My Life Interrupted

4 Years

2011-05-09T16:51:00.001-05:00

Today marks a turning point in my life, my husband’s life and most of all in the little’s lives.

It was the day after Mothers Day 4 years ago that we officially became Daddy & Mommy again.

Even though they were already living here 90% of the time for the 8 months leading up to this day but was instead called “babysitting” while she supposedly worked. Even though they already had beds, dressers full of clothes, toys and all little ladies baby paraphernalia. Even though I had been hauling them with me to work every day. Even though we held the titles of grandma and grandma and we did everything daddy’s and mommy’s do. Even though they had already bonded with us.

It was Mothers Day 4 years ago when my eye’s were opened up to the truth that I had refused to see. I had been manipulated. I had been lied to. I had been used. My husband had tried to tell me. I didn’t believe him. Instead I felt sorry for my step daughter, closed my eye’s to the hurt she inflicted on us and believed that if we supported and helped her to start loving herself then she could get her life together and thus be a mother to the little’s. As you know it didn’t work that way.

She made that Mother’s Day pure hell and then walked out the door. Without her children. With my youngest daughters help we spent the rest of that day and the next getting to the bottom of the truth. And the truth was not pretty. When she came to our home the day after Mother’s Day, she was angry because she had gotten word that we had found her out. She threatened to take the little’s and that we would never see them again. As lies spewed out of her mouth I stopped her and told her that she needed to take her children and go home because I was DONE with her lies and manipulation. I told her that her father and I would be over immediately after he got home from work.

When they walked out the door and drove away, I sobbed. I hated sending the little’s with her but in reality these were her children and we had no rights to keep them. A couple of hours later, my husband and I went to her apartment. We were horrified about the condition of the apartment but even more so of seeing little lady laying in a filthy crib with a bottle propped up to her, while little man held a cup of juice that had mold floating on top, in his little hands. It was mere minutes of confronting her that she verbally asked us to take the little’s. Within an hour of confronting her, we walked back out of the apartment with the little’s in our arms, after my husband loaded up the remaining of their belongings into our car.

They have been with us ever since.

Now I could say what a horrible person I think she is. I could lament about how much we tried helping her to be the mommy. But, I won’t. While it was wrong of her to lie, manipulate and use us like she did, it would have been worse for the little’s if she hadn’t. I cringe at the thought of what life would have been like with propped up bottles and dirty juice cups in the midst of a filthy apartment. But even more I cringe at the thought of them not getting fed emotionally. She was and still is emotionally void. As much as it makes me angry that she did all these things in order for us to be constantly caring for the little’s, I am thankful she did. I am thankful that we were her safe place and that she knew we would love them.

She loved the little’s enough to manipulate us so that they were with us the majority of the time. When she was confronted with the truth of having to step up to the plate and be the mommy because we were not going to be helping anymore she loved them enough to admit that she couldn’t be the mommy. She loved them enough to ask us to take them. She loved them enough to walk away. She loved them enough to want them in a loving safe home instead of the alternative.

There are those that throw stones at her and mothers like her. It could be easy to condemn her. In our hearts we ask how could a mother do this? Yet, when I heard this morning of another mother killing her children I thought more mothers need to walk away from their children before it reaches this point of no return. More mothers need to love their children enough to hand them to someone that will.

This doesn’t mean that she didn’t change her mind once we wanted to make it legal. This doesn’t mean that she hasn’t continued to lie and manipulate. This doesn’t mean that she hasn’t told whom ever will listen that we stole her children from her. This doesn’t mean that it has been smooth sailing with her.

Over the past 4 years we have had a bitter sweet journey that led us to being called daddy & mommy today. Early on, it cost most of our savings and some of our sanity in order for us to have complete legal & physical custody of the little’s. I don’t care who you are, no one likes fighting their own child in court but you do what you have to do when faced with the alternative. Thankfully we live in a state that gives relative caregivers as much rights as birth parents in the eye of the law.

At this point she has done nothing to improve her life or ability to parent so the likely hood of them being with us through the long haul is very high. The only way she could get custody of them is if we were proven to be negligent parents or if we see fit to hand them back to her ourselves.

She will always be the birth mommy. The little’s know she is mommy and that we really are the grandparents but prefer to call us daddy & mommy. She will always be in their lives and the little’s will get supervised visits with her. We are a family with more than one mommy.

We were newly married when we received these children. The plans we had were put on the back burner.We thought it was just going to to be a temporary thing and we surely didn’t plan on being daddy & mommy. Almost 5 years later here we are. We may not be doing what we planned to be doing but I truly believe we are exactly where we are suppose to be.

You would think that with all they have been through they would be messed up little people but in reality they are very happy normal little people. Yes, on occasion we have issues with them being overly attached to us and they have difficulty being apart from us. They have an issue with people leaving them. If it were up to them all five of my adult children and grandchildren would all be living with us, along with various aunts and uncles.

The little’s have changed our lives and filled up our hearts. They have expanded my family and added a whole new flavor to it. They may exasperate us ~~every~~ some days and we may not get many breaks but they add so much love and joy to our lives that I cannot imagine them not being here.

I don’t share our story because I want pats on the back or for you to praise me with accolades. I share this because if our story can help one person it is worth sharing. If our story can help others to be supportive of someone that is raising someone else child or children. If our story can encourage someone that is walking in our shoes. If our story can help others to be more understanding and less judgmental of parents that walk away. That just maybe if we all consider the alternatives…the children killed by their parents, children that are abused and neglected…the children that are all alone, that are not nourished physically, mentally or emotionally, then we could stop throwing rocks at parents that walk away instead.

Our story has a happy ending but not all do. Motherhood and fatherhood is not a right but a privilege. Children are not but mere objects that we can discard at our discretion but sometimes walking away is the most loving thing a parent can do. I wish with all of my heart that mother’s or fathers that take their children’s lives had thought about this alternative first.

That night, 4 years ago, when we walked back into our home carrying these two precious souls, we started a journey into unknown waters. So much has happened since then. We may struggle at times. We may lose sight of where we are going at times but some how we always find our way. I know we are right where we are suppose to be.

I hope each of you that are mom’s, and those that stand in as mom and those of you without children but have mothers hearts had a happy mothers day this past weekend. As I reflect on getting to be a mom to each one of my children and grandma to my grandchildren my heart is full. I could not ask for more. (Well, except that they lived closer. )

Until next time, much love and big hugs to each one of you, Lori

PS Thank you for your continued prayers and positive thoughts that are sent my way. I so appreciate you!

Change

2011-04-27T08:49:00.001-05:00

It is has been quite some time since I posted here. On occasions, when the pain is less and my mind is more clear I stop by your places and read and if I am able…meaning, if the house is quiet and my mind is working, I leave a comment. I cherish the moments of partaking in your words. Your words move me…they make me smile and sometimes cry…they make me forget the things I carry and remember why I love you and the blog world like I do.

Right now, I feel like I am caught in the “meantime”…in the middle some place between heaven and hell. If I were to write that I am doing good I would be lying even though I am not doing horrible. At least not on most days. I still have days of wanting to just stop this nonsense and be done. Still, I am spending less time dreaming about dying and more time dreaming about living.

Pain is pain and it still sucks. I ended my set amount of therapy sessions and have been waiting numerous weeks for approval by the workers comp company for more sessions as requested by the therapist and doctor. Thankfully, more sessions have been granted and now I just wait for these sessions to start again. It did help me with my pain and gave me a spoonful of hope so I am hoping that additional therapy will give me the kick in the butt that I need.

I have also seen a small improvement in my thyroid issues which came in finding that the medication does it’s job better when I crush it and put it under my tongue. While I do still feel exhausted towards the end of the day…to the point of feeling like I have the flu, it is not as bad nor do I wake up feeling like this. I am keeping more energy during the day and not having to fight through bone tiring fatigue all day long.

Still, I am constantly seeking out answers to help things improve even more. Our diet that was already healthy has become even more so. Eating the way we do does keep everyone from getting sick but I think it is helping me to ever so slowly feel better. Removing pretty much all processed foods and making everything from scratch is work…hell it’s a lot of work, but cooking and baking is therapeutic for me(most of the time ).

My counters have bowls of fresh ground grains, rice or beans soaking in liquid and an acid medium, which is usually whey from my strained yogurt or sometimes yogurt(This helps break down the phytic acid which helps aid in digestion). I have kombucha tea brewing and now instead of just making yogurt I started my first batch of kefir this week.

While the little’s are my top priority, the pain and working in the kitchen take all of the energy I have and leave little for anything else. Literally.

It has really been a long winter. Spring has not really come to my neck of the woods yet. We did have a few warmer days back a few weeks ago but the kids have been back wearing their winter coats and hats. It does look funny to look outside and see them riding bikes and playing in the sand box with winter coats on. Even though the snow has finally melted we are still getting snow on occasions and this does nothing for the spirits of anyone. It looks and feels more like the middle of November then it does April.

The little’s are doing good. Little man informs me almost daily of how many day’s of school are left. As of today he say’s he has 26 days left. He continues to say the funniest things and I really wonder what they must think at school. Little lady is just as full of sugar and vinegar as always. She is quite the mix of being a princess and a tom boy and that is evident when she is wearing a long princess dress while wrestling with her cousin, A-man. A-man (he is my youngest daughters son and they live with us but plans are in the making of them moving this fall) is included as one of the little’s because of living with us and I take care of him while his mom works. I call him and little lady “The nose picking, booger eating double trouble makers”. Believe me they live up to the name quite well. All 3 of them sure keep me on my toes and my heart full.

My step daughter, the little’s birth mommy, has just informed us that she will now be moving back to Nevada at the end of the month. She spent an entire year back here in Minnesota and did NOTHING to get her life together. While she has had supervised visits every 4-6 weeks for a couple of hours at a time, over this past year she has made no efforts to get them back or to improve her life. She is an emotionally void person that gives nothing to them but “stuff”. This is sad. Still they are very happy, well adjusted children and have never asked to live with her. They are aware of her leaving and their reaction was, “it doesn’t really matter”. Even though they don’t appear to be upset I still worry what her leaving once again will do to them. It is highly unlikely that we will or could ever hand them back to her. At this point of them being with us for this length of time, what would it do to them to leave our home?

It makes me angry that she has done all of this to them. This coming and going and leaving and not thinking about their feelings…or ours. We have stretched ourselves to our limits in dealing with this situation and just when we have peace after we have gotten the little’s through a hurdle she comes along with another cross for us to bear. I feel sad for my husband because this is his daughter and she treats him with such disrespect even in the light of all we have done for her.

More change is coming into our lives as my husband will be starting a new job, which is a good thing. Since he will now be working the days I am working, he will no longer be able to care for the little’s while I work. We cannot afford daycare and the gas and make it worth my working the 2 days a week so when he starts his new job in a few weeks I will be staying home….at least until both of the little’s are in school and then we will go from there. I am sad because I have loved my job and the woman I care for…and I’ve loved getting out of the house and contributing money to our family.

It sure has been quite the journey over these past months and weeks…and during that time there were moments I stood on the edge of despair and just when I thought there was no hope left, one or more of you would do something like leave a kind caring comment here, or send me an e-mail inquiring how I was doing. Some of you wrote posts to let me know you cared or to make me laugh because laughter is the best medicine. One of you even sent me a book that you thought would help me get through. Each one of you made me remember that I am not alone and that there is indeed hope. I cannot thank you enough for the love you have shown me, and for the prayers and positive thoughts that have been sent my way. Each act of kindness left me humbled to be part of such a community as this.

It has taken me over a week to write this post. And this frustrates me. Still I am thankful for the small moments I am able to write or even read. I appreciate every moment that I get to read one of your posts. I am trying with all of my might to just be present in this meantime of my life. The pain has been extremely high these past few days and it’s hard not to let the pain speak for me. When I catch my breath I don’t feel so desperate or scared. And I feel like I can do this one more day.

Thank you for taking the time to listen…to care…to reach out to me. You move me to tears each and every time.

Bless your hearts and lives and those you love and fill your time.

Much love and giant hugs to each one of you. Until next time(hopefully soon), Lori

Pain

2011-03-04T09:07:00.001-06:00

I really do not know what to say. I sit here looking at the computer screen and I cry.

For what it’s worth, I’ve missed you. And your words. A lot. I visit you on occasion. Hungering for words that could distract my mind from what is…chewing on your words…yet I leave without saying anything because I am speechless. Go figure. Me with my long winded comments has been silenced. I have nothing to offer anyone. And this makes me beyond sad.

I’ve thought about a hundred things to write about but words escape me. When I think about writing about why I have been absent here and why I haven’t visited your place, I struggle to find the words. I cannot stand superficial or people that pretend to be who they are not. I like the real deal. Yet, here I am finding it really hard to be “real” because I don’t like spewing out negativity. If you have spent any amount of time here then you know that. Still here I am. Spewing out what is within the walls of my world. And it’s not positive…so if you are steering away from negativity, now is the time to click away from here.

Pain has swallowed me up. Intense therapy has made things worse which although I know it’s normal for it to get worse before it gets better, doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. It sucks the life out of me and makes me feel less then human. It’s leaving me bruised and wore out.

Since there is nothing that takes this kind of pain completely away, there really is nothing that the medical community can offer me to relieve it. Maybe it’s crazy that I refuse to take any pain medications but after spending the first two years of my injury going that route I know it’s not the answer. I will not cloud my mind and fill my body up with substances that mess me up and don’t really help anyways. Pain medications are not meant to be taken long term and after awhile our bodies build up immunity to them.

The things that can help with pain…. Alternative things… are not allowed by worker compensation. They do help because I have experienced their benefits but are not an option right now. Things like acupuncture, medical marijuana, healing touch and massage. They are either not in the budget or not legal in Minnesota. I know people who are using all of these to help with pain, and for other ailments. I know someone with severe arthritis that manages her pain and sleeps through the night(after years of not sleeping) with the help of the medical marijuana. This is enough to make me want to move to a state in which it is legal…and if this state was warmer(and with less snow) than where I live now, it would be an added bonus.

The thing is, just to get the intense therapy that I am getting now, which borders on the alternative, I had to jump through hoops and go through the court system to get it. They put me through 9 months of court fighting over me getting this therapy that costs them $150 a session, yet ironically they had no issue with providing me with morphine, other narcotics and drugs that cost well over $5,000 EVERY month for 2 years. The thing is, this therapy helps and the narcotics do not. The fact that they only approved for me to have 12 sessions means that if my therapist wants me to have more I will likely have to fight for it. And I’m not sure I’m up for it.

I am forced to face the truth of living a life with pain. Saying goodbye to what was and welcoming what is, is not easy. I can pretend it doesn’t bother me. I can say all the right things to convince those around me it is just fine. But, sometimes it just isn’t. I’m not fine. In these moments that I lose hope I feel far from fine. I loved that job. I was passionate about it…hell I still am passionate about it.

I’ve been a step away from saying goodbye…calling it quits…I dream about dying and it feels good. Actually that is the only time I have good dreams these days. It feels good to be done…but then I wake up and I’m still here, in pain…either that or I wake up in total terror because of the monster that visits me when my eye’s are closed…the one that attacks me over and over again while I sleep that leaves me wishing I never had to sleep. When I finally get up after only a couple hours of sleep I promise myself that I only have to make it through today.

I am sure my thyroid that is still giving me issues only compounds everything.

I know this long, cold, snow filled winter, that has kept us inside a lot, has not helped matters. The bitter cold does make my pain levels higher and all this never ending “togetherness” is causing all 7 of us in this house to be a little bit stir crazy. There is no end in sight either as the big piles of snow are not going down and there is talk of a lot more being added to it in the near future. Actually I can handle more snow than the bitter cold days and the winds that blow snow across the roads, making them icy.

High pain levels increase the PTSD symptoms. I find myself fretting about being attacked again. It really is ridiculous because I am not in danger of being attacked. I find myself not wanting to sit where people can come up behind me. I have less tolerance for loud noises. I startle easier. There are moments that the cloud of fear is so strong that it is hard to see through the fog. I rarely leave my house except to go to work or to go to therapy. Not just because it’s cold or hard to be out in public but more because masking the face of pain is exhausting. Making sure no one see’s how much I’m hurting is a full time job.

I am seeing a counselor that specializes in chronic pain and PTSD. He say’s that everything I am experiencing is normal for someone in my position. He say’s it’s perfectly normal for people that live with pain to go through periods of wanting to throw in the towel. He would like to see me go through the pain program again. He also say’s it’s time for me to express my anger about the attack, my attacker and the company that did nothing to protect me. When I say “I’m not angry.” he just smiles at me.

My day begins and ends with pain. In between I do all the things I can to maintain. I ice. I stretch. I breathe through it. I mediate. I pray. I try to let it go and not fight it. Not allowing any of this to stop me from living life is not easy on the best of day’s but when the day’s of high pain pile on top of each other along with the piles of tasks that need to be done around my home, I start to lose my fight to want something more.

Since pain and not sleeping so well drains me of energy, I prioritize what gets done and what doesn’t. My little’s literally get the best of me. They are at the top of my list. While they exhaust me, they give me life. Their joy for life and the simple things ... Their big love for me and the way they look at me is what keeps my heart beating. Their gentleness with me when they see the pain that I cannot hide is priceless. They breathe fresh air into the moments that I feel like I do not want to go on. They fill up my day with beautiful messes and sweet chaos and I cannot imagine life without them.

Nor could I imagine life without my husband or my adult son and daughter that fill in the gaps and give me endless support. I know it is not easy for them to see me suffering. As hard as I try to hide it, they see the pain in my eye’s and read between the lines. Giving up sleeping in or their own interests in order to drive me to therapy or to watch the little’s so that I can go. Taking the little’s outside when it warms up enough, just so that I can have some moments to breathe or coming home to the living room being dusted and vacuumed are priceless gifts they give me.

Between them and the little’s I have a reason to get up every day and to not check out of this life. They keep me from laying down and never getting back up.

The other day, in the middle of my intense therapy I broke down. After these weeks of therapy I finally felt safe enough to express the emotions that screamed to come out whenever her hands touched certain area’s of my head or neck. I had no control over my emotions. While that didn’t freak me out it did make me aware of just how much I still have inside of me and how I am still coming to terms with what happened and my new life that resulted from that.

In May it will be 9 years that I started on this journey. The physical pain and the pain of PTSD have taught me lessons I would not have learned otherwise. I am grateful for what I have learned and the people I have met because of pain. I do believe there is a reason that I am going through all of this even though I may rage against it every now and then. I know that there is a greater purpose that is bigger than me and my understanding. I know that each trial or tribulation that I have been through was an invitation to learn something that would benefit me when I got to the other side. There are blessings and lessons in these long day’s and I am trying to not miss them.

I have always been a bit of a rebel. Okay, a lot of a rebel. Right now I feel like rebelling against what is and what I “should” be doing. I want to take this shit sandwich and throw it at my old bosses heads and see if they like how it feels.

It’s these moments that I want to stand in the middle of the room and scream out obscenities. Or I want to curl up into a ball and just cry.

I am weary and sad. I am tired of the pain gnawing at my last nerve. My hope is running on low. I am clinging to my faith but I would be lying if I said I never questioned God on all of this.

I ask myself, What am I being invited to learn right now? What would I be missing out on if I wasn’t in this present moment, pain, exhaustion and all? Would I be missing out on these precious simple moments because I would be too busy “doing”? Being forced to literally “stop” I am forced to see what I may miss other wise. I know that even though I may not “feel” it right now, I have a great life and much to be grateful for.

As I was getting ready to go to work a couple of weeks ago, my husband was asking about all the work that needed to be done and sounded kind of exasperated about doing it while caring for the youngest 2 little’s. Without missing a beat, little lady say’s to him, “Welcome to Mommy’s world.” Too funny and so true.

It’s things like this that fill my day’s and not only put’s smiles on my face but reminds me of why I can’t check out of this life.

I am not sure if I will have the guts to push publish on this post but if I do I ask that if you are a prayer, that you would pray for us here. I ask that you would send positive thoughts our way.

I promise that I will be by to visit you and leaving my two cents worth as soon as I have something to offer. I really do miss you.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Love really is Louder

2011-02-15T08:42:00.001-06:00

We’ve been talking a lot about love at our house this month. Of course the little’s were excited about Valentine’s day. From the time they came home with letter’s about the upcoming “love” holiday, the talk began about decorating a box for Valentines and then of course picking out the special Valentines and treats to give each of their classmates and teachers. Oh the joy that I had completely forgotten about, that takes place with children and this holiday.

Oh the joy of writing out every single one of those Valentines with them. At one point, little lady was getting pretty sloppy writing her name and I asked her what it was that she had written because it surely didn’t look like her name. She responded with, “I can’t help it, my brain is telling my hand to write something else.”

The fun of making their boxes with my creative daughter…boxes they claim they are “never ever” throwing away…thank you dear daughter for doing this with them.

Little lady with a love bug. Little A man with a monster(he claims this is what our monster Franklin looks like) Little man with a puppy.

Quite naturally the topic of love has been brought up a lot these past few weeks. I like to use these teachable moments with the little’s because I not only have their complete attention but they are still young enough to think I know what I am talking about.

We talked about how important it is to keep our love buckets full because we act our best when they are full. We also talked about how important it is to make deposits or delivery's into other people’s love buckets. We talked about how when love buckets get empty they leave room for things of hate to come in.

We talked about the opposite of love being hate. Which led us to discuss what happens when people have hate in their hearts…which led to talking about why we say “I’m sorry” and why we forgive each other and why loving is so much better than hating…and so on and so on. This is what gave birth to my previous post on love beating hate.

We’ve had some really interesting discussions. And a lot of funny one’s. Okay, mostly they end up being funny one’s because how can they not with a 3, 4 and 5 year old? If you were a little mouse in the corner of our house your ears would be full of our nonsense and silliness.

In one discussion we some how started talking about how people can be mean to people that are different.

Little man say’s seriously, “I’m different. I have brown skin.”

Little lady excitedly screams, “I’m different. I have really really blond curly hair.”

Little A man, really excited, screams, “I’m different too Grandma. I’m a boy and I pee standing up.”

Obviously, the younger two are not completely getting what I am meaning by being different but I still attempted to go with it for little man who had been seriously into this “talk”. Yet once again he was swayed by the 3 and 4 year olds because they couldn’t get off the topic of peeing while standing up and he thought this to be quite funny. To no avail this led into them counting who can pee standing up in our family. At least their getting good at counting.

With the many days of sub zero temperatures, we had way too many days of togetherness.(except we are having beautiful weather right now) As you must know it gets pretty loud around here so one day last week I asked them, “Is this what love sounds like?” This led us to ponder what love sounds like. Which led into us asking what hate sounds like. In the midst of this discussion, little man responded with, “I think love should be louder than hate so all the hate can go out of this world.”

Amen Little Man. Amen!

Oh the sweetness and heart of this little boy. This little boy who has been mistreated for the color of his skin and because he doesn’t go to church. Still he loves proudly and he doesn’t care who you are, he will love you. He loves big and loud and is not afraid to let anyone he loves know it. Just ask the lunch ladies, the janitors, the recess lady’s and the teachers at school.

I had heard about the love is louder movement on Facebook and since they had so much fun doing the “love beats hate” signs with me, I asked them if they wanted to write on their hands, “just this once” and of course they were all over it. I asked my eldest Granddaughter to take part in it with us and she created the love is louder hands picture in the middle.

Love is louder was started as an anti bullying campaign and it became something more. What I appreciate about these group efforts is that it causes people to stop and look at their own actions. If just one person changes their behavior due to this movement it is worth it. It also helps those who are the target of such bullying to know they are not alone and gives them a voice.

Love is louder proclaims that real love is more than romance, mush or just mere words. Love is an action.

On Valentines Day, we declared that love is indeed louder.

Love is louder than hate, meanness or bully’s.

Our voices and hands are made for loving and building up, not hurting and tearing down.

Our actions speak louder than our words. If we say we love but act the opposite, we are but a noise.

If we say we love and back it up with our actions, it speaks loud and clear.

Love sounds so much sweeter doesn’t it?

Love tastes more delicious when made with hands that love doesn’t it?

Love makes every day worthwhile when it’s this kind of love.

Can you hear it? Can you hear the love?

Love gets pretty loud here…we love loudly and fiercely…we love bigger than the universe…bigger than the highest mountains…to the moon and back…we clash and bang around…we make a lot of noise in this family that could be filled with turmoil, sadness, hate, anger, bitterness, and resentment. Love chases things like that away when you let it.

There are day’s I wish for more of the quieter kind of love and there are moments like right now that I get a few moments of it…and you can better believe I relish in it.

Little Man said it so well when he said. “I think love should be louder than hate so all the hate can go out of this world.” I couldn’t agree with him more.

I close with this photo taken recently of the little’s playing outside on their “mountain”…

Love really is louder.

Until next time my dear friends, love & hugs, Lori

Love Beats Hate-The answer is Love

2011-02-10T07:14:00.001-06:00

The word “hate” is not allowed to be used in our home. It is not part of our vocabulary.

We are an anti hate family.

We refuse to make room for hate in our hearts.

I learned a long time ago that hate will kill our spirits and steal away our souls.

I believe nothing good comes out of hate.

I believe that answering things such as racism, judgment or bullying with hate is not the answer.

I believe that hate perpetuates the evils of this world and keeps them alive.

I believe that hate in the heart is where injustices begin.

I believe that if hate is allowed to fester it can grow like a wild fire.

I believe that the wild fire puts out joy and peace and leaves the heart charred with blackness.

I believe hate breeds with evil and gives birth to things like murder, bullying, racism and abuse in all it’s forms.

Even if it doesn’t cause one to commit injustices, I believe it can make us unhappy, miserable, sick, depressed and toxic.

I may dislike something or someone. I may feel really angry because of injustices that are done to myself, someone I love or to another human being. I may even want to hurt someone back for what they did. Still the answer is not to hate.

I believe the answer is love.

100% unequivocal love. Love that is not just a feeling but a verb. An action. Love that is not about mush or sex. Love that in unconditional. Love that doesn’t expect or demand it’s own way. Love that makes room for imperfection. Love that wakes the dead heart and makes it come alive. Love that accepts. Love that sets free and doesn’t hold back. Love that isn’t jealous or unkind. Love that doesn’t seek revenge. Love that forgives. Love that doesn’t deny or take away. Love that doesn’t leave room for hate.

I believe that love hate any day.

I believe love can knock hate to the ground. If we let it. If we don’t stand in it’s way.

I’ve taught this to my children, my children’s children and all the children that have ever been in my care. I teach this to my little’s now.

Most of all, I’ve tried to live it in front of them so that they could learn by my example.

Because love beating hate begins with me.

It is not always easy to choose love over hate.

There was a time that my heart was full of hate. Towards myself. A thousand times I will tell you that living a life with hate in your heart is not a good way to live. Hell actually. And I will tell you that having love set my heart free was the most beautiful feeling in the world.

It is not as though injustices haven’t happened in my life or in our family.

Things like abuse, rape, racism, bullying, suicide, incest, divorce, death and loss are not strangers to my life. These might be ugly things but I refuse to allow them to make my heart ugly with the hate that could color my heart if I allowed it to.

Do not think for one second that when my daughter was raped at the start of her freshman year of college that I didn’t feel moments of hatred for the man that did this to her. I choose not to hate him.

When little man experiences racism I want to come out of my skin but I choose to not hate the racist. When my step daughter lies or behaves in way that hurts one of the little’s I want to come unglued but I choose to not hate her.

Having put on weight over this past year and a half due to health issues brings out my old battle with anorexia as a young woman and causes me to struggle with self hating once again but I am choosing to not hate myself.

Being attacked at my job not only cost me my livelihood but has kept me from being able to work full time. Not to mention that I now live with pain 24/7. Even though this person attacked me and left me with permanent injuries to my skull and neck I do not hate her. Even though the company that employed me didn’t protect me and I hold them the most responsible, I don’t hate them.

There are weeks, like this week, that it feels like the pain is swallowing me up and I start to feel panic. This is when I have to face what has happened with love. I refuse to allow hate to enter into the picture because hate would keep me locked into the past. Hate would hold me in bondage so tight that I would never move past this.

Hate takes up too much room in the heart. It doesn’t leave room for the good.

Choosing love to handle the injustices in my life instead of with hate stops the cycle from repeating itself. It stops hate from having anywhere to go.

Love makes room for something more.

Hate keeps a person stuck in the muck of bitterness, unforgiveness and in bondage to “it” so in order to be free of the muck, we must choose to lay the hate down.

Hate puts up walls and imprisons us to whatever it is that hurt or angered us. I don’t want to be owned by whatever “it” is.

Love unlocks the door. It allows us to move forward instead of staying stuck behind the cold black bars of hate.

Love, like hate, can grow and spread like a wild fire.

I believe that both love and hate are contagious and we each have a choice as to which one we are going to spread around.

I choose love because I believe love is the answer.

Love feels and looks much better than hate.

I wrote this post as part of the love beats hate campaign. Please join me in choosing love over hate.

Love beats hate is a campaign to raise awareness about how hate affects all of us.

Click the daisy to add your voice on to the Facebook page called Love Beats Hate.

Better yet, join me by writing your own love beats hate post. If you do, please let me know that you did this!

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

The Color of Your Heart is Beautiful

2011-02-03T12:58:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter Brittany, gave me a book called “I’m Gonna Like Me” by Jamie Lee Curtis & Laura Cornell because she knows I am seeking to embrace myself. It is actually a children’s book but it is quite fitting for what I am seeking. My daughters know that I love children’s books and we are really loving this one.

It is not only a fitting message for myself but for the little’s as well. When the little’s express to me that they want to be anything other than what God created them to be it hurts my heart….like when little man says he wishes his skin was the same as everyone in his family or when little lady say’s she wishes she had black straight hair like me instead of her blond curly hair… it hurts my heart because I want them to embrace and love who they are.

While I know it is normal and part of our human condition to want or desire other traits or looks, I do want them to embrace their beauty which is something I never learned how to do.

When little lady literally sobs because she didn’t get to be inside my tummy or little man cries because his other Mommy said something to him about taking him away from us, it not only breaks my heart each and every time but I am not always sure what to say to them. I do not have all the answers. While children are not born with a manual, raising your grandchildren definitely does not come with a manual.

I am not so naïve that I don’t know that some day they will question why we raised them and not their other Mommy. Some day they are going to want to know about their birth fathers and how do you explain to children about prison, one night stands and fathers that didn’t want to be a dad? They will have questions and we will have to have answers that won’t tear down who they are and where they have came from. As much as we can say they were wanted by us, will that be enough? Will our being here or wanting them be enough to lessen the pain that those that birthed them did not step up to the plate, let alone want them?

I know that some who are adopted question and seek out to know where they came from. While we did choose to take them in, it is still not the same as adoption. We did not pick them out and we were not seeking to be parents.

I do not want them to take what their birth parents did personal or to think they were some mistake. I want them to know that in spite of everything, we wanted them and that when the time came, we chose to be their parents. And I hope and pray with all of my heart that this will be enough for them.

For my little’s it is normal to them that while we are Grandpa & Grandma, we are mostly and foremost Daddy & Mommy to them. Their normal includes having a “other Mommy” that they see for a couple hours, once every 4-8 weeks and talk to on the phone.

We are a different family and while I am fine with being different, I don’t want my little’s for one second to think that different is bad or means they are less than anyone. The more they get out in to the world, the less we are able to protect them from the ignorance or cruelty of others.

A couple of weeks ago a little girl in little man’s class told him that he is going to hell because he doesn’t attend church. I asked him if he knows what hell is and he said, “No but it doesn’t sound good.”

That same girl told him yesterday that she isn’t sure if brown skinned people go to heaven either. I told him, “Apparently this little girl doesn’t know much about this because if she did she would know that going to hell or heaven has nothing to do with going to church or the color of our skin.” He responded with, “Nope, it’s about the color of our hearts.” That’s right little man, and the color of your heart is beautiful.

I want their love buckets to be so full that when they realize the truth about where they came from and how they came to be with us that they will view this knowledge with a fullness inside each of them that help them handle it and see it as their beautiful story instead of a negative thing.

I want to fill their love buckets so full right now that when the truths of life hits them or others are cruel, they do not crumble under the weight of it. I don’t want them to be susceptible to the germs of ignorance, hate or discrimination.

I have parented long enough to know that I cannot put them in a bubble and prevent them from ever feeling hurt. My prayer is that having a full bucket will keep the hurt from sticking.

Wouldn’t we have a different world if everyone knew they had value and worth and thus liked themselves? Wouldn’t it benefit all of us if all people embraced being different?

Wouldn’t it be great if the picture perfect ideal was each person looking and being their beautiful selves? For each of us to say I am beautiful like me?

I’m Gonna Like Me

by Jamie Lee Curtis & Laura Cornell

I’m gonna like me when I jump out of bed, from my giant big toe to the braids on my head.

I’m gonna like me when I grin and I see the space in my mouth where two teeth used to be.

I’m gonna like me wearing flowers and plaid. I have my own style. I don’t follow some fad.

I’m gonna like me when I climb on and wave as the bus pulls away and I’m feeling so brave.

I’m gonna like me when I’m called on to stand. I know all my letters like the back of my hand.

I’m gonna like me when my answer is wrong, like thinking my ruler was ten inches long.

I’m gonna like me when I’m sharing my lunch cause just like bananas friends come in a bunch.

I’m gonna like me when I jump up so high. I’ll twist and I’ll stretch straight up to the sky.

I’m gonna like me when I don’t go so fast. Then they pick teams and I’m chosen last.

I’m gonna like me when I do the right thing and return what I found even when it’s a ring.

I’m gonna like me when I’m feeling strong. I walk with a smile, arm swinging, legs long.

I’m gonna like me when I sit with my mom and make a get well card for my sick friend Tom.

I’m gonna like me when I eat something new, even if Grandma makes octopus stew.

I’m gonna like me when I make a mistake and put out the candles on Dad’s birthday cake.

I’m gonna like me when I open the box and smile and say “Thanks” even though I got socks.

I’m gonna like me when I try a new task. I bring in a plate before I am asked.

I’m gonna like me when I clean in a flash and play with my brother and take out the trash.

I’m gonna like me when I cuddle up tight and know as I’m sleeping I’m safe and all right.

I’m gonna like me cause I’m loved and I know it, and liking myself is the best way to show it.

I’m gonna like me. I already do! But enough about me- How about you?

I can barely get through this story without crying because the desire of my heart is to truly say, “I like me.” and mean it. My hope is that each of us could say these words and not only believe them but with a smile on our faces.

Here’s to beautiful you(and me!)!

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Guilt Free

2011-01-31T09:35:00.001-06:00

I had a fantabulous weekend with my girlfriends. Every second of it was purely amazing. We toasted with good drinks. We ate good food. We laughed. We sang & danced. We talked and talked and talked some more. We were loud. We talked all at once. We played a game. We watched movies that took forever to get through. We had moments of peace & quiet. We comforted and encouraged. We were silly. We laughed until it hurt. At one point, I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack. At least I would have died doing what I loved to do most. Laughing.

I soaked myself in all the goodness that surrounded me and I did NOT feel guilty for one second. These women who have been my friends through births, deaths, divorces, abuse, marriages, child rearing, becoming a grandma and sickness are amazing women. These friendships make me a better person and how good to know that time nor distance can separate the bonds we share.

Each one of us is different and we each bring to the table our own individual flavors that together create an amazing feast of fun.The beauty of our friendship is that whenever we come together we each come to the table as we are…no fronts or pretending to be what we are not…no expectations…no facades…no judgments…no artificial words or actions…lots and lots of love and pure realness that says you are always good enough… and lots and lots of grace that allows for us to come to the table to share what we have and are.

It was a complete guilt free weekend.

Now that I have soaked in all of that for almost 2 full days, I have caught my breathe. I am ready to continue seeking.

My husband and little’s were happy to see me when they picked me up Sunday afternoon. They survived without me, which I already knew they could but the crying and carrying on that took place on the trip to drop me off was almost funny. Being told that they would not sleep the entire time I was gone because “how can I ever close my eye’s to sleep if you haven’t kissed and hugged me?”

I had no expectations of what the house should look like when I got home and while I did want to dig in and start cleaning right away, I opted to leave it for Monday. Instead I played games with them and just enjoyed the kisses and hugs, while my husband made us a nice supper.

It’s a good thing they survived my absence because they will be getting to experience it again this coming weekend! Except this time, my husband and I are getting away for one night. We are going to go visit my sister and her husband and enjoy time with other adults, while my son and his fiancé watch them for us. I am looking forward to having another guilt free weekend.

Before I rush off to start my day, I share with you some familiar sights around my home these days.

This is a familiar sight at our house these days. They tell me they are writing on their own blogs. I ask what they are writing about. They tell me,“I’m writing about what it’s like being a kid.” They also tell me they have lots of really nice blog friends just like I do. Sweet. I would hope everyone could know the wonderfulness of people like you and you in the blog world.

Do they not look intense?

I find these 3 little monkeys in my bed on occasion. Most of the time they are jumping on it but they do call it the cuddle bed. They are pretty darn cute little cuddle monkeys that have themselves wrapped around my heart.

We have lots of snow and when it’s actually warm enough they love to play in it. Especially when their uncle helps them dig tunnels and builds forts with them.

Life with Riley is simply wonderful. He loves to cuddle and little lady takes every opportunity to do so with him. This is a familiar sight at our home. I think Riley has a pretty good life.

Did you do anything fun this past weekend? What puts a smile on your face today?

Happy Monday!

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Inconvenient Truths

2011-01-28T07:19:00.001-06:00

Seeking to embrace is a noble and good thing to strive for but the truth is, it is not an easy task. Putting myself out there and making myself accountable in order to meet this challenge means I must be open to the feed back presented to me. Giving people permission to say what I need to hear, means learning to shut my mouth and just listening instead of defending or making excuses. It is humbling to say the least.

Over this past week others have confronted me over my tolerating things I shouldn’t. I have had to listen to things I didn’t want to hear. I feel stupid. Even though I am trying not to own that feeling, I cannot help but wonder if I will ever get it?

The truth is, seeking to embrace myself and my life is not necessarily convenient for everyone around me right now. But, if not now, when? My changing means I am no longer fitting into my old roles. This upsets the apple cart. It feels like apples are spilled everywhere and I am not so sure where to put them back. Finding my way on this journey of seeking means I must face the inconvenient truths and somehow find a way to get past them.

My standing up for myself and not tolerating things I shouldn’t, means others have to figure out a different way to address me. My changing means others have to learn how to function with a different me. My taking time for myself means other things don’t get done. My not getting things done can be inconvenient for everyone else. My stepping away means others are having to be responsible and they don’t always like it.

Another inconvenient truth is that my thyroid is still an issue and could keep me from losing the weight I gained. Even though I am still eating healthy and watching my calorie intake and I have been given the go ahead to start back walking by my doctor, she warned me that it is common to have difficulty losing weight. I am trying really hard to not focus on that because it makes me sick to think of staying like I am now. I am just being honest here. I don’t feel good with the extra weight and I fear that it will be a stumbling block to embracing myself.

This past week I have been..

…replacing I can’t with I can

…believing instead of doubting myself

…speaking up instead of shutting up

…catching the self negative thoughts and words and turning them around

…affirming myself

…breathing through the high pain levels

…asking others to help around the house

…walking 2 miles each day

…paying attention to what I am feeling

…honest with my loved ones at risk of making them angry with me

…drinking a lot of water and mindful about what I eat

…trying to be more gentle with myself

…giving myself grace

To top it off this coming weekend, I am treating myself to a girls only weekend. The only breaks I usually get are when I go to work the two days a week, so I really need this time away. I am choosing to ignore the guilty feelings I am having. No matter how much the little’s cry and beg me not to go, I am going and I know they will be perfectly fine without me.

I will be getting together with old girlfriends at one of their homes not far from here. I am looking forward to reconnecting with these women I have known for a long time. While I jumped aboard the Mommy train again, they continued on the path that one takes when one’s children grow up and move out. Even though we have remained friends, my having little one’s again and them not having little one’s meant our lives went in different directions.

I am really excited about getting adult only conversation and beverages, getting to eat hot food and not being responsible for little one’s.

I plan to let loose…to laugh and talk and sing and dance and just have fun. I plan to embrace every single moment of this time with these precious women.

Before I end, I must say thank you for supporting my adventure of seeking to embrace myself and for believing in my ability to do so. Thank you for all your encouragement and for standing by me.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Our Messy Kitchen

2011-01-23T12:06:00.001-06:00

A sweet angel blessed the little’s this past Christmas with their own kitchen tools, cook book, apron and chef hat.

If you’ve been reading here long then you know that the little’s love cooking and baking, so they were beyond thrilled about these gifts.

Just in case you didn’t know…Little man pretends he is Emeril. Little lady pretends she is Rachel Ray.

Cooking shows are some of their favorite shows to watch. How many 4 & 5 year olds do you know that ask to watch Emeril, Rachel Ray or Guy Fieri?

We want them to have a love for creating healthy(for the most part) food that tastes good. We make most of what we eat from scratch which means we spend a lot of time making messes together in the kitchen.

Sometimes when we are working in the kitchen together, we pretend we are a cooking show on TV. We call our cooking show“Our messy kitchen”.

Getting more props for our show was just the thing to inspire us to get creating more messes.

After receiving the recipe book ,

they went through it page by page, over and over again, trying to decide what they wanted to make first.

They choose…

I convinced them that it was too cold to make these even though it feels like we are Eskimo’s with our sub zero temperatures.

Little Emeril decided that he would make… for us.

Little Emeril worked hard in the kitchen preparing breakfast for us.

The pancakes tasted delicious.

Little Rachel Ray decided to make & for us one morning.

She worked hard in the kitchen…

and had fun making a beautiful mess. I did not notice the bottle of wine on the counter until I put the picture on this post. No worries, little lady was not adding wine to the pizza, nor drinking it.

The breakfast pizza.. was wonderful!

The strawberry banana smoothies were delicious.

My grandson A-man loves to help grandma in the kitchen too. On Tuesday morning, while the little’s were gone to school, he got a chance to be a “cooker” too. He made monster cookies for our pet monster Franklin. Who, by the way is still living with us and is responsible for most of the noise, messes and chaos at this zoo. Darn monsters.

We also now have a pet ghost named Felicia that lives with us and the little’s tell me that Franklin and Felicia might get married. Make that 2 weddings in our family this year.

Little A-man worked happily in the kitchen. Making messes is his middle name.

Of course he couldn’t resist sampling the cookie dough.

They tasted so delicious that the monsters have them almost all gone.

We are having so much fun with our new kitchen tools that every day there is talk about what we should make.

We are going to be making these next.

Some day when I have a video camera I will tape one of our shows so that you can see our fun in action. The little’s talk about having a real cooking show some day. I have no doubt that this could happen.

This post is dedicated to the angel that blessed us with these gifts. You know who you are.

From all the cooks of “Our Messy Kitchen”

Little A-man…

& Little Emeril…

& Little Rachel Ray… & the head cooks too…

…thank you for giving to us and for helping us to create memories and lots of messes in our kitchen. Look at the smiles you have put on their faces and you will know how much you have touched our hearts. Thank you!

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Reflections in the Mirror

2011-01-20T14:31:00.001-06:00

I began my year of “seeking to embrace” by taking the wise advice of a dear blogging friend, and took the first couple of weeks of this journey to just pay attention to myself. To stand still long enough to look in the mirror at my actions and words and really see how I treat myself, was difficult because I don’t like mirrors.

Before I started this period of looking in the mirror, I already knew that I didn’t always say the nicest things to myself and I’ve been known to give myself the finger upon seeing myself in the mirror on occasion. Nonetheless, these past couple of weeks have been eye opening for me. While I would never treat anyone else with such disrespect and meanness, it seems it comes naturally to treat myself in these ways.

I found that I beat the shit out of myself for the littlest of things. Not to mention for the big stuff and everything in between. My self talk of calling myself retarded, stupid, fat, ugly, worthless, mindless, a failure, and a host of other vulgar and less then kind words that I won’t repeat here, are things I would be hard pressed to call even an enemy,let alone a stranger.

I found that I don’t pay attention to things my body is telling me. Such as how much I am hurting or that an activity as simple as washing dishes is irritating my neck and making the pain worse. I don’t use the bathroom when I need to and found that I hold it a lot. I don’t eat when I am hungry or drink when I am thirsty. I don’t stop and rest when I am tired or exhausted.

I don’t cry when I feel like crying. I don’t think about things that I should, in order to stay in denial. I found that I feel a sense of shame and am usually clueless as to why. I discount when I am angry, sad or frustrated. Often times I feel like an inconvenience.

I rarely speak up for myself when I need or want to. I rarely ask for help when I need to. I found that I keep pushing through task after task when I shouldn’t. I don’t do much for myself beyond showering, combing my hair, putting on a little lotion and getting dressed because I cannot stand looking at myself in the mirror.

I found that I have perfected the art of ignoring the signs my body, mind, or soul are giving to me, instead of listening to them. I found that saying I love myself is more than just saying those 3 words and I’ve fallen quite short in showing this through actions towards myself. I found that I am even more of a bigger obstacle in my own way, then I previously thought.

I am ashamed. Admitting this to you, my friends, is embarrassing, but in order to keep moving forward with my seeking to embrace, I must leave myself accountable. The last thing I want to do is stay stuck “here” and beat myself up because of what I’ve realized in this long look in the mirror.

I recognize that I have over come many obstacles in my life and I have come a very long ways on my journey of healing. In fact, I never dreamed I would be where I am right now. This makes me wonder about all the possibilities for my future. If I could over come all of those things, I can surely over come this.

I can embrace myself. I can.

Seeking to embrace myself is like entering a foreign country. I don’t know it’s language. I am looking at the road maps laid out before me and I am learning how to read the signs.

After a couple weeks of looking in the mirror, I am working on stopping myself whenever I catch myself expressing negative words towards myself. I am replacing them with more positive words. I am repeating affirmations to myself upon waking, and through out the day and as I go to sleep at night. I am visualizing embracing myself as I am right now. I still may not be spending a lot of time in front of the mirror but I am choosing to no longer give myself the finger when I look at myself.

I am spending more time in quiet prayer and reflective listening.

Each week, I am setting 3 goals for myself to focus on. This week it has been drinking more water, which is a habit I seem to have lost over this past year, saying affirmations daily and walking for 30 minutes each day.

During those weeks of reflecting I realized that I am constantly giving out and taking in very little. When I am at home I am in a constant mode of caregiving. When I go to work I am caregiving. Caregiving comes natural to me so it is hard for me to draw the line.

I am giving myself “me” time by not doing any type of work during the little’s 2 hour quiet time, on the 3 days I am home during the week. Instead, I am allowing myself to write, read, rest or watch “The Talk” show. I am then walking for 30 minutes on the treadmill and then taking a shower in peace and quiet. I am giving myself this time and choosing to not feel guilty.

I choose to stand in front of the mirror and see the good. I know there are good things about myself and I seek to know them. I know there are things I have done or do right. I know that I enjoy giving and that my heart bursts with love for others. I choose to believe that standing in front of the mirror will not always be this painful.

I started back at physical therapy for my neck and skull this past week. It is an intense therapy and there is only one therapist that does this kind of therapy within 100 miles of me, so I am driving an hour each way to see her and I am suppose to go twice a week. It’s been explained to me that every cell of our bodies remember everything that has happened to them even if we don’t mentally remember. This therapy brings out strong emotions and causes my PTSD symptoms to flair so after one of my sessions each week I go see a counselor that specializes in PTSD. I know both of these are tools to help me move forward so as painful as they are, I choose to embrace them.

Between the snow, cold and pain I have been isolated and not leaving my home except for my 2 days of work and now recently the therapy. Even though it is below 0 today with a –30 wind chill, I will go to my kinship support group tonight and surround myself with people that understand what it means to raise your grandchildren. I will embrace this time away from all the “togetherness” we’ve been experiencing at our home.

I stand here in front of you and my mirror and I admit that I am feeling scared, ashamed and a little lost but I am finding my way. I am seeking to embrace this journey every baby step of the way.

Until next time my dear friends, hugs & love, Lori

PS Thank you to all of you that have given me affirmations and words of wisdom and support during this journey of seeking.

Middle Children

2011-01-17T07:46:00.001-06:00

I had fully intended to write about each of my 5 now adult children back in December but then the holiday’s came and I got side tracked. I’ve written about my eldest son here and my youngest son here. I’ve written about my eldest daughter here. Since some of you know my daughter, Brittany, through her blog, Unexpected Surprises or her guest posting here, I decided I will write about her last. This way she can anticipate for awhile longer, what I will write about her. After all, she is the one that broke into my blog and blabbed about it being my birthday.

While I consider all my children, little miracles, my middle daughter, whom is also my middle child, is in the true sense of the word, my miracle child. She is the one I never expected to hold in my arms. Ever. I was young and naïve when I went to visit my elderly country doctor about getting on birth control after giving birth to my eldest daughter. He told me that as long as I was completely breast feeding that I did NOT need birth control. He told me that once she started eating food and not nursing as much, to come back and visit him. Did I say I was young and naïve ?

It wasn’t long and I was feeling that deathly sick feeling that I only feel when I am with child. After experiencing this with my previous 2 pregnancy’s, I knew this feeling all too well. Still, I hoped I was wrong. Not that I didn’t want more children, but I was young and I still had a baby. I went to see that same country doctor and he said there was no way I was pregnant until he walked back in the room and had to tell me that I was in fact pregnant.

Trying to care for and nurse my baby daughter while throwing up all day and night was awful to say the least. Not keeping food or even water down meant my not producing enough milk for my daughter. When I got admitted to the hospital for my condition, I had to wean her once and for all. With every single one of my pregnancy’s I had to spend time in the hospital because of dehydration and was sick until I gave birth. I remember my grandma telling me that she got severely sick like this with all of her pregnancy's also and telling her, “Thanks a lot for passing this down to me Grandma.” I found out years later that there is actually a name for this condition.

It wasn’t long after I was released from the hospital, when I started having issues with my pregnancy. Immediately I was referred to seeing this wonderful Indian woman doctor. She put me on bed rest right away. I remember laying with my little girl next to me, reading books and talking to the baby in my belly. It is not easy being on bed rest with a little one but my eldest daughter actually had fun with me for the most part. We would sing songs to the baby in my belly and I would cry with hope that some day I would get to hold him.

Since my stomach couldn’t keep down the medication to keep from going into labor, I had to go for injections. Since I seen her so frequently, she would hook me up to Intravenous fluids to help keep me from getting dehydrated. She also gave me some special Indian tea to help with the nausea. Most of all I remember how wonderfully she treated me in spite of me being young, (my prior experience before this was not good)and her being very gentle, kind and nonjudgmental of me.

On my last visit to her office, I had a little over 8 weeks to go before giving birth. It was early May and unusually warm for Minnesota and I was miserable. As soon as she seen me, she anticipated that something was seriously wrong. It didn’t take her long to access the situation and she calmly said, “We must transport you to Minneapolis right away.”

I was taken to a hospital where I could be monitored better by her and the technology they had there was better than the small rural hospital that would have been the other alternative. (She traveled to my rural community 2 days a week.) They worked hard to keep me from giving birth but the contractions continued to come. After 2 days, they couldn’t delay it anymore so with quite an audience( my doctor and her nurses for the delivery, a team for the baby I was delivering, a team for me because I was showing signs of distress) I gave birth 8 weeks early to my middle daughter. What is ironic is through all the ultrasounds I had over my pregnancy, they had let it slip that I was carrying a boy. So, I was expecting a boy and so were they. To all of our surprise, I gave birth to a girl.

She was not breathing when she was born and a team of doctors whisked her away immediately to work on her. A short time later, a doctor came to tell me that they did not think she would make it. After days of all this, I was beyond exhausted but I kept saying “Please. Please let me see my baby girl.” An hour later, this same doctor returned to me and my heart stopped as he entered the room. I fully expected him to say that she had died. Instead he said she was still alive, that they didn’t know if she would make it but that every minute she stayed alive fighting was in her favor…he explained that she was on machines and that while I couldn’t hold her, I could go see her.

When the nurse wheeled me to this special room, and there lay my beautiful baby girl with all kinds of wires running to her I could not help but cry. I wanted to pick her up and hold her but I couldn’t. I could reach my hand through a hole and touch her though and for now that was enough. They wouldn’t let me stay very long because of my own health but they promised me to take good care of her and that as soon as my own health stabilized I could come back and sit with her. Miraculously, a day later, she was breathing on her own and I was stable, so I got to finally hold her. Every second of not getting to hold her or nurse her tore out my heart so what a joy to finally get to do this. The doctors told me that she was a little fighter and that they were amazed that she was still up for the fight. He encouraged me to breast feed her as this would help with her fight.

Little did we know, that this was only the beginning of fighting for her life.

She improved quickly so we were released to go back home to our local hospital. After spending a couple more weeks there, we were finally released to go home. Home felt so good. What a joy to be home with my 2 sweet girls.

That joy was short lived when I started to notice her turning blue all the time. I called my doctor and we had to go back in. This time we seen her coworker, a pediatrician, whom was also from India and he too was just as kind and nonjudgmental of my young age. The way in which they embraced me is why I continue to have a general fondness for people from India.

He ran tests and found that she was forgetting to breathe. He told me it was a miracle that I had even noticed her doing this and that she hadn’t died from SIDS.

She had to be hooked up to an Apnea monitor 24 hours a day and before we could take her back home, we had to take classes and be certified in CPR and the local ambulance crew came to see where we lived so that they would be able to make quick trips if she needed be to resuscitated. I was scared to death. The monitor alarm was a loud shrill sound that would tell her brain to breathe. If her heart was not doing what it should be doing it would give a different kind of alarm. The alarms were going off all of the time. I slept out of exhaustion and with the comfort that the alarms would wake me up. She had to be hooked up to this monitor for her first year of life.

The monitor was huge. It felt like I had twins except that it weighed more. Needless to say, we left the house very little and no one wanted to be left alone with her, so there were no breaks for me. Thankfully the only time she had to ever be resuscitated was when we were already at the hospital because my oldest daughter got this bad stomach flu in which she had to be admitted into the hospital. I had to have my mother in law and Mom come sit in the waiting room with her while I went and held my oldest daughter while they put an IV in her. Apparently the monitor went off and she didn’t start breathing and someone from the ER heard it and rushed her into the ER, where they resuscitated her.

Just after they got the IV in my screaming hysterical daughter, another nurse came to tell me what had happened and that they had to admit my baby to monitor her. My poor mother and mother in law were so traumatized that they said they would never ever watch her again.

As I write all of this, it dawned on me how much of this I went through all alone and at such a young age. You may be wondering where my husband, their father was through all of this that I needed our mothers to come. Let’s just say that he was out having fun and couldn’t deal with all of this. To his defense he was young and had his father not made him get married to me, he wouldn’t have been.

Shortly after she was put on this monitor, I noticed a rash in all the areas that the monitor was connected to her body and where all her metal snaps for her t-shirts and diaper pins were. The doctor sent us to a dermatologist and came to find out that she had a severe allergy to all metal. There was a name for this but for the life of me I cannot think of what it was. We had to have everything plastic or non metal for her and if any metal touched her body she would have a horrible rash that would bleed because she would scratch at it. I had to put little mittens on her hands to keep her from scratching herself. Even when she went off to school she could not sit at a metal desk and had to eat with special plastic eating utensils. We had to cover the snaps on her jeans or else it would leave a big raw area where that touched her stomach.

Through out all of this she rarely cried and was a content baby. She remained a quiet child and refused to talk. After her hearing was tested and they said it was normal…thank God…they checked for other things and found no reason for her not talking. She went to speech therapy for a period of time but still she remained quiet and didn’t talk much. At around 4 years of age, she started talking in full sentences and never stopped.

I regret that I am unable to share any pictures of her in her younger years as my scanner is broke and my old computer that holds a lot of these pictures is still getting fixed.

She was the sweetest little girl and had a smile that melted my heart. Her olive skin and dark hair were opposite of her big sister’s, blond hair and faired skinned sister. Her and her sister, who is 16 months older than her, were the best of friends when they were little(and they still are) even though they were so opposite of each other. While her sister was very neat, tidy, stayed clean and loved everything girl, she was messy, rarely stayed clean and acted like a tomboy. You should have seen the bedroom they shared.

When her school years started, she struggled with learning and that continued through out. She was a different learner and traditional public schools are not made for different learners. Things came hard to her and her being on the quieter side made it hard for the teachers to notice her and give her the attention she needed in a class of little hellions. Seriously, her class was known as the “class from hell” all the way through school because of the high number of trouble makers.

She wished herself to be a boy and played rough and tough with the best of the boys. Her competitive nature kept her active in sports all through her early years, junior high and high school. She was following behind a sister that was into those things most girls are into, like make up, doing their hair and clothes and she had minimal interest in those things. Instead it was more likely to see her throwing her long brown hair into a pony tail and playing tennis or shooting baskets in a pair of athletic shorts and t-shirt, sans make up.

I am sure it was difficult trying to follow behind a sister whom seemed as though things came easily to her. While her big sister did study hard, school came easier or natural for her big sister(which is why it makes perfect sense that she is now a teacher)while school was more of a challenge for her. Having a brother in the same grade, with whom school was easy and didn’t require much studying to get good grades was very frustrating for her. She persevered in spite of each challenge that came at her and learned that hard work didn’t always mean a good grade.

I am sure growing up in the middle of having an older sister & brother and a younger sister & brother came with it’s challenges for her. I am sure as she navigated through those years of adolescence she felt lost in the middle at times. Her competitive and determined nature kept her from going unnoticed. Throw in some mood swings each month and I guarantee she was noticed by every single one of us. Yet no one hated those mood swings more than she did, except for maybe her brothers. I would tell her brothers that this was good training for them on how to live with a woman some day. Of course they both said they were never going to be married some day.

Since her older brother was in the same grade as her, they had many of the same friends. Over the years as the guys came over to hang out with her brother, it was evident to the rest of us that they were not just coming over to see him but her as well. She really didn’t have a clue as to how beautiful she was but the boys sure did. She was oblivious of their attention and of them having more interest in her then just shooting baskets with her.

She put herself through college by working, grants and loans. I have met very few young people with the determination, hard work, and sensibility that she displayed. She had her eye’s set on the goal and she went after it. During this time, I really seen her blossom into herself as she became more confident and comfortable with herself. In a sense, she grew into herself and stopped trying to be like someone she is not. She created her own style and became comfortable in her shorts & t-shirts but dresses as well. She started doing her hair and wearing some make up but never a lot. All of these things made her beauty shine that much brighter and still she did not have a clue.

After graduating from college with a degree in psychology, it did not surprise me that it didn’t take long before her wings took her far from home. In the year after college she had met a wonderful young man that you cannot help but love.

I could not ask for a finer young man to be in her life. He has an adventuresome spirit also so it didn’t take long for the two of them to take flight from Minnesota to Idaho. It didn’t take long for them to live there before they adopted a dog and named her Ida. She is one of the sweetest and best behaved dogs I’ve ever seen.

Listening to her tales of hiking in the mountains, canoeing and camping in the mountains, snow boarding, or mountain biking, at times made me worry but most of the times made me so happy that she was out living her dreams.

While working with kids at a hospital, she continued to take classes at the college, as did her boyfriend. I am very blessed in that I got a chance to take two different trips to visit them. Once with a good friend and then two and a half years ago with my eldest daughter, granddaughter and youngest son, which is the last time I seen her or spent any significant time with her, other than a very quick visit home for my brothers wedding in October of 09. She sure lived in beautiful part of our country.

Just before Christmas of this year, she finished up her classes and her boyfriend graduated. Then the week after Christmas they put on their wings and took flight once more. They have landed in Oklahoma where she will be attending college for the next 16 months. Thankfully her boyfriend is up for this move and supports her ambitions. Who knows where they will fly to next.

She is a go getter and adventuresome like no one I’ve ever known. She has the heart of an angel and would give the shirt off of her back. She cares and feels deeply. She loves adventure and takes the risks that many of us don’t have the courage to take. She is far more beautiful then she realizes and her heart makes her even more so.

She has been through some tough things in her life and I know that those obstacles are likely some of the reasons she cares so deeply about others. As you all know, I wasn’t a perfect Mom and made my share of mistakes. She, like my other kids, has been more than forgiving and full of grace towards me. I am blessed beyond measure to have her as my daughter and now as my friend.

This is the last photo I have of her and my other 4 adult children, which was taken at my brothers wedding.

This is the story of my daughter. She is my miracle… a gift that keeps on giving to me. I was expecting a boy but received a most wonderful extraordinary girl. She is one of the most remarkable people I know and I am honored that she is mine. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for this daughter of mine…for every day that I’ve spent with her…for every day she calls me Mom…for every joy she has brought to my life…for every day she tosses and turns my heart with the love we share.

Until next time dear friends, love & hugs, Lori

Seeking Less Tolerance

2011-01-12T07:48:00.001-06:00

Through my years of searching and learning, I have discovered tools to help me in the quest for health, happiness and healing. Tools like my faith, resilience, confidence, belief, hope, and courage have helped to pave the way to this point of my journey. I am a work in progress and while I believed at one time that I would eventually arrive at a final destination, I’ve come to believe that no one really arrives completely & fully done. I do believe we each have a choice as to whether we choose to stay where we are at, play it safe, by stopping to take risks and growing stagnant or whether we choose to expand or stretch ourselves by taking risks and living our true selves.

I’ve reached a fork in my path in which I have a choice of staying on this same path or stepping out onto a new higher path. A path that would serve me better and allow me to expand, yet means I will be walking into unchartered territory, thus risking falling on my face. I am choosing the higher path.This is one of the reasons I chose “Seek to embrace” as my words for 2011.

My quest of seeking to embrace myself is not an easy one by any means. I am attempting to tear down the remaining barriers that keep me from embracing my life. These walls, created by me, do not crumble easily. In spite of my desire over the years, to rip these walls down, there is a part of me that still puts up a fight. The thing with walls is that while they can bring a sense of safety, they at the same time can also keep the good out. They can barricade me from the very freedom I seek.

Some families come with the unspoken rules, “Don’t talk.” and “ Don’t feel.” Meaning you don’t talk about what is happening in front of you. You tell no one. You don’t feel emotions about it. You pretend you are not angry, sad, or scared. You pretend there is nothing wrong. When you don’t talk about it or feel anything it means there is no problem. When you shut down your feelings to what is happening it makes it easier to get through. It is all a matter of survival.

On the flip side of numbing your feelings or not expressing them, is that happiness, joy or excitement get numbed right along with the sadness and anger. You learn to smile even though your hurting. You learn to shed no tears even though your heart is crying.

Once you learn these rules they are very hard to break because they become habits that you do without thinking. To practice these rules, you must learn to quiet your voice and numb your feelings, which means they will conflict with what is happening in front of you or to you. Very confusing when you are a child but after awhile this is just normal.

For the most part, I don’t think these rules are intentionally taught but instead handed down from generation to generation as being normal. Even though I no longer subscribe to these rules, they are still written in the deep cresses of my being. Even though I am no longer living in survival mode, there is a natural bent that leads in that direction. Unknowingly these rules can still dictate to my heart what it will feel and still keeps me silent about the junk that lies in hiding.

There is a false sense of safety that comes with keeping silent and not feeling. Doing this with a smile on your face to mask what is within might even give the impression that all is well. Staying numb was key to my survival for many years but eventually staying numb back fires and becomes the very thing that keeps me stuck. Keeping the vow of silence has been to my detriment as it has given more power to the people and events that dictated that silence. Being comfortably numb no longer serves me well nor does it solve what lies within.

Breaking these rules is key to not passing these rules on to the next generation, which means feeling instead of numbing and talking about the truth instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. Defrosting my feelings was a painful process and while I have come far in doing so, I still find myself falling back into old habits or not recognizing my feelings.

I have worked hard on not passing these rules down to my children but I fear that my unfinished business could still negatively affect them. Breaking the chains of these rules that bind, is the missing link to moving forward and leaving the past behind. Over the years, I have come far from where I once was but I am looking to not stay stuck in the middle of that junk.

I personally believe that God, or as some of you might say, the universe, will keep bringing us through circumstances until we “get it”. I believe that He will keep sending us opportunities in different forms until we receive the lesson. I believe that He puts both difficult and good people into our paths to teach us and to learn from. I believe that He is presenting me with another opportunity to be free of the things that have held me back from being who I already know I am. I believe He is saying, “It is time.”

Keeping the silence and numbing myself, taught me to have a very high tolerance for pain, people and the kind of treatment I would accept for myself. This high tolerance has followed me every step of my journey and I am ready to change that.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to stop being tolerant because being or having tolerance is a good thing. For me, It means acceptance and respecting another’s beliefs, opinions and choices even if they are not my own. Tolerance means to be fair, objective and permissive in attitude towards those whose opinions, race, religion, nationality…etc..differ than our own. I am not seeking to change this part of tolerance in my life.

The kind of tolerance I am seeking to change is the kind that has allowed other’s to cause me harm without speaking a word of defense of myself. I am talking about the kind of tolerance that has allowed me to stay instead of leave abusive men or to be treated with such meanness, disrespect, unkindness, or any kind of negative treatment. While I have no tolerance for meanness or abuse towards others, I have not held up the same standard for myself. The thing is, often times I don’t recognize that it is happening because my tolerance level is so high and there is a part of me that is still numb to recognizing that I am feeling pain or another emotion.

While I no longer tolerate being hit, being called derogatory names or being cheated on, I find myself still tolerating things I shouldn’t. I tolerate without thinking. I tolerate without being aware that I am tolerating too much until much later. I tolerate and I tolerate until I am so hurt that I cannot help but realize that I have allowed things that I shouldn’t. I find myself choking down feelings and thoughts and yet I continue to stand in the boiling water.

I seek to lower the bar of what I will allow. This high tolerance is a barrier to my being able to embrace myself. It is a wall that keeps me from recognizing when others have crossed a boundary with me and to have the ability to stand up for myself. I do believe that we teach others how to treat us by what we allow and so I seek to teach others to treat me with respect.

I seek to break these rules of keeping silent and not feeling what I should when I am being mistreated. I seek to stop choking down my feelings and thoughts and to recognize when I am doing so . I seek to find my voice that stands up for myself and expresses what I am feeling. I seek to expose all these things to the light so that I can move on to having the same acceptance and tolerance for myself that I do for others.

I declare 2011 as my year to face the unfinished business of my heart and to embrace myself through the process.

I start this year of seeking by addressing my tolerance issues and completely breaking the rules that have silenced me once and for all. It’s time to face the secrets. It’s time to feel the emotions that I keep trying to avoid. It’s time to purge these things so they stop hurting my soul. It’s time to pull the weeds of shame and guilt so they stop choking out my life.

It’s time for me to blossom. It’s time.

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
-- Anaïs Nin

Until next time dear friends, love & hugs, Lori

Police Car Rides & A Beautiful Mess

2011-01-10T07:09:00.001-06:00

My husband had his surgery this past week. The surgery went well and he is at home recuperating. The surgeon also said that it may not take him as long to recover as a previous doctor had told us, so we are hoping that he will be able to return to his regular job sooner then later. In the meantime, he is home until the doctor releases him to return for light duty. Then his boss will have him work in the milk bottling plant until he can go back to his regular milk delivery route. I think his boss is realizing how much he does since there are 2 people doing his job and they are taking 3 hours longer to do it each day.

These past weeks leading up to the surgery meant me taking more of the load of parenting the little’s because of how my husband was feeling and now after the surgery, all of it. This time of doing it all leaves me very grateful that I have a husband that shares in parenting duty with me, as well as caring for our home. As you know, with my injury, my husband has had to carry the load more often then not. Now I am wearing his shoes and it has not been easy. Thankfully I have experienced being a single mother and that ability to rise above, kicks in.

It doesn’t help that it has been bitter cold, so I haven’t been able to send the little’s outside to play and if I do, it takes longer to get them all bundled up and then everything off and put back away when they come back inside ,then the amount of time they actually spend outside. The snow is so deep that the younger two don’t care to go out as much because they literally get stuck in the snow, thus leaving behind boots stuck in the snow, with tears falling.

Nonetheless, there are 3 stir crazy little’s creating beautiful messes and making lots of beautiful noise. I have been doing my best to keep it quiet and relaxing for my husband. Who am I kidding? It is a 3 ring circus at my house. How he is able to sleep through these circus acts is beyond me.

On Thursday, after getting my husband home and tucked away in bed, I received a phone call from little man’s Kindergarten teacher. Come to find out that he had missed the school bus that morning and instead of walking back to the house where my son would have driven him to school, he instead started out walking to the school. Granted we live in a small rural community but it is spread out and the school is on the other side of town, which is why he has to take a bus in the first place. Need I mention that it was below 0 that morning?

Our town police chief stopped him and asked him where he was going. After little man explained to the policeman that “Mommy took Daddy to the hospital to get his body fixed and that he had missed the bus so he just had to walk to school because he has always wanted to walk to school.” the policeman took him to school and delivered him to his classroom with little man leading the way.

My mind screamed in panic as I listened to the teacher. I had to remind myself to breathe. Just writing this makes my heart to beat faster. She reassured me he was fine and that both she and the policeman talked with him about it.

Once I got past imagining all the possibilities of what could have happened, I was able to be very thankful we live in a safe small town and that he had been wearing warm outside gear. I had approximately 45 minutes to get myself calm before he got home from school.

I picture him trudging along with his big back pack, and with that big smile on his face. What a sight he must have been. Even now I cannot help but smile at what he must have looked like.

I talked to him and tried to explain the seriousness of the situation. I explained over and over again why he can’t do this and what could have happened. I talked and talked some more. Of course at 5 years he is unable to comprehend the dangers and while I want him to “get it”, I don’t want to instill such fear in him that he lives in deep fear either.

Quite honestly, he was and still is quite proud of himself for “making it so far all by myself” and getting to ride in a police car to school and then walked to his classroom by the policeman. After much talking, I do think he gets why he cannot walk that far all by himself but no matter what I or anyone has said to him, we cannot make him not be proud or excited about his adventure. It really was hard to keep a straight face through out this because he smiled through out much of it because he was that happy about it.

I am pretty sure I gained at least a dozen new gray hairs over this.

Even after all that talking, he excitedly told his sister and cousin about his police car ride and long walk to school. Ugh! I guess I am not the only one seeking new adventures.

This is my year of seeking. Or so I thought. I guess someone else is seeking too and it’s my job to make sure that he seeks in safety.

Seek and ye shall find.

I seek more peace and quiet yet my life is more like a circus act filled with beautiful noise. I seek order and for things to stay in their places, yet I am constantly surrounded by beautiful messes. And yet what would we do without these little creators of all things beautiful? Without them, we would have more peace and quiet. Without them we would have more order in our home and things would stay in their place.

Yet without them we would be without all the big beautiful love they bring to our table. Without them we would miss out on this big beautiful fun, which includes noise and messes. And lots of them.

This means I must be more creative in my seeking for these the moments of solitude. It means staying up a little later or getting up a little earlier in order to capture the quiet. This means I must step back, take some deep breathes and accept the fact that I do not live in a home on display but instead a home that is filled to the brim with being lived in. Living with 3 active little’s and 3 other busy adults ensures that fact.

As much as I clean, and make the little’s clean up mess after mess, I will not have a spotless home, so the lived in look is going to have to do. I seek to accept this fact, that unless I want to drive myself completely insane in the attempt to keep it to such a high standard, it will not be. Embracing my beautiful messes and the noise that fill it, makes it much easier to enjoy the moments at hand because then I am not raging full force ahead to attain some impossible expectation I’ve created for myself.

Still, I seek to bring some order to the chaos and to slow this circus act down, so that when I come to the table, I am not sticking my elbows on yesterdays peanut butter & jelly. For my sanity, I seek to maintain some level of balance, peace and order in all of this chaos, without hurting little hearts and tearing out my own.

Our table is full. We have beautiful messes. We have beautiful noise. It may seem like a circus act at times. Love may have a dirty face much of the time but it sure is sweet to look it in the face and to be reminded that much of what I seek is already right in front of me. I just have to open my eye’s and see.

I cannot close without saying thank you for all the thoughts, prayers and support you’ve given through my husbands surgery. You are very much appreciated.

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Seeking to embrace in 2011

2011-01-04T09:01:00.001-06:00

At the start of 2010 I picked the word Confidence as my word for the year. While I could stand to gain more confidence, I do believe that I am much more confident a year later. Starting this new year I am much more confident in myself and who I am and my hope is to continue down this road. I honestly believe that it’s out of this confidence I’ve gained, that I chose my word for this new year.

I pondered over and over what my word should be for 2011. ????????

Words I considered were risk, expand, balance, unleash, dare, grow, breathe, mindful, listen, bloom and seek. I was leaning towards seek because really it’s these other things I seek more of. As I pondered and wrote about each one of these words, the word embrace kept coming up along with seek.

I looked up the meaning of embrace. The dictionary say’s it means…

em·brace

1.to take or clasp in the arms; press to the bosom; hug.

2.to take or receive gladly or eagerly; accept willingly: to embrace an idea.

3.to avail oneself of: to embrace an opportunity.

4.to adopt (a profession, a religion, etc.): to embrace Buddhism.

5.to take in with the eye or the mind.

6.to encircle; surround; enclose.

7.to include or contain: An encyclopedia embraces a great number of subjects.

–verb (used without object)

8.to join in an embrace.

I looked up seek and the dictionary says…

seek

1.to go in search or quest of: to seek the truth.

2.to try to find or discover by searching or questioning: to seek the solution to a problem.

3.to try to obtain: to seek fame.

4.to try or attempt (usually fol. by an infinitive): to seek to convince a person.

5.to go to: to seek a place to rest.

6.to ask for; request: to seek advice.

7.Archaic . to search or explore.

This year I choose to “seek to embrace”. I seek to embrace me. And my life.

I seek to embrace risk and to expand my horizons. I seek balance and growth spiritually, emotionally and mentally. I seek to be mindful of the truth and of living in the moment. I seek to listen more to my heart and to listen more to others. I seek to embrace the freedom to unleash who I really am and to be daring enough to actually do those things that are really hard. I seek to bloom wherever I am planted.

I seek to embrace my talents and gifts and to be willing to take risks with them. But first I must seek to find out what those talents and gifts are. I seek to embrace my dreams, goals and hopes and do something about them. I don’t want to cower in fear of failure any longer or hide behind what is safe. I seek to stop making excuses. I seek to start seeing the opportunities and to embrace them.

I seek to embrace where I have come from and the lessons I learned along the way. I seek to break the power of the secrets and to stop letting those things dictate my path. I seek to expose those things I’ve allowed to have power over me and to embrace the lessons I’ve learned from them. I seek the knowledge that will help give me this freedom and embrace the growth that it will give me.

I seek to listen to what my heart is saying, instead of ignoring that still soft voice within. I seek to embrace the daring part of me and it’s willingness to take risks. I seek to embrace the fact that I don’t fit inside of a box and that I dance to my own song. I seek to embrace myself so much that I believe in myself enough to take the risks necessary to live more my authentic self.

I seek to stop feeling so lonely and to take the risks necessary to find friends that are parenting young children or raising their grandchildren. I seek to step out of my comfort zone and seek a pain support group or other avenue’s of support so that I can embrace what others have to offer me.

I seek to embrace the belief that I am enough. I seek to stop beating myself up and start embracing myself when I make mistakes or fall down. I seek to embrace the love and joy that are mine to the point that I believe that I deserve it. I seek to embrace myself as being worthy enough to be here and to believe deep down in my soul that I am not a mistake.

I seek to stop and just breathe…to just embrace the moment I am in, instead of thinking about what I should be doing or where I should be. I seek to be mindful of the truth and to not latch myself onto worries of “what if?” I seek to stop second guessing myself and to start listening.

I seek to embrace balance in my life. Since it is part of my nature to be a caregiver, I seek to embrace having balance with care giving and to open myself up to others caring for me. I seek balance so that I can enjoy more of the things that bring me enjoyment.

I seek to embrace better health through healthy living, choices and nurturing myself. I seek to pay attention to my body, mind and spirit more and to take the measures necessary to take care of myself. I seek to take time for myself to exercise so that I can embrace once again the benefits I once felt when this was a regular part of my day. I seek to make time for me and to believe that it’s not selfish to do so.

I seek to stop standing on the side lines and instead take the risk by stepping out and daring to do these things that scare the shit out of me.

I seek to unleash all the garbage inside of me once and for all. I seek to unleash all the hidden or known good from inside of me out into the light.

I know I have come a long ways in my life. If I am truly honest with you and myself then I would have to say my biggest obstacle in my life continues to be me. I still battle with shame and feeling unworthy. Shame runs deep and wide inside of my soul and I seek to be free of that. I often times forget that I am as worthy as everyone else and this affects ALL area’s of my life. Not to mention how this drives my husband and children crazy.

Today, I declare to you and the universe my desire to seek and to embrace myself and my life in 2011. I seek to stop standing in the way of myself, to embrace who I am, to unleash me and to bloom in 2011!

The Angels Among Us

2010-12-30T09:59:00.001-06:00

I went into Christmas week with a very heavy heart. It is hard for me to be merry when so many are lacking financially but emotionally as well. I see the sadness or hopelessness and it is almost impossible for me not to cry. It is hard for me to be merry when my heart literally aches for my loved ones that are unable to come home and share in the holidays with us.

After work last Wednesday, I drove to a larger town to do my Christmas shopping. To say that it was crazy is an understatement but I went knowing it would be this way. I mentally put on the garment of patience before entering the store which seemed more like a zoo.

Watching rude people pushing and shoving their way…hearing people swear and loudly proclaim their anger at having to share in the isles with others…giving looks to all which said, “How dare you be in my way” Listening to Christmas music playing in the background, declaring it a season of love, peace and joy, while watching people act the opposite. How ironic. I took my time and chose to stay out of people’s ways. Still it was hard to not take in all that negativity and anxiety in the midst of the Christmas rush. It really is sad when people resort to meanness or check their manners at the door. My already heavy heart got even more heavy.

If you stop and really listen, it is quite sad that people are spending money they don’t have or that they are going through a difficult time in their lives and still trying to go through the motions of Christmas. While waiting in the check out line, I listened to a woman talk with despair about her present situation. She was sad and broken hearted because of not having enough…not enough money to buy gifts or food, not enough people that understood her, just simply not enough and she was feeling all alone in this world. Then and there I wanted to put my stuff back and give her what I had because we have enough…more than enough love, enough food, enough things, enough people that love and support us, enough of everything that makes our lives what it really is. Full.

Yet there are so many that don’t have enough. There are so many that are alone or lonely. There are those that have just lost loved ones or have someone dying right now. There are those so baron of the things of the heart, that they have no hope and believe in nothing.

We may be having a little bit of a financial struggle right now, but by all means we have enough…we have more than enough of those things that matter the most, like hope…hope that things will get better and that is what I wanted to give her more than anything. Belief in a better day. Belief that she is not alone. And then I wondered if maybe she is all alone and that made me almost start crying while standing there in line.

In all reality, we did not spend a dime on Christmas because we did not have it to spend. Every single bit of it came from angels that had bestowed upon us such kindness that enabled not only the little’s but my grandchildren to have a little something under the tree as well and to top it off with food for our family Christmas. Along with all this, have come anonymous and various cards and kindnesses of little gifts, e-mails, and notes, that have totally and completely blown me away…that has left me speechless & with tears of joy at knowing each one of you…and left my husband realizing that the blogging community is not only real but a wonderful one at that.

Finding ourselves on the receiving end instead of the giving end was a humbling experience. Getting to provide the young one’s with gifts was a blessing in itself. Yet the real gift came in the form of humility which came wrapped up in such joyful adornment and from such beautiful hands, that we were forced to humbly accept what was set before us. These grand gifts from every single angel gave us the gifts of hope and belief. Hope & belief that things will be get better and we will get through this. Belief that there are many wonderfully kind human beings in this world and that some of them chose to walk this journey along side of us.

It’s because of some of these angels that I found myself in the store late last Wednesday night, and being reminded by this down trodden woman, of how truly blessed we are to have enough of those things that cannot be bought. When I got back inside my vehicle I broke down and cried. I cried for this woman and all others that do not have enough. The weight of the world lifted off of me as I laid my burdens down. As I embraced the reminder that I am truly not alone and that I, in fact, have more than enough, I cried tears of joy.

I prayed for those that do not have enough and then I thanked God for sending his angels to me. Angels really do walk among us.

Even though I know some of my angels may not share my spiritual beliefs, I personally believe God brought each one of them into my life. Please do not doubt for a second dear angels, you have made my life better just by knowing you.

Dearest angels(you know who you are), thank you for not only your generosity, but your friendship. Thank you for giving me hope and belief that I am never alone. Thank you for reminding me that there are way more good people in this world then bad. Thank you for caring about me and my family. You cannot possibly know the fullness of what your gifts meant to us.

So despite my aching heart over missing my loved ones, I went into Thursday with a whole new attitude. Getting 8 new inches of snow didn’t stop us from enjoying our family Christmas that Thursday night. Even though I still felt the absence of those that were missing, I felt like I was being hugged by joy, just being surrounded by those I love and knowing the value of it.

On Christmas eve, as the little’s and I talked about Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus being born in a barn, I was struck by their innocent belief. They pulled me into their excitement of shepherds, angels and a baby laying in a manger. What a gift to see all these things through their eyes and to be reminded of what I believe.

The day after Christmas I received one of the greatest gifts. My eldest son called to tell me that he had proposed to his girlfriend on Christmas night! I knew he was going to because he had shown me the ring when we had family Christmas but I didn’t know when he was going to actually propose and of course what if she said “No.”? Happily she said “yes” and so now it sounds like there will be a wedding in 2011. Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better daughter in law so I am doing the happy dance over gaining not only another “daughter” but a grandson as well, since she has an 8 year old son.

After taking down Christmas all day Monday(in spite of little lady’s protests and cries at keeping our tree up “every single day of the year”),cleaning the house and getting our home back to normal, and then working Tuesday and Wednesday, I am not only exhausted but happy to be home today.

Since we are getting freezing rain as I type and it’s going to be turning into snow by this afternoon, and expected to continue through tomorrow, I am even more thankful to be home over the next few days. I can hardly complain because we had been experiencing a heat wave the past few days with temperatures around 30! That doesn’t happen here very often.

So today I am home and have spent the start of my day reflecting on this past week and I am beyond overwhelmed with this feeling of such gratefulness over having more than enough…which is more than I ever dreamed of having. A lot of the credit for my renewed hope goes to all you angels. Whether it’s been something tangible, kind words of support and love, prayers or sending me love and hugs, I thank you. I wrap myself in the warmth of all that is mine and with the knowledge that I can share my abundance. I do have something to give after all.

I end this post with saying, my hope for each one of you is that you have enough…enough of all those things that matter the most…enough hope & belief that makes life a joy to live. As 2010 comes to an end, may you look back and see things to be grateful for. My hope for each of you is that 2011 ushers in an abundance of hope, joy, love, peace, belief and kindnesses into your lives, no matter what circumstances come your way.

My task for today and tomorrow is to decide on my word for 2011. Confidence was my word for 2010 and it has served me well. I may have a ways to go yet but I feel I have come closer to gaining the confidence that I so desire. Do you have a word for 2011?

Until next time, much love and hugs being sent your way, Lori

Live Reindeer & Tractors

2010-12-22T08:28:00.001-06:00

First of all thank you for helping me find some joy and a little bit more sanity to get through to today…and really it is nice to know that I am not the only one.

So we didn’t make it to see Santa because of the snow and as I said Santa was going to be calling…and calling he did at about 7 pm that evening.

Little man answered the phone call…his eye’s big as saucers…he very politely talked to Santa… all he asked for was a real tractor…a big one like Uncle Jim’s…a green one to be exact…he told me excitedly that after Santa brought him his tractor, he would be able to move all the snow out of the driveway with his tractor…oh dear lord…I asked him where we would possibly put a big tractor like this and did he really think we would let him drive a tractor all by himself, he responded with “We will have put up another garage, and I already know how to drive a tractor.” Yeah right. He has an answer for everything.

My grandson talked to Santa next. Right off the bat he says to Santa, “Do you know what Santa? Me and my Mommy are having some problems.” Oh goodness. Talk about cracking me up. He then went on to sweetly ask for all kinds of things for “my cousins and me”. They may fight like brothers and sisters, but he is always looking out for them.

Little lady talked last and though it was hard for her to wait she did so very patiently. The first things that comes out of her mouth is, “I’m sorry Santa.” “For being bad and putting myself on the naughty list.” I knew she was going to say this because that very morning she had told me that when she sat on Santa’s lap that afternoon, she was going to tell him sorry for all the bad naughty things she’s been doing. All she asked Santa for was a “real live Mommy reindeer” “that’s all I want Santa” Oh dear. He tried to get her to ask for something else. She wouldn’t budge. She ended with telling him that she had made him cookies and then a very sweet “I love you Santa.” Is she buttering up Santa or what?

When I asked her where we would possibly keep a real live reindeer her response was in our back yard.

After the phone call, they went kind of nuts…in an effort to calm them down, I reminded them that Santa only gives us what he knows we can handle…and that he is still watching us…I could just as well have been talking to the wind.

This excitement led them to being excited about the football game…

Which was short lived because our team didn’t do so well…and of course there was bedtime. Thank God for bedtime.

Live reindeer? A real tractor? Dear Santa, we have no place for either of these so could you please bring something more suitable?

Hope you are having a wonderful week…spending time with loved ones…shopping…preparing…whatever it is you are doing I hope that you have lots of joy, love and peace.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

HELP

2010-12-20T18:16:00.001-06:00

I am in need of your help. Seriously.

As if we didn’t already have enough snow already, the snow gods decided we needed a bit more. It started snowing this morning and hasn’t stopped. In fact, as each hour passes, it has snowed harder. My poor husband has been stuck out in the middle of the country but thankfully a farmer pulled him out. Oh the joys of living here in the middle of a winter wonderland.

Our trip to Santa had to be canceled yet again. We were suppose to go this past weekend but I ended up being laid up all weekend due to pain. So today was suppose to be the day. The little’s are beyond disappointed although they love the snow. Since it is likely that we will not get another chance to make our visit to Santa, he will be calling tonight. I can hardly wait.

Between Christmas, lack of adult conversation, worries and the cold & snow, I am grasping at keeping my sense of humor. A friend shared this video with me and while you most likely won’t find it as humorous as we do, it gave me a big smile. This just might be the next song I teach the little’s.

We have more snow predicted for this week. Could we be snowed in like we were last Christmas?

It’s not like I hate the snow. For the most part I enjoy it and can appreciate a good blizzard that keeps us snowed in, it’s just that we have had a little bit too much togetherness.

At least tonight I will get to watch my football team play football out in the snow. Even if we lose, at least there’s football.

Since I am in need of some help at keeping my joy, finding things to laugh at and keeping what sanity I have left, could you do me a favor and leave me a comment telling me something funny…be it a joke or a story…or a link to something that is funny…or share something that is going on in your life that has brought you a laugh or smile…or share with me that I am not the only one experiencing my last straw…or share some of your sanity with me…or have you experienced a really cool heart warming experience? I would love to hear about it…pretty please…I would really appreciate it.

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

My Twelve Days of Christmas

2010-12-18T09:21:00.001-06:00

We have had a couple of “hard” day’s here at the zoo. We have had a lot of trips to the better choice chair, due I think mostly to the fact we have been cooped up because of the cold. Trying to make and bake up goodie’s with little hands is messy work. Of course the Christmas tree cannot be left alone. Two day’s ago, I came an inch to literally picking up the tree and throwing it outside into the snow.

There are some day’s in which it is hard for me to see the forest through the tree’s. As hard as I try to stay mindful of the joy and on the preciousness of the simple moments we spend together, there are day’s I lose sight of what is most important. The fact that I haven’t left the house except for one day in over a week, and that was to go to work, might have something to do with my ability to see clearly. The fact that I get so little adult conversation free from little mouths and ears might have something to do with why I feel like throwing all things Christmas out into the snow. Now that would be a sight wouldn’t it?

I get so caught up in caring for the little’s, our home, preparing food and basically keeping all of “this” together, that I forget about myself. I am well aware that unless I am getting myself filled up, I will have nothing of substance to give my family, let alone anyone else. I need to figure out how to do this.

Thankfully, I get to go to work today.

In the meantime, I cling to my sense of humor, the joy that does surround me(if you read my last post then you know that I am certainly surrounded by joy) and that fills me up on the inside.

We were listening to Christmas songs while making cut out cookies the other day, and the Twelve Days of Christmas came on. As it played, I started making up my own lyrics. This is how I get through my days.

This is my version of the Twelve Day’s of Christmas.

On the first day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

A messy house to clean.

On the second day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the third day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me,

Three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me,

Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me,

Five candy canes! Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Seven tattle tales, six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Eight buckets of joy, seven tattle tales, six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Nine better choice chairs, eight buckets of joy, seven tattle tales, six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrum, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Ten times the love, nine better choice chairs, eight buckets of joy, seven tattle tales, six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Eleven loud giggles, ten times the love, nine better choice chairs, eight buckets of joy, seven tattle tales, six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my little’s gave to me

Twelve hugs & kisses, eleven loud giggles, ten times the love, nine better choice chairs, eight buckets of joy, seven tattle tales, six sticky hands, five candy canes. Four temper tantrums, three dirty faces, two many milk spills and a messy house to clean.

I hope that whatever you are doing in preparation or celebration of Christmas and even if you don’t celebrate it, that you and your loved ones are surrounded by much peace, hope, love and joy. If you find yourself lacking in noise or chaos, you are more than welcome to come share in mine.

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Decking the halls & spreading the chaos

2010-12-15T07:27:00.001-06:00

I have been seriously wondering lately, what drove my ancestors to settle here in Minnesota. Did they just get so far and decide they couldn’t go any further and this was it? After surviving that first winter, what caused them to stay here in this frozen tundra? The main reason I have chosen to continue to live here is because of family. I don’t want to be across the country from them. I’m just wondering why my ancestors picked here. Right about now I am questioning their sanity and mine.

We have been having bitter sub zero temperatures here, and I know many of you have been experiencing colder than normal temperatures as well. Being stuck inside with little one’s day after day, can drive everyone a little stir crazy. Or a lot. It is suppose to warm up but then we are suppose to get more snow. At least, then they can go outside and shovel away some of that energy.

The one good thing about having these bitter cold days is that after a couple weeks of this, whenever it gets to be above 0, it feels like a heat wave. Must be how we survive this without having lost all of our marbles come May. Now some people might think we’ve lost our marbles already just by living here. I might be one of those people.

This past weekend we got hit with more snow, high winds and very cold temperatures so it was a perfect time to stay home, turn on the oven and get busy in the kitchen. We made some goodies to give as gifts and decorated the Christmas tree.

I wish that I had a hidden video camera so that I could show you what really goes on in this house. Or at least captured what really goes on with my camera.

I did get to capture a few of these “unChristmas card like moments”.

Things like putting the Christmas stockings on their feet…

What you don’t see is the running around like they have ants in their pants while wearing these. Nor the crying because of slipping and falling in them.

I did capture a little of the rolling around and wrestling on the floor…

What you don’t see are the ornaments that got knocked off or the Christmas tree almost tipped over. Nor the child crying because they got hurt.

Could it be any more merry than this? I think not.

What you don’t see is my husband coming into the room with a very irritated look on his face, to check on all the chaos. He was sick on top of already being in a lot of pain, so he was in the bedroom,watching TV and trying to rest. Yeah right, no one rests in noise like this. At least he came to check on the noise so that he could make me a cocktail.

I show you cute pictures like this…

But they are far and few between…and what we go through to get just one.

It’s called bribery because really, very rarely do they just sit still and smile.

It’s not that we don’t have fun or enjoy some sweet moments, it’s just that these are mixed in with a whole lot of 3, 4 and 5 year olds acting like 3, 4 and 5 year olds.

If you were to see my Christmas tree up close you would see the clumps of ornaments in the bottom half of the tree.

Of course they didn’t want any help and they fought over who put on the most ornaments. If you think there was no pushing or shoving going on in the process you are sadly mistaken.

My daughter & son thought it was necessary to put a train around the Christmas tree. My daughter and grandson had gotten it after Christmas last year so were excited to use it this year. It has been the source of many tears, fights, trips to the better choice chair and headaches ever since. Never again. Never.

My daughter thought it was necessary to do all of this decorating with Christmas music on. Little man thought it was necessary to turn the volume up higher and higher to drown out everyone talking and the whining and crying from the other little’s.

My son, who arrived safely last Thursday, thought it was necessary to laugh at everything the little’s did, as he was quite amused by their antics…and so was Riley. Now mind you, Riley has been living in a house with just 2 quiet adults for the past year. Not anymore. Welcome to your new home Riley.

On a side note, Riley is the best dog ever. I haven’t heard him bark once. He is so gentle, loving, sweet and listens very well. The little’s are completely head over heels in love with him and by the way he kisses us each morning, I think he kind of likes us too. Coming from Florida, I wondered how he would do with the cold and snow. He played out in the snow with the little’s on his very first day here and loves it.

We have been managing to keep the holiday’s simple by avoiding Christmas stress, commercialism, and the picture perfect ideal. Hibernating inside the house helps with this but mostly it’s being mindful about what matters most to us and what we believe and doing those things that fit inside that. Regardless of what we do in celebration of this season, whether it’s reading the Christmas story, making homemade cards or decking the halls, there will be noise and chaos because noise and chaos are just a normal part of life here at the zoo.

Seeing Christmas through the eye’s of a 3, 4 and 5 year old is magical. They are completely in awe of every single aspect, whether it’s shaking sprinkles on the cookies(and eating them) or sitting in front of our Christmas tree with it’s ornaments & lights, with adoration.

I wrote recently that things are tough here at the zoo and while I can write of love and gratitude for the multitude of blessings that are ours, I would be lying if I said I didn’t worry. I do worry but in this season of love and joy, my focus is on believing. Believing that my husband will be okay and that all the other things will fall into line as well.

I believe that the wonder and joy that is ours this season, comes because of the gifts that a 3, 4 and 5 year old bring to the table. They remind me that the simple things have meaning. Sometime in the next week we will go visit Santa and take a drive, eat popcorn and look at Christmas lights. You would think we were taking them to Disney world with how excited they are.

I won’t sugar coat it, life is hard right now, but we will get through it.

It also helps that some Christmas angels have spread their blessings upon our family, so come Christmas morning, there will be gifts from Santa Claus under our tree. Learning the lesson of humbling accepting the kindnesses of other’s is likely the great gift we will be given this season. Thank you dear angels for shining your love down upon us.

Last Thursday, little man had his Christmas program at school. What joy. I end this post with him singing the songs he sang with his class. I hope you are able to watch this short video because it really shows little mans personality.

How could we not be full of joy when we have him around?

I hope peace, joy, and love are surrounding you and your loved one’s, in the midst of celebrating all things Christmas or not.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Wherever You Are

2010-12-12T23:03:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago, a surprise package came in the mail from my daughter whom lives in Idaho. One of the things she sent me was this children’s book. She knows I love children’s books and this one is precious.

I am really missing the loves of my heart right now so I just had to share it with you except I used pictures of those I hold closest to my heart and of whom I think of every time I read this book. I have yet to read it without choking up.

This is for my children… Toni, Adam, Jennessa, Brittany, Jason…each of you are my favorite in your own special ways…and for my little’s; Jordan & Nevaeh, who are now my children too and for those that have joined our family because of love…Gabe, Rayna, Michelle, Carter, Brian, and Aidyn…and for my husband because he shares me so well with this big bunch and puts up with our loud crazy fun, holds me when I cry because I am homesick for them and loves them a whole lot.

Even though I didn’t write these words, I could have. This post is dedicated to each one of you that carries a piece of my heart.

Wherever You Are, My Love Will Find You by Nancy Tillman

I wanted you more than you will ever know,

so I sent love to follow wherever you go.

It’s high as you wish it. It’s quick as an elf.

You’ll never outgrow it…it stretches itself…

So climb any mountains…climb up to the sky! My love will find you. My love can fly.

Make a big splash! Go out on a limb! My love will find you. My love can swim.

It never gets lost, never fades, never ends…

if you’re working…

or playing…

or sitting with friends.

You can dance ‘til you’re dizzy…

paint ‘til you’re blue…

There’s no place, not one, that my love can’t find you.

And if someday you’re lonely, or someday you’re sad, or you strike out at baseball, or think you’ve been bad…

just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair.

That’s me, my sweet baby, my love is right there.

In the green of the grass…

in the smell of the sea…in the clouds floating by…

at the top of the tree…in the sound crickets make at the end of the day…

“You are loved. You are loved. You are loved,” they all say.

My love is so high, and so wide and so deep,

it’s always there, even when you’re asleep.

So hold your head high and don’t be afraid to march to the front of your own parade.

If you’re still my small babe or you’re all grown, my promise to you is you’re never alone.

You are my angel, my darling, my star…

…and my love will find you, wherever you are.

The end. Thank you Nancy Tillman for your beautiful words. Thank you dear daughter for knowing that I would love this book and for sending it to me.

Dear loves of my heart, I will say it as long as I have breathe to speak…I love you bigger than the universe…higher then the sun, moon and stars…deeper then the deepest ocean…I love you to the moon & back a million times and more…I love you. I love you. I love you. Mom/Grandma

Even though my heart aches with missing the one’s that are so far away, after reading this and seeing the pictures, I cannot help but say…I am blessed. I am blessed. I am blessed.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Homeless in Minnesota

2010-12-08T08:13:00.001-06:00

We are having a cold snap here in Minnesota even though the sky’s are finally blue and the sun is shining brightly. After having lot of gray sky’s and 2 snow storms last week, we have plenty of snow but I would rather it be snowing and a little warmer then blue sky’s with bitter cold.

Whenever it’s cold like this, I find my heart aching for those that call the streets home and are in a constant search of finding a place to warm up. Since I live in the middle of rural Minnesota, we don’t see homeless people very often unless they are passing through and then it’s summer time.

I see homeless people when I travel to one of the bigger cities and it is hard for me to just drive by them. I do fear that if I lived in the bigger city, such as in Minneapolis, I would have a hard time not bringing them into my home for a hot meal, warm shower and warm place to lay their heads. I am told you just get used to seeing the homeless and that after awhile it doesn’t bother you. I suppose this is true but I still have a hard time imaging it not bothering me. My son tells me that I wouldn’t do well living where he did in Florida because there are a lot of homeless people(which makes perfect sense that if you are going to be homeless better in Florida then Minnesota)and it was hard for even him to see this.

I have had two experiences with homeless people that left me changed and with the desire to always do more and.

My very first experience with a homeless person was in Florida, when we took our one and only family vacation, back when my older children were young. We were at a gas station and while my husband put gas in, the kids were getting food out of the coolers as I was waiting to take some of the younger children into the gas station to use the restroom. I was looking out my window when I spotted this elderly woman pushing a grocery cart full of bags towards us. I gasped as I realized this was likely a homeless woman.

She kept walking towards us through this packed and busy gas station. I stared at this poor woman walking towards me. She was so thin and the closer she got, I realized that she was even older than I first suspected. Our eye’s locked as she got closer to us. She started mouthing something to me, so I jumped out of the car and as she got to me I realized that her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t get the words out. She was trying to say, “Water.” One of the kids handed me a bottle of water and I handed it to her. She drank and drank. She stopped and said “Thank you dear one.” before she began to drink some more.

After she drank the first bottle of water, I handed her another. I then handed her a big jug of water which she put inside her shopping cart amidst some bags and cans. She just stood next to our van drinking the water and looking and smiling at me and my family as we all smiled at her. Her clothing and shoes were worn and I wondered if we had anything that would fit her frail thin body. As I scanned her face I speculated that she was at least 70 but looked older than that. What I remember most is the way she looked into my eye’s. It’s was almost eerie…as if she were speaking to me. It felt like her blue eye’s were looking into my soul. My eye’s welled up with tears at the thought of her being homeless.

There was something about her that I just wanted to tell her to get inside our van and come home with us.

I didn’t really know what to say to her, and then it dawned on me to give her some food. I turned around in my seat and asked my kids to make some sandwiches and to put them into a bag for me to give to her. I turned back around to tell her we had some food but in those mere seconds she was gone. I got out of the car and searched for her. It was like she had disappeared into thin air. I walked around the entire gas station and even went inside, all while asking people if they had seen her. Not one single person had seen this woman.

How could no one else have seen her but us? She had walked in front of at least 15 people to get to our car and the parking lot was full of people. After paying for our gas, my husband slowly drove around the neighborhood as we looked for her. She was no where to be found and as I realized this I felt sick. I felt horrible that I had not given her food or even some money for food or water. As we drove away from there I sobbed.

It broke my heart knowing that this elderly woman was out living on the streets. It saddened me that I hadn’t given her food before she disappeared into thin air. Seriously though, how does a person go from standing right outside your van door one second to not being anywhere, less then 30 seconds later?

I’ve never forgotten this woman and it has forever haunted me that I acted too slowly. I’ve prayed for her off and on over the years and I hope that somehow she found her way off of the streets.

My other experience was some years later with a homeless elderly man, in North Carolina. He was standing on the side of the road, holding a sign that said, “I will work for food.” After pulling over and buying him some burgers, coffee and water, I will never ever forget this man as I walked up to him. The smile on his face as he greeted me. And his piercing eye’s.

What is it with people’s eye’s?

As I handed him the food and drink, he asked me if he could do some work for me in payment. I explained to him that my home was in Minnesota and that if I had room in my little car I would bring him back with me and he could be my handyman. He made some remark about it being cold and having a lot of snow in Minnesota and I affirmed that he was correct and that he probably wouldn’t want to live there. He then asked if it was okay if he prayed a blessing on me for my kindness.

I will never ever forget this man’s voice as he prayed for me, my travels and blessings on my life. I will also never forget how his hand that was touching my back, felt like a hot iron burning through me. After he finished praying I gave him a hug and walked away. There was a moment while I was walking away that I wanted to turn around, go back and ask him to come back to Minnesota with me. I did stop and turn back around and he was standing there with one of the burgers already in his hand. He smiled and hollered “Bless you my angel.”, while waving his burger at me.

I cried while driving away that day but for different reasons then with the homeless woman. There was something about this man when he was praying for me that still to this day send chills down my spine when I recall it. He called me his angel but really it felt like he was mine.

What broke my heart even more was the reaction of a woman that witnessed my interaction with this man. She approached me and basically said I should not be involving myself with the “dirt of society”(her words not mine).

Both of these experiences opened my eye’s to the fact that homelessness happens to all ages and how very sheltered I’ve been from this sad reality my whole life. I think the fact that both of them were elderly made it even harder to stomach. Reality is, homelessness exists whether it is because of poor choices or bad luck. Either way it’s very sad. While I know some choose this way of life on purpose, many don’t.

I suppose if I seen this day after day and experienced people begging me for money going to and from work every single day, I would grow immune to it too. When you hear stories of professional beggars and of people not willing to work, it can make us cynical. It can cause us to group all homeless people into the same category instead of seeing them as individuals. And it can make us forget that they are human and that not all of them are out to get something for free.

Yet for the life of me, I cannot imagine the humiliation of having to stand on the side of a busy road holding a sign that says, “I will work for food,” I imagine when one is hungry and desperate enough and has children to feed, they will do whatever it takes to survive.

Could it be that some of them were so down on their luck that when they lost everything, they lost their self worth along the way? Or what if mental illness struck and took over one’s ability to care for themselves and somehow lost their way? These people that didn’t have anyone reaching a hand out to help them get back on their feet, are they worth less than the rest of us? After being alone and down for so long, does one just give up because they’ve lost hope? Do they just settle for a life of homelessness? Do they just stop believing in something more?

What would you or I do if tragedy hit our lives and we lost what we had? What if mental illness had chosen us? What would we do if we found ourselves living out of our car or on the street? With no where to go and with no one to help us?

I am left feeling very grateful that my circumstance in life have not left me baron of shelter from the cold or elements, food for our stomachs, or people that love and care about us….and that we are free of mental illness or disease that can steal our ability to make good decisions…and that we are blessed to know enough people that would take us in before letting us be on the streets.

I cringe at the thought of being homeless, let alone in Minnesota. So today I pray a little harder for those in need of food and shelter from this cold…and for those that are just a step away from homelessness and for those so poor in spirit because of financial distress that they have stopped believing in something more.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t care or that I could numb this ache in my heart for those hurting, sick or less fortunate. I keep wishing to do more but as hard as I try to do little things to make a difference it almost seems futile.

I don’t know what the answer to this issue is but I do know that looking at them as the dirt of society is not the answer nor is pretending that they don’t exist. Poor choices or not, are they not human beings?

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Celebrating a daughter

2010-12-06T07:53:00.001-06:00

Everyone should be so blessed to have such daughters as I do, as they are each beautiful and amazing women but today I share with you my eldest daughter since it is her birthday today. Today’s post is her story and I dedicate it to her.

Dear Daughter #1,

Today I celebrate you, sweet daughter of mine, that was first to make me Mommy.

I think back to those early day’s of you…of being so scared and realizing the greatness of my responsibility to you. Here I was, a child myself, holding this beautiful baby girl and just being in awe of you.

To this day, I believe you came to me as a divine and perfect gift, for a purpose that was beyond what my young eye’s could see.

You were my first and you taught your mother well. I read every parenting book on the library shelf and it didn’t take me long to realize that while parenting books are great for giving guidelines and basic information, children are the best teachers. You were a gentle little teacher and with you I grew up.

When one of your first words was “pretty”,and all you wanted to wear was dresses, I remember thinking how can this little girl be mine? You loved everything girl…pink and purple, pretty dresses and shoes(see? even back then you were obsessed with shoes :) , pretty things in your hair, playing house and your favorite pink dolly that you named Lolly.

You were so excited about your little sister that came 16 months later but it didn’t take very long before you asked me to take her back to where I got her from. Still you grew to love her too and the best of friends the two of you were. You would nurse your dollies while I nursed your sister and talk to me like you were a Mommy too. The two of you were like night and day and even now when I have the rare opportunity to see the two of you together, I see these differences.

One after another as your siblings came, you were the model big sister. You helped and nurtured them like a little mother. You played house with them and of course you had to be the Mommy.

I am sure that as the years went by, you grew tired of this role of being the oldest. I know your siblings exasperated you time and again but you were the best big sister they could have asked for.

When I looked at this picture taken this past weekend, of you with your two brothers, my heart leapt at the sight of the 3 of you all grown up.

It seems like it was just yesterday when you were making them play school with you.

I remember watching and listening as you played school with them and of course you were always the teacher. Even then, you were a very good teacher.

At the end of every school year, as teachers cleaned out their rooms, you loaded up the things they were getting rid of and proudly carried them home with you. I would cringe as I watched you walk up the street with your arms loaded and a big smile on your face.

When you came to me at the start of your junior year with news of a baby coming in May, I cried because I feared that you would lose or give up all of your dreams. I cried because I know the price of young motherhood. I am sure in that moment of sharing the news and us crying and hugging, that you might have wondered of my love for you. I am sure that you wondered even more when I drove off after saying I just needed some time to think.

I needed to collect myself…to cry and get out all my personal feelings all out so that I could be the mother to you that you deserved and the grandmother that this baby deserved as well. If you had any doubts at all honey, please know my love never ever left you.

The day’s and weeks that followed were one’s you made me proud. I know all too well the pain of disappointing family and facing people that gossip in small towns and you handled yourself above reproach. I told you to not hang your head in shame and your didn’t. You faced your family, school and community with such humility. All those people that said your life was over because you had a child did not know you very well at all, because those that did, knew that you are a determined strong young woman and never stopped believing in you. What I would give now to go back to all those judgmental gossiping people and say, “Look at her now!”

Every child deserves to be wanted and celebrated, no matter the circumstances and it was a joy to prepare with you, for her birth.

I made you promise that if you were going to keep and raise this baby that you would not give up on your dreams of being a teacher. You worked your tail off. You participated in school activities and continued to excel in your studies. You did not use this as an excuse to give up and missed very little school even though you gave birth in early May of your junior year.

Experiencing the birth of your own daughter was one of the most beautiful amazing experiences of my life. You made me a mother and your daughter made me a grandmother. As I cried tears of joy in those moments I was beyond proud of you. What a gift she was and continues to be. I truly believe that like you, when you came to me, she came for a divine and perfect purpose for you and her father. As I watched you hold your sweet little girl in those first moments, my mind flashed back to those days that you played Mommy to all your dollies. In that moment you went from being my little girl holding her dolly, to a Mommy holding her heart in arms.

As I watched you become a Mommy you took your role seriously. Even with all of your family’s support, I am amazed by how you balanced being a new Mommy with school work and work at such a young age. What a honor it was for me to travel that journey with you and I could not imagine what life would be like without that beautiful daughter of yours.

My heart could not be prouder of the two of you, as you make this journey as mother and daughter.

You were remarkable as you put yourself through college in 3 years and graduated with honors, all while raising a well behaved little girl. Even now I am in awe of all that you accomplished and that you never gave up, even though I know there were times you wanted to.

When you and your little family moved across the country to make a new life for yourselves, it felt like a part of me was cut off. It took time for me to adjust to not having you and your daughter close by but I have learned to celebrate your wings and that you have went after your dreams.

I remember the first time I had the honor of sitting in your classroom and watching you teach. I was thoroughly amazed. In those moments, memories of you playing teacher as a little girl, flashed through my mind and here you were standing in front of me doing that which you loved. Teaching. You do more than teach. You care and you take the extra steps to make sure that the children in your care are not only learning but that they are loved. The beauty that is you, puts your whole heart into whatever you do, so I have no doubts in my mind that you deserved winning teacher of the year 2 times over the past 7 years of teaching.

It seems like forever since I was last there when you got married to the love of your life 3 years ago. I wish that I could see and hug the two of you more often. My heart aches to do this, just at the sight of this picture of the two of you.

You have went through some very hard times in your life. You have experienced heart ache and pain. While some would have used these things to quit, you didn’t. While some would have shirked their responsibilities off to others, you didn’t. You have never used the hard things in life as excuses to be anything less than the beautiful woman that you are.

I know I’ve not been the perfect Mom. I know all too well the mistakes I made and the hard times I put you through. I will be forever grateful for the gift of grace you have given me and for not holding these things against me. I will be forever thankful that you have stood by me through the hard times in my life.

Oh daughter of mine, I cannot imagine my life without you. You are a divine and perfect gift. I celebrate your entrance into the world today. I celebrate the loving, giving, caring, kind and beautiful woman, that you are. I celebrate that you have chosen a life of forgiveness and grace over a life of bitterness and hate...and you and I both know, that with everything you have went through, you very well could have chosen that path.

I celebrate the path you have chosen. I celebrate that you have never forgotten the One that created you..."for I am fearfully and wonderfully made". He gave you to me as a gift and I will never stop thanking Him for the gift of you...for letting me be your mother and now also your friend.

May you always be true to yourself. May you never stop going after your dreams.

Happy Birthday dear daughter…may your day be filled with knowing how much your life means to so many…may you have a glimpse of how truly magnificent you are.

My heart is with you honey…I am there is spirit and you are forever and always in my heart. Miles may separate us but love keeps us a heart beat away from each other. I love you to the moon and back my first daughter of mine. Mom

That is the story of my first born. Soon I will write the stories of my 2 other adult daughters and share them with you as well.

Thank you for all of your kind words and support to my last post. I am in complete awe of you people. Your comments and private e-mails reminded me of what angels you are and how very blessed I am to be a part of this wonderful caring community. I am deeply humbled to be on the receiving end of such love and kindness. From the bottom of my heart thank you.

Happy Monday. Hope it is marvelous!

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

No Boys Allowed

2010-12-02T11:59:00.001-06:00

What should one do when life serves up a shit sandwich? Say, “No thank you, I’ll take the ignorant bliss instead please.” ? Or just pretend it’s not a shit sandwich and eat it with a smile on our faces anyways? Or throw myself a grand ole pity party? Or write a long post in an effort to still my mind?

For my husband to complain about something that is going on with him, I know it must be bad because he rarely ever does. So when he told me about some issues he is having I encouraged him to see the doctor right away. He didn’t want to go because we don’t have insurance. (The little’s qualify for insurance through the state so they are covered.) He went yesterday and found out he needs surgery. After said surgery he cannot work for a minimum of 6 weeks.

At least 6 weeks with no money other than my measly checks coming in a little money we get for raising the little’s.

His job requires constant lifting of heavy crates which is what caused this to happen. This means his boss needs to find someone to replace him for this period of time. The good in this is that his boss is going to find out just how much my husband does in his 12-14 hour days and I will be very surprised if he can find someone who is as fast and efficient as my husband. Plus there will be someone trained to do his route should he ever want some time off in the future. The only time he has had off in 4 years is when we went to my daughters wedding in Florida. And it took the guy that replaced him during that time, twice as long to do his route and his route has grown a lot since back then.

Or maybe it’s time for him to find a different job since that is something he has talked about doing for the last couple of years?

The reason we don’t have insurance is because we cannot afford it. Before getting the little’s, my husband had insurance even though it cost an arm and a leg. We all know raising children even in the frugal manner that we live, is not cheap. Taking the little’s has meant the sacrifice of things like insurance, new clothes and going out for entertainment. This goes without saying that they are without a doubt worth ever single sacrifice.

I just wish we could figure out a way to make ends meet and afford these extra things, like insurance. Ever since I got hurt, my earning ability has been severely cut. Had I not gotten hurt, I would have moved up in the company I worked for, would have insurance for myself and family, and my earning potential would be double of what it is now. The bonus was that I loved this job that I was passionate about and seen myself in it for the long haul. Instead I am only allowed to work two 7 hour days in a week. Since my workers compensation does not have to supplement my income anymore because it ran out a long time ago, my ability to help make these ends meet, is very little.

Do not get me wrong, I love what I do now. In fact, I would say I am passionate about being a personal care giver. I love and respect the woman I care for. I love that I am getting this time at home with the little’s. I love that I am feeling a little bit less pain now that I am not working as much. Ssshhh don’t tell my husband that I said that because I offered to call my doctor and request that he remove all restrictions so that I could work at least full time. Then at least we would have some money coming in while he can’t work. He would hear none of this.

The thing is, I feel guilty that all of this falls on his shoulders. He never ever complains and not for one second has he ever made me feel badly for having this injury. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Now that he has been having some pain he says to me, “My god, how you live with pain and are still able to smile every single day is beyond me.”

One nice thing about not having extra money is that I do not have to go Christmas shopping. When my work hours got cut a few months ago we decided back then that we would not go into debt for Christmas. Now that this is happening we simply cannot afford to take money from our savings for frivolous things. Of course Santa will still come with a gift or two for the little’s,thanks to one of you angel’s that sent a gift card our way without even knowing any of this was going on.

Don’t get me wrong, I love buying gifts for people. I just don’t like the shopping part. I would be lying if I said that not getting to buy Christmas gifts for my children and grandchildren didn’t bother me. It would greatly help if they were all selfish brats that expected and begged for things. Instead they say things like, “Oh Mom it’s not a big deal.” or “That’s not what Christmas is about Mom.” or “Grandma do you need me to give you some money or for me to share some of my gifts with you?” Instead they are to darn sweet and understanding which only makes me want to buy something special for them. Darn kids.

Instead, our plans are to get busy in the kitchen, work some of our magic and make some gifts for our loved ones, since we already have most of the ingredients on hand anyways. Sending off some of our homemade love to those we are crazy about will give little “Rachel Ray” and “Emeril” a fun time in the kitchen. If you didn’t already know the little pretend to be Rachel and Emeril.

I am concerned about how we are going to live during this time of him not being able to work. I am concerned about how all of this is going to play out over the next couple of months. I am concerned that this stress is going to affect making this a joyful magical Christmas for the little’s.

The weight of the worry about my husbands health is above all else, so take my house and van, take our material processions, take the internet, cable and telephones but please God don’t take my husband. I could live without those other things but I don’t want to live without him. I could if I had to, but I don’t want to.

Please, please, please do not think I share this with you so that you feel sorry for us. I share this with you because I need your encouragement and support of prayer(If you’re someone who prays) and I just really needed to lay this all out.

I lay out all of these worries or concerns and yet I know without a doubt how blessed we are and really we have so much. I do believe all things happen for a purpose whether we can see it or not. I also know that worry or panicking will not help us.

An ambulance siren is going off as I type and I stop to pray for whoever is hurt or sick and I am reminded it could be worse …we are in a warm home in the midst of the snow and cold…we have food to prepare and eat…our home is full of much more than material things…love abounds…abundance surrounds us…all to remind me that we will be fine.

A birthday party is coming and we have been invited to come just as we are. Worry and stress are not invited. Time to decorate. Time to hang the balloons and banners. Time to prepare the gifts that we will bring to the guest of honor. Time to make merry and enjoy all that is. Time to be still and know that all is well.

It is the season of peace & joy and good will towards all men. I am determined that they will reign in this home and in my heart.

To end on a lighter note, I share with you another glimpse into life with the little’s.

When I walked by little lady’s bedroom last evening, I seen this taped on the outside of her bedroom door…

Let me translate what this sign means. No boys allowed. How she comes up with this stuff is beyond me.

Of course little man had to retaliate by hanging up his own sign on his bedroom door…

He informed me that he was so happy with the girl that he drew that he didn’t want to cover it up with an X so he put the X above the girl but that it still means no girls allowed in his room except for me. Lucky me.

I told them that it might make Santa sad that they were not going to be sharing their toys anymore. Little lady’s reply was, “Well, Santa’s a boy so he can’t come into my room either.”

Little man didn’t respond until he woke me up at 5:45 am this morning to tell me that he had taken down his sign so that Santa wouldn’t be sad.

Little lady informed me this morning that she is pretty sure that Santa is too busy right now to fly over us to check up on them so the sign is staying.

It’s a darn good thing we have a sense of humor at this house.

Tis the season to be jolly.

Thank you for listening and your prayers are deeply appreciated.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2010-11-30T16:25:00.001-06:00

Today is a hot coffee and hot chocolate kind of Minnesota day. It started snowing yesterday morning which made my drive home from work a slow one. It snowed all night and started blowing so schools are closed and since my drive to work is through the country side and the visibility and roads aren’t good, I am home today. Lucky me.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The little’s were thrilled.

I threw together a stew and cleaned house, while the little’s played house & school all morning long. I listened to them playing and repeating things they hear and by golly they imitate us pretty darn good.

I was cooking in the kitchen when they came knocking at my pretend door looking like this…

“Could we borrow a can of beer?” they asked excitedly. “A beer?” I asked. To which they said, “We’re not old enough to buy beer at the liquor store and we need a beer for the chili we’re making.”

Silly little’s. They really do pay attention to when I am cooking in the kitchen.

Please note the wig on little man’s head. He loves wearing it so much that he decided to sneak it to school last week. When I found it in his backpack he confessed to taking it and wearing it at school because he wanted all of his friends and his teacher to see him with it on. Makes perfect sense to me. :) I asked him what his teacher said to him and he said she couldn’t stop laughing and then she made him put it back in his backpack.

Please note the desk and paint that were left in the middle of the living room by my daughter. Any guesses to how many times they asked if they could paint the desk this morning? Any guesses to how many times I caught them investigating the paint?

Speaking of little man…he proudly announced last night, that he had been given the “golden dustpan award” at school for keeping his classroom clean. Which doesn’t really surprise us since he likes cleaning and has not lost his love for vacuum's. I told my husband that just maybe little man’s dream of being a janitor someday will come true after all. My husband didn’t find this very funny. The reason he wants to be a janitor is because he thinks their vacuums are really really cool.

Finally, just before lunch I set the kids loose outside(all bundled up of course) and they actually got some of the driveway and side walk shoveled. They each have their own shovel and are still young enough to think it’s fun to shovel.

It has continued to snow off and on all day and the wind is still howling outside. To think this is just the beginning of the season. I would go into hibernation…but then I would miss out on all the fun of building snowmen, sledding and throwing snowballs at my kids and husband.

I look outside and it is snowing again. I might just need to add a little something to my hot chocolate when I come back inside from doing a little shoveling.

Oh the joys of living in the middle of a winter wonderland and life with the little’s.

Anyone up for a good snowball fight?

I’ll have the hot chocolate ready.

Until next time, hugs and love, Lori

My Youngest Son

2010-11-30T00:49:00.001-06:00

In a little over a week my youngest son will begin his journey home. Yes, I am happy that he will be closer…at least he will be for awhile. I will enjoy those things I’ve missed about him…his laughter, seeing him smile, hugging him and watching and hearing him tease & play with the little’s…and hearing him say, “Oh Mother…”even though I’ve heard these words over the phone numerous times these past few years, there is something about hearing them when he is standing before me.

This child of mine…my last born…is the one that challenged me the most and honestly I said time and again that had he been my first, he would have been my last. I do not say this in a bad way…he was just that…my hard child…my strong willed child…he wanted to eat all of the time…he cried the loudest…he tested me…over and over again, all in the same day…he climbed out of his crib at a very young age which only led to him climbing on the counters and before long, unlatching the gate and running down the street…which led to him figuring out ways to get on top of the roof of the house. I kid not.

He just never stopped unless it was to eat or sleep. Not in a hyper active sort of way…more like a non stop thinking and doing sort of way.

You would think I wasn’t watching him but I was. Like a hawk. I had these other kids and a daycare business which meant other children and of course I needed to use the bathroom on occasion.

When he was 15 months old we attended the local county fair and he was literally stolen out of the wagon he had been sitting in. Some woman snatched him out of the wagon when I had turned my back on him for mere seconds, and then tried to leave with him. It was 15 minutes of the scariest time of my life and had they not acted quickly by shutting down the gates, he would not be here now. Apparently she tried to get out of the gates with him and when they tried questioning her, she put him down on the round and ran.

I have never forgotten the terror I felt that day. I knew deep in my heart that we had been spared one of the worst nightmares of our lives.

All through his growing up years he was a handful. He tested and tried me like none of my other children had. He might have made me cry but he didn’t break me. Let’s just say he did not give up easily but neither did I.

I am not sure when everything changed. It’s like I blinked my eye’s and he came around to being this respectful kind young man.

To give you a glimpse of his character at the age of 17. When my step daughter went into labor he took care of little man so that I could be in the labor room with her. When it got close for little lady to make her entrance into the world, he drove over an hour to the hospital so that he and little man could be there to welcome her into the world. Since they pretty much became ours right from that point, he went to sharing his last year at home with 2 little one’s. He spent a lot of his senior year rocking her and sleeping in the chair with her and playing with little man to help us out. He did a lot of the things a father would do and yet he took no credit.

This was a common sight for him to be holding one of these two…

Fast forward to 3 years ago. It was his senior year of high school and it was the evening of his high school Christmas concert. He left early to go pick up his girlfriend while we were still home getting the little’s ready to go. I was almost ready to go when the phone rang. My husband came to me and I knew instantly something was wrong. It was my husbands brother on the phone saying that my son was in an accident.

Apparently a relative of his had been driving and almost hit my son, who was standing in the road. He was bleeding and could barely walk. She put my son in her car immediately because it was really cold outside. She called for an ambulance and while they waited she asked him who he was but he didn’t know. She knew what town he was from because he had a lettermen's jacket on. She asked him if he had his license and he gave it to her. When she seen the name she called her aunt who is married to my brother-in-law, and they lived in that same town and asked her if she knew who this was since they lived in our area. It really is a small world. And a miracle that someone found him on this cold dark night.

A short time later, the ambulance driver called me and told me where they were taking him and let me talk to him. After getting to the hospital the ambulance workers came in to see my son and one by one they told us that it was a complete miracle that he was alive. In one man’s words, “Merry Christmas, I think you’ve just received a Christmas miracle.”

They had me come out of his room and they told me what had likely happened. They also told me that to look at the car you would never know that anyone could have lived through that. The road was a road that wasn’t traveled that much and with it being totally pitch black outside, it was a miracle that he not only found the road but that someone found him.

Apparently he had fallen asleep and went over the road and flew into a field. He hit his head which knocked him out. When he woke up he dug himself out and crawled out of the car and then had to crawl in the snow quite a distance to the road. He had no idea where he was, let alone his name.

A few days later when I seen the car I was not only horrified but I now knew why the ambulance workers had said all that they did. I have no clue to how he survived this accident. All I know is that his life was spared on this cold dark night in early December, 3 years ago. I was once again spared the nightmare of losing my son.

During both of these moments I imagined my life with out him…in those quick seconds all of his life flashed before my eye’s like a movie..I remember with tears in my eye’s, how I could have lost him and how thankful I am that I didn’t. I am forever grateful that I was spared the agony of losing him.

These experiences of almost not having him, make him extraordinary. The person he is, makes him extraordinary because of what he has made of himself. Whether it’s being the young man that stepped it up to play “daddy” at 17 or being the greatest uncle to each of his nieces and nephews, by being a positive role model. He is without a doubt a stand up guy just like his big brother.

Do you think the little’s are a little bit crazy about him?

After he graduated he moved to North Florida to attend college near his Dad. He attended for 2 years and then moved to South Florida to attend a police academy. He has lived with my eldest daughter and her family, and has been working while waiting to start school. Over the past couple of months he has come to realize that he didn’t really like living there and so has plans for attending the police school which is in a nearby town, here in Minnesota.

I cannot wait until he moves home. I know that this move home is only a temporary stop until he moves onto his next adventure. I know this because I am the one that gave him his wings and he’s known to be pretty good at flying. I can only hope that his next adventure keeps him a little closer to home.

My son’s life was spared twice and I don’t take that lightly. It still causes me to hug all my children a little tighter and to make sure I say “I love you.” as often as I can….and to be really really thankful for every day I get to be their Mom.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Saying Good-bye

2010-11-28T09:05:00.001-06:00

Right after I clicked “publish” for my last post, I received a call from my friend. Her mother, who is my friend as well(I wrote about her recently)is dying. She is now in hospice and their goal is to keep her comfortable until she dies. The day’s get long and hard when one sits alone with their mother or wife, watching her slip away, more and more each day. So instead of digging my hands into the mess down in the dungeon, I went to be with my friends.

As hard as it is to watch someone suffer, or die, or whatever else someone is experiencing, there is no place that I would rather be then along side them. To just sit, to look into eye’s and speak love with them, to give kisses, hugs and love, to whisper words of support and to just “be” with her and them.

There really is nothing one can say or do to take the pain and suffering associated with watching a loved one die, away from them. She is the love of his life and he is watching her leave. She is her mother, her best friend and she can’t hang onto her anymore.

I have watched this woman live fully and wonderfully and as I participate in the ending of this wonderful life, I am forced to pay attention to my own mortality and that of my own loved ones.

Now that she is drinking and eating very little, her body is shutting down more and more. Her body is doing all the things one does when it’s the end.

When I was sitting with her in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about how we were in this building in which the coming and going of life was either celebrated or grieved. It was very likely that a new life was making it’s entrance into this world at that moment, while another was leaving it. How loved one’s were excitedly gathered to welcome the new life into their lives, while in another section of the hospital, other loved one’s gathered to comfort while their loved one made their exit. First breathes. Last breathes. Joy over new life and sadness that it is over.

She asks God to take her. Because we love her and hate seeing her suffer, we too pray for God to take her. Still, she has hung on and we speculated that it may be because she is waiting for her other children to get here from out of state. When she was told that they were coming her face lit up and she smiled and even laughed. They arrived last night.

This whole letting go and saying goodbye is a painful one. Wanting to hang on to this woman that brought you life or shared life with you and yet knowing you have to let go because it’s their time to leave. Grieving because you can already see the parts of her that have left and knowing it won’t be long.

She will make her exit soon and we will mourn the loss of such a beautiful person. The beauty of her heart and the life she lived is evident in those who love her. She will be sadly missed yet we will joyfully celebrate the gift of her life and all that she was. She lived and loved fully and that is the legacy she leaves behind.

Please pray for my friends. That as they gather in her final hours that they will be drawn tightly together and that she will know it’s okay to leave. Pray that her suffering ends soon. And that the suffering of her family and friends that she leaves me behind, comes to an end. Her leaving will be bittersweet in that such a beautiful woman is no longer suffering. Thank you.

We did get quite a bit done in the dungeon yesterday and will work part of the day on it until we get the little’s back or get called away. Isn’t it something that things like this seem so very small in comparison to things of life and death or friends and family?

Do me a favor…hug those you love today…hold them close…tell them how you feel about them and back it up with action..heal a grudge you have with a loved one…smile and laugh…do something you enjoy…live today fully.

Until next time, hugs and love, Lori

Random Blessings

2010-11-26T12:55:00.001-06:00

In spite of getting snow and freezing rain on Thanksgiving eve, we were able to travel up north on Thanksgiving and we had a very nice day. How thankful I am for the blessing of a dependable vehicle and such special people to spend a day of giving thanks with.

On the 2 1/2 hour drive to our Thanksgiving destination, I had opportunity to make calls of Thanksgiving wishes to loved ones. As I made call after call to express my gratefulness for each of these people being in my life, my heart swelled with the thought of having so many amazing people in my life. It can be difficult to not be with my children and grandchildren to celebrate the holiday’s but in my heart they are always with me and I cannot help but be grateful that they are alive and well.

The little’s were ecstatic because they got to spend the day with their best friend, Esox and other people they simply adore.

Little lady and Esox have a very special relationship…

Little man got a chance to help in the kitchen.

My little “Emeril” wanna be in action…

They had a blast making a joyful noise with my nieces…

We got a chance to see the deer come up near the house and eat at the twilight hour…

Even more exciting is that the little’s get to stay up north and play in the snow and woods for a few days, while my husband and I came back home to work and get things done in our basement in preparation for my son moving back home. My grandson is gone to visit his daddy so our home is completely child free. What a blessing to have this time to get something accomplished without 3 sets of little hands digging where they are not suppose to or having another part of the house get completely demolished while we focus elsewhere.

I should be down working in the dungeon instead of reading blogs and writing this post. But what a blessing it was to stop by and visit today without feeling guilty.

Can I just say peace & quiet are not over rated?

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I suppose it is time to welcome all things Christmas. My intent is to not let the commercialism or stress that can come with all of it, steal the Christmas magic. We will wait to put up a tree and decorate it until my son has moved back home the second week of December. We will bake and do crafts and make most of our gifts this year instead of focusing on financial lack or thinking our Christmas must look like it does on TV or that we will not have Christmas since we can’t buy gifts. Our intent is to think of ways to spread Christmas joy and to make merry because we have so many reasons to do so.

Now that our outdoors is covered in snow and it is closer to 0 then not, it is starting to look a lot like Christmas. The little’s love it and cheer with excitement whenever that white stuff falls from the sky and they want to be out in it playing all of the time. I guess I really don’t mind it since it can be kind of fun and it gets them out of the house.

The other night I had this most incredible vivid dream about many of you. In my dream we were all together at this big blog party and I got to spend 3 days of fun with all of you. Things you each have written recently or information that I know about you were filtered through out the dream. It was so real and so fantastic that when I woke up I was super happy and then I realized it was just a dream. Bummer. Still, it was such a blessing and makes me smile whenever I think about it.

If you are from the US I hope you and yours had a wonderful day of sharing in Thanksgiving and that today you are not only full from the good food but from good times with friends and family as well. If you were one of those out shopping in the black Friday madness I hope you got a lot of great deals and it was worth standing out in the cold(if you live where it’s cold) and fighting crowds.

I suppose I should get myself down to the dungeon and begin this great task of sorting and cleaning. But first I think there is a day after Thanksgiving sandwich calling out my name.

Happy weekend to you and your loved one’s. May peace, love and joy wrap themselves around you no matter the circumstances or what life has served to you in this moment.

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

To be thankful

2010-11-23T08:28:00.001-06:00

How easy it is for me to take the little things in life for granted. It is easy to forget how blessed we are to live in this era with all it’s modern conveniences. I think about the early settlers on the ships that set sail for a new country and what life was like during the first Thanksgivings. A toilet that flushes, hot running water to bathe in and to use at our beckoning, electricity that allows us to see in the dark and to turn things on & off with just a switch, machines that wash & dry our clothes, and heating & cooling systems that make our homes comfortable to live in and protect us from the elements. Not to mention TV’s, stereo’s, gaming systems, computers, telephones and many more material things for our added entertainment.

While we do work hard to have what we have, I am grateful for our jobs and ability to make money and that these afford us these things that make our lives easier. I know that these things could be taken away in a heart beat due to tragedy, illness, death, or economics. There are no guarantee's of life remaining as I know it now. I know what it is to live without some of these things. For example, there was a time in my life when buying meat or anything of the sort was not in my budget. To this day, whenever I purchase, prepare or eat meat, a gratefulness that I cannot describe with words, comes over me. Maybe this is how or why I learned to live happily in a simplistic way of life.

In all actuality I could live without many of these things because I have but what I could not live without are people, love, forgiveness and grace.

I have walked willingly and unwillingly through the depths of hell. In breaking bread with the devil and his companions I lived a life that is so far from what I know now that it almost feels like I am telling you about someone else.

Hands that reached out to me in my disparity, bearing these gifts of love, forgiveness and grace, gave me the keys to my freedom.

Had I not met love I would not be here writing right at this very moment. And I am not talking about the romantic kind love. Had I not known what it truly means to be forgiven I would not have been able to stand myself enough to continue on. Literally. Had I not known the release of forgiving those who have transgressed me, I am absolutely sure these things would have made me a bitter unhappy woman today. Grace in all it’s glory set my record clean.

Had I not accepted these gifts, I would never have found the value of these lessons I learned in my walks through hell. Those play dates with the devil were not all in vain because he taught me everything I do not want or want to be in this life of mine; bitterness, rage, abuse, violence, agony, deceit, dishonesty,and a whole slew of other things not worth repeating.

These beautiful things called love, forgiveness and grace, stole my heart and changed it. They took my heart of stone and shaped it into something that has this great capacity to love others. They turned me inside out and shook up every belief I had up until this point in my life. The thing is, getting to lay all these transgressions down didn’t mean that all the bad I had done was okay or that the things done to me were justified, it just meant they were done. Finished. Laid down. Grace helped me leave it there and not go back.

Walking without the weight of all these things on me, felt like flying. I was free. The kind of freedom that make the life I live now possible.

I will be forever eternally grateful that the beauty that is grace helped me to take all that was and turn it into something more.

This is why I love so passionately and fiercely. This is why I cannot hate or judge or turn anyone away. This is why I want everyone that I come into contact with to know what it feels like to be loved & forgiven without strings and to be seen through the eye’s of grace. This is why I am who I am…all because love and forgiveness found me and grace said it was okay for me to accept it.

The thing is, my soul still needs this love, forgiveness and grace today. In a sense my life depends on them.

I am grateful for every single person that has ever given me these gifts of love, forgiveness and grace. I am thankful for each person that has come in and gone out of my life. I know all too well that these people we hold so close to our hearts can be taken from us in a mere moment. I know it enough to be thankful for each person I get to spend today with because I may not get to share in tomorrow with them.

I humbly tell you I don’t deserve half of what I got in this life but I humbly accept every bit of it. This husband of mine that cherishes me and loves me big, thinks I am really something. These 7 children of mine that call me Mom or Mommy, that have stretched my heart so big and have their names chiseled into my heart,will forever and always have me thankful that I get to be their Mom. These grandchildren who toss and turn my heart with their adoration of me, simply and utterly amaze me.

If today is my last day on this earth, I leave it as a very blessed woman. I was given a second chance at living and I will be forever grateful for every single day I got. I have loved and been loved to the fullest extent. What more could I ask for? Every day that I get is just an added bonus, so I live every day as if it were my last. Of course I don’t want to leave here but if my time were up I would want it to be known that I lived a good life.

I sit here thinking of my husband, children, family and friends and many of you that share these gifts with me in this present day and it makes my heart burst with thankfulness. Do you have any clue to how grateful I am for each of you? Thank you for sharing who you are with me. For letting me learn from you and for taking time for me. Thank you for helping me to see what I sometimes have a hard time seeing. Thank you…from the bottom of my heart and all that is in me, thank you.

To all of you celebrating Thanksgiving or not, Happy Thanksgiving. Happy thankful day. Even if you are not celebrating Thanksgiving be thankful for all that you are and the multitude of blessings that are yours. Tell someone you are thankful for them today. I am pretty sure it will make their day.

Until next time, hugs & love & much gratitude for you, Lori

Sons

2010-11-21T15:07:00.001-06:00

In a couple of weeks my eldest son will fly to Florida to help my youngest son move back home. I love my boys with all my heart as mothers are known to do, so there is nothing extraordinary about that. But, if you knew their stories…of how they became mine, then you would know that these otherwise ordinary boys are in fact extraordinary.

My eldest son is by far one of the most honorable men of character I’ve ever known. He has a story that runs deep and is wide with experiences that no boy should have had to experience. I did not give birth to my eldest son in the traditional sense instead I gave birth to him in my heart. He started out as my nephew and because of tragedy became my son.

Both of his parents and both of his grandparents (my mother and father in law) all died within the span of a year and a half.

Because it was laid out in the will for a certain uncle and aunt to get them, that is where they had to go. I understand their reasoning behind having them as the guardians since these people were very wealthy. But, that is all they were thinking about. They did not stop and think about the culture shock it would be for them to go from living in a small run down home out in the country to living in a million dollar home in an upper class community in the big city.

Let me pause here to say that we as parents need to think of the whole picture when we are deciding the fate of our children should both parents pass away. There is more to raising a child then mere money and love goes a long way when it comes to bringing up a child. Thinking about the family structure of the home they would move into, needs to be considered.

Their Grandma died of cancer first. She was the dearest mother in law and someone that I have never ever stopped missing.She was the glue of this family. Their father died next, exactly one month after they discovered he had throat cancer. It wasn’t many months later when the 3 of them came home from school one afternoon to find their Mom dead on the floor. I will never ever forget the phone call from the eldest boy saying, “My Mom is dead. Can you come?” One month later, their Grandpa died.

The 3 of them stayed with us for the first few weeks after their Mom died. I did not want them to leave. Ever. We wanted to keep them so badly but it was insisted that they would be better off with the wealthy aunt and uncle. Moving in with this aunt and uncle meant they lost literally most of their belongings because none of them were good enough to move into their home. As if they hadn’t lost enough, they lost their dog, most of their toys and clothes. They made the move with very few things so it was as if they were not only stripped of all the significant caregivers in their lives but anything personal to them as well.

I still remember the day they left to go live there. It made me literally sick to watch them leave because I knew deep down this was not right.

They were wise in sending them for grief counseling. Except for the fact that the counselors told them that these boys would never live normal lives because of these losses and because of the dysfunction they discovered upon digging deeper into their lives before the deaths.

We got a call a couple months into them being with them and were told they were not adjusting and that they were behaving badly. Then a family meeting was called and they informed all of us of what the grief counselors said. When they announced that they would never be normal, I started crying. My brother in law went on to say that they had sat the boys down and told them that since they were so unhappy living with them, that come the end of the school year, they would be free to go search for a home that would want them. AND that they doubted they would find anyone that would want them!

What the hell? Who say’s things like this to children? I was furious to say the least. I wanted to punch him. What kind of people give this kind of life sentence to children?

Come the beginning of June, my eldest son called and asked if he could come visit. He came the middle of June and he never left again until he was out of high school. Within a couple of weeks he was so tied into our home that I could not possibly send him away. I quite literally fell in love with this boy.

He went away to camp for one week and after having a family meeting, we contacted the family and told them we did not want to give him back. We expected a fight but they were elated to be free of him. His 2 brothers had each went to different family members that also wished to keep them. The day we picked him up from camp we asked him if he wanted to live with us permanently. He literally flew up from the table and screamed. Tears streamed down our faces as he hugged us in excitement.

When we got home that day I told him, this is your home now. What is ours is yours. The other kids were instrumental in making him feel a part of our family and home. Not once, in anger or otherwise did any one of them say a negative thing in regards to him joining our family.

I told him that he could call us Mom and Dad when and if he wanted or whatever he felt comfortable doing…that no matter what he would always have his Mom and Dad in heaven. I explained to him that if something happened to me that I would want my kids to have a Mom…that they would always have me, their Mom in heaven but that it would make me happy if they had a Mom on earth.

I did not take him as a son because I felt sorry for him. I took him as my son because I felt God calling me to do this. I lost two children to stillbirths and I told him when I first got him that his mom was up in heaven rocking my babies for me and that I was here to love and care for him here on earth for her. I truly felt Gods hand on us. Taking him felt so right... so perfect...he seemed like the child I had been waiting for.

It was not easy though. He had not been allowed to properly grieve the losses that had come one after the other, in his life. The grandparents that had died, had been very active in his life, spending a lot of time in their home and were probably the closest to him. For many months, I was up with him every single night, hugging him as he cried. Night after night he woke me up, much like a new born baby, except he just needed someone to hold him and make him feel safe. We cried many tears together those dark nights but I knew he needed to do this in order to heal.

Ever so slowly he began to heal and with the love of those around him he became such a part of our family that not one of us look at him as if he wasn't born into our family. I did not do this alone. It was a family thing...his three sisters and brother had a very big hand in this...we couldn't have done this without them.

The ironic thing is, he looks like he was born into my family. He and my middle daughter who are fairly close in age and were in the same grade together, could almost pass for twins.

I am not sure when the grieving ended. All I know is that he began to smile more then he cried. He was happy more than sad. He started sleeping through the night. He started acting like my son and a brother to my other children and before long his being with us with just normal.

It was during all of this that he came to be my son. I quite literally gave birth to him in my heart. It feels like he has always been here. He has another mother that lives in heaven and I vowed to her and to God that I would love him like a son and treat him as such. It has been easy to keep that vow. I don't look at him any differently then the children I gave birth to, so it is easy for me to forget that he did not come from my body.

I have been blessed over and over by this precious son of mine...my special gift sent to me from heaven. He is an extraordinary man of character. He is everything I could hope for in a son. He is an example for his younger brother and his 3 sisters. He is such a great uncle to his two nieces and 2 nephews that they adore him. I’m pretty sure little lady has him wrapped around her fingers.

This is him(in the red shirt)with little lady on his lap.

He is known for his smile and good nature. He is kind, gentle, hard working, thoughtful, responsible, honest and very well liked. He is not bitter nor has ever used these things as excuses to feel sorry for himself or to not try at things. Actually, it’s been quite the opposite. He has a allowed these things to make him a better person.

I would love to take him back to these counselors whom gave him this life sentence of never being normal. He is not only normal he is extraordinary.

My son is living proof that good can come out of tragedy and that life can continue after the storm. He is living proof that God can work miracles of healing in those that have suffered great loss. He is my proof that gifts and children come in all different ways. He has taught me many lessons along this journey that I will never lose sight of. He is my reminder that life is precious and that we need to hold on tightly to those we love, because each day is a gift with them.

What is really nice is that he lives in a nearby town and actually likes living in Minnesota so I don’t think he will be flying far away from me. He has a wonderful girlfriend that has a son that is 8 years old. I have a feeling that there might be a wedding in our future which would make me pretty happy to have them be a part of our family as well but we will have to see.

He is still close with his 2 brothers from birth and the 2 of them actually own a house together and live a few blocks from me.

Soon, I will tell you the story about my other extraordinary son.

Just writing this, makes my heart overwhelmed with gratefulness. What are you grateful for today?

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

The Birth of a Mom

2010-11-19T13:27:00.001-06:00

I talk a lot about my little’s here and while I have written about my 5 now grown children on occasion, I realized recently that the last time I really shared about them was towards the beginning of this blog. Since most of you were not readers way back then, you probably haven’t read much about them.

Being a good Mom is my passion. Preparing children for their road ahead is something that is as important to me as my beating heart. I know that I am more than this Mom title and I have other passions as well but none of them are as close to my heart as this.

This is my story about how I became a Mommy to my first five children…

I was still a child myself when I started out on this journey. As I birthed and raised each of them, I basically grew up with them. They raised me up, so to speak, to be the Mommy I am right now. I seriously give them much of the credit for teaching me what I know today. The trial & error’s of this journey of learning what it really means to be a Mommy or parent is one in which I fell on my face more often then not.

I give them the credit because when I started this Mommy gig I didn’t really have a clue to what the hell I was doing, even though I had gotten lots of advice from reading tons of parenting books. While these books can give some great wisdom to help out with this incredibly big task, it comes down to us putting what we know into practice and that doesn’t guarantee it will work.

Still, there are a lot of things that parenting books don’t tell you. But, even if they laid it all out, step by step, sharing all the messy secrets, would we really listen?

Our children don’t usually fit inside the box that we try to put them in nor in what the books or parenting experts say they should fit in. And could we please stop feeling badly when our children don’t?

I learned as each one came, that this is not a one size fits all kind of task. Each one of them is intricately different from one another and that meant what worked for one, did not guarantee it would work for another. I learned that my greatest tool for parenting them was to study each one of them and to really get to know their nature or temperament and their personalities.

I did not have to be a parenting expert but I did need to be an expert of knowing them.

I learned early on that I wanted this Mommy gig to be about more than just feeding, clothing and keeping them alive. I wanted something more.

I asked myself, “What is the point of all this? What kind of qualities do I want them to possess when they reach point B.”

I wrote out a Mommy mission statement so to speak in which I described the kinds of qualities I wanted them to possess once they reached adulthood. It’s these things that fueled my fire and set forth the intention of raising these children to be able to fly on their own some day.

Coming into this role with my share of hang-ups and being the fallible human creature that I am, I made mistakes a lot. Sometimes I forgot my mission statement & got off track. I’d try to fit them all in the same box. I messed up. There were times I listened to other people, who are not experts of my children, instead of allowing my own heart to lead. I apologized to my children a lot. I cried a lot. I prayed a lot.

On the flip side, I did a lot of things right. I loved a lot. I laughed a lot. I had a lot of fun. And so did they. I followed my heart and them.

Once I figured out that trying to control my children into being midget robots of me would only lead to failure in the end, it gave me freedom to enjoy letting them be themselves. Giving them permission to be their own unique selves took the pressure off of me to make them be who they are not.

Investing all our time, energy and work into little people can seem like an endless task and one that seems to go on and on. This parenting gig is monotonous and often times not pretty. Yet it is filled with the greatest, happiest and wondrous moments of our lives.

Loving these people that were born from my body or from my heart is like watching a part of my heart walk around. Loving my children was the easy part. The hard part was putting that love into action on a daily basis. Not an easy task to do if you’ve been up with a child all night and then find yourself right smack in the middle of childhood messes the very next day. Loving my children fiercely and passionately is what drove me through those moments in which I wanted to lay down on the floor & sob.

When we first start, the thought of at least 18 years with them in our care(if we’re lucky)seems long. Many of you know, like I do, that this ride goes way too fast. The ride from point A to point B is over in a blink of an eye. All to quickly and often times before we are ready for it to be done.

They each made their own share of mistakes along the way. Watching one’s children fall is painful. Being there to help cushion their fall by guiding, listening and loving them while they were still young in the safety of our home, was a blessing in disguise.

Getting my kids from point A to point B was the hardest, most joyful and greatest ride of my life. I wish I had kept that piece of paper with my hand written mission statement on it just for the memory of it. Yet, it seems that those things are still etched into my heart today. Seeing them reach adulthood with many of these traits that I, their imperfect teacher had worked hard to instill in them, is amazing.

They are amazing.

They started out loving me and thinking that I was pretty great. They seen me as all knowing & as Princess Mommy.

As they matured their view of me was tainted with seeing me in my humanness and they began to question my authority…not always liking me and questioning what I knew. They fought for their independence to believe and think for themselves. They thought they knew more than me. They tested. They pushed the limits. As they embarked on their own journeys of discovering themselves on the emotional rollercoaster it was up to me to remain the constant, ever present force of love in their lives. This was the hardest stage to go through because as much as I loved them and they loved me, we didn’t always like each other.

Just when they got to the point of really liking me again, it was time for them to take flight.

After they each had time of living their lives independently and separate from me they now realize that I really did know what I was talking about and they have a new respect for me. They are back to this place of loving me and thinking I’m pretty great. They know I don’t know everything but value my wisdom and although they no longer call me Princess Mommy, they do treat me like a queen. I call this coming full circle.

I wrote a post called Coming Full Circle back in August of 2008 that talks about this journey.

Now that I’ve jumped on the Mommy train once again, I am benefiting from what I learned the first time around. I’m learning my little’s day by day. I am becoming an expert on them. I am enjoyed these days of them adoring me and thinking I’m great because I know all too well that will change for a season until they too come full circle.

I still make mistakes. I still have to remind myself that kids don’t fit into boxes (except to play in of course :). I still have to say “I’m sorry.” I still cry and pray. And I’m still having fun. The fun part of a do over is that I now know to cherish every single moment. I know now that laughter is a key ingredient for parenting 101. I now know the value of choosing my battles and not getting upset over the spilled milk in my life. I now know all too well that before I know it they will be flying from this nest too. Until then, I will enjoy this ride…every moment between point A and point B.

Next time, I want to share more personal details with you about my extraordinary sons and after that my amazing daughters. I want to tell you about these people that are carrying part of my heart with them out in this world.

Cheers to all of you that have taken this parenting ride or are on this ride right now.

Cheers to all of you that while you may not wear the title of parent, whether it’s by choice or circumstances, you stand in as awesome supporters of the parents and children in your life. You rock.

Have a great weekend dear friends. Hope you find something to smile about! :)

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Messy Day’s Like This

2010-11-17T11:14:00.001-06:00

This morning my grandson and little lady brushed my hair and “made me all pretty”. How I needed this pampering on this gray cold morning. Then I was crowned “princess Mommy of all the Mommy’s in the world”, so now I write with a princess crown on my head. How did I get so lucky?

It is my focus at present to be mindful of all that I have to be grateful & thankful for. I have a tendency to naturally lean in this direction largely due to the shoes I have walked in to get to where I am today. Still, I am human and that bent towards allowing negativity or tough moments to get the best of me, is ever present.

On day’s like this, when it’s hard to grab a whole 5 minutes at time to just think, write or read, in the midst of all the messes this day is presenting, I forget to be thankful.

I have a dear friend that has been battling various health issues and after another fall last week, is in the hospital. As I’ve sat with her and looked into her eye’s I see such tiredness and a look that say’s “I am finished. I am ready to move on.” She is in her 80’s and has lived a full life. Yet, she continues to suffer, as does her family in watching her. She is growing weaker and more fragile each day. It seems that the end of her life may be soon.

As a friend it is difficult to see any good in all of this suffering. So instead I look to the beauty before me. This dear woman of beauty, grace and honorable character has taught me much just by watching her live and now she teaches me much about the end of life as well.

I see the love between her and her husband and one could only hope to have such a strong long love as this. I see the love between her and her daughter and the beauty of their relationship. The fact that they include me in their family and treat me as so, touches me beyond words. Tears prick my eye’s just writing this.

On Saturday I had the opportunity to bring her cards that my daughter and the little’s had made for her. To see the smile and delight upon her face as she looked at each one was priceless. My children and the little’s adore her as much as I do. The last time they seen her was Halloween when I brought them to show her their costumes and I don’t know who was happier her or them.

Today I am grateful with all of my heart, to know this woman and her family. They are amazing people and I will forever be grateful for the love they have shown me and my family. Even though it’s never easy to say goodbye to someone so special, I will be thankful when we are not seeing her suffer any longer.

I wrote about our big turkey that we have hanging on our wall in my last post. I had the little’s help me cut out colorful feathers and each day we write things we are thankful on them. Then we glue them onto the turkey. Our goal is to give our turkey as many beautiful thankful feathers as we can.

I think we are doing a pretty good job so far…

We are thankful for things like…

Mostly, we are really thankful for all the people that we love and that love us, so most of the feathers are filled with names.

In teaching the little’s to have a grateful attitude it not only seems to add a layer of appreciation to the atmosphere of our home, it is a life lesson I want to drive home to them, not just during this month of Thanksgiving but every day of the year.

As you know parenting is an endless job and when the road gets long and weary I forget to be thankful for all of this. Some day’s, like today, parenting children is quite messy & noisy, and not pretty at all. There are day’s I don’t behave my best either so I suppose we’re pretty even.

I know there are some days it seems like they are just not getting these lessons I’m trying to teach them but I know some day they will. Some day’s when I am really tired, I ask myself, “Is it worth all this work you put in?” And then I look at my now grown kids and see the grateful, appreciative, responsible, hard working, honest,giving, kind, caring and loving people that they are now and my heart screams “Yes!”

Yes it’s all worth it…the noise, the messes, the fighting, the giving and taking of chips(the chips system is going great!), the do over's, the patience, the kissing boo boo’s over and over again, the spills, the excitement over seeing a bug or the garbage truck, the stepping on crayons, the time spent in the better choice chair and trying to cook or bake with 3 extra pairs of hands “because I want to help too”…. so I will continue to be thankful for tough messy days like this, since it seems that some of the best lessons in life are learned in the messes we make. After all, I get to do all of this with a crown on my head.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

MIA

2010-11-13T00:00:00.001-06:00

I have been MIA here and at your blogs. Although I’ve read tiny bits here and there, most of the time I’ve been unable to read, let alone comment. I’ve missed you and your words. I’ve missed writing and connecting with you.

Pain and exhaustion and brain fog are big factors in keeping me away. Mostly, I’ve been tending to the little’s and all the things that scream for my attention. Trying to balance all of my responsibilities…trying to keep my priorities in their right places…trying to figure out all the ways I can help keep our home the way it is.

A few weeks ago, while I was washing dishes, little man was telling me about something that had happened at school. When he went silent I asked him why he had stopped talking. He responded with, “I really like looking at your face when I’m talking to you.” I turned around, dried my hands and got down to his level. He said things like “you are always so busy and hurrying and when I talk to you I like to see your face because I like to know you are listening to me”. With tears I assured him that I am listening and that I would work on slowing down.

So that's what I’ve been trying to do.

The thing is ever since my injury I have slowed down a lot. Now it takes me so much longer to do everything and it frustrates the hell out of me. Trying to get things done around here and giving the little’s quality time is a balancing act.

Still, I take little man’s message to heart and as hard as it is, I am forcing myself to slow down and to stop and look at him when he is talking to me.

We attempt to live simple lives. We are mindful about what we put into our bodies so we had a garden and cook & bake from scratch and eat foods that are healthy 90 % of the time. Which means that the little’s have enjoyed every bit of their Halloween candy and the pumpkin bars I made yesterday are almost gone. We make our own cleaning supplies and try not use things that are not good for us or the environment. We do this not only for our health or the environment but because it saves money.

I shared recently that my doctor cut my work hours. This is affecting our finances so now more than ever, we are doing what we do out of necessity. Keeping our home the way it is, means us figuring out ways to not only be frugal but to not let the stress of it all affect it’s serenity.

This means having fun with the little’s as they help me make laundry soap or knead the bread dough. It means not jumping in the car, driving to do something fun and going out to eat. Instead it’s staying home to play restaurant, with my husband and I being the wait staff or walking up town with the little’s and watching the free movie at the theater on Saturdays.

With the holidays approaching it puts a knot in the middle of my stomach. It makes me dread them more than ever. To combat those feelings we are really focusing on all that we are thankful for. We hung a big turkey on our wall and have been writing things we are thankful for on feathers the little’s helped me cut out. My grandson grabbed my heart when he said, “ I am thankful my Grandma takes good care of me when my Mommy is at work.”

Do not for one second feel badly or sorry for us. The thing is we have so much. While we may not be rich in money or material processions, we are not without our basic needs being met plus more. There are so many that would give anything to have a warm place to call home, food in their bellies, a soft place to lay their heads to sleep and to be surrounded by people that love them. We are not lacking for anything so I cannot help but have a heart full of gratefulness.

We have had amazing weather here in Minnesota. In fact I hung clothes outside on the line to dry and the kids played outside without jackets on Tuesday. I don’t remember drying clothes outside in November ever nor do I recall having my kids outside playing without jackets. Nonetheless, weather that is more familiar for this time of year is moving in.

As it gets colder, and with talk of snow, I cannot help but think of those out in the cold. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking of those standing out in the cold with no place to go. Here I sit in my warm home, with love surrounding me, while I sit at my computer that is hooked up to the internet. Which seems completely unfair.

Sure we could argue bad choices and all those things that bring someone to be homeless or to be living in poverty but the bottom line is that it does not sit right with me.

We might not have a lot but as the holidays approach we as a family must figure out a way to help those that are less fortunate than ourselves. How could we not? This year we will have to be more creative. I’ve offered to unplug the internet as hard as that would be to be disconnected. I have a feeling my dear husband will work his ass off even harder to keep this one luxury for me…all because he cares for me to have this here.

I don’t share things with you in order for you to think of me as good. The other day, someone referred to me as a “do gooder” and it cut to my core. It felt like she had slapped me in the face. After talking, I found out that she hadn’t meant it in a negative way. The thing is I am the way I am because of where I’ve been.

I may have a bleeding heart but I am not some “ do gooder”. I do because I care from the depths of my heart. I do because I care and because I’ve walked in these shoes…shoes that didn’t seem to fit but were mine just the same. Just maybe if I told about some of the places I’ve been, you would want nothing to do with me and this blog.

It may or may not surprise you that on two separate occasions I almost brought an elderly homeless person home with me back to Minnesota. Once in North Carolina and once in Florida. Both of them were very elderly and to this day it haunts me that I didn’t. Maybe some day I will tell you about them.

Here I am, on a late Friday night, writing from the warmth & quiet of my home, waiting for the snow to fall…all the while praying for those in need of shelter, food or a person that gives a damn. I would not for one second want to be anywhere else but here. My heart is abundantly full with all that is mine yet aches in knowing there are those hurting and without tonight.

I hope & pray with all of my heart that wherever you and your loved ones are, your heart is full with all that is yours…that you have a soft place to lay your head tonight, shelter from the cold(or from the heat :), food in your bellies and are surrounded by people that love you…and that just maybe you would find someone to share your abundance with.

Sending you much love & big hugs, Lori

Thanksgiving Comes First

2010-11-02T12:38:00.001-05:00

I have a secret. Well, not necessarily a secret because if you know me in real life or read this blog post, last December, then this will come as no surprise to you.

Christmas is my least favorite time of year. I am already starting to feel that dread I feel, when it’s this time of the year.

It’s not that I don’t celebrate the birth of Christ. As a believer, it has personal meaning for me to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I just don’t believe in the commercial version of it. It doesn’t mean that I am against having fun & celebrating Christmas cheer. It doesn’t mean that I am against gift giving and all things red, green and white.

The post I wrote last year sums up how I feel quite well…

“What it comes down to is this…I don’t like the commercialism that rules from October until January. Even before Halloween, Christmas decorations are out. The commercials on TV are pushing to buy, buy, buy!!!! I heard Christmas music playing in Wal-Mart before Halloween for goodness sakes. Are you flippin kidding me? We ran into the mall a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving and already the mall Santa and Mrs. Clause had a long line of children waiting to see them. Thanksgiving barely gets recognized, and we are blasted into red, green and white.

I don’t like this big fat crazy whirlwind of commercialism. The pressure on the stores to sell. The push to buy. The bigger the better. The pressure to spend money we don’t really have or money we should be saving. Pressure we put on ourselves or let others put on us. The push for all of this to come earlier and earlier. It used to be that Santa didn’t come out until after Thanksgiving.”

I know some of you don’t have Thanksgiving in your country and those of you in Canada celebrated in October. But, for those of us in the United States, what happened to celebrating Thanksgiving first? Whatever happened to celebrating this holiday without having all things Christmas pushed upon us before we’ve even sat down to Thanksgiving dinner?

Regardless of where you live, do you not get tired of Christmas commercialism pushed on you earlier and earlier? Or is it not like this in the country you live? If it’s not, maybe I need to move my family there.

Christmas used to be magical. The focus was on families & friends being together…decorating a tree and putting the star on top…baking and sharing our goods with one another….Christmas programs and parties at church and school…nativity displays…sitting on Santa’s lap and whispering in his ear… a gift or two and singing carols. It used to be about so much more than all of this commercialism.

I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. The selfishness that is bred to want more and more…and bigger and better…to expect more and more and bigger and better.

Where does it stop?

And where does this come from?

I know I sound like a poop on the fun parade. I know it’s fun to give. Hell, I love to give presents, so it’s not about that. The thing is, most of us that are going to be getting gifts already have way too much stuff already.Most of us, will buy things for those that already have way too much stuff.

Christmas is suppose to be about “peace and goodwill towards men” and about joy and caring and spreading the holiday cheer.

For those of us that are believers, it’s suppose to be celebrating the birth of Christ.”

The day after Thanksgiving, all hell breaks loose. People lose all good sense and manners in search of the perfect deals. How ironic is all this pushing and shoving, as Christmas music plays in the background?

When I am out and about in the stores, I don’t see the spreading of peace and goodwill towards men. I don’t see all that much joy. And I certainly don’t see a whole lot of holiday cheer being spread. I surely don’t see Christ in the pushing and shoving.

Instead, I see sadness. I see confusion. I see rudeness. I see meanness. I see anger. I see lots and lots of selfishness. I see people pushing each other and hear of people getting hurt, fighting over a toy or some sale item. I see a lot of overwhelmed people that don’t want to be there, spending money they don’t really have but don’t have a clue how to step off this crazy train.

I personally think, this must make Jesus sad.

While shopping for household things the other day, I over heard a woman scream humiliations at her husband. I listened to people talk loud and rudely on their cell phones. I witnessed parents trying to get out of control kids to behave. I watched an elderly couple get pushed out of line. The worst was over hearing a younger mom tell her friend that they wouldn’t be having Christmas because they have no money. Hearing the defeat and sadness in her voice broke my heart. I watch all these things while listening to Christmas music playing in the background.

And yes, I think this must make Jesus sad…sad that it has come down to getting so stressed that we act like complete idiots or think that there will be no Christmas if there are no gifts.

This here is at the heart of why it is hard for me to be happy for Christmas…a holiday that has become more about money and gifts then anything else.

It is hard for me to get into the spirit of Christmas joy when I see so much sadness and brokenness around me.

I know those that barely make it without the added expense of buying presents. I know those going without and I know their desperate prayers for these holidays to pass quickly so that it will be all over. I know people struggling with illness and depression. I know people that have no money to go to the doctor let alone buy a present for their child.

It’s hard to be happy about a birthday party when everyone’s not invited.

Just imagine for one moment to be one of these people in which hard times have fallen. It’s hard enough on a regular day but can you just imagine what it is like to walk in their shoes as the holidays approach?

I challenge each one of us to do something during the upcoming holidays, that would make a difference in someone life…something that would make someone feel like they’ve been invited to the party.

It doesn’t have to be big or out of the ordinary. I guarantee you that every small act you do will make a difference.

Wouldn’t it be great to take the commercial out of Christmas? To make it what it used to be about?

Would you like to see the push of Christmas before Thanksgiving stopped? Would you like the retailers to stop pushing Christmas on you before you’ve sat down to Thanksgiving dinner?

Suldog came up with this genius idea of a Thanksgiving Comes First campaign. I first read this post from Joanna, so I had to check him out. I was wowed! :)

In Jim’s words…

“I do this, around this same time every year, because I truly believe the cheapening of our holidays can be stopped. Do I believe it will happen right now, because of this post? No. It will take your help, and help from your friends, and then help from their friends.”

And…

“Should you be as incensed as I am concerning Christmas schlock, [hitting stores way too early] please post a "Thanksgiving Comes First" entry on your blog. Write from the heart. Everybody who visits your blog will find out how you feel. My guess is they'll agree with you. Perhaps they'll also write about it, and so will their friends, and so forth. I hope that, if enough of us do this, we might make some small impact.”

I really do encourage you to check out his blog and read Jim’s whole post. If you feel the same way and would like to send the message to retailers that we the people are fed up, please write a post so the word can be spread.

Year after year, I avoid going to malls or stores at this time of year, in an effort to avoid having the Christmas joy sucked out of me. Yet, I cannot walk into the store for regular items, without being bombarded with the irony of it all.

I am advocating for not supporting the retailers that are pushing Christmas before it’s due time.

We must stop allowing them to do this. We are the consumers and we need to send them a message.

“Thanksgiving Comes First!”

Until next time, hugs and love, Lori

My little trick or treaters

2010-10-31T11:48:00.001-05:00

Happy Halloween

to you and yours,

from my little monsters & I!

To say they love our pumpkin family is an understatement.

The little trouble makers cannot leave them alone.

Poor pumpkins.

On Friday, our downtown businesses opened up for trick or treating so the little’s got a chance to practice their trick or treating skills…meaning=remembering to say thank you.

My handsome King, & pretty little lady bug

& adorable pirate

& cute baseball player(this is my son’s girlfriends son, who I hope is my grandson some day. :)

They did a wonderful job of using their manners.

They are over the top excited for more ~~candy~~ fun.

Since we rarely buy candy, this is causing them to run in circles & jump on their beds in excitement.

Oh dear.

I am sure they will drive me crazy all day…

Asking, “Is it time to go?” or “Can I have just one piece of candy?”

These little trouble makers sure have a lot of fun making trouble and turning this house upside down.

They think they are so smart with all their little tricks.

They don’t realize that I was once a trouble maker just like them.

I remember when I was a little trouble maker just like them…trick or treating…we wouldn’t leave until it was good and dark…I remember having to do tricks for my candy…I remember how each house would have to guess who we were before they gave us our candy…back then they handed out regular sized candy bars and homemade treats like caramel apples and popcorn balls …we made our costumes instead of buying them at a store…we brought homemade treats our mom’s made to our school Halloween parties…we told ghost stories and had fun getting scared…we weren’t worried about predators or people poisoning our candy…we came home with full brown paper bags and dumped out our candy and stuffed ourselves with our favorite treats.

Those were the days.

Then, for a period of time, I believed Halloween was bad. Oh the shame of letting other tell you what to believe. Thankfully, I learned to think for myself and no longer think it’s bad. Even though I still respect those that do.

Thankfully, we live in a small community that allows us to keep some of those fun traditions from Halloweens past.

Hope you have a wonderful day even if you aren’t participating in Halloween festivities.

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treat!

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Chips aren’t just for playing poker

2010-10-28T16:57:00.001-05:00

Starting today I am implementing a new discipline/reward system for the 3 little’s….out of necessity and for the sanity of all the adults that live in this house…or at least for me, who is with them the most these days. :)

Actually, I should say that it’s new to the little’s but it’s something I did way back when my 5, now grown children, were growing up. The thing is it really works and I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to remember it. :)

So..today’s the day.

We have poker chips…a different color for each of them, with the Letter to their name written on them. I even have the chips I used for each of my older kids. The little’s happen to think that’s pretty cool.

They will earn chips for good listening and behavior, doing their daily chores such as making their bed, putting clothes away and cleaning up toys, good manners, playing good together and by themselves in their rooms, doing things without being asked, being cooperative, coloring or other type of crafts, reading books, getting physical exercise, helping when asked…basically anything that is positive….and us catching them using positive behavior and making good choices.

Since little man is in school, we will be giving him chips for going to school and choosing good behaviors and staying out of the better choice chair, doing his homework, putting his belongings away, eating his lunch at school, sharing about school…ect.

All of these things give them many opportunities to earn chips.

These chips will earn them TV, computer or special time away with one of us, such as to the store or farm or doing an activity with us, of their choosing. Down the road it will earn them more opportunities to do things, like go to a friends house or to have a friend over.

They will put their chips in the bucket whenever they want to watch something on TV or a video.

One half hour show or of computer time will cost them 3 chips. A movie will cost 10 chips. Getting to go some place special, like the park or for hot chocolate, will cost 10 chips also. Having pajama day will cost them 20 chips. Believe me, little lady will be happy to do this one, since she fights getting dressed EVERY single day.

Just as they can earn chips by positive things, they can lose chips for negative behaviors. Depending on the greatness of the infraction, they will lose a certain amount of chips.

If they lose all their chips and then have an infraction which requires them to pay me a chip or more, they will have to go to time away or the better choice chair, until they can think of some things they can do to earn more chips. Once they have paid me back, they will be encouraged to think of more ways to earn chips, such as a sincere apology or doing an extra chore or doing something nice for someone.

After school and nap time today, they each decorated and put their name on their own can. This is what they will keep their chips in as they earn them.

Even though we mainly let them watch the PBS channel, they don’t really ever just sit while watching and it is educational, I don’t like them watching that much TV. I want them to get physical exercise by playing and reading books and using their imaginations daily.

I also want to lessen the negative behaviors and get them to see the rewards of making good choices. I do not expect them to be perfect behaved children but I do have high expectations for them.

It just seems like with the change of weather and us being inside more, the TV is coming on more often and they have been acting up more towards each other. It seems I or one of the other adults in this house are constantly having to get after at least one of them for negative behaviors or for not doing their chores.

It is no secret that little lady is a handful & a half and right now she is in much need of an attitude adjustment. I’m not kidding. How can one little girl be so darn sweet, funny & cute one minute and so impossible and exasperating the next?

The other night when I was to my wits end with her, I started to think about what I did when my other kids were young…and then the light came on and I remembered how effective this had been for not only nipping the TV watching, but encouraging them to make better choices. But most of all, it kept me from having to get after them every other minute.

I’ve talked to the little’s about the chips and what we are going to do with them, for the past couple of days. Today I dug and found the chips. Hip hip hooray!

I started with the younger 2 this morning. So far they each earned enough to watch one 30 minute show. Their behaviors this morning were much better and I didn’t have to get after them because all I had to do is take a chip away. Little lady had 10 chips and within 15 minutes lost all of them. Ugh! It didn’t take her long to think of ways to earn more chips so I think she has the idea.

Let’s just say she woke up from her nap very determined to earn some more chips. After all, she has been waiting to watch It’s the great pumpkin Charlie Brown, which airs tonight. She is absolutely crazy about Snoopy and is right now at this moment, working very hard to ensure that she has the 6 chips needed for her viewing pleasure.

Wish us luck with this. I am sure we will have to tweak it a bit along the way but at least it’s a start. I really hope it works as well as it did the first time around.

Tell me, what are or were, some of your little tricks to encourage good behaviors in your children? How do you or did you handle TV watching for your children? Do you or did you have a child that tested your limits often? How did you handle them?

Please share what has worked or is working for you! . I am always looking for new idea’s! Thank you!

Hope your Thursday has been as thrilling as mine has. :)

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Closets

2010-10-25T11:39:00.001-05:00

I have a thing for closets.

When I was little, I remember hiding in the closet from my father frequently. I was scared to death of him. I would hide in my closet or under my bed and put my hands over my ears in effort to shut out his booming voice.

I felt safe in the closet.

I was told that he loved me and he probably did but he didn’t know how to show it. Still as a young girl I didn’t understand this. It didn’t feel like love to me. I always knew he didn’t like me. I remember wanting him to like me and trying to do things that would make him happy with me.

As long as I can remember he was always angry. Unless he was drinking. Thank God, for the most part he was a happy drunk.

I remember him telling me that I was bad when I was very little. I never understood what bad meant but some how I knew that wasn’t good. I just knew that I was a bad kid.

When he was angry he lashed out at us kids. When he was extremely angry he would go into such a rage that I swear caused him to black out because he’d have no memory of doing these things.

To this day, I am sure he doesn’t remember much of what he did.

Thus I learned early on, to hide as soon as I see the signs of his anger. If I was unable to literally hide in my closet, I would mentally go there.

I learned early on to remain silent and to show no emotions. And no matter what happens, never ever fight back.

I learned to disappear and to fade into the background, where I was not noticed.

I also learned that there was no rhyme or reason to his insanity. What made him upset one day would not the next.

I believed as any little girl would, the things my father said to me and that includes the names he called me. Being called a slut or a whore before I even knew what sex was left me confused. Hearing that he never wanted me…another girl, broke my heart. I believed him when he said I was a mistake.

Being called a “retard like your brother” hurt to my core. Seeing him hurt my brother, made me want to literally kill him. I think a large part of me despised him for the way he treated my brother who could not help being “slow” or retarded, as people who were mentally challenged, were once called. With everything in me I hated him for all of this.

I hated that he used God to justify his actions. I hated that I was made to go to church when it seemed like such hypocrisy.

I had an older brother that would preach to me that there was no existence of God, while I did chores with him in the barn, which made perfect sense since I had cried out to God time and time again, and he surely had never answered my cries.

I hated that he used humiliation and shame to silence all of us around him.

I hated that he was so controlling and thought he was right about everything.

I knew that no matter what I did, it would never be good enough.

I hated that he used his bigness to make me feel so small and insignificant.

I hated that he could act so nice and friendly to strangers and those outside the family.

The only thing worse then getting “it” was seeing one of my siblings get “it”. I hated watching or listening to it. I hated seeing him and my older brother wrestling, and punching each other, in the middle of the farm yard.

Always wanting to scream “stop it” but doing nothing. Silently hiding away, waiting for it to end.

All I wanted was for him to stop…to just leave if he was so unhappy being our dad.

I used alcohol, smoking, cutting, starvation, sex and drugs to make myself numb and to feel better.

The very last time that my father ever slapped me was when I was 18, after I had told him that I was pregnant a second time. (My first baby was still born when I was toward the end of my 6th month of pregnancy.) I had been down this road with him before and feared his reaction. Of course he called me a whore. This was also the last time he called me a name like this.

I didn’t expect anything different from him except this time I responded back to him. When he called me a whore, I said to him, “Mom was 17 when she got pregnant and you two were not married, so did that make Mom a whore too?” I probably deserved the slap I got. To this day, it is still worth it.

I’m not sure why, but I never questioned why my Mom did nothing to stop him. I don’t ever remember thinking I could go to her. I think something inside of me knew she had enough and didn’t need to deal with me. As I grew older, I assumed she had learned to keep quiet in order to keep the peace with him. It was better if she said or did nothing. Yet, for a long time I hated her for this.

I have forgiven my Dad and my Mom. I no longer hate or despise them. They did the best they could with what they knew. I know that their intent was not to hurt me.

I am not real close with them now but I get along with them pretty well. I see them differently now because I understand so much more than I did back then. I realize they have their own sets of hurts and reacted out of them. Yet, I still fear my Dad. And I still doubt that he likes me.

I no longer justify what my father did or my Mom’s lack of response, but I love them in spite of it. I will not deny that these things had lasting affects on me. I have spent a life time trying to get over them and undo their affects.

One after another, I sought out men that ended up being replica’s of my Dad. I even married some of them. Being married to or living with the enemy, comes with it’s own price tags.

I stayed in these relationships for as long as I could because it’s what I knew to do and because I ALWAYS thought there was something wrong with me that brought out their meanness. I did everything in my power to do all the right things so that they would be nice.

I kept it a secret from everyone because I was ashamed.

I remember asking my brother, “How do guys like this find me? How do they know I will tolerate their meanness?”

The last time I was in an abusive relationship, I was defending his actions to a counselor and trying to justify his meanness with the fact that he loved me. His response was to get really close to me and look me in the eyes and say, “Of course he loves you and one of these days he is going to love you to death.” These words were the beginning to my waking up from my slumber.

Waking out of my slumber or the cycle of living in abuse was like having part of my body cut off.

I no longer use alcohol, smoking, cutting, starvation, sex or drugs to numb myself or to feel better about my myself or my life.

Taking off my tinted glasses has enabled me to see people and life in a whole new light.

I no longer consider myself a victim. Getting rid of the victim mentality has not only enabled me to take responsibility for my life, it has left me free to choose good people to spend it with.

I am married to my friend instead of my enemy.

I no longer think I deserve meanness or that I bring it out in others.

I am still a work in progress.

I am still working on accepting myself for who I am and seeing myself as others see me.

I still have a hard time being around strong, controlling or angry people. I still find myself struggling with seeking approval and feeling good enough.

There were events that took place and choices I made during this time of my life, that I have never dealt with. They are my dirty little secrets that I keep locked up in my closet.

Someday, I hope to have enough courage to kick these things out of the closet too.

I believe that our experiences and the events in our lives help shape who we are, so I tell you these things today, not to gain sympathy or to have you feel sorry for me but to have you understand who I am and where I’ve come from.

I know I have come a long ways. I know I have a ways to go.

Still, there is not a day that goes by that I am not completely and absolutely thankful for the life I live now.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Changes

2010-10-22T08:50:00.001-05:00

I was hanging clothes on the line the other day and as I breathed in the fresh autumn air, I looked at the beauty that surrounded me. I can hardly believe that it is almost the end of October and I am still hanging clothes to dry on the line outside. This is amazing for Minnesota. If we’re lucky it will last until Halloween. I have no doubt change is a coming and the heat will be getting turned on very soon. I know many have theirs turned on…we are just a little stubborn when it comes to turning on the heat for the first time. Your cold? Put on another sweatshirt. :)

I got some good news recently…more changes are a coming…

I am pretty sure that my youngest son is moving back home from Florida in December. He finished 2 years of college in Northern Florida and then moved to live with my daughter and her family in South Florida, while he waited to get into a police academy. He’s been working full time and waiting to get into school.

The thing is, there is an excellent police school right down the road from us, in a nearby town. Actually it’s suppose to be one of the best schools and kids come from all over to attend it. When he moved away for college he wasn’t planning on going into this field of work but during his second year of school, he decided this is what he wants to do.

We have an apartment in our basement, which my daughter and her son already stay in and there is room for him. I am sure it is hard for him to think of coming back to live with his mom and step dad but I think getting free room and board as long as he is in school and working, sounds pretty good to him right now.

The 3 little rugrats are crazy about him but I am sure they will drive him a little nuts.

He always has the option of getting his own place if peace & quiet are what he wants.

Regardless I will be so happy to have him closer! Is it bad that I am doing the happy dance?

Now if only I could convince my other kids to move closer. :) I really do want my kids to have their wings and to fly to where ever their hearts desire(and I support them 100%)but I enjoy them so much…and will not lie, I would be happy to see them more often.

The bonus is that he will be bringing his young dog, Riley! We have been talking about getting a puppy but were leaning towards waiting until spring so that we could avoid training a puppy out in the cold white stuff. This means I get out of having to potty train a puppy. Darn.

It will be a big change to have a dog under foot again. Little lady is an animal lover so this might put to rest her persistence in asking for a pet pig.

The little’s and I are super duper excited. I am told he is a very gentle dog, that is great with kids. After losing my dog Molly of 17 years, a couple of years ago, I have never stopped missing her. She was the sweetest dog ever and thought I could never find a dog as good as her. My son tells me that Riley is as good and sweet as our Molly. We will see. :)

My daughter, the one that lives with us and had been taking care of the little’s got a job, doing something she enjoys, working with mentally challenged adults. I will be caring for her son while she works and she will watch the little’s on one of the days that I am working.

It’s MEA here in Minnesota, so no school for the little’s. Today we are hunting for Halloween costumes. Little man wants to be a king. Little lady wants to be a pig or a flower. Really?

I am so good at waiting until the last minute to do these kind of things. I wonder if it has anything to do with my dislike of shopping?

I might have to drag my dear daughter (who is smart and got her sons costume weeks ago)along since she is good at shopping and has an abundance of the creative gene.

In preparation for Halloween she has been doing things like this…

…and this…

…so that our front steps is looking a little like fall & Halloween…

I hope your Friday is fabulous.

I hope you have a wildly wonderful weekend. Do something you enjoy. Spread some happiness & joy. Laugh. Play.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Charter for Compassion

2010-10-21T09:26:00.001-05:00

The other night I read this post by Kashions Mom, that made me cry. It was about a young boy that is being called “gay” because of the sneakers and glasses he wears and because he would rather play using his imagination then play football. Very sad. But thankfully he has a mother that listens and that has built up his confidence enough that it doesn’t stop him. She is his safe place to fall.

What about all the kids that don’t have this? What about all those that suffer silently and have no one to tell?

All night long I thought about this. And all the other stories I’ve read this past week about this very subject.

I try to wrap my mind around this whole concept of bullying and meanness and I can’t seem to get it.

I see people living lifestyles I don’t agree with.

Does that give me a right or a reason to hurt them? Does it make me better then them?

Absolutely no & no.

I hear of people bullying against gays and often times in the name of religion or righteousness and I’m left wondering where in the bible it say’s this is okay? I wonder how sad all this meanness must make God and how tired he must be of people using his name to do whatever they want.

Bullying should have no room in schools or playgrounds or work places or on the internet.

How do we get more parents to talk to their kids about these things?

And stand by their talk?

And who talks to the adult bullies?

How do we get this insanity called bullying to stop????

For years, schools have said they are addressing it but it continues.

Hanging up signs in schools that say no bullying or saying they have zero tolerance for bullies is a start but that obviously is not near enough… we the people, have to keep taking the next step…acting on it and not accepting anything less from our children.

We can’t just talk about bullying.

We must have zero tolerance for it in our homes. We have to demand respect for our homes, and from all that live in them, to one another. If we allow our children to express meanness to one another or to us or us to them, how can they know it’s not okay outside of our homes? If we make room for meanness in our homes we give them the message that when we are angry or disagree it is okay to inflict hurt with our fist or our words.

Are we waiting until it’s too late to teach these things to our children? Shouldn’t we be teaching these things to our children before we send them off to school?

Why is it that we put the responsibility off on the teachers or schools to teach this, when these are our children?

Shouldn’t we be teaching our children that hands are for loving not hurting? Teaching them that our voices are not meant for cruelness or attacking but for speaking love and truth.

Whatever happened to teaching our young children to treat others how they want to be treated?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We have to build our young one’s up with confidence and self acceptance & respect so that they can build a strong voice from within. One that speaks up in the face of adversity and doesn’t lay down and take it. All before they walk the halls of a school, play on a playground or ride a school bus.

Empowering the children so that the bully’s power will be less and just maybe there would be less of them. And just maybe the teachers could do more of what they desire to do, teach our children, instead of having to deal with the bullies and those they hurt.

Yet, I cannot help but think that something is missing in those that bully.

What is within them that causes them to commit such senseless meanness onto an innocent victim? Meanness comes from somewhere. Someone doesn’t act like this for no reason.

Are they just unaware? Have they not been taught any differently?

Do these kids that bully come from homes in which bullying is allowed? I used to think so but have learned that isn’t always the case.

Do these kids that bully not have someone that loves them enough to help them stop? Or do these parents suffer silently not knowing how to make their child stop?

What is the missing link?

Who helps the bully? Who will reach out to the bully and show them how to stop?

If we do nothing more than point our fingers at the bully’s we resolve nothing.

How do we respond to the bully so that they stop once and for all?

One of my greatest goals as a parent the first time around was teaching my children while they were still young, to be compassionate & tolerant to all people regardless of race, creed, color, gender or sexual preference. This continues to be my goal as I teach my little’s the value of compassion & tolerance.

I fear what may come for little man, with his beautiful brown skin, in our mostly white small rural community. So it becomes even more important to teach all of this to him.

I am teaching him to love & respect himself…which means the color of his skin and everything else that makes up him. Teaching him how to feel confident in himself even if someone tries to destroy it.

Still, I will teach him to have compassion for all people, including the ignorant and those that are blind to the truth.

I have seen this video on 3 other blogs in the last week. Every single time I’ve watched it, it causes my heart to do a somersault.

What if we the people, learned a better way of handling the bullies in our world?

What if we the people, did more than just talk about it?

What if we the people, started doing this in our homes?

Please take the time to read this post called Tolerance by my daughter Brittany. It touched my heart. Sometimes my kids knock my socks off and this is one of those times. Thank you Brittany.

Please take time to talk to the kids in your life…and to listen to them. Please take time to help them embrace differences, not only in others but themselves.

Please help them to believe in themselves enough that the bullies lose their power. Please show them what it means to tolerate, love and to have compassion for all people.

Please, believe them when they tell you that they are being bullied. Don’t send them back for more until you know they are safe. Please be the soft place for kids to fall or come to.

Please teach your children how to stand up not only for themselves but for others being bullied.

Please, if your child is a bully, get them help and don’t stop until this issue is resolved. Help them. Please don’t say “Boys will be boys.” or “Girls will be girls.” in the face of your child's meanness. That is a lie.

Please, if you see bullying happening don’t look the other way. Instead look it in the eye’s and do something.

Let us be the change and the compassion. It begins with you and me.

Please.

Many of you have shared your own horror stories of yourself or your children being bullied. I am so sorry.

Please don’t stop sharing your stories because they need to be heard.

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Breaking the Silence

2010-10-18T09:11:00.001-05:00

I went to my monthly support group for relative caregivers recently. For 1 1/2 hours we come together for one common purpose, raising our grandchildren or another relatives child and for that short time we feel heard and understood.

We all are pretty isolated in our own lives. Distance, jobs, lack of time and raising little one’s that zap extra energy, keep us from getting together outside of group. I drive 45 minutes to attend and others live in different directions.

Listening to these other grandparents talk about the same issues that we deal with, helps me to realize that we do not walk this road alone. Hearing them express their own guilt, frustrations, hurt,sadness, exhaustion, isolation, worries, and nightmares with adult children is heart breaking yet it leaves me with a better perspective.

Listening to everyone share, reminded me that even though this is becoming more common, many of us still feel isolated and misunderstood. Many of us still hide in shame.

In 2000, it was estimated that 6.5 million children in the US, or one in 12 children (8%), are living in relative-headed households. Of these, 2.4 million children, or 3.3% of the children in the United States, are living in relatives’ homes without either parent present. That was 10 years ago and I am told these numbers are much higher now.

Many of us are alone and isolated because we don’t know anyone else doing what we are doing in our own communities. Most of don’t have friends that have little one’s. Most of us struggle with fitting in with people in our own age group because most of them have no desire to have people with little one’s over to their houses, let alone wanting to come over to our homes that are now filled with toys and noise.

People our age are passed needing babysitters, bedtimes or helping with homework. The people with young children, are young and don’t seem to have a desire to hang out with older people like us because they can’t get past the age difference.

Most of us are trying to fit in jobs, keeping up our homes which include cooking, cleaning and laundry, maintaining relationships with our other children and grandchildren, along with this task of caring for little one’s, or young one’s that need help with homework or teenagers that are dating and learning how to drive a car. Balancing all of this at an older age, comes with it’s own set of challenges.

Most of us struggle with our children or step children that have put us in this position. Many of us struggle with resenting them and often times end up being estranged from them. Many of us worry about our children or step children and the choices they continue to make.

We struggle with guilt over where we went wrong. We blame ourselves for the bad choices our children have made because we must have done something wrong right? We compare them to our other children that are living well and have made better choices.

When other people, especially those close to us, talk negatively or put down our children or step children it hurts us. They are still our children.

Many struggle with things being so different from when we raised our own children. Many struggle with feeling badly for their grandchildren so don’t discipline the way we should because they feel sorry for them. Many work hard to make up for the loss these children have experienced and spoil them with giving them everything they want.

Often times we are judged and feel misunderstood. Often times we don’t know how to explain to others why we have our grandchildren. Or why some of our grandchildren now call us Mommy and Daddy.

Some are in their 70’s and 80’s, still working because they need the income to raise their grandchildren. Some are younger like my husband and I are and people assume because we are younger, they are our children by birth.

Many of us struggle financially to keep up. While there is some help, depending on the state you live in, it is not very much. Ironically if we were not related to these children we would get a lot more money to help with their care. The woman that leads this support group told us that grandparents and other relative care givers save the government and it’s tax payers a lot of money by doing what we are doing.

Many of us have ongoing legal battles which drain the savings accounts or any extra money. Daycare costs, and the extra things children need were not things we thought we would be spending our money on at this time in life.

Yet, most of us are doing it quite willingly because we love our grandchildren and our children that birthed them. We do it because we want to see our grandchildren happy, safe and loved. We do it because we want the very best for them.

Most of us start out raising our grandchildren because we want to help our children and think we will be helping out for a short time. Most of us don’t go into this thinking it will be permanent but often times it is. Most of us don’t expect that our grandparent role will become one of being Daddy and Mommy but for some of us it does.

All of these things cause us to be isolated. Sometimes it is easier to hide then to face all the looks or questions or judgment. Sometimes it is just too hard to get our friends and families to understand what we are doing, let alone strangers or acquaintances.

Yet most of us are happy to be doing what we are doing. We choose to do this task willingly in spite of the exhaustion and the sacrifice this means to our lives. We experience the same daily joys and happiness that traditional families experience. We may be older and more tired but we are just as happy.

Doing this balancing act at an older age does come with some benefits. We have wisdom of having parented before so we know a few tricks that newer parents haven’t learned yet. We are a little more relaxed. We know which battles to choose and which to let go. We may be more tired then younger parents but we go into this task with experience.

Most of us never planned on playing the role of parent again. We did not intentionally take our grandchildren away from our children or step children because we wanted to play house. Most likely it was them manipulating us parents to raise their children, without any rights. The problems come when we choose to stand up to them, because we want some rights to keep our grandchildren's rights to a safe, loving and consistent home. Our children or step children are not victims of us mean grandparents. As much as we may be victimized by our children, the only real victims here are the children.

We have been raising little man and little lady for over 4 years now. That is all of little lady’s life and most of little man’s. My step daughter is the one that choose this. She is the one that handed them to us, after we had already been caring for them 90% of the time. She is the one that claimed she never wanted to be a mother. She is the one that flew away to another state to get her life together and to do so gave us custody. To only turn around and fight us in court again. Thankfully, here in Minnesota, judges rule in favor of grandparents and other relative caregivers, when it’s in the best interest of the children.

One of the worst feelings in the world is fighting your own child or step child in court over the best interest of your grandchildren.

We have full custody of them and that will not change unless we choose to hand them back to her. My step daughter has a list of things that must happen before she has custody and so far she has done none of them. If she decided to take us back to court to get custody, she would have a hard time finding a judge here in Minnesota, that would change it. In Minnesota, once custody is established and been maintained over time, unless a good cause against us relative caregivers can be proven to change it, judges won’t change it.

We do not bad mouth my step daughter, nor do we keep her from them. We have pictures up of her in our home. We do not allow her in our home at this time because of the negative affects it has had on the little’s due to her behavior in the past. At this time she has supervised visits with them, away from our home, but they are not frequent.

As angry as she can make me, I still credit her for loving them enough to hand them over to people she knew would love and care for them.

The hardest thing in dealing with my step daughter is her victim mentality. No matter what happens or gets said, she thinks everything is against her. She takes responsibility for nothing. The next hardest is her “It’s all about me.” thought process. While most people, when they become parents change this, she didn’t. When we become parents it becomes about the innocent little one’s needs. She has struggled to understand this concept.

For all those that wonder, we did as much as we possibly could to help her to succeed as a Mommy. We encouraged and supported her. I knew even before I married her father, that something was wrong. I denied that feeling inside of me. When she gave birth to little lady she showed no emotions or bond with her. When it only got worse and not any better, I tried to believe it would get better. Obviously it didn’t.

At this point, since they have been with us for so long, it is very unlikely that we will hand them back to her. After the last time in which we allowed her to take them without supervision(over a year ago), they came back to us emotionally hurting. She said many inappropriate things to them but one of the things she told them was that she was going to do the things she needed to do and get them back from us. (Which would have been fine and dandy if she actually meant it and did something about it but she didn’t.) Little man cried every night for weeks after she said this to them. Saying things like, “I don’t want to leave my Mommy and Daddy.” And “I’m scared I’m going to have to leave you.”

They have bonded with us completely. They started calling us Mommy and Daddy a couple of years ago but they also know we are their grandparents. After consulting with a counselor about this issue, she helped me to see how important and healthy it is for little children to have a Mommy and a Daddy.

They know their birth Mommy whom they call the “other Mommy”. We are what they know. This home is what they know as home. We are committed to doing this long term because at this point we worry that losing the only home and family they really know, would have negative affects on them.

I will not lie. I had hoped and prayed that she would have done all the right things and gotten them back by now. We did not need two more kids but two kids surely needed us.

Two kids that needed a Mommy and a Daddy to fall completely in love with them and give them the safe, happy and healthy home they deserve.

Now that we’ve completely fallen in love with them, it makes it all harder and more complicated. The longer they have been with us, they have become our children. Yet, it is all about them, not their birth Mommy and not about us.

We will continue to fight for the little’s and make the best possible decisions for their best interest. If my step daughter were to get her life together at some point in the future, we will likely consult with a professional to figure out what would be the best for the little’s. If she never gets her life together we are committed to being Daddy and Mommy for the long haul.

This has been a painful yet joyful journey that we have taken on with all of our hearts. Just as many other grandparent’s, aunts, uncles and even cousins are taking, in every community and state across our country. To those of you that live outside of the United States, is this an issue where you live?

My hope is that more people could be educated about this subject and reach out positively to those that have taken on this role. It is a lonely road to travel and your words of encouragement or acts of support would mean a lot to those in this position.

Thank you for reading this long post about a subject very sensitive to my heart. I am trying to break the silence so that those of us that hide in shame can stop being so isolated and lonely.

As always, thank you for listening.

Hope your Monday is marvelous.

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori

Friday Funnies

2010-10-15T07:26:00.001-05:00

The main thing in one’s own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry. Maya Angelou

All 3 of the little’s make me laugh with their antics but it is no secret that little lady is especially funny and has a way of not only cracking me up but anyone within ear shot of her.

Especially this 3 year old little boy…her partner in crime…

His laughter is so contagious that you can’t help but laugh with him.

Last week I was going through old photo’s for a picture board I was making for my brothers party. I came across one of my husband and I at our wedding. I showed it to little lady and said “Look, here’s a picture of when I got married to someone I really love.” She asks “To Daddy?” I said, “Yep, This is when Daddy was totally crazy about me.” To which she quickly exclaimed, “ Now I know why Daddy acts so crazy all the time!”

This past Monday evening I tried to talk my husband into going with little lady to her parent child class so that I could stay home and watch the football game.

Little lady would not hear of it so off we went to school.

When we arrived at her classroom, the teachers greeted us and asked her how she was doing to which she said, “Mommy didn’t want to come with me… (Oh dear lord)…She wanted to stay home and watch the Vikings. She tried to get Daddy to come with me but I said, no way.” They thought this was quite funny.

They asked her if she liked the Vikings too and she says loudly, “Of course I do!” Then she turns to me and say’s, “We need to go back home so I can put my Vikings jersey on….we forgot to put my jersey on since it’s Viking day.” I told her, “If we go back home I’m staying home and watching the game.”

A short time later, we were sitting in circle time and the teacher was explaining what we were suppose to do at each of the stations. Little lady turns to me and say’s loudly, “Are you paying attention to what she’s saying so you know what your doing this time?” (Yep I’ve made a few booboo’s and she’s called me on them. And yes I was paying attention…I just have a short memory :)

A while later, one of the little boys exclaims to one of the teachers, “I got to ride in Daddy’s big truck to school tonight!” In response, Little lady shouts, “I rode in my Mommy’s swagger wagon to school!”(Thank you dear daughter for teaching the little’s to call our van the swagger wagon.)

A couple of evenings ago, I thought I would try using the heating pad on my neck while I relaxed in the chair. Little lady came to sit on my lap and seeing the heating pad on my neck, she laughs and screams, “Silly Mommy what are you doing with the yogurt maker on your neck?”(I use the heating pad to incubate yogurt and here she thought that was it’s only purpose.) She thought it was pretty hilarious that I would put a yogurt maker on my neck.

Earlier this week, little lady over heard me telling someone that I cannot wait until I can start working out and diet. I found her in her room, laying on her bed, upset. I asked her what was wrong to which she says, “ I don’t want you to die from working out.” She thought I had said, “I can’t wait to work out and die.” (Which is pretty much going to be the case with how bad of shape I am in right now.)

Aren’t these 3 of the cutest trouble makers you’ve ever seen?

Sometimes their trouble making drives me crazy and makes me want to pull out my hair.

But honestly, ~~most of the time~~ sometimes I can’t even look at them without breaking into a smile or laughter.

The longer I am a mother the more I realize the importance of keeping a sense of humor for the sake of sanity. Theirs & mine.

Happy Friday. I hope you have a fabulously fantastic Friday.

I hope this weekend is one with opportunities for refreshment, relaxation, doing something you enjoy and laughter.

Always laughter.

Spread the laughter around.

Laugh with those you love.

Until next time, love & hugs, Lori

Pure Sweetness

2010-10-14T07:16:00.000-05:00

We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives.

Maya Angelou

I cannot help but smile at these sweet little faces that are growing up way too fast.

I love their little expressions.

I love how their smiles come from within.

I love when their fun is captured…

…so that years from now they can remember the fun that was had…

…when they were young and carefree…

…and playing was expected of them.

I love these moments when they are so caught up in whatever they are doing, that they are completely unaware that they are being captured…

…in all their pure sweetness.

The sweetness…smiles… laughter… hugs & kisses…the absolute priceless things they say…seeing how happy they are…makes our lives being interrupted by them, totally worth the ride.

Hope your Thursday is terrific!

Until next time, hugs & love, Lori