you see a young struggling mom, notice what she is doing right, and tell her.
WE ARE AT WAR.
Let's Fight Back.

Whitley Chews Her Toenails

Well she does. And I know there are people out there saying, (well, just two people, since nobody knows I have a blog yet. Anyway, you are probably saying....) "I would NEVER let my child chew her toenails!" But until you have lived with a child as stubborn as Whitley, you can't judge me for being a hygienically challenged mom. When you see us in the ER because she has a staph infection, judge not. Now, I didn't always have this "Don't judge another mother" attitude. One of my best friends has a beautiful little boy that at 3, we thought was possessed. He would sprint through the chapel on Sunday laughing at the five of us who were trying to help his parents catch him during the sacrament. He peed in his mother's refrigerator drawers. He threw rocks at other kids' heads. He was a wild man. Every day, all day. And I swore, that kid needed more....something. Patience, discipline, beatings, less TV, incentive, more stimulation, less stimulation. I didn't know what, but I would speculate, and judge. And then I had Brock.
One Sunday, Brock headed up the isle in church. I thought,"He'll get to the front of the SUV district (the overflow that holds the big families with all their loud kids) and get nervous and come back." But he didn't. So I started to stand, because when I stand, "even the flies are too scared to fly" (in the words of Tevya from Fiddler) and I thought, "When he gets to the front there is no where to go, so he will run back, especially when he sees I am standing up!" But instead, he looked back and...... "snickered", (I guess is the word for it), and started up the stairs to the pulpit, and I thought, "There is no way he is going to see the Bishop sitting up there and not have some kind of stranger-danger moment!" PS, this is all going on during the talk of our former bishop, the city councilman. So the worst mother of the year, the #1 failure of the parenting cage fight, LONI, puts her head down so no one will recognise her, and makes the long, humiliating walk to the front of the chapel, where Brock has now seen me and is hurdling over the choir benches behind the pulpit. He gets to the center of the back pew, and nose dives into the alcove. All you see are his shoes flying up in the air as he disappears. Oh he was so smart! He found the one place his three year old evil-genius mind knew I could not possibly reach! I grabbed an ankle and yanked him out. Yes, I could hear laughing coming through the speakers, from the speaker. Yes, I could hear the roar of the congregation. And I was DYING by now. I remember closing my eyes, dreading that it was now time to turn around and face the ward so we could make our curtain call. Brock was kicking and fighting as we walked down the steps and to the door, then as a last ditch effort, he started screaming, "No! I don't want to go! I want to stay, I WANT TO STAY!" To which the speaker said, "Loni, Wait! He wants to hear the rest of my talk!"

So, I don't judge parents anymore. We have tried everything on the face of the earth with this child and I can tell you this for sure. Every child was made differently. I have three children older than him that are quite well-behaved. If they get reprimanded at school, they nearly cry. But he is different, and he is three, and last month, he slapped the first counselor in the primary presidency in the face when she tried to help him to Sunbeams. And I was mortified. But the more angry I get, the more angry he gets. I have to be careful not to give him any more ideas. So I try to stay calm. I have been judged by a lot parents that don't get it because they have never had a child like Brock. But they don't love him like I do, and they don't have access to the Spirit concerning this little boy like I have. So I ignore them, and I do what is best for Brock. I see that most families will never have a child that is obsessed with knives and matches and running away. But I do. Fortunately, since I have 4 other kids, I can see how much behavior has to do with parenting, and how much it has to do with the spirit Heavenly Father created. He totally built Brock like he is, I didn't do that. And I know it, because if I look at Blake with a frown, he might cry, and I didn't do that either. My job here is to teach all of my kids about the Savior and to teach them to control themselves. That is a different level challenge for each personality. I love this crazy little boy as much as anyone loves their perfectly obedient child. I need to be with him forever. As parents, our challenge is to figure out each child's secret combination that only our Maker may know. So it takes lots of prayer to understand. I have used up 16 of my life years since 3 year old Brock was born, I am sure. But I have learned 16 years worth of lessons about people from him. So if you see me and I look 50 instead of 34, don't tell your friends how washed out I look for my age. Go get me some Nelson's Frozen Custard, Chocolate, hard packed. ASAP.

A Day in the Life

The day started out with more agreeability than I knew what to do with:

Mom - "Brock, Do you want a bagel?"
Brock - "Whas this bagel? I ne'r had bagel before."
Mom - "Yes you have. You love bagels!"
Brock - (Still not actually seeing what the bagel was), "Oh! I lub that bagel! I lub it! (Slurp Slurp) Is so yummy yummy in my tummy!"

Then it started to turn a little:

Mom - "Brock, let's take off that yucky diaper.
Brock - "No! No! ...........Awe-wight........Awe-wight! It here. It right here by dis bum. By DIS bum." (Pulls jams down to his knees and pulls his soggy diaper off by the Velcro tab, then he CHUCKS it at me.)
"Here you go!"

And it kept turning..........

He fell asleep laying next to me and across my chest in my arms. Then he went to the bathroom. Except he didn't actually go anywhere. And I was kinda hopin' not to get peed on today.

Really?

While I was cleaning the kitchen, there was magic! Brock and Blake were playing merrily downstairs FOREVER! No one was fighting and they didn't want anything for like an hour! I got so much done. I was thinking, "Finally! After three years of ..... it is starting to get easier!" I honestly thought that! Why? What world did I think I lived in?