Hot Pockets Again?

I don't know what it is about spring but the nutrition at our house goes right out the window.  Maybe it's the great weather. Maybe it's that I've been cooking every night throughout the winter and I'm tired of cooking.  Or maybe it's all of the spring activities. But every year about this time, dinner time really sufferes.

A few years ago we had a "Hot Pocket Spring"  I think we went though a box of 12 every couple of days.  One year, we had egg sandwiches every other day.  And this year is turning out to be a "fix it yourself or starve" kind of year. 

Do any of the rest of you suffer from the "Can't seem to cook in the Springtime" syndrome? And if so, how to you combat the urge to eat junk?

My Three year Old Photographer.

I love digital cameras.  When my older kids were little they always wanted to take pictures.  And sometimes if had a little extra in the budget I'd let them take a couple of pictures.  I hated to pay for film and developing for the kind of pictures they'd take. 

But digital camera's are great.  I try to keep mine away from the little ones but every once in a while "Jack-Jack" get a hold of it and when I upload my photo's I have a lot of very interesting pictures.  Usually I just delete them but I thought I'd share a few with you.

 This one is of spilled bird seed on our back patio.

 This one is either his shirt or his eye.  Sometimes he thinks you look through the lens instead of the view finder.

 This is his shirt and foot.  Looking down.

A self portrait?

Do you think he has potential?

The Golden Rule is a Load of Crock!!!

"Do unto others and you would have others do to you." On the surface it seems like a pretty good idea and, I'll admit, that there are a lot of things for which this holds true.  For instance, I really don't want anyone to haul off and punch me so I don't go around punching people.  Also, I like to be smiled at so I'll try to smile and be friendly to people I meet.  But there are some cases where the "Do unto other..." bit backfires. Let me illuminate with a couple of examples.

When I was a teenager, I hated it when my family made a big deal out of me going to prom or on a date.  I just wanted it to be treated like it was a normal part of life, like dating was what every one did and I didn't want any special notice for it.  So when I had teenagers old enough to date, I tried not to make a big deal of it.  I didn't tease them about their "boy/girlfriend." I didn't go all "ga, ga" over where they'd be going etc. etc.  Well, come to find out, that is exactly what "Belle" wished I would have done.  She hated it that I didn't make a big deal of her first date, or croon over her prom dresses.  So in treating her as I wanted to be treated I actually offended her.  Oops.

Here is another example.  I hate being interrupted.  I hate to be interrupted when I'm reading a book.  I hate to be interrupted when I'm cooking dinner. I hate to be interrupted when I am on the phone.  I think it is very inconsiderate of people to shut off the television or change channels in the middle of something someone else is watching.  So I try very hard not to interrupt people when they are busy.  "Roger" on the other hand, does not mind being interrupted.  He actually thinks that it is nice to let people know you are there and thinking of them right in the middle of what ever they are doing.  Or that sharing what you are reading with the person next to you, also reading, is sharing love.  So we are always at odds...he is being loving and I think he is being inconsiderate.  Another backfire of the golden rule.  But I guess by the Golden Rule...I should respond with love and patience because that is how I would want someone to respond to me if I were doing something seemingly inconsiderate but with good intentions.

So I think the Golden rule should actually read, "Treat others as they would want to be treated."  I know that makes it a little more complicated because it's really hard to know how others want to be treated.  So I'll give you a concession...for perfect strangers and acquaintances the Golden Rule holds true.  But when dealing with the people closest to you, when it's more than a matter of I'll be nice to you because I want you to be nice to me, we should try to treat them the way they would like to be treated.

Epiphany

     I had an epiphany.  No, three wise men from the East didn't visit me...it wasn't that kind of epiphany.  It was an insight into my personality and I thought I'd share it. Here it --

I am not a patient person.

     Oh, I know. A lot of people have told me I'm patient.  I thought I was patient.  I even act patient but I am not patient.
     A long time ago when my big kids were little, I was on the phone with someone.  We were chatting nicely when suddenly she broke off, screeched at her children and continued chatting as if nothing had happened.  I was in total shock.  And it was a wake up call as to what I might sound like, sometimes, as I had been guilty of screeching at my children.  So I decided then and there that I would not screech or scream and although I've broken this resolution a time or two (grin, wink) I try to speak to my children in a calm voice.  Appearing patient, however is not patience.  Yes, I repeatedly ask my children to do things.  I wait, apparently calm, for them to do these things, I listen to excuses, I have discussions, I try to use long persuasion.  But inside I am furious.  Inside I am screaming.  Inside I want to get big sticks and hit everyone.
     So, I am not patient.  I don't think being good at bottling the anger is true patience.  I think true patience is in reality being as calm as you appear.  The other day when I told the Princess to be patient I explained to her that being patient was waiting with a good attitude.  I need to work on that myself, waiting with a good attitude.
     I am hoping that some of you will have great insights into how I can gain true patience.  And I can stop being a big bottle full of pent up anger.

How to Save money when Grocery Shopping.

Here is a tried and true way to save money when you are grocery shopping.

1) Make a menu and a grocery list when you are relatively hungry.  (It's easier to think of good things to cook when you are hungry.)

2) Do a lot of work, errands, etc all day Saturday.

3) Have a very filling and nutritious meal.

4) Go to the grocery store as close to their closing time as you can get away with. (If it's a 24 hour store just go around 7 or 8 pm)

5) Take at least one child to ride in the grocery cart.  (If you have two little ones take both of them.)

I guarantee that you will be so tired and so not hungry and so crazy from supervising the kids and trying to keep them from falling out of the cart or grabbing things off the shelf that you will just grab what is on your list and get out of there. You will not stop to browse the sale items. You will not grab things because you are hungry and hopefully you know how to say "No" to all the things the kids are wanting you to get. Hence your grocery bill will be lower.

(Oh yea, and if you like to spend the time looking for and clipping coupons you could try using those too.)

"A Comedy of Errors" (or dinner time at our house)

"DINNER!!!"  That's how dinner begins every night at our house.  With me yelling at the top of my lungs like a fish wife.  And why, you ask, do I do this?  Because if I quietly tell everyone that dinner is ready, it takes half the afternoon and then the food would be cold.  It's hard to eat a hot meal as it is.  Even with the screaming of dinner it takes 10 minutes or more to everyone to finish their naps, or whatever interesting thing they were watching on youtube or playing with their toys and get to the table.  I really try to have dinner done at roughly the same time every night...it doesn't always work out, but I try.  And usually there are a few people sniffing around wondering when dinner will be ready and picking in the food cooking on the stove...so they why is it that when that fateful word is bellowed, everyone has found something else to occupy them and they can't make it to the table in a reasonable amount of time?

And then it's prayer time.  It takes another 10 minutes to get everyone quiet for the prayer.  Take tonight for instance it was a regular "Comedy of Errors." The Princess set the table and then went to play with her toys and she can virtually get lost in her imagination.  So when most everyone else was at the table she wasn't.  "Jack-Jack" not wanting to start without her, got down from the table and went to her and quietly said "Pwincess" (only he used her real name) dinner time.  Come to dinner." It really was adorable.  Finally, after I counted, she came to the table and climbed over a whole row of us to the end of the bench and then Jack-Jack wanted to climb back to sit by her but that's no good because then I can't keep an eye on him so I tried to get Princess and Peter Pan to switch places. This meant Peter Pan scooting to the end of the bench and Princess moving over to sit next to Jack-Jack who was then next to me. I don't know what was so complicated about this...maybe I was speaking Greek and they had to translate because they fidgeted and fussed before they could finally figure out how to do it. Then they had to switch dishes because Heaven forbid they use the dishes that were set at the place they switched to...no they had to have the dishes that were at their original place.  (By the way...we have matching dishes and no food had been put on them so I don't know what the deal was)  Then in the move Jack Jack's foot got squished and he started crying and yelling and got on my lap and I tried to get him quiet for the prayer.  Next, Princess kept talking to Peter Pan and all of the older kids were trying to get them to be quiet causing even more noise.  So I reached over to flick Princess to get her attention and must have caught her ear instead and she started crying.  Then Jack-Jack got down and ran in the other room trying to turn on "Blue's Clues".  I think "Roger" just said the prayer hoping that most everyone including Heavenly Father could hear it about all of the raucous.

I really hope that somewhere, amid the chaos, our dinner-time prayers get a little farther than the ceiling.  I do know that we've had some great informal and even formal teaching moments at the dinner table.  Conversations that may not have been had any other time have happened around the table.  There has also been a lot of laughter and sometimes even some tears as we spend a little time each night just being with the family.

I slept with Buzz Lightyear

Having 7 children in the house for a couple of months until one of them leaves on his mission, has necessitated moving "Jack-Jack" back into our bedroom. His little toddler bed is in one corner and he stays on it, sort of.  We will often find him in our bed in the morning..(or find ourselves being kicked in the head in the middle of the night.)

Recently his sleep schedule is very off.  He's not sleepy enough to want a nap in the early afternoon but will often fall asleep at 5:00 pm, sleep for a couple of hours and then not want to go to bed until midnight or later. Having teenagers home, not in school (snow days) and staying up late doesn't help because if they are up having fun he thinks he should be too.)

So... A few nights ago, "Roger" was on TDY, which is some Army acronym. I don't know what it stands for but it means away from home.  "Jack-Jack" had had a late nap and didn't want to go to sleep.  I, on the other hand, could keep my eyes open no longer and fell asleep at around 1:00 am.  He must have gotten bored and brought some toys and books into my bed because in the middle of the night I found my self crowded between a lot of hard toys and the baby.  And much to my dismay every time I tried to move or roll over, I'd push one of the buttons on that stupid Buzz Lightyear toy and hear "To Infinity and Beyond" or "Star Command, this is Buzz Lightyear." or some annoying space music. And you know when you are annoyed in the night but to sleepy to really do anything about it...well, that's how I was.  Just annoyed but not awake enough to think of moving the stupid thing. So I spent an uncomfortable night sleeping with Buzz Lightyear.

Babies

A baby was blessed today at church.  As I watched the dad carry the baby to the front, I thought of the miracle of babies.  What is it that draws us to that tiny person?  

There's a feeling at the birth of each child that is unexplainable. It's always been amazing to me that the moment when that little one takes their first breath and makes their first cry such a strong feeling of love rushes into me. It is so powerful it has moved me to tears.  And it's there every time.  I've given birth eight times and you'd think after the first two or three it would become old hat, that when I heard that first cry I'd say "Yea, been there done that, now get me to my room I'm tired and hungry." But no, the nine month torture ordeal followed by even more torture at delivery pales and is forgotten when I hold that tiny bundle.  

We've all seen people before, we know that they are all pretty much the same, two legs, two arms some hair, a face but when gazing at a new born baby it all seems so wondrous.  It's amazing that this thing has all of those features and, when we are blessed enough that all of the parts are there and in working order, we wonder again. 

And then the hard part begins.  But that's a tale for another blog.  I'm so grateful and happy that I've been blessed with eight beautiful, healthy children.  

Laundry

This is a pile of unfolded, clean laundry. It is on the chair in my bedroom. It used to be on my bed but I moved it to the chair so that I could go to sleep.  It would have been back in the laundry baskets I carried it upstairs in but after I dumped it onto my bed, thinking that I'd get it folded to day, I took the launder baskets back downstairs.  You may think that I had a really busy day and just didn't get to this laundry.  But you would be wrong.  You may also think that this laundry was washed just to day.  Again you are wrong.  This laundry was washed on Monday and has been sitting in my bedroom waiting to be folded for a week.

Laundry and I have a long history together.  Having 8 kids means having a lot of laundry.  I have tried so many ways to get laundry done.  When I was first married, I tried doing it the way my mother and grandmother before her did the laundry.  I would sort all of the weeks laundry into piles on the floor in front of the washing machine and then work all day to get it done.  Well, when you have 4 kids ages 4 and under and you live in the city so you can't just say "Go outside and play all day." there are a lot of interruptions.  Needless to say, this method failed.  There were always piles of laundry on the floor, piles of laundry on the couch, partially folded piles of laundry in the living room and we won't even mention the huge basked of unmatched socks that we were forced to stir through every time we wanted socks.  One of my kids even took to just wearing the same socks every day of the week so he wouldn't have to mess with the basket of socks.

Then I graduated up to mesh sorting bags and as the kids were getting older they were required to sort their own laundry into it's proper bag and then I would wash a couple of batches a day. This solved some of the problem; there were no more huge piles of laundry on the floor but it created new problems. The kids didn't have all of their clothes back on one day and so it was frustrating for them to make outfits.

Finally I hit upon an idea that seemed to work out the best.  Every child would have a "day" on that day they were to bring their laundry to the washing machine and I would wash just two batches of their clothing:  one light and one dark.  Some of the older kids started doing their own laundry.  And now the only laundry I have to do is mine, hubbies and the two little kids.  I still can't get it done promptly.

I'm beginning to think that the problem is more of an attitude problem that a problem with a lot of laundry.  Because if you think about it...in the time it took me to take the picture of the laundry, upload it onto my computer and this blog and then write this blog, I probably could have had the laundry folded and put away.

(P.S. How to solve the problem of a lot of socks:  Each child gets only one kind of sock,  every child's socks are different from the other child's socks {it is possible} then the most unmatched socks any particular child can have is 1 and all of their socks matched or unmatched goes back into their rooms with their clean laundry.)

Hair, make-up and "looking married"

I had my hair cut today.  I never know how to get it cut because mostly I don't care.  I can never get my hair to look like I want it to look.  I also have no patience.  If I can't do my hair in ten minutes or less it's not getting done.  The hair dresser cut my hair and then styled it.  She also straightened it.  I don't have any idea how they do that.  I try and try at home and it still will look frizzy.  This lady was a nice Korean lady. I think she told me to put Silk Oil on my hair.  I don't even know what silk oil is.  As she was cutting my hair she told me that I should wear make-up.  She said I'd look prettier with make-up. I guess I could have been offended by this but she was right. And I do wear make-up sometimes...but again...not something I like to spend a lot of time on and even when I do I can't get the look I want.  It's hard to make my face look like a super model's.

I remember when I was in college and as our friends got married, my roommates and I would say "Yup, she is looking married." Meaning we could tell when the married friend started to worry less what she looked like.  Being the idealistic girl I was I swore that I would never "look married."  Well, as my mother likes to remind me quite often, I definitely "look married" most of the time.  Trying to put on make-up and doing hair gets exponentially harder the more kids you have in the bathroom trying on your lipstick and unrolling the toilet paper.  And then you have to come up with creative answers when they start asking questions about the feminine products they find under the sink. So I will admit that unless I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. I'm probably going to spend the day "looking married."