Church Team

Today I gave the kids this sports analogy:  Church is a team sport.  Show up for practice.  Bring your equipment.  Listen to the coach.  If you haven't been to practice in a while, do your best.  Don't give up or get a negative attitude even if things aren't going well.

We have a baby shower crazy ward.  There is a sister who says all the time that "Every baby deserves a shower."  I've had 2 babies in this ward and she's never included us in that rule. 

I didn't need a baby shower because we didn't need anything but a new pack of white onesies.  Though I did get rid of most of our boy clothes under size 5T.  But I don't think it's anyone's job to give me a bunch of stuff.  It would have been nice to be celebrated.

I just feel annoyed, often, at how our family is assumed to be supported by the deaf members.  And this ward breaks the guideline of 1 shower per family.  Or even 1 shower per sex of child. 

Apparently I'm jealous because they never invite us over to see fireworks either.  But they talk about these parties like it was a ward party.  They do invite investigators and new members.  Just never us. 

I just need to throw my own pity party apparently.

down low

Someone I know had a sister in the hospital in NY.  I have 2 sisters in NY.  So the person asked if there was a way to find the local bishop to help the sister.  I called my sister to ask and she, knowing it would be hard for anyone to help, offered to help.  But because we were relaying info, my sister didn't get details until late.  And she wanted to be able to talk to the patient to make sure she was still at the hospital etc...  I asked the person to give her sister my sister's #.  But instead she decided to have items overnighted.

I feel like it wasn't too much to ask the patient to call my sister.  I feel like I dropped the ball.  So it's bothering me and I can't send any more messages to the person because that's just poking.  And I can't chew the fat with my sister because that's poking.  So I'll let you know about it.

Also, the other day the cashier at save a lot made a comment about me having 4 kids.  I can't remember if he said I'm brave or crazy to have so many kids, but the implication was not positive.  I said that it was lucky that my husband was smart and could support our family.

Perhaps it is because I look so young, that people assume I've chosen this path irresponsibly.  They don't know that I had a college degree and was 25 when I had my first child.  They don't know that we've prayerfully considered each child. 

Unbeknownst to this person, I know his mom, who has said that he has children.  He is very young.  He is not involved in the children's lives.  He is not supporting himself, let alone the children.

No wonder he thinks I'm crazy.

Supervised kids

It's so frustrating raising kids in an era of required supervision.  Sure kids should not be left in danger or abandoned.  For me the stress of someone thinking my child is unsupervised, is worse than the fear that something bad might actually happen to them.

If the get kidnapped, I can yell at someone.  If they fall out of a tree I can take them to the hospital.  But if the police show up because my kids are in my front yard....  Or if someone sees them at a playground and doesn't notice me standing by the car with the sleeping child...

At what point are kids allowed to do things by themselves?  And how are they supposed to learn that life is not so scary, in the shadow of the ever present fear? 

I've seen kids at the library and thought "Where is their mom/dad?"  Our library recently changed to an enclosed area.  So it's easier, or harder to leave them unattended.  I leave them in there together while I go check out books.  I'm literally 10 steps from the room they are in.  But I worry that someone is going to think I'm leaving them "unattended".

I think that having kids involved in activities lends itself well to dropping them off and picking them up.  Obviously.  But they are never unsupervised.  You see them to the door, you pick them up.

M takes piano and if it weren't for the desire for me to attend the lesson I would enjoy dropping her off.  Also, the teacher has a family, so my kids can play with her kids and it's fine.

I'm letting M and G make their breakfast lately.  They can cook some things.  I just want them to know how to be safe, but not become paralyzed by fear.  Sheesh!

P word

My sisters are all amazing.  One of them is researching polygamy and has written this series of articles.  It presents an explanation of Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy.  Here's the readers digest version.

The Lord commanded Joseph Smith to reveal that marriage between man and woman were eternal.  It didn't matter if one spouse died.  The other could re-marry and have their new spouse also sealed to them.  This was an important doctrine because death and polygamy were/are common world wide.

Emma didn't want Joseph to be intimate with other women.  Joseph loved Emma very much.  So he didn't enter into polygamy after being visited several times by and angel and being commanded to enter polygamy. 

Joseph is visited by an angel with a sword and commanded to enter into polygamy or die.  This coincides with the discovery that John C. Bennett, a convert who is a doctor still married to a wife back east, has created a sex ring.  He's teaching men and women that if nobody knows about the sex, it's not wrong. 

So Joseph marries women who are either victims of John C. Bennett, or women who can help track down and testify against the predators.  Being married to them, Joseph can interview them alone as well as provide for the victims.  Eliza R. Snow is one of the victims of John C. Bennett that is sealed to Joseph. 

But, according to my sister, Joseph does not have sex with his new wives.  Some comments made by these women later can be taken as evidence for or against that.  Imagine if you thought you were getting married and it turned out that you weren't going to have "relations" with your husband.  That would be sort of a shock.  And by the way, you can't go marry someone else.

One of the evidences my sister uses for this is our own ancestor Elvira who had children after Joseph Smith's death.  But the dna evidence has not shown any children of Joseph Smith's wives, but Emma, to be his.  It's interesting.

My sister has found that a lot of the people who were most vocal about Joseph Smith being a scoundrel were themselves part of John C. Bennet's group.  Lovely.  And typical. 

I've stopped speaking to my daughters...

 This picture sort of captures the Crazy that seizes us all at night.  Even though I don't remember bedtime rituals from my childhood, other than falling asleep in front of the TV and sometimes being carried to bed, I imagine that bedtimes should be sweet.  There should be stories.  There should be baths.  There should be kisses.  There should be prayers.
  Ever since I've had 3 children, I have memories of bedtime being really stressful.  I could read bedtime stories to 1 small child with a baby that didn't care.  But when I have kids begging for stories and then they don't pay attention, that bothers me.
  M and P take the brunt of my frustration.  They want "cuddles" which are more often more like siting on me and jabbing me with their knees and elbows.  That just sets us up for me getting head butted in the face and storming off.  Poor girls.  Their nightly ritual involves being told that they are intolerable, and that their desires for affection are more than I can bear.
  We visited G-ville where bedtimes are worse because I can't really get away from them as easily, and they have less freedom to hang out etc...  I felt embarrassed for yelling at them, and L could hear.  So the next night I decided to only interact with them in sign. 
  Something amazing happens when I sign to the kids.  They sign back and whisper.  Also, if I want to scold them in ASL, I only know 1 or 2 ways to phrase my criticisms.  So it is very obvious that I've already said that, and don't need to keep saying it.  That doesn't occur to me as readily in English.
  So we're on night 3 of this.  I've also added a story time for each of them, out of the room.  The ration is 1 child and 1 baby who doesn't care.  Back to the manageable ratio for me.

Jokers

We were playing Solitaire with the older kids.  lP has her own deck of tiny cards.  I suggested that we could throw away the jokers rather than keep sorting them out every time.  P said that they are useful for some games.

lP said "We can keep them for funny games."
"Knock Knock."
"Joker" and you give them a Joker!"

Yes, funny games.

vacation

 We had planned to visit the fort today.  We've been having a lot of lazy days lately, between each event day...  So we packed a picnic and arrived at the fort around 1.  We'd eaten breakfast around 11, after playing in the house, playing in the yard, and walking/riding around the neighborhood.

 The children were well behaved enough that it was a generally good experience.  Sometimes we aren't so lucky.  I told them before they went that they were in charge of having a great time.  As for me, I was going to be with my best friend whether they behaved or not. 

We did the Jr. Ranger program as we did at many locations this year.  During the swearing in process lP was tired.  The ranger asked them to state their name.  G said his, M said hers, and lP repeated M's.  I missed that part but P tells me that some older ladies thought it was adorable.  I love it when our children are cute and when older people get to enjoy that.