Learning to Let Go

Letting go is not easy. We all want to hold on to what we feel is ours or what we like for as long as we can. But sometimes, even the things we like are not good for us. Dessert, anyone?

I had written a post some time ago about how even good things can be hindrances because they take up the time and space and finances that could be used for something even better. We did a pretty good job of clearing out a lot of "stuff" from our house. My son J struggled with this. He is a natural pack rat and sees everything, and I mean EVERY THING as somehow useful. Of course since then, we have had birthdays and Christmas, which automatically add back into the hoard. Time to clear out and organize again.

This time there is an added element for me. I did really well clearing stuff out of the house. I don't really care about too many of the things in the house. If it's not useful or really adding something to the decor, it can go.

This time, however, I had to make the decision to get rid of some of the stuff in the barn. Horses. Those hay-burning, fence-breaking, grain-gobbling, wonderful beasts that give me comfort when I am stressed, that carry me into other worlds and allow me to fly when I am their passenger, that listen and let me lean on them when no one else wants to hear what I have to say. Those.

I have gone back and forth on this decision so many times. I have even put a couple up for sale before but the market was not good and I got a delay. But now. Now, as the market improves. Now, when I am no longer teaching lessons. Now, as I am trying in all areas to be a better steward of all the things God has given into my care. Now, as we analyze our finances and time with three kids and homeschooling. Now, we Must sell some. And that was only half of the decision.

So now, as I look at our horses and their usefulness to us (and TRY to keep my emotions out of it), I have made a couple of easy decisions and a very difficult one.

Luckily for me, Steele, my first horse love, my horse it took me 18 years to get, is also super safe for kids and trails, so I get to keep him. Honestly, it would take having to make a choice between him and my husband or house for me to even consider selling him. He is my very special some pony! Super Easy!

Danny was an easy one. He is the perfect size for kids, but your classic obstinate pony with attitude. He never cared for working in the ring. He wants to be a trail horse and I just don't have that kind of property and we don't go anywhere often enough. He needs a family that would do that. Easy.

Dance, who was older and not blending in to the rest of the herd, would be happier somewhere with a horse that Needed a buddy and wouldn't reject her. Easy.

The other one I decided to keep is Flash. He is Sky's little brother and my trouble-maker. He has figured out more than once how to let everybody out when he didn't feel like staying in the pasture. But. But he is gentle, willing to please, smart and not afraid. He has a ways to go in his training (because of his lax owner), but he is safe. Even when he gets nervous, he listens to direction and THAT's what I want in a horse for my kids. Easy.

Then there are these two:
Sky, who is one of the most beautiful, athletic and intelligent animals I have ever worked with, who I watched being born, needs someone who can make use of her endless energy and can answer the challenge of her rider's worthiness to be in charge.

Slate, who was so shy when I bought him that I could only get him into the barn because he would follow Sky and now will come and rest his head against my chest for comfort. One of the sweetest horses I have ever known but is too sensitive to his rider for me to put kids on. Oh, if only I could keep him for myself! But we have set a limit and there were reasons for that.

How do I choose? They both have specific issues and need an experienced rider. I can ride them but they will take some work to be useful for the kids. Slate has my heart but Sky would probably do better for the kids in the long run. I was VERY apprehensive about whether anyone would be good enough for Slate. He is SO sensitive and gets nervous and unsure of himself. He really needed someone who would reassure him, handle him gently, ride quietly and make him feel safe. Whichever one we keep will be my ride as Steele gets older and needs to be retired to smaller riders. Hard!

I decided to put them both up for sale and trust God to find the right person for one of them and help me develop the one that stayed.

And God came through! As he always does. I got absolutely NO responses to the ad on Sky. I got several for Slate, but I wanted to hold on to him. He needed me. And then...and then an email from "K"...
Something told me this girl was Slate's match. Something told me he would feel safe and happy with her. When she came to look at him, it was instant. He was watching her, moving toward her, trusting her. She got on and within 5 minutes, he had relaxed, accepting her, trusting her. I knew I had to let him go. God had something better in mind than my selfish desire to cling to him. Now, I get pictures of Slate and K, his person. He is clearly happy and loved. I am at peace.

How many times does it take for us to learn to trust God?

I think God had me let go of Slate for this very reason; to remind me that he already has a handle on it. Even the things we are Most worried about. God has already got it figured it out but we have to let it go and trust him to take care of it. Now if I can just hold on to this lesson and translate it into the other parts of my life.

Being a Mom-Boss

I have always been independent. That's why I'm an entrepreneur; not so I could be someone else's boss, but so I could be My boss...and do things the way I wanted them...and not have someone else judge my work.

Then I became a parent. You know what? Amazingly, kids make really bad employees! Even when they do begrudgingly do the task I've given them, they rarely ever do it the way I would like for the chore to be done. I mean, how is a room with toys and clothes on the floor clean? Do they not see the stuff on the floor? Do they think I don't see it?

I started just doing the tasks myself. It was easier and faster to do it myself than the demanding, cajoling, rationalizing, threatening, bribing and yelling it took to get my kids to clean up their own messes. Plus, once the job was done, it was done well. So I kept doing... and doing... and doing. Until there was a problem. Several, actually.

What happens when we do everything for our kids?

1. I was exhausted. All. The. Time. There were just not enough hours in the day to take care of all of my chores and theirs unless I have absolutely no additional time commitments like a husband, for instance, or a job, church, friends, school functions/commitees or homeschooling, etc. And what was that other thing people do called? Shlep? sloop? Oh, right; sleep!

2. Since I was exhausted and spending all of my time with my kids being frustrated, I turned into Mrs. Crankypants and was no fun at all. Or so I've been told. Seriously. It's difficult to be patient or fun when all you can think about while you are with them is that they are dumping out all the toys you just spent an hour picking up.

3. I eventually became so tired and overwhelmed that I gave up. It did get us out of that frantic mode, but then I was embarrassed to have friends over, I couldn't relax because everywhere I looked was something that needed to be done and we wasted time and money looking for or replacing items we couldn't find. My poor husband. He got to come home from working all day to a messy house, a stressed out family and usually fast food for dinner. Can we say NOT a good situation?

And the big one

4. The kids began to think that everything would always be taken care of for them. They began to make less and less effort to take care of things themselves thus creating more and more mess for me to clean up. This also led to bad attitude as they began to see me as their servant rather than their boss. 

Not that my kids are my servants but I am definitely not theirs. 

How did this happen?

Like so many others before us, we started out with good intentions. There are plenty of resources out there for chore charts and reward systems. Our problem was not chore charts, allowance or anything like that. Our problem was me. 

When I had a commitment to other people, whether it was school, church, friends or clients, I was "on it". I knew what needed to be done, made a plan and followed through. People knew they could count on me. It was great! It was easy! It was in small increments. Each task had a set goal and duration.

My commitment to my home and family was different. It had many, many more goals, complications (especially when the other people involved were not only Not helping but undoing the work I had already done!), and a much longer time frame. And I didn't get to take weekends off!

At home, I was disorganized and quickly became overwhelmed. Rather than planning ahead and making a schedule, we were living by "what Has to be done Right Now". There was no time for sitting and thinking through what we were doing. I was not giving clear directions or consistent consequences to my kids.

I would tell J to do a task and then, instead of overseeing it, I would be busy with my own. Inevitably, when I came to see the results, he would have gotten distracted and not finished and then I would be frustrated because we had to leave to get to an activity. We would leave with both of us frustrated and the task still incomplete. Sound familiar?

I couldn't discipline effectively because I was so busy trying to catch up on the chaos that I would not notice that B wasn't doing what I asked her to do for a while or forget that J had lost screens for that day. More and more things began to be left undone. I started just doing what needed to be done myself in order to half way keep up. And thus began the spiral. 

So how do we fix it?

As you can see, there were several issues at work here, so I needed a plan with several steps and facets. 

The biggest issue to me was not the messy house but the attitude. 

We had talked to J before about us all working together as a family to take care of the house but it was overshadowed by the frustration we were stuck in. Nothing changed. So we needed to make sure this time would be different.

The first thing I did was that I stopped doing stuff for them. Cold turkey. If it was something that child could do, he or she needed to be the one to do it. I would only help when they really needed it. I told J (who was really the only one old enough to understand) that we were all going to start being RESPONSIBLE for our own things, messes and activities. I made it clear that it was not my job to pick up his dirty clothes or dishes or remember to get his lunch for class.

Then we started working on their attitude towards us, especially J since he's older. With B, she is only 3, so she corrects pretty easily. J is 8 and more strong-willed, so we started something similar to a swear jar except it was for talking back or being disrespectful. 

One of the other things that I realized as I thought about it was that J still needed help breaking larger projects down into smaller ones, which played into his seeming inability to clean the mess in his room. A check list of specific items or categories of items has helped him know where to start. I have also noticed that he stays on task better if I am there with him so he has someone to chit chat with. I am working on how to do that while still being productive myself.

The next thing to work on was me. I had to be honest about my part in creating the situation I was so frustrated with. My lack of planning and organization at home had played a huge part in all of this! I had done a much better job for others than I had for my own family. Ouch! I needed to be RESPONSIBLE for my role as a teacher and role model even more than J needed to be responsible for picking up after himself.

Update: I wrote this several years ago. J is now turning 11, B is 6 and we have another 3 year old. Some of these issues are still at play (we so easily revert back to old habits) but I do have to say that the kids are more willing to help now. Their attitude, which is the most important aspect of this to me, has gotten much better. Of course, I still get side tracked and need to remind myself to take the time to sit down and plan, but I AM getting better. The kids still naturally just leave their stuff sitting wherever they used it. I have to "make" them go back and pick it up, but we are making progress. I will update more in my next post. 

Finding Our Rhythm

I wrote in my last post that we have recently started homeschooling. We started after the school year had already begun, so we were in a bit of a rush to put things together. I went back and forth between buying a pre-packaged curriculumn and creating my own since J is sort of between grades.  If we had started planning over the summer, I definitely would have put together my own. To get things started, and since I felt a little overwhelmed, I purchased a curriculum.

I purchased the Bigger Hearts for His Glory curriculum from Heart of Dakota because it covered all subjects and had some hands on activities. I liked the way they tied all of the subjects together but as I read the history books they used, I was not a fan of the way they read & neither was J, but we did like the science. We also discovered that there were so many subjects each day, it required a lot of time at home to do them all and J and I both wanted more freedom to be able to go out for social events and field trips. I also have the additional time requirement of taking care of the barn and horses.

Since I already had a curriculum, I did not feel the need to rush into purchasing something else. It allowed me time to look around and see what I thought might work better. I have discovered that J does better to focus in on a few subjects in more detail than doing a bunch of changing gears in one day. So, instead of trying to do a whole bunch of different stuff each day, we pick a couple of main projects or subjects to focus on and add some math and reading.

One of the advantages of homeschooling is being able to change course and customize until you find what works for your child. I had already been teaching math using workbooks I had purchased over the summer and games I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. My real concern was reading and writing. I liked the idea of introducing history but I didn't want that to be the focus. I wanted what history we did learn to be more fun and I wanted to give J more opportunities for real writing, not copy work. 

I looked around online and found several sources for LEGO and seasonal story starters, which J is loving! I also discovered Tapestry of Grace which is more focused on history than I want to be but had a great list of interesting, age-appropriate stories based on both real and fictional people living in the time period being studied. J actually wanted me to keep going when we were reading their books! It was through their book list that I found author Laurie Carlson. She has written a series of books which focus on a specific time frame and contains factual/informational text but also has recipes, games and projects that children in that time period would have eaten, played or made! So awesome!

Since we like to be out doing things, we do a lot of reading and math on the road. I teach the ideas at home and then, once he has the concept, we do the practice on the way to activities.

Speaking of activities: one thing that has been very important for both of us, since we are both extroverts, is finding a group of friends! Luckily for us, we already knew some homeschoolers without even realizing it.  One of the families at our church told me about a local "support group" which does not host classes but puts together social events and field trips as well as acting as a network for sharing information about available opportunities for homeschoolers. I also discovered that two of his friends from soccer were in a co-op which met weekly for classes. We quickly joined both groups. This was by far one of the best decisions I have made in this whole process. Even in the short time we have been a part of these groups, we have both found some precious life long friends.

We ended up deciding not to do the classes with the co-op for now and just joining them for social events and field trips. Several of J's new friends have been going to a program at a YMCA near us that offers art, sports and swimming. The only problem was that it was three hours long and the day before co-op classes. Having the two back to back was a little too exciting for someone who gets overwhelmed/excited easily. We decided that he needed the activity and social time more than he needed the classes. The "Gym & Swim" is on Mondays, so I'm looking for another regular activity later in the week. I also plan on leaving on day open for field trips. If we can spend the days in between working at home, he will be ready to go for our active days. As he learns to handle more stuff at one time, we'll add classes back in.

A brief explanation on scheduling with anxiety:
Every kid is different. Even kids with the same issues will respond to them differently.
One of the things we have learned with J is that he gets what I call "ramped up" good and bad.  If there is too much going on, whether it's visual stimulation, too much on the schedule, being tired or stress in relationships, he gets stressed out and will become overly excited (good or bad) or avoid the thing making him uncomfortable by hyper focusing on something else.

We are learning that he can handle things up to a certain point, but when he starts showing one of the above signs, he needs some space and time to calm himself back down before he's ready to take on more, even from things he likes.  Too much of a good thing can be very bad for his stress level.

As you can see, we are still working on finding our rhythm, but we are getting closer!

The Root of the Poblem

Well, my dear reader, we have had some Major life changes in the past few months.

I had posted before about some of our frustrations with school. Our son J has had issues two years in a row.  We discovered over the summer that the root cause was anxiety.

We Never would have pegged J as having anxiety.  He is exuberant, extroverted and strong-willed.  Interestingly, these all made him more difficult to diagnose.  Once we did get the diagnosis, some of the things we have had issues with suddenly made sense. I won't go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that it was affecting pretty much every area of our lives.

We are still learning how to work with this new information. We have a lot to learn. The good news is, now that we know the cause of the problems, we can address them in a more appropriate manner.  The results have been a much happier kid, a happier sibling and very relieved parents!

One of the biggest changes that has come of this is that we are now homeschooling. We explained what was going on with J to his teacher at the beginning of the school year, what the "symptoms" looked like and some possible solutions.
Long story short, since he does not come across as the anxiety-filled stereotype, she did not believe the diagnosis and tried to discipline the undesirable behavior. If she had asked, we could have told her that didn't work. We had tried that for Years.
By the third week of school, his stress level (and ours) was unbearable, so we made the decision to pull him out.

The funny thing in all this was that we had talked about homeschooling before we had kids.  I was a kinesthetic (hands on) learner and thought that, if our kids were that way, we could do more hands on learning. I also liked the idea of being able to explore an area of interest more deeply and go on field trips instead of just reading about things.
We tried private school, we tried public school, and now we have come back to what we originally discussed.  Why are we so reluctant to do something different?

For the record: I am not anti-public school. My mom is a retired public school teacher. My grandmother was a principle. And three of my dearest friends are public school teachers and one private. I KNOW how overworked, under paid and under appreciated they are. I know how many spend hours and hours trying to figure out how to help students that are struggling. Unfortunately for J, he needs someone who can watch him closely enough to see when he is starting to get stressed out, figure out the cause and try to help him get past it. No teacher with 22 other students to attend to is going to be able to give him that kind of attention (even if she agrees with the diagnosis).

I do wish we would have made the decision over the summer so I would have had time to look at curriculum, etc. before we started. I was fortunate to know a few homeschoolers who quickly compiled lists of helpful websites, curriculums and local groups. We ended up joining a "support group" that is mostly social & does field trips and a co-op that meets weekly for classes and play time.

As I researched, I discovered that there are as many ways to do homeschool as there are families who do it! Some people do classes and memorization just like a regular school, some are very "literature-driven", some teach other subjects by studying history, some relate all subjects to a topic of the week or unit, some follow a packaged curriculum, many put together their own combination. And many of the books used by various curriculums are available at the library or free on Kindle. The possibilities are endless!!

Another thing I discovered is that there are WAY more learning opportunities and classes offered by museums, zoos, even amusement parks like Legoland and Disney World than I had ever imagined!
I think I can handle this ;)

The bottom line is, know your kids.  What is their basic personality? That's not going to change. Learn to work with it. Having problems? Maybe you need help finding the root cause. That is the key to being able to improve them. Figure out what works for Your kids. Don't worry about what everybody else is doing. Everybody else doesn't have Your kids.

Garbage, Good, Better, Best

Over this last week, the kids and I were able to get away to Florida to visit my family.  Unfortunately, The Hubs is right in the middle of a large project and was not able to come.  As much as we missed him, some good things happened on our trip.

The big thing for me was a chance to get out from under my giant to-do list for a bit.  I have such a tendency to get bogged down in all the things I'm supposed to be doing and feeling like I'm not getting to enough of them.  When that happens, I loose track of the more important things in my life.  That was the whole issue that led to this blog.

Even better was, with over twenty-five hours worth of driving and nights without barn chores (yes, that's how I spend my evenings after the kids go to bed), I was able to listen to some good podcasts, namely Living on the Edge and Focus on the Family, and read a book (well, most of it) by Kay Wills Wyma called Cleaning House: A Mom's 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement.

Between the three of these, I have been able to take a breath and realize that it's okay.  It's okay that the gardens and house are not ready for a Better Homes and Gardens photoshoot.  It's okay that my kids aren't perfect all of the time.  It's okay that I don't make every meal from scratch, or sometimes at all.  What is important is that my husband and children know that they are loved.  I think I've done a pretty good job in that department.  And not that I have been perfect in this area.  Who has?  But perfection is not what is required.  Love is.

Now that this Humongous weight has been lifted, I can move on to some of the other things I have heard and read to maybe improve some of the other areas.
The main one that has been bothering me is the disorganization/messiness of the house. And not just for myself.  I feel bad for The Hubs coming home from a long day at work and not being able to relax because there is more stuff that needs to be done when he gets home.  I feel bad for The Boy because he needs to be able to invite friends over to develop those close friendships I want for him and right now he can't.  I feel bad that we built our house with the intention of making it a place where God can use us and my Gift of hospitality but have yet to really use it.

So putting the ideas of teaching kids to be helpful and put others first And that it doesn't do us any good to have all this stuff if we can't find it or don't have room to use it... Josh and I are going to spend a good bit of the summer getting our house in shape.

Garbage, Good, Better, Best

These are the signs/bins I'm going to make.  We are going to toss the junk, donate the stuff that is good but we don't need, and keep the best. We'll probably keep stuff that falls in the "Better" category for now. Even throwing away the old broken stuff is hard for my little hoarder.

Some of the encouraging thoughts I have come across in my reading/listening lately:
1. Sometimes God says no to something "good" so he can say yes to something better later.
2. God wants the Best for us, not second best.
3. Of stuff and things to do: Why do we waste so much time, energy and money on things that are not truly fulfilling to us, don't enrich our lives and sap our energy?  You don't have to do or have everything. Choose a few and really enjoy them.
4. Of how to prioritize time: I don't have to do every activity presented. There are other people who can do my job or fill the spot in that group. There is NOT another person who can be the mom/dad to MY kids and the husband/wife to MY spouse. The difference between need and want. The other groups/people may want my time, but my family NEEDS my time.

Choose what is BEST in your life and get rid of the clutter that's keeping you from it.

A Little Sugar

You know that old expression that "you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar"?  Well, I guess for my son, discipline is vinegar and praise is sugar.  After a couple of difficult months at school where he and the staff were both becoming frustrated, I realized that the more they tried to "crack down" on him, the worse his attitude became and the more trouble he had.  What do you do?

I thought back over his childhood.  What was his basic, driving personality?  What would make him "straighten up"? None of the things he had done were malicious, but there were some issues with respect/obedience for adults.

The long and short of it was that we have a smart kid who is done and ready to move on while others are still working and the teacher is helping those students.  Enter boredom.  We also have a VERY kinesthetic child who cannot sit still for more than five minutes.  Enter excess energy.  We also just happen to have an extroverted kid who wants to have someone paying attention to him at ALL times.  Enter silly behavior to get attention.  And just to make it interesting, he is also very Strong willed.  Enter willingness to take the consequences to get some attention.

As author Cynthia Tobias said of herself (another strong-willed child), "I don't have a problem with authority.  I have a problem with how it's presented."  She then explained that, if you come at her pointing your finger in her face, she will defy you just to prove that you are NOT the boss of her. However, if you come to her in a manner that asks her to work with you, she'll most likely do it.
Now how do we translate this to school?

I knew that we were at a cross-roads.
I knew that if he continued to recieve mostly negative attention, there was the distinct possibility that he would quit trying to be good.  I had a friend that did that. He told me one day that everyone had already decided he was "the bad seed" and he was tired of trying to prove that he wasn't.  I didn't want that to happen to J.
I also knew how hard he would try if he really thought he could get your honest approval.  I had seen it before.  When you acknowledge something good or helpful that he does (especially without being asked), he starts doing more things to try to get that "atta-boy" again (remember the extrovert part?). That sounded like a much better way to go.

So I talked to the principle and teacher and they are trying to make more of an effort to recognize when he has done something good.  And you know what happened?
The first day, the teacher sent home a note about a good choice he made. Did that have any effect on him?

It is amazing. From that simple change, we have gotten not one, but TWO weeks of good attitude and good, even helpful, behavior both at school and at home.  All he needed was a chance to believe that we saw the good in him. 

 Did I mention silly & extroverted?

If you know someone who has been struggling with a bad attitude or behavior, try finding just ONE good thing that you can take notice of and see if they don't start adding more.
And no matter how frustrating your kids can be (I understand!) make sure that they know that, not only do you love them, but you CHOOSE them over any other kid.  Watch the effect that THAT has on them! 

The Great Bread Experiment: Artisan Bread

I posted last week that I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and, in the process, found a great recipe.  In my search for a good recipe, I bought a "Guide To Homemade Bread" magazine from Grit.  Becky Sell wrote an article on the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day that I keep hearing about. It sounded pretty easy, so I decided to give it a try.

What I got was a very flavorful Italian like bread. A little too heavy for sandwiches, but great as a dinner or breakfast bread. This bread worked with just butter, honey, jelly and as garlic bread. We loved it!You could also add other things into it, like herbs or cheese for more flavor.

Sorry I didn't get pictures. I wasn't sure it would work after my first three fiascos. I'll take some and post them next time.

Ingredients:
3 cups warm water
1 1/2 Tbs salt (sea or Kosher, NOT table)
1 1/2 Tbs dry yeast
6 1/2 c all-purp flour, NOT packed
*can sub up to  2 1/2 c whole wheat flour*

Directions:
1. Pour warm water into mixing bowl. Add salt, then gently add yeast (it will spread across top).
2. Add flour. Turn mixer on lowest speed until you have noticed that it slows down (about 30 secs). Turn mixer up a notch and mix until dough starts to form a ball and pick up the extra flour from around the edges (about 30 secs).
3. Remove bowl from mixer. Scrape dough off dough hook. Cover bowl with lid that doesn't seal completely and let rise for for 2 hours. The dough will be sticky. You can put it in the fridge for an hour or so to make it more manageable.
4. Sprinkle bottom of baking pan or stone with flour, cornmeal, etc or grease with butter or line with parchment paper.
5. For Round Loaves: form two balls and place on baking/pizza stone
    For Pan Loaves: form loaves, place in loaf pans
    Slash tops of loaves to allow even rise.
6. Place a boiler pan or brownie pan on the bottom rack when you turn on the oven. Just before putting the bread in the oven, carefully pour 1 1/2 cups water into the pan, put bread in and quickly close the door.
7. Bake round loaves at 450 for 30 min or pan loaves at 350 for 60 min.

Dough can be stored in a non-airtight container in fridge for up to two weeks. It becomes sourdough after one week.