Mothering Moments

Summer Bucket List for Moms Who Want to Engage

May 23, 2013 by Sharla 15 Comments

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

Last year, I pinned many a “Bucket List” to my Summer Pinterest Board. I even printed off some blank ones and had each of the kids fill one out. We actually managed to complete most of the ideas on the bucket lists.

The thing that I noticed about our lists though was that it was geared towards the kids. It may have involved me in terms of preparing activities or taking the kids places, but I’m going to admit honestly that I was not truly engaged in the activities.

I have come to some realizations lately due in large part to the fact that my oldest son is now an adult. His 18th Birthday was a bit of a wake-up call for me, an awakening to how fleeting these years are. I still have many younger kids and have the chance to create memories with them.

The way that I have been doing things is to create situations that they may remember but I likely will not.

In being busy and working hard to gather supplies and instructions for those awesome Summer crafts and in taking the time to make the fun, creative snacks and meals, I sometimes miss out on the real moments, the kisses, the hugs, the chasing in the grass, the laughter.

I am creating this printable Bucket List for Moms Who Want to Engage for me and moms like me, those who feel like their kids’ childhoods are slipping away.

I will continue my honesty by stating that some of the things on this list will be a stretch for me. I don’t even like being outside. It will be hard for me to set aside the dishes and the to-do list and get down in the grass with my kids. But I will.

Let’s make this summer about treasuring moments and creating memories that last for our kids as well as for ourselves. Are you in?

Click image below for full printable of 40 ideas…

You can check out these other Summer Bucket Lists as well to get even more ideas.

Filed Under: Crafts and Activities, Mothering Moments, Parenting in the Chaos

The Me I Want You to See

April 2, 2013 by Sharla 19 Comments

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

Here on The Chaos and The Clutter, you will no doubt read about craft projects I do with my seven kids, recipes I create, parties I plan, and activities the kids and I do. You may wonder how I have time to do all of these things and blog and keep up with the house (I don’t). You may think I’ve got it all together. I don’t.

Today, I wanted to offer another view of our Easter weekend because if you’ve been following along here for any length of time you will know that though I may plan a mean Dr. Seuss party, I’m all about keeping it real! If I wasn’t going to keep it real, this is the Easter I would show you:

Look at those beautiful children with their hair all combed, wearing clean clothes and the food I made for our celebration where we had 56 people and 2 babies at our house and the huge egg hunt in our great, albeit snowy yard! Doesn’t that look delightful!

This photo collage tells a very different story:

These pictures tell the story behind the story. You see, those first pictures show a perfect me, someone who doesn’t exist.

What those pictures don’t show is that I couldn’t manage to get a picture with all seven kids in it because two of them slept in and later that day, I forgot and besides, by that time, the younger five were no longer clean!

Or the hash brown casserole I was supposed to bring to the Easter breakfast at our church still in the crock pot back at home because I set it wrong and it was raw when it was time to leave.

Or how within minutes of taking that sweet picture of my beautiful girls, their smiles disappeared because I lost my temper, overreacted, and yelled at one of them in front of the others in the van. Or how I had to ask my girls for forgiveness for those choices on the way to church on Easter Sunday (there is irony in that).

Or how that stack of papers that was in the kitchen got shoved into a huge bag as all the guests were arriving yesterday and hidden in the office away from sight. Or how I forgot my sweet potato casserole in the oven until after everyone had eaten.

Or how I was crying in the kitchen Sunday night because sometimes holidays can exaggerate less than ideal family situations and because real life is like that. Real life is full of mistakes and messes and feelings.

Real life is me being the me that can plan a huge party with over 50 guests and me being the me that is constantly messing up. The me I want you to see is the real me, imperfect, flawed, dependant on grace.

Sometimes my fear and insecurities make me want to show you the other me, the one who doesn’t exist in real life. But I know that me showing you that me makes it impossible for you to show me the real you…and that’s the you I want to know.

I want to share one more “real” Easter moment with you. I found this recipe on Pinterest. To get the full effect of my “fail” here, you really do need to pop over and take a peek at the pictures of what it is supposed to look like, all springlike and cheerful and fun. Mine looked like this:

Snuggle Puppy asked me what it was and I told him that it was Easter Bark. He looked at me quizzically and asked “what’s Easter barf?” So from then on, we of course called my rendition of this ‘easy’ dessert “Easter Barf”! Needless to say, it did not make the cut to be served at the party!!!

Filed Under: Mothering Moments

The Old Comparison Trap

February 20, 2013 by Sharla 6 Comments

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

Yesterday, I had a really hard day. It was one of those “if it can go wrong, it will” kind of days. I felt frustrated and overwhelmed. I woke up feeling organized and hopeful as I had planned the day with lists and woken up hours before the kids to get a head start. It was all downhill from there!

There was an important call that needed to happen and I was unable to get ahold of the lady ever. I took my oldest son to a doctor’s appointment and brought Miss Optimism with me so that I could take her to the Lab afterwards to get her blood work done in time for her specialist appointment this Thursday. In the doctor’s office, we waited almost 2 hours to get into our SCHEDULED appointment! This meant that I no longer had time to go to the Lab and get back in time for when the sitter had to leave. We also didn’t have time to stop and get the groceries I needed because the sitter had to leave earlier than expected. My plans did not go as planned!

On the way home, I stopped by the pizza parlour where I had organized a field trip for our local homeschool group for this Thursday just to firm up some details. It turns out that the person I had been speaking to did not have the authority to okay the field trip and they cannot accommodate such a large group. I had to come home and let everyone who had RSVPd know that the field trip I had organized and they had rearranged their lives for is cancelled. I was embarrassed.

I am in the middle of having to confront my clutter head-on as I attempt to find receipts for doing our taxes. Up to now, most of my paperwork clutter has been piled in the office, door shut behind me as I try to forget that I can no longer see the office floor or walk in there. I am now forced to confront that paperwork and sort through it. Looking at it reminds me of just how disorganized I am. This is a picture of my living room floor yesterday as I attempted to sort some of it. There is at least double this amount of paper still in the office waiting to be sorted…

I felt like a complete failure. I was also sure that all the other moms out there, wives out there, homeschoolers out there, women out there were doing a much better job of this than I was.

And then I was going through some of my old blog posts and adding images to them (because Pinterest wasn’t around back when I wrote the posts) and I came across something. I had written something called Perception of Perfection a year and a half ago and reading it yesterday helped so much. Reading the comments is what helped the most. In the comments, there was a common refrain. I am not the only one who struggles with feeling like I am not enough. So today, if you have time, go and read the post and be sure to read the comments. I am not the only one who feels this way. You are not the only one who feels this way.

Even though I need a lot of reminding and even a year and a half later, I am still having these same issues, I am enough. I am God’s beloved daughter and therefore, I am enough.

Filed Under: Just Chaos!, Mothering Moments

What Do You Do All Day?

January 24, 2013 by Sharla 16 Comments

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

I wanted to write a homeschool related post today but was completely stuck for an idea. I thought of all kinds of things but for one reason or another, didn’t feel like they were the right fit. Finally, I got desperate and googled “what are common homeschooling questions?” and the first thing to come up was…

What do you do all day?

I about spit out my tea!!! All kinds of sarcastic responses came to mind and I immediately thought that it must be a man asking that question! Hmmm, let me think… I sit around and twiddle my thumbs all morning, eat gourmet lunches served to me on silver platters at noon and take a long nap in the afternoon followed by a bubble bath and foot massage!

But I soon realized that this question probably is being asked by women not men, both women who are contemplating homeschooling and those who are already homeschooling. For those who are just considering homeschooling, they wonder how much time homeschooling takes up and what it actually looks like. For those who are already homeschooling, they probably (like me) wonder what homeschooling is really like in other homes.

So, what does a homeschooler do all day? The answer to that is a frustrating one. It depends on the homeschooler, the age of the kids, the type of homeschooling they do, the day of the week, and a myriad of other factors. It ranges from families whose homeschooling is so structured that it is scheduled in 15 minute increments to unschooling families who rarely have a plan and every day looks incredibly different than the one before.

I have been homeschooling for over 12 years and even my answer is that it depends on the day and my mood and the kids’ moods and the time of year and our health and the amount of sleep we got the night before. Our actual “school time” can range anywhere from 15 minutes to 6 hours. Some days, school might look like the kids sitting at their desks working, me at the whiteboard teaching (what you might see in a school setting), other days it’s full of hands-on learning…crafts, kitchen science, interest led learning, life lessons… and yet other days, our homeschooling shouldn’t have the “home” in it because we are running from one homeschool field trip or activity to another.

Every day, it is a guarantee that our day includes prayer, devotions, dishes, art, arguing, lots of clean-up, whining, busy bags, sibling wars, reading, playing, giggling, breakfast, lunch, supper, bathroom breaks, and bedtime. Most days, history, math, writing, science and Bible get thrown in there. Every week, there are appointments (doctors, therapists, dentists, speech, etc.) and art classes and homeschool field trips and playdates and piano lessons and chauffeuring teens to and from work and any extras that might come up.

So, what do I do all day?

I get up (I am not a morning person so I have to force myself to be cheerful)
maybe get to shower
get dressed
brush my teeth
comb my hair
remind the kids to do the same
check my e-mail
tweet, Facebook, promote blog posts, read my verse of the day
get the kids to eat breakfast
remind them to do their morning chore
load and run the dishwasher
wipe counters
remind someone to brush their teeth
try to figure out what I’m going to make for supper
maybe eat breakfast or just make myself a tea
do devotions and prayer with the kids
remind someone to flush the toilet
read them Story of the World and ask them the review questions
tell someone to stop whining
have them do copywork while I go to whiteboard
brainstorm with kids about sentences, sight words, ideas, etc.
offer encouragement and praise
break up a fight
try to get kids involved in a project
kiss an owie
read one on one with one of the kids (while all heck breaks loose with the others)
make kids a snack
hear them complain about said snack
do some therapeutic parenting during a meltdown
wonder why I ever thought it was a good idea to homeschool
pray and breathe
offer praise and encouragement through gritted teeth
get kids started on worksheets or workboxes
do a craft, puzzle or board game with kids
break up another whiny fest or argument
take sanity break by going pee in the bathroom and locking the door
come out to kids crying and huge mess made in those twenty seconds
yell
apologize for yelling
wonder again what made me thought I was qualified to homeschool
pray and breathe
feed kids lunch
listen to complaining about said lunch unless it’s in a muffin tin
encourage and praise
do dishes
hopefully eat lunch myself
try to get kids to help clean up the homeschool room
fail miserably
e-mail or text another homeschool mom because I know better than to call
because if I get on the phone, my kids ask for things I would normally say no to and won’t leave me alone
friend reminds me that I’m doing this for good reason and I am not crazy
I only feel that way 98% of the time
pray some more
tragic thing happens – someone can’t find their something-or-other
engage the entire house on a hunt for the something-or-other
offer a reward (oh wait – I usually only do that when the remote is missing!)
engage kids in fun science lesson or craft project that took two hours to prepare
entire thing takes five minutes for kids to complete
clean up takes 20 minutes
wonder again why I thought it would be a good idea to homeschool
check e-mail and upload pictures of disastrous art project that looked so much better on Pinterest
in my calmest voice, tell someone to stop yelling or complaining or fighting
empty dishwasher
trip over string tied to doorway or step on Lego piece
possibly say some word that I shouldn’t
change laundry over
send kids outside to play to “appreciate God’s creation” or to give mommy a break
pray and breathe
tidy up
stare at overwhelming paperwork pile and contemplate tackling it
little one comes up and tells me that I am the best mom ever
suddenly, I know why I homeschool

That is what I do all day!

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Mothering Moments, Thoughts

No “F” Word Allowed in Our House

January 16, 2013 by Sharla 5 Comments

(This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy.)

In our house, there are a number of words that are off limits. Taking God’s name in vain tops the list and the kids steer clear of that without any reminders. As the sh*t word has been known to cross my lips when something gets broken or a giant spill happens, I would go pretty easy on the kids if I heard it coming out of their mouths, but for the younger ones at least, it doesn’t.

Then there are the name calling swears…you know the “b” one and the “a” one. These aren’t words our kids ever hear so we don’t have a problem with those around here.

There is one word though that we have been trying for the longest time to get them to stop saying and yet it keeps coming up…the “f” word. I know that they have heard me say it from time to time and it has probably been spoken by The Husband (though much less frequently and only in certain contexts) so maybe I just haven’t been a good role model. I have tried to redirect them, to remind them, to give them alternatives of what they can say instead, but I hear it almost every day. It’s driving me crazy! So we have outlawed it in our house.

From now on, there will be no “f” word spoken here! That goes for me too and it will be a challenge, but I need to be an example that my kids can follow in this. We outlawed it weeks ago and now that it is banned, we do hear it somewhat less frequently, but it still slips in here and there. Some days, I hear it a lot and always in that terrible, high-pitched, whiny type voice. Shudder.

Let me go on record as saying that I hate the “f” word. Hate it. It doesn’t help anyone and in fact, can harm. So come over and join me in the no “f” word movement. Once you try to eliminate it from your vocabulary, you may be surprised to see how often you used it and how negative a habit it is.

“It’s not fair.” “Well that’s not fair.” “Life just doesn’t seem fair.” “Life’s not fair.”

Nope it’s not and the sooner my kids start concentrating on what they do have instead of what they don’t, the better off they will be. The same applies to me. Last year was a cruddy year around here and I may have felt like I didn’t deserve some of the things that happened, but that kind of thinking didn’t help me at all. It’s the other kind of thinking that will help me. The kind that doesn’t include that toxic “f” word…”fair”.

So I’m eliminating it from my vocabulary and we have officially banned it from our house. Now when the kids complain, “it’s not fair…”, we respond with something along the lines of “hey, there is no “f” word allowed in this house”! Or if I hear that they are about to go there, I say, “remember we don’t use the “f” word”. It’s working. Slowly.

Filed Under: Mothering Moments, Parenting in the Chaos