One good reason

Okay, so here’s one good reason to blog:  the community.  I do enjoy reading my regular blogs from blogging friends whom I feel I know!  And also my siestas from the Beth Moore blog are invaluable.  But this is way cool:  the swap!  I thought one for kids was fun, but I was too late to sign on.  Then I found this one for moms on Kelly’s blog!  I think I am going to sign up.  You should too!

To Blog, or not to Blog?

I’ll admit, I am really struggling with this blogging thing.  As I posted in one of my original posts, I don’t really know where I am going with this blog.  I have been doing a little research to try to figure it all out. 

I do enjoy reading other people’s blogs; my reader contains blogs of all varieties: political blogs (some even differ from my own opinions), mommy blogs, blogs of friends whose families I like to read about, do-it-yourself project blogs, advice blogs, blogs on particular topics of interest. 

But when it comes time to write my own blog, I find myself feeling a bit narcissistic.  Does anyone really care that much about what I have to say?  Is my opinion really that valuable?  What could I possibly add to the blogosphere that would increase the importance level?

Well, then perhaps I will just use the blog to record family moments, I think.  I have three young children, and I am certainly feeling time slip away as we are creating memories faster than I can record them in my brain or on paper.  

 

 But do I need a public forum for that?  Isn’t a scrapbook enough?  My family and friends who know me well enough know they can see pictures on facebook or even just via email.  If they really care, they will call or email to find out about cute little stories or anecdotes about their lives…right?  Do we need a blog for that?

 
I’m a little worried about opening myself up to speculation or criticism as well.  I already receive plenty of criticism as it is, and I am sure to be opened up to a healthy dose of more if my mom starts reading!  (LOL just kidding, mom!) Seriously, do I really want people speculating about what I am really like if they don’t already know me that well?

 

The funny thing about this is that I might just be the most opinionated, outspoken person I know.  I rarely have a difficult time talking to people, and I am always finding myself giving advice, whether or not it has been solicited.  My mommy friends almost always call me for tips and tricks and even before I was a mommy people asked me all the time for my opinions about the best of this or the best of that…and I, of course, gave them freely!  But when it comes to writing on a computer screen, without any prompt or question, I’m blank.

In my blogging research over the past few days I have become overwhelmed by what I have found in the form of advertisements, freebies and product placements.  I also find it interesting how dedicated bloggers are to their blogs–posting daily really takes a lot of commitment.  Plus the aggravation of making the blog apear like I want it to takes an enormous amount of editing time.  I am still struggling to figure out what my own motivation would be. 

 

Maybe this struggle indicates that I am not cut out for blogging after all. Or maybe it is just God’s way of making me really think things through before fully signing on to another project.  Either way, I’m not fully signed on yet.  Just still playing around.  Trying to find my voice.  Maybe someone will still be left to listen after I figure this out.
 

 Here’s some more food for thought.  And if this post does not make you think, this link certainly will.  Read more about it on Velveteen Mind here.  I’m interested in your comments too.
 

For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:8

 

25 Things

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. I very much believe in God. He speaks to me very clearly and I listen. This is #1 because it is really the one thing that sets the tone for everything in my life, even if that is not obvious to everyone else.
2. My husband is really special. Any elaboration to this statement would completely dilute the magnitude of its meaning, but suffice it to say that he is really, really special in the deepest sense of that word.
3. I love my children so much it can make me cry just thinking about it. I really enjoy being a mom. ♥
4. I really, really like to read. But I don’t like series books after the first one. I also like to look things up.
5. I am without a doubt the pickiest eater you know. But if you ever want to do an act of kindness for me, cook me dinner (I don’t care what you cook) or take me out to eat (please, you choose the restaurant). I’ll thoroughly enjoy anything in front of me if I don’t have to make it happen.
6. Contrary to popular belief I have a terrible memory. And I am not very organized.
7. I am very opinionated, and I do not mind one bit if we have differing opinions.
8. I don’t like to be surprised.
9. I missed as many classes of high school as they would allow me to miss and still graduate. Same thing in college. But I graduated from both with a 3.5 gpa. I still studied a lot (on my own).
10. The most famous person I have met is Katie Couric. She held Joseph when he was 10 months old and took him on camera to announce a commercial break.
11. I am not a morning person. If you talk to me before 9:30 am there is no telling what nonsense my reply might be.
12. I have a minor in geology. I am also a medievalist. I have taught British literature (Anglo-Saxon through Renaissance) at both high school and college levels. I have also contributed to writing a college textbook on professional writing.
13. I love having overnight company, entertaining at my house, giving people gifts, and writing handwritten notes to people.
14. I do not watch tv. I could completely live without it and never even miss it. Just because it is here, I watch the Today Show on occasion and I will sometimes watch a series of a show (The Bachelor or some other silly show like that) but once it’s over, I don’t necessarily watch the next series.
15. I am horrible at math. And driving.
16. I am a pretty good cook, but I cannot even bake slice and bake cookies.
17. I don’t just look at the best of things. In fact I am pretty critical. The more I pick something apart, the more likely I am to love it that much more.
18. Growing up, most people knew me as Birdie. I was also called a host of other Byrd-related names, such as Byrd-woman, Byrd-legs, just plain Byrd, and “Just an old Crow.”
19. I’ve never broken a bone. But once I fell and bruised my elbow so bad I had to wear a cast for a week. This happened approximately an hour before a wedding rehearsal. I was the maid of honor. With a freshly made cast.
20. I don’t like “diet” anything. Give me a real Coke, please!
21. I received a letter from President Bush in 2007 when I was awarded a Point of Light Award.
22. I sneezed when I was born and I have been sneezing ever since. Which is why my eyes are always so red.
23. I came home from the first day of first grade with a migraine. I have had migraines ever since. And always on the first day of school, whether as a student or the teacher.
24. On any given day you can find me in one of three places: church, Target, or the hospital. I frequent these locations 3 times a week each at a bare minimum.
25. Throughout each season of my life thus far, I have been really blessed to have had a very diverse group of great friends, each of which has made a profound influence on me. Thank you for being one of them!

Whew. I never really do these things. I can’t believe I did this one. I guess it’s because I really enjoy reading them about other people. A lot more than I enjoyed making my own. ☺ I challenge you to do one, and link us to yours!

Family Friday: Are you Listening?

We’ve sort of had a family fallout this week.  Nothing major going on; it’s just been a stressful week in our house and none of us deal really well with stress.  I really want to endeavor to teach my children to handle things better than I do, in all situations, really.  My husband and I have done some thinking about this lately and we’ve identified some ways we can improve on communicating as a family so that maybe we can model better strategies for our children. We really tried to target some specific behaviors that we want to change (or implement) to tweak our attitudes, for the sake of our own emotional well-being and for the sake of modeling them for our kids.

On a different but related note, my friend posted this link on Facebook today, and it’s a great example of one of the things we want to model at home.  What about you?  Do you have any moments of introspection or attitude adjustments you can share?

Proverbs 12:15: The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.

Perseverance in the Pool

We have spent a gazillion dollars on swim lessons.  No, really.  We started at the YMCA two summers ago and went every Saturday for 6 weeks.  J3 learned how NOT to put his head in the pool and how to goof off while waiting his turn in the minnow pit. 

We spent a lot of time in the pool that spring and summer, playing around and getting used to the water, but I was too pregnant to really get excited about it, and we ended up actually filling in the pool in our backyard that fall. However, we live in the South and swimming is a fun thing to do here, with the pool being a major gathering place for socializing and birthday parties, and I feel like it is one of those “essential skills” that my children need to learn to do.  If nothing else, I want them to survive if they fall into the water.  I do not want to bring potential drowning victims near water.

So…the next summer we signed up for private lessons in the spring, to prepare for the summer ahead.  J3 was the only child who couldn’t put his head under the water by the end of the course. By then everyone assured me that joining our neighborhood swim team was the way to go.  Just practicing with the swim team would get him interacting with the other kids his age, and before we knew it, he’d be like a fish, they said.  No competition was necessary; at his age, if they wanted to swim in the meets that was fine, but if not, no big deal.  By this time I had two younger children at home and simply couldn’t watch everyone at the pool.  So I got sitters everyday for my younger girls, and off we went, four days a week to the pool for an hour for swim team.

For three weeks J3 perfected the art of getting in the water –every day–but keeping his head dry.  He’d do the kick drills, the hold your breath underwater drills, glide across the pool drills.  But his head would not go under.  Mind you, his neck may have grown 6 inches from stretching, but little boy was not getting that face wet!

The last couple of weeks we saw a bit of improvement.  With the help of some dive rockets and his friends’ encouragement, he got semi-comfortable going underwater.  He was unable to join the rest of his friends in kicking across the pool, but at least by the end of the summer I knew if he fell into the water he wasn’t going to panic.  For the rest of the summer we set up a few more private lessons to keep his confidence up and keep him in the water.  More dollars, more perseverance.  More pooltime.  No swimming yet.

Here we are again this summer, back at swim team.  We had a couple of private lessons before swim team began.  The first week is almost over.  We are paying the babysitters again daily to avoid littlte sisters wandering off into water they can’t navigate while big brother learns to swim (next year we will start with lessons for Boo.)  The first couple of days J3 was again exhibiting the art of kicking and diving into the pool without actually diving IN.  He left swim team pratice with a dry head both days.  The first day he saw how good the other kids can swim and he came to me half way through the practice, crying, I want to go home!  We did not go home. I really hate making him do something that isn’t fun, but I do believe this is a survival skill that he needs to learn.  Truly, I don’t care how well he swims, and if he doesn’t enjoy it after learning the skill, we can quit, but I do want him to learn the skill.

The third day, after a lot of discussion, and a couple of intense private lessons, he actually started off with his head legitimately in the water!  This day, my sweet little boy kicked his hardest, flailed his arms, and ducked his head intotthe water….all to no avail.  He’d go backwards, sideways, and even under, but the poor thing would not glide forwards!  They even took him aside for extra kick practice in the little pool (much to his chagrin) but even that didn’t make a lot of improvement. 

We are not looking at a swim scholly nor an Olympic future here.

But you know what?  I.could.not.be.prouder.of.my.son.  Here he was, the worst–I mean rock bottom worst–swimmer in the pool of 100 kids, and I was literally BURSTING with pride yesterday.   Little man jumped in, again, and again, and again, and he kicked and kicked his little heart out.  They’d coach him to straighten his legs (flutter!), to relax his feet (like flippers~ they’d say!), to tuck his head (down, not out!), to relax (this is fun!), to keep trying, J3!  And bless his sweet heart–he did it!  Every. Single. Time. With a look of determination on his face.  He wasn’t even angry or frustrated.  Just determined to Do it. 

Really, I thought sleeping through the night was a breeze, and potty training was easy, and reading seems to be coming pretty naturally so far.  But this swimming thing is killing me.

If we don’t learn to swim, we will certainly have learned a very important lesson from all of this.  Character building is tough.  But it makes a mama proud.  And if this is any indication of what kind of man my boy is going to be, I know he has a bright, bright future ahead.  (It just might not be in swimming!)

James 1:12:  “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial for he will receive many blessings.”

Summertime fun

We love summertime at our house!  We try to do “something fun” every day.  This means we try to do a planned activity daily.  So far this summer we have gine to the childrens science museum and the botainical gardens, both times for organized events–we will go back for unstructured play time as well.  We also plan to do the drive-by zoo later this week.  Sometimes we have a “pajama day” which means we build a sheet-fort somewhere in the house and make a fun snack (say, a spider with round crackers, peanut butter, pretzel sticks and raisins…maybe I’ll find a picture and post later), and of course stay in pajamas all day long!   My kids are much more likely to do something structured in the morning, like workbook pages or reading skills or swimming or piano practice, knowing they have something fun to look forward to in the afternoon.  It’s my favorite time of the year, and we are enjoying every minute of it!  Happy summer!

Headliners

J2 and J3 went to the golf course Sunday so I took the girls to the pool.  Bathing AC is similar to bathing a cat, so I wasn’t really sure how she would like the water, but I knew from our beach trip that she would enjoy just playing with toys around the pool.  Some bigger boys were in the baby pool, waiting for rest break to be over so they could return to the big pool.  A man came over to the baby pool to photograph them playing in the fountain.  He had a gigantor camera; seriously the largest bag and equipment I’d seen, and I could not believe he’d risked bringing it all to the pool!  At first I was thinking “Dang, dad, a little overkill on the memory-making” but, hey, I’d forgotten my own camera at home for my baby’s first pool dip, so what kind of mom was I anyway?    Just then, the whistle blew, the bigger boys left, but cameraman stayed…and started shooting my girls!  I could feel the panic starting to rise when I turned to confront him…and I realized he was from the NEWSPAPER!  He was doing a local feature on neighborhood pools, and he stayed for awhile taking pictures of the girls as they played in the water.  He left awhile later, apologizing because he wasn’t sure if a picture would even run, let alone a picture of them.  So many photos had been shot that day, so many pools, it all depends on available space.  Whatever. We didn’t come to the pool for photographs that day anyway, right?

 The next day, the monday newspaper had the picture below…on the FRONT PAGE!   

Let’s hope this is the kind of news which keeps them in any future headlines.

“There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you.” Deut 12:7

Must Try Monday: Manage your home!

I found this over on Simple Mom’s blog:  Home Management Notebooks.  I have a more administrative version of this in our home, but this week I’m committing to upgrading to a true management style like hers.  Love her ideas!

 

Because today is a holiday, it’s possible I might be trying this all week long, perfecting it around Thursday or Friday! 

 Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
1 Corinthians 14:40

Mommy I don’t feel good. (The sweetest sound I could have heard!)

It has been a roller coaster week of emotions for me.  For two years my daughter has had a condition that we have not been able to figure out.  We have been to nine doctors, from her local primary doctor, to a world -renowned expert, and everyone in between.  But for some reason, everyone can agree that there is an issue, but no one can diagnose precisely what the issue is.  For the most part, everyone has done a fairly good job of convincing me that she does not have a rare but serious disease and that her condition is not life-threatening, and the difficult part has been finding childcare for my other children during the times that we have had tests done or to drive longer distances for day trips to the doctors in other cities.  I have tried to remain strong, and I’ve done a pretty good job at it.  Normally an emotional person, I’ve kept myself in check, not shedding  a tear over this entire experience, fully believing that “rule out” tests were simply that:  ruling out remote possibilities and not likely chances of drastic diseases.  I have prayed and prayed and remained steadfast and faithful that God WILL bring us through whatever comes down this path.  Should we get an ugly diagnosis, we will deal with it, whatever it is.  Should we get a simple, easily treatable one, we will be abundantly thankful.  Either way, I have tried to look for the way we should glorify Him in this entire experience.  It’s been hard.  A three year old shouldn’t really have to bear burdens of life’s bigger issues, in my opinion.   

Of course there has always been that nagging feeling in the back of my mind, that “what if” factor that keeps me awake in the middle of the night, that makes me second guess every routine childhood illness, that creeps into my thoughts when she complains about simple aches and pains.   I have read and re-read to myself Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in Me, the Lord, with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Me, and I will direct your paths.”  Most of the time it works; I know He has us in his hands and Satan’s tempting thoughts of fear are chased away by loving thouths of God’s faithfulness to our family and thoughts that He WILL direct us.   

This week was tough.  Our whole physician team was re-worked.  One specialist sort of gave up on the whole thing.  Our primary physician is restructuring a plan for us.  Complicating matters are these bothersome little swollen lymph nodes that won’t seem to go back to normal.  This week those suddenly became a real issue.  And I didn’t like hearing that one bit.  It made everything seem very real, very scary, and much more than the superficial condition I was hoping this was.  It made it all seem like a real health issue, something we are really going to have to deal with.  If those nodes were swollen just to be swollen, that was a bad thing.  If they were swollen due to something else, like an ear infection or a virus, they  are considered “reactive” and that could be just a normal reaction.  (Although it wouldn’t really explain why she is sick so often, it would at least indicate that they are reactive instead of malignant.)  While I am usually very happy for a healthy report in the doctor’s office, that day I felt very unfortunate that there was no ear infection, no sore throat, no headache.  Nothing but a healthy looking kid.  With golf-ball sized lymph nodes.      

Wednesday I was at my Bible Study, what better place?!, and I asked them to pray for Boo.  I didn’t really want to get into the details and I didn’t want to get upset or worried about it, but I knew she needed the prayers.   While they prayed for her, I felt the tears coming.  First time in two years, mind you.  Unfortunately, I forgot all about Proverbs 3.  I just sat there and cried and cried.  Strangely, my Bible study leader, who knew nothing about my personal reading, said to me, “I don’t know why but this verse just came to me, and she quoted Proverbs 3:5-6.  I knew then that God was probably a little disappointed that I’d not done what He’d asked.  I wasn’t trusting in Him and I certainly wasn’t acknowledging Him.  I was just wallowing in self-pity and doubt and all the ugly things that Satan can plant in a fearful mother’s head.  

So I left there and screwed up my courage and faith and I have been repeating the Proverbs passage to myself ever since.   

And you know what?  We had to play hookey from church this morning.  Boo woke up with a sore throat.  A bad one.  Can’t eat.  Can’t sleep.  Can barely talk.  I’ve never been so glad for her to be sick in my life.  Those nodes are reactive.  At least for now, and I’ll take that.  it may not explain anything, but I won’t be leaning on my understanding.  I’ll just wait for His direction and take it from there.   

Whew.