Month: May 2018

Parents are everything. They have raised you and put into you their whole lives. They help you navigate through life when you feel stuck. They pick up and help you financially in a minute if you need it. Even when you don’t want it they help you.

When I was younger, like most kids, I didn’t appreciate my parents. I grew up with my mom and dad together until I was 8 then my mom and little sister moved to NY state and our lives seriously changed. My dad was no longer a main roll in my life. Before the split I remember him coming in the door to 4 little girls so excited to see him. He was very tall and seemed like a giant to little me. He would help us dunk basketballs and helped us ride our bikes. It was always such a joyous time with my dad around. I remember life being easy. We lived in the country in what we refer to as “the little house”.  My dad built it himself from toe nailed boards (You take to small boards and nail them together to make a longer board). This house still stands today.  He also built us a play house with a loft and all. I have tons of memories of playing house in our play house by the creek. We had hours of fun together in that little house.

When we moved to NY state we lived with a man who had more money than we ever knew. He provided for every need we had. He even gave us the love of a step dad. He provided a good life for us. I remember summers at the lake on our boat. We had lovely vacations and every need we had was met. My mom worked hard for us and gave us all we needed. In spite of my mom doing the best she could I still rebelled and disobeyed her rules. I made some terrible choices.  My mom still loved me unconditionally no matter what I did wrong. She tried hard to give us everything and help us to live the right way.

When I was 16 we moved back to our home town and lived in our little house again. My mom still provided for us and worked hard. She no longer had a husband to provide for her and she did the best she could.

7 years ago I lost my dad to cancer. I lost a man that gave me advice. He was always there for me. He was a fixer of all things and if I called him with a problem in my house or a project I wanted to do he always had a way I could do it, patiently teaching me along the way (Mostly over the phone). When I lost him there was definitely a gap left open. But my mom still filled in the rest. I missed him terribly.

4 month ago when I lost my mom I felt like the world stopped. Though I got through the initial loss by reading scripture and staying busy there was a lot of pain. A few weeks ago around mothers day the extent of this loss suddenly hit me. I was no longer receiving the encouragement a mom gives you. Telling you the truth in love but also telling you how your doing a good job and she is proud of you. For some reason this loss is so staggering some days I don’t know how to function. I don’t have a daily encourager. I don’t have my best friend who knows without me telling them, She just knew. I never realized how much that encouragement drove me through life to do better and keep going.

While my husband tries its just not possible for him to meet that encouragement need that I have. My sister has been awesome telling me the truth when I need to hear it. But shes my sister also not meeting the encourager need.  I also have some great friends and a sister in-law who love me but it is just not my mom.

So when the hurt is staggering and I don’t know what to do. I just embrace the pain and feel it hard. It will get easier to deal with the great grief I feel but it also take time and a lot of tears. Its OK for me to cry (man I sure have a lot more lately).  Sometimes I just need my mom to tell me I am doing good at this hard life.  That she is proud of me and that she loves me dearly.

I’ve decided to make sure I am this more for my kids. I try to tell them how much I love them each day and how proud I am of them even when they disappoint me. I want to be this encourage for my children because I know some moms are not that. And I would say if you still have your mom around call her up and thank her for being there for you and encouraging you. Because when she is gone you won’t know what to do and you will wish you had told her more.

Signing off from one woman to another.

Jenny Ren

As a mom and wife things sometimes start piling up. It is hard to keep up with all the demands life throws at me. After my week last week I am trying to play catch up.  My laundry is sky high and my house work has been neglected. I have yet to fall back into my full fly lady routine since after my moms death in February.  Ladies my house is cluttering up. It is time to start de-cluttering again. Last week I was preparing for my art show. I then got called and told our whole beef is ready to pick up from the meat locker. Things got put on hold and some things became priority. (Like defrosting my freezers to fit the whole beef.) The other thing that is happening is that the weather has now changed from cold to warm and I feel it is safe to rotate my children’s clothes into there summer wardrobes and in order to do that I need to go through the current wardrobe and get rid of clothes. In 6 days my two oldest kids will be home for the summer and I have a lot of things I want to do before this happens like de-cluttering, going through toys, cleaning there room and so on. I also have a baby quilt I am making for my friend that I have not sewed that I am sending to someone else who is going to machine quilt it for me. Guess what? The quilt isn’t sewn let alone ready to be quilted and she is asking for it so she can get that jobs done because I am sure she is a little more organized than me. Its piling up.

Last week I did all the things that were priority but the biggest priority is my kids. The time when C asks “mommy can you build with me?” I need to stop and build with them. I am learning more that the time I give them is more important than the time I put into a clean organized house and all the other things that demand my attention.

This week I made a list of the projects I want done before my oldest boys get out of school and yesterday guess what I did. Some of my projects but when c asked me to build with him I did.  Lego’s are not my forte. Hand me some dolls and I can play mommy with the best of them but I am learning to play the Lego’s the longer I have sons.

When my life starts piling up I start neglecting the important things in life. Whats important? My family, my relationship with God and my friendships. So when my 4 year old asks me to push him on the swing, what should I do? I take the time out and push him on the swing (it doesn’t always happen). It is such a battle daily to keep the important things in view and then fill the rest after that. Its like the visual example of a jar. If you fill the jar with the sand then the pebbles the rocks won’t fit. But if you fill the jar with the big rocks (important stuff) then the pebbles then the sand you can fit everything in. When I start loosing sight of the important things I try to take a few minutes and prioritize what actually is important. House work can wait.

My kids won’t be little forever and so many times I push them aside for all the THINGS I NEED to get done. The thing I need to do is go spend that time with my boy especially since we have only one more year with him home. Time to stop blogging and take care of the important things in my life.

The best part about taking time with my little ones is that I get to start seeing their unique personalities forming. Here’s a few pictures of my kids and the Lego’s I built for them and silly selfies 🙂

Signing off from one woman to another.

Jenny Ren

Mothers Day, A time to honor mothers. A special day just for us! How great is that. Mother’s Day was always an extra special time for us. I’ve had many different Mothers. Spiritual Mothers, a Mother in law and My Mom in heaven now. Mothers do everything. When somethings lost they find it, When someone is hurt they heal it. Even when your grown your mom still heals your pains emotional or physical.

When I was a kid Mothers day was a time we made sure our mom stayed in bed and then we set loose in the kitchen. We made french toast (My mom’s least favorite) Then one time I thought why waste the left over dip for the bread and I fried cinnamon eggs. I never knew she didn’t like french toast until I was an adult and tried making it for her for breakfast. Cinnamon eggs went down in history as the worst thing on earth. Thankfully we always had a dog she fed those things to so that we never knew she didn’t like it. The dog wouldn’t even eat the cinnamon eggs they were that bad. We would then place the plate on a beautiful tray then a flower and bring her orange juice.

In my family special days like birthdays and mothers day were ALWAYS elaborate.  It was an all day occasion. We would wake up to my mom serving us a delicious breakfast in bed. Not cinnamon eggs, but probably our favorite breakfast like waffles or pancakes along with sausage and maybe even toast and eggs. She would get up early and then most times she even went to the store before she prepared a full breakfast for us.  It was laid out on a beautiful tray and We felt like queens. In fact we never really needed a special occasion for her to give us breakfast in bed. There was a time I brought some of my friends home to stay overnight with me and she served all of us breakfast in bed. It was a special occasion to her to  just have my friends stay overnight! This is just what moms do.

When I knew my first mother’s day without my mom on earth was coming, I wanted to do something that  would help us with our grieving process. While most of my kids are still small enough they don’t really grieve. My oldest has been having trouble crying at night missing my mom. So I decided to send letters to heaven on balloons. We wrote our letters to my mom telling her how much we love and miss her. Then we sent them off into the sky. It was really helpful to me and my grieving. I know they didn’t actually go to her. My kids seemed to really like drawing hearts and pictures on the balloon and writing I love you and I miss you.  We also had some hard questions to answer, Like does Mammie read these and will she see them? Its hard to explain something that your not really sure about yourself. I know she is in heaven but we don’t know if she sees us. I explained to them that Mammie’s spirit is in heaven and we do know she is having so much fun worshiping Jesus everyday. They felt better sending them off to her and I did too. I hope to make this a yearly Mothers day tradition.

Yesterday my family celebrated me too. They gave me a cinnamon roll for breakfast, took me to dinner and we finished the night with our balloon ceremony and ice cream with strawberries at home with A’s parents.

Sometimes Mother’s Day isn’t a joyful day. Sometimes its very hard. My Mother’s day this year was very hard for me. It was hard to handle not being able to see or hear my moms voice. It was hard because sometimes my expectations cloud what I should really be focused on and I have a bad attitude because my husband isn’t living up to what I think mother’s day should look like.  Sometimes it is really special when I look at the important things. My kids and my husband and how much I love watching them play together and interact. I am Thankful for the time we can have together and hopeful for the future.

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mom’s out there. Thank you for all that you do for your family. Some of you even do things for people who are not your family and are spiritual mothers. Thank you for everything you do.

Signing off from one woman to another .

Jenny Ren

Today was a Monday. Why are Mondays so terrible. If I actually had a regular job I think Mondays would be hard because it starts a work week and you have all week before you have a day off. But as a mom, Mondays can be any day because every day blends together and there can be a “Monday” type of day on Thursday, Saturday and usually Sunday (Don’t get me started on how inconvenient church time is 😉 or how I keep working just as much if not harder on Sunday because its another day my family needs me.)

But today WAS Monday in every terrible sense of the word. Getting ready for school goes something like this. “Do you have your socks on?” “Yes” “now find your shoes its almost time to leave” Child now walks around aimlessly and 30 seconds later says “I can’t find my shoes” Then you start going through the list did you look in the entry way, did you look in your room. Things would be a whole lot easier if you took my advice and took your shoes to the entry way when you took them off.  Now shoes are found and the back packs are missing.  Repeat show saga… Finally off to school 🙂

For two weeks now I have had low back pain. I half fell on some rocks with J and trying to keep her from hitting the ground I threw my back out. I have made repeat trips to the chiropractor and it has not gotten much better. Sleep often helps but I can usually still feel it in the morning. I also came down with a nasty cold this weekend and I believe today has been the worst. I am currently taking many different natural remedies, but it has not made things much better.  So when J didn’t get a nap today and neither did I it added to my stress level.  The night started nicely. My mother in law brought me some lemon grass plants for my new patio and I planted them in some pots. I hope they will repel mosquito’s this summer.  The kids were playing outside nicely and really no one was fighting. Then an hour before supper time A discovered that our car tire was hissing and loosing air. He then took the car to the repair shop to get the tire fixed.

Things continued to go OK until D came to me and said W said the D word. Of course W denies it. Then not two minutes later D said C said the D word. I hate tattling and I hate kids that say words that shouldn’t be repeated especially since I don’t say that word and I know who they picked it up from. I also don’t really know what to do when someone tattles especially about words spoken. I usually don’t believe tattling. But who knows. Then I lost it. I started screaming for everyone to go to bed and that daddy would take care of it when he came home. I then called A and asked why he wasn’t home yet. He was talking with a friend and not thinking about me who was sick and tired with all the children. I know I must sound like a whiner but man people this is my real life. He was still a little ways away. I was sobbing on the couch when J came to me and said “Mommy just relax” “relax mommy” That just softened my heart. She was right I needed to relax and I needed a break. I didn’t take one in time and I sure should have. So tonight I was done Momming.

Boy am I glad for do overs. Tomorrow starts a new day and A is tucking the kids in bed tonight so I can take a break and write to all of you. When he got home he hugged me and reassured me that I was just over tired and sick. He then took care of the hearts of my kiddos and then they came to me and I took care of my heart and we all apologized for our bad behavior.

There you go this is the exact reason I call my blog making imperfect progress. Geeze I had another battle with imperfection and sin and I have a chance to start again. Hopefully I can wake up feel a little better and be able to attend my art class tomorrow.  I hope each day to see the progress I can and have made and even in those imperfect times (which are a lot) I can confess the sin and move on to a new day or hour or even minute. Thank You Jesus!

Man I shouldn’t have thought earlier that I haven’t had any interesting stories recently to write about… That is the last time I will think THAT!

Signing off from one woman to another.

Jenny Ren

What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails
That’s what little boys are made of

What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice
That’s what little girls are made of.

I am not really sure the truth of this nursery rhyme or if its author actually had little girls or boys. Here is my experience with both 🙂

I grew up in a household of girls. We had all girl cousins until I was around 12. Then we had 3 boy cousins all in a row but I did not live close to them until I was around 16. But even then I wasn’t around long enough to really get to know them. So I never had much close experience with boys. I had all nieces on my side of the family until I married Adam and those nephews lived far away.  I had the first boy on my side of immediate family.

He was definitely different from the girls I grew up with. He was a little red head with a fiery personality to boot. The day he was born he was eating but apparently not getting enough so he pulled away from my breast hollered at me and then latch back on. He has been stating his business ever since.  Boys are different. He was at a friends house when he was around one year old, with her little daughter who was the same age. The little girl (R) had a baby. She would hold the baby, rock the baby and gently lay it down on the floor. When W got a hold of it he took the doll threw it on the floor and body slammed it.

When I had my second boy He was a lot more rambunctious. He got into everything. When he was two his brother spray painted him and the tree and the wagon black. Very early on he began learning how to unscrew everything. One day I caught him trying to unscrew the screen door from the door jam. He will often be found with dirt or grease all over him. W on the other hand is neater when he plays and doesn’t like to be dirty. If there is a puddle D walks right through it and W walks around it. On most days you will find at least one wrestling match going on between at least two of the boys.

C is my sweet, very sensitive boy, but he is a brute. If he runs into you he will knock the wind out of you. We call him hulk and also Hoss because he is so big. He is almost 5 and over 50 lbs. He loves animals and when our cat had kittens he named them all. He checks those kittens everyday. His brothers often make him cry because he is so very sensitive. His love language is physical touch but his favorite form is wrestling. He loves bugs, cats, dogs, horses, pretty much any animal. When his sister stepped on an ant he cried.

When we found out we were having a girl my sister sent us one of her daughters doll houses. This was before J was born. One day I found the boys playing army man in it. They had set the barbie dream house up as an army barracks hiding men behind the walls and furniture. I thought just you wait until you little sister is around to tell you whats what about that. She definitely does tell them whats what. 

Three years ago we had our darling little girl. I had visions dancing through my head of this sweet little cuddly child that would be a breath of fresh air after my rambunctious boys. I thought it would be much easier raising her after the boys because “girls are easy” or so I was told. While her favorite color is pink and she loves dresses, there is nothing dainty to her. She can wrestle with the rest of them and tries to take down one her brothers on a daily basis. Whoever said girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice didn’t have a little girl like J. While she is a little honey, she throws more fits in public than any of my boys. If she doesn’t get what she wants she screams a high pitch blood cuddling scream like nothing I have ever heard before. I never even knew there was a pitch that high. She can be talking in a cute little voice one minute and the next pinching your nose off because you want her to eat her food.  I would say she’s made up of  spice and sas everything rash. (I know it doesn’t rhyme)

I think it comes down to the fact that we have little sinners and each child is very different. While most boys could be found climbing trees playing with bugs or rolling in mud and most girls playing with dolls or running through flowers twirling in her dress There are exceptions to this.

I was graced with no “Easy” children. I believe God gave me these kids to help mold me into what I need to be. Man is it hard to be humble and patient each day. I also know that these little ones don’t stay little very long and I have learned and continue to learn to enjoy each day. So when we are at the home improvement store and they are driving the car cart around the sidewalk while waiting for A like its a race car, I just smile and laugh. We don’t always have all the time we want with each of them so lets make the time we do have great.

Signing off from one woman to another.

Jenny Ren

Tantrums, timeouts, and terrorists. Sounds like a day in the life as a mom. The amount of tantrums you handle each day is huge. When they are infants usually they cry because they need something. Every once in awhile your child will try to throw a fit around 9 months or so. They are frustrated because a toy won’t work or they can’t reach something they want to eat. Then they turn two and they up the anti. The tantrum is because they don’t want to come or they wanted something you told them no about.

Today the tantrum was over the wahwah (pacifier). J got into the car with me after a Doctors appointment and asked me right away for the wahwah. I didn’t respond but the next time she asked she screamed it WAHWAH!!!! I told her that she needed to ask me nicely or I wasn’t going to give it to her. This uped the level again WAAAHHHHHWAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said no I will not give you the wahwah and then I turned the mirror so I could see her and I said if you scream at me like that again I will stop the car and spank your bottom. She didn’t ask me again for a little bit and when she did I told her she needed to ask nicely and she did so I gave it to her.

The other night we dealt with an 8 year old tantrum. This was because he was actually scared of something hurting but it was still a tantrum. He kicked and screamed, He ran outside, he tried to negotiate. Unfortunately he is becoming more difficult to convince (or better at negotiating) that what we are saying or asking is true or right. At this age he has his own opinions and definitely expresses them. I am pretty sure he thinks he could survive without us.

Sometimes the tantrums come in adult form. I definitely have thrown a few tantrums. I sometimes loose it (well actually I loose it a lot). There are times I certainly don’t want to deal with my emotions in the right way. I feel like laying on the floor kicking and screaming in my own tantrum. I don’t want to clean the house again, I don’t want to wash your clothes , I don’t want to do all this work and still have to be responsible for all these children that don’t act the right way anyway, no matter how many times I have tried to teach them this right way to act. I don’t want to keep my cool when they are screaming at each other and won’t stop fighting for the billionth time that day. I don’t want too, I don’t want too, I DON’T WANT TOO!!!!!!!

But I am their mother and unfortunately they are little mirrors of me. I like when they mirror the good things I do. It makes me feel proud. But boy is it convicting when they mirror the bad habits I have. A while back I was sitting reading my bible and writing in my journal and little J climbed up next to me. She wanted to write in my journal so I got one for her and she grabbed my phone (the bible was on it) and started scrolling down and writing a little and scrolling down more. THAT is precious.

Times outs are inevitable especially after tantrums. There have been times I have stuck all three boys in time out together holding hands. THAT’S my favorite way to give timeout for the fighting boys. Make them hold hands through the whole time. They sure do learn to sit and get a long a little better. Sometimes you negotiate with the little terrorist. You start walking into the store. OK guys lets all get along through the store. As time goes on you start saying things like . Be nice to your brother, stop pestering your sister. Then the real negotiations start happening. Mommy can I get this or that. No buddy we are just getting these few things and then we are out. Please, they start . No sweetie. Then they start wearing you down with fighting with their brother. You start saying again please stop fighting. Then an ingenious plan forms in your head, Bribery (terrorist negotiations) If you guys don’t fight the rest of the time I will buy these cookies. Well by the time you leave the store you are buying the cookies to shut them up from nagging you and they fight the whole way home. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. REALLLY? Just another day in the life of a mom.

Signing off from one woman to another.

Jenny Ren