Be still my heart. My girl loves our chickens. Look at that second picture, the way she’s looking at Verde. Ainsley runs outside as often as she can to play with them, and insists on holding them over and over, even after they peck her on the cheek like they did yesterday. Today I was trying to get Ainsley to come in and asked her if she wanted come in to help me make waffles for dinner.
“Nope.”
“Well will you at least stop trying to pick up the chickies?”
“No!” in a tone that asked how I could actually think to ask her to do that.

What do I want for my daughters as they grow up? Lots of things. For starters, I want them to have opportunities and education and laughter and joy.  Today I’ve been thinking about wanting, so deeply, for them to want to desire and love homemaking – creating a loving family and peaceful, happy home for that own little family they’ll build.  There is no more important job on earth, and it’s the thing that brings me the most joy, so of course I want my daughters to know that same sense of fulfillment – women were born for this! – and happiness. That seems so far down the road, but they’ll never get there if they don’t have that desire.  And how am I helping to grow that desire in their little souls when they hear me complain about my homemaking duties?  Why would any of my children desire to have or be something that I complain about or avoid?  I don’t complain a lot verbally, but I wonder what my body language conveys about how I feel?

Today I was just really aware that I need to be so much more cheerful about doing the tasks that are my job, even the ones I don’t love. And if I can’t be positive, I just need to turn the music on and watch the littles dance while I do whatever thing it is I’m not wanting to do.  Because then they’ll at least see me smiling while doing the chore, and they probably won’t know it’s from watching them, NOT from cleaning out the fridge.

Then this morning stunk. In the very worst way that made me wonder how on earth everything could change in just 24 hours?  The rough patch lasted about an hour, people got off to school, tears were dried and things are feeling a bit back to normal.  I was left to wonder how sometimes this motherhood/homemaker gig is so fun and easy and other times I flounder so wildly.

Now, it means nothing but laundry, because baby Em isn’t yet a fashionista (oh spare me that torture) but still wears at least three outfits a day.

This little Cute McScoot has reflux, which – before I had a reflux babe – I used to think was just a bit of a bummer, from what I’d heard from friends. Even our sweet pediatrician has reminded me the last 3 visits that he did his residency among a large population of reflux babies, and “they just had to wear bibs all the time.”

Are all you reflux moms laughing? Sure sign that the nice doctor has probably not parented a reflux babe of his own, lucky duck.

When I first started researching reflux I read about volcanic spit up – so high in volume and so far in distance it made people (the ones who didn’t have to do the laundry or clean the carpets) stare in awe.  But I thought “how lucky we are! Emerson spits up a lot, but it’s not that bad.”

Ha ha ha ha ha

It wasn’t that bad yet.

And now it is.

She has the volcanic spit up 5-15 minutes after every feed, and then whenever she’s in the mood after that.  Then she’ll spit up ever 2-10 minutes all the way up to her next feed.  Sometimes the kids love to hold and hug her, and sometimes they run away screaming “but she’ll spiiitttt uppppppp on meeeee!”

And they are right.  Hold her long enough and she will indeed spit up all over you.

She gets her outfit changed a few times a day, and then usually ends up in a onesie or, if it’s warm enough, naked up on top to try and stay dry.  Constantly wet babies = rashy babies, on little tushies or necks and chests.  Sad face.

It’s a good thing I was so excited I was having a girl when Ainsley was born, that I stocked up on the infant clothes. We’ve got enough, it’s just that I can’t keep up with the wash – her clothes, the blankets, the floor, our clothes – you get it.

Good thing she’s adorable and worth every single load of laundry.

CUTE BABY!

I said there was no way. The news dude even said we’d have 4-6″ total – between last night and Sunday. It would be rain, snow, rain, snow, yuck.

So I told Nathan: If we get a foot, the kids are skipping school and we are sledding.

Between 7:30 pm and 2 am, every human in the house came down with a head cold. So Nathan and I took shifts, 2-4am, 4-6 am, to clear out noses and wipe noses and rub backs.

I peeked out the window at 3:00 am to barely a dusting.  Phew, at least we wouldn’t have to miss out on sledding.

And then when I came downstairs this morning and opened all the blinds first thing?  This is what I saw.

want to swing?

It did make the morning email to the first grade teacher easier to write.  ”Sorry Jacob won’t be at school today. Snow and sled called his name and we listened!” might not have gone over too well.

Last night I had thought about emailing her that “Jacob is full of snow” and hoping she’d think I had meant “Jacob is full of snot”. TYPO! Or is it?!

Alas, thwarted plans through boogers get him an excused absence and means we don’t have to attack the driveway.  Right?

I wonder if they can all be half better by lunch before this is supposed to turn to rain? Hmmm…

I read a church book the other day that was just ok, except for one part that stuck with me.  The one author talked about how after 3 years of full time church service, her house needed a major reorganization. And she was so discouraged because every day she could see more of what was left than what had been accomplished. Sound familiar?  She attended the temple one day and came away with her answer – when God created the world, he didn’t do it all in a day. He did each days task, and at the end, SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD.  We don’t read anything about “woe is me I have so much left to do, how am I every going to get this all done?”  So that’s what she did, too. She worked hard each day and focused on what she was able to do.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this yesterday and am sad I’ve gotten to the place where this will take more than a minor adjustment in my thinking.  But does God want me to work my tail off all day, serving my family and Him, and then feel discouragement at the end of the day? No way! He’s not disappointed in me for leaving the dusting and mopping for later so I can read to my children, watch the kids play, and laugh with my baby – so why should I be discouraged when I replace the time I would’ve spent on the tasks I don’t get done, with my family!?   Just to see it written out makes me realize that is ridiculous.

I love lists, and am remembering not long ago when I took a week and wrote a list of everything I had done that day instead of everything I needed to do.  Maybe I’ll need to go back to that for a few days. And each night, call it good and go to bed happy.

Ainsley, on the other hand, has no interest in doing anything other than dancing, singing/screaming and jumping up and down during THOSE 2-5 minutes every evening.

Until 3 nights ago.

The winning solution?

Bribery.

One of Jacob’s primary teachers last year is this child psychologist. He’s awesome – we had him over one night last year for a few hours to work through a problem and he was just fantastic.  During primary, he and the co teacher would set out some kind of treat at the beginning of class time. Several of whatever (say, hershey’s kisses or m&m’s) for each kid.  And if the kids sat well, those treats stayed right there. If someone started goofing off a bunch, one of their treats would disappear. Those 5 and 6 year old kids were GOOD.

This week with the influx of Valentine’s candy, I grabbed 3 Hershey’s kisses (out of someone’s treat bag – shhhh) and put them on the kitchen table when dinner was done.

“It’s scripture time! You sit nicely at the table, and listen, and you get one. You sing, dance on the chairs or run away, and it’s gone. Get it? Good!”

All 3 kids sat, listened and participated.

Holy. Cow.

So we tried it the next night, and the next, and the next. And then we ran out of kisses. So while I picked up supplies for Joshua’s birthday today I grabbed a bag of m&m’s – I figure 3 per kid and that bag should last us through the entire bible.  SWEET.

Also – how glad are you that the Scripture Power song is back in primary this year? LOVE it!

Josh said “it means to go to sleep fast”.

Huh?

Jacob came through: It means living the commandments.

Josh finally explained why he thought what he did.  The song breaks up the word righteously into three notes that come out sounding like this: ri-chous-lee.  Josh thought it said: RIGHT TO SLEEP.

Given this land, if they lived RIGHT TO SLEEP.

I LOVE HIM.

I just called to say I love you

I just called to say

how much I care.

I just called to say I love you!

and I mean it

from the bottom of my heart.

(photos from after his eyes were dilated after last month)