We have never pushed holiday celebration around here, but now our children are old enough to plan things. We have little choice but to let them spoil us on Mothers Day and Fathers Day.
All posts in Mama Heart Mushings
Moments With My Three Year Old
Lovely moments in time, specifically today, but everyday, are in beautiful abundance when you spend so much TIME with children!
My three year old has been very chatty today:)
Morning Moment
“My cars are on your mark and engines ready!” says my three year old as he lines up cars in front of my breakfast. “The blue will win because he is blue! RRRRRRRUMMMMM!” Watch out mommies toast! I had somehow gotten in the middle of a crash derby race!
After Our Walk Moments
My three year old picked his first ever bouquet of dandy-lions for me on our walk this morning! He then told me he couldn’t get me a lady bug cuz a lot of them where dead on the grass… awe 🙂
The street sweeper and cleaner went by and he screamed “OH BIG TRACTOR for me, for me!!” We had to stand and watch every time it went by.
After Snack Moments
There’s an old computer keyboard in the basement, three year old is pounding on it “I working on my puter… I don’t know why but we need a new one upstairs Mommy.”
“Can I watch a movie?” I said for sure. “Ya an adventure!” The joy with which he throws himself onto the couch and under his favorite blanket, just for a half hour cartoon before lunch, reflects how he throws himself at everything in life. Kids are excellent examples of GUSTO if you let them show you!
TTFN
Win Some
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| (Our youngest two, wrestling with their Daddy.) |
I was up much of the night with my preschooler. He was coughing so hard he couldn’t sleep for long periods at a time… thus neither did I… So today I am all the more grateful for a little day-highlight I am going to share with you 🙂
MOM- “Nap time.”
KINDERGARTNER (DAUGHTER)- “Yeah I guess so.”
PRESCHOOLER (SON)- “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
MOM- “Lets go guys. Mommy is tired too.”
KINDERGARTNER (DAUGHTER)- “I know, lez take a toy or two okay?!” (talking to her brother directly) “And then we can pat one another on the back for going to nap nice like this!” (pats her brother on the back… after a couple minutes he returns the pat… to my surprise they then walk quietly to their rooms and laid down for nap!)
TTFN
‘Scrub’ Sports
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| (Photo’s from summer past, a rough version of soccer on Papa and Nanny’s lawn.) |
Had my first game of ‘scrub baseball’ with the kids. Riddick, the family dog, was tied to a tree so he would stop breaking up the game. He has a nutty streak that just wants to destroy every ball he sees.
My youngest, being only three, spent most of his time bursting in and out of the game… apparently he was a little confused as to which game we where playing. I would be just about to pitch the ball to the child at bat when someone would yell, ‘Baby boy, playing through!’, on cue a boy and his yellow soccer ball would madly run in and out of our way.
The older two figured the game out in no time. Hit the ball with bat, put bat down, run to big tree and back to home before being tagged. We had the expected attempts to nail the runner by throwing the ball AT them as hard as possible, the occasional stomping of feet when one didn’t make it back to home before being tagged, and one person got hit with the ball… that was Mom, of course. I knew no good could come from being the first person to teach my oldest boy to pitch… he got me in the back and then I taught him, with excellent patience and grace I might add, to aim over the plate and not AT the batter.
My five year old daughter did a great job at running to the little person’s base and back (had a shorter run for the shorter kids) but forgot to put the bat down and that sure slowed her down… considering it’s almost as big as her.
The older two really liked getting Mom out and thought it was fun to try to block me on my way back to home base. The required, but rare, scrub baseball tackle entered the game at this point. “Mama will knock you down”, I grinned between wheezing for breath, as I picked my 8 year old up off the ground. Dusted him off and we both laughed about it. Of course he pulled it again in hopes of another wrestling match with Mom… ah boys…
So we didn’t completely stick to baseball, but it was a good first lesson!
My parents introduced us to pretty much every game under the sun, the ‘scrub’ version that is… less rules, rotating teams, no counting score and just fun… I will always cherish the times my Grandma Smith got involved and wowed all us grand-kids. She was such a sportsman! I hope to encourage my children to JUST ENJOY it like she did. I figure, like my parents must have, introduce the kids to enough sports in your own back yard and you help encourage them toward an active lifestyle. We learned quickly it was about fun and activity. That it didn’t matter much how amazing we where if we where hearty of spirit and ready to play!
TTFN
Delightfully Different Daughters
My five year old just got a ‘salon’ cut and she is thrilled. Perhaps a stylist in the making, this girl was pumped just about getting to watch the hairdressers do their work, let alone getting a new look herself.
For weeks she has been asking to have a ‘bob’ and insisted she genuinely wanted short hair. I didn’t know what to think. My eldest has had such a flip out thing about getting her hair cut. The last time I got her hair cut shorter, many many years ago, she almost had a panic attack. Well my little lady is entitled to be her own person so I decided to go for it. She is anything but conflicted. Absolutely tickled about her cut and really looking forward to showing it off to her Daddy tonight.
She looks adorable, I am thrilled about the style too. Bobs always reminds me of Christoper Robin from the A.A.Milne stories, back when bobs where more commonly on sweet little English boys.
While I clearly know my girls are different persons, it can be hard to know when to learn from the experiences I have had with eldest daughter and when to just drop them because they don’t work with my youngest daughter. Same struggle has been going on with my parenting of my two boys… sometimes I use the old saying ‘boys will be boys’ and other times that doesn’t work for them both.
With two girls and two boys (the same sex siblings being about 5 years apart with each set) I learned long ago that no matter how experienced you are as a parent, or how many children you have, you still have to work with their personalities. No cookie cutter kids in my house.
Their uniqueness is a treasure to this mother!
TTFN
Slowing It Down
Had one of those days, well almost… I managed to slow it all down and cut myself some slack just in time. Disorder was the perfect word to describe how my brain woke up yesterday, maybe it never completely did wake up! I messed up a planned play date and just couldn’t get my self caught up.
Finally I realised it was ‘one of those days’ and so I STOPPED trying to run the ship as I always do and put it on coast… Stopped worrying about the play date failure, the dishes, the floors, the filthy play room and all the rest… stepped away from my to-do list… and then my littlest man and I went for a walk instead.
Sunshine and spring, greeted us. We marched, at a very three year old like leisurely pace, down to the corner thrift store and puttered through there. Stopped to say hello to the bearded dragons at the community center and applauded for Bonny (of Bonny and Clyde) who is now expecting EGGS… BABIES! We then slowly walked back home, examining every newly thawed rock, slightly frozen over puddle and crack in side walk. Hoping most of the way home, we where fully prepared when we found a collection of freshly chalked out hopscotch sets (thank you neighborhood child) and even Mommy had her turn. We found our yard and played in the last of the snow in the back.
Tea with my friend worked out… still managed to babysit my niece later that day (for a couple hours) and even managed to introduce my crew to my newest niece.
Supper, day before last, was wild salmon and an amazing salad…last night… I knew better then to try and just threw beans, wieners and toast at the kids. Still a success in my books if it means we don’t order pizza or something even more pricey.
While I hope my head is back in the game today, and I stop spilling everything I pour for myself, I am especially thankful for a lovely day when it was shaping up to be ‘one of those days’.
TTFN
She Makes 12
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| Babies are such a nice way to start people. ~Don Herrold |
My eldest brother’s family just added one more to the mix. His amazing wife had her second daughter in the middle of the night. This niece was in a hurry to be crowned newest grandchild, in line at number 12 for my parents.
After starting on organizing baby clothing, well after midnight, my sister soon realised she had to get to the hospital. Her daughter arrived only 10 minutes after getting into the delivery room, they all JUST made it.
A super busy night at the hospital meant they could go home only hours after my niece arrived to the world. Healthy and happy and snuggled in at home, I got to hold her that night, still only hours old. Beautiful and soft, she, like all the blessed newborns our earth receives, she is amazing.
I was there when her sister got to meet her for the first time; joy and wonder filling big sisters face. My three year old niece was able to clearly express her greeting and her joy at finally having her sister with in hands reach. She stared, touched and glowed; glowing as both her mother and father did too.
Congrats to Aaron and Karla’s family! We love her already and are thankful you brought her into our lives.
The arrival of new life NEVER never gets old. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ for another little member of our clan!
Ecclesiastes 11:5
Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.
Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.
TTFN
On A Quiet Day
Rough start to the day, but these chocolate drop cookies, I had whipped up last night, where a slightly sweet invite back into the world of appetite.
The recipe is from my ‘Salem Church’ cookbook… a book that means so much to me personally (used to be my home church). Each recipe holds a name I usually recognition, a woman I know or knew of, this makes me smile and feel like they have shared them just with me… Never do the recipes taste as good, prepared by myself, as they did at the church functions, prepared by THE holder of the recipe…
It is a not much kind of day. My littlest guy and I are in our pj’s and I am working on feeling better.
Iron-man is keeping him company. He is a big superhero fan and although we have cut down on most of the toys around here he sure enjoys the ones we kept. His iron-man toy used to be his big brothers, but my bigger guy never was as into the whole superhero thing.
So my boy and his toy have been doing everything together. Morning cartoons, ‘iron-man armored up’ of course. Breakfast was together. They wanted oranges, yogurt and honey toast. If I ask my little guy to come up stairs he has to fly iron-man the whole way, with sound effects and all. Iron man has been really busy shooting the bad guys all over my house and I appreciate that, gotta clean out the riff raff.
You can’t find better company then a boy and his superhero.
Such a different time of my life this is. I choose the do nothing days, slowing things down is up to me. Used to be with babies and toddlers all around slow and not much was the normal kind of day. Now the nothing days are the special days.
TTFN
Where I Come From
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| (My Dad’s most faithful fishing buddy, TANK the minpin.) |
We all have a story to tell. I am working so hard at learning to REALLY listen to others and their story. I am also learning to share mine when asked. My kids are dragging it out of me bit by bit. Often at bed time they ask me to tell them about ‘where I come from’.
Bless their little hearts, they know I enjoy sharing crazy stories once I get into it. I try to not brush the requests off so much, as they get great joy out of what to them seems like another world… that other world being my upbringing. They are prairie born city kids and I was a northern bush born farm kid. We eventually had a phone and most modern utilities; but for the first few years of my life we had no plumbing, no electricity, no phone, wood heat and a goat/rabbit/chicken/little bit of everything else farm, by a lake, with limited road access and lotsa bedrock and bush to play on.
I think I will start sharing a few of the stories I remember on here too.
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| (THE dog and THE Dad that took me hunting.) |
Chicken hunting brought Dad and me together. Wild chickens, spruce hens and the like, are not very clever and oh so taste-y. Dad, Mel (the English lab) and I would camo up and hit the trails on a weekend. Tags and shot guns in hand we would travel sandy roads through the bush till we found the prey. We shared the shooting and often the boys (my brothers) where along too. Mel would point and retrieve and we all enjoyed it a great deal. The snacks where good and the conversation better.
The night we where heading home and he took my hand while I poured my heart out about how hard high school was for me I will never forget. We had just finished a day of hunting. It had been very joyful but my heart was heavy at the idea of school the next day. I got very quiet going home, so he asked me about it, and with tears I poured out my heart. I don’t know what negative pressures I would have given into during those three nasty years, if it wasn’t for the reliable support I got from my folks. With patience he offered encouragement, support and a willingly present listening ear.
Dad always had time for us. If we where willing to strap on the grubs (rough clothing) and go fishing, hunting or just lumbering through the bush with him he was very very available.
I tell my kids this story to encourage them to find something, anything, like bird hunting was for me, as a way to make the time to talk with their Dad and to BE with their Dad often. It takes two to make it work. Dad was available and I was not shy about taking him up on it.
TTFN
So I Read It Too
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| (Snapped this treasure of a photo a couple winters ago. This is my fourth born, copying his big sister.) |
My mom was (and still is) a good mom, so I don’t mind stealing things I remember her doing. Reading what literature my kids are supposed to be reading, or bringing home to read willingly, not only came from her inspiration but most definitely it comes easily to me due to my being a library technologist.
When my older two got into reading as a hobby, a few years back, I started reading along with them. They would bring library books home from school and I would rub my hands together with anticipation and think ‘oh so what did we get this time’.
More and more I am impressed with their choices. I wonder if they have caught on, or noticed, that I will run to the computer to do research on authors and books I am unfamiliar with, that I am thrilled when I notice they have brought home classics or award winning books, that I will make them send back dribble; that basically I am big into books.
I know they catch me devouring their books after they have gone to bed for the night. I have actually pried a book out of my eldest’s hands once she had fallen to sleep, and turned her room upside down to find it the next night so I could finish. She knew… she wasn’t so impressed with the idea of me finishing her ‘biggest chapter book yet’ before her. My daughter especially really really gets into books so I feel fully with in my right to check out what she is soaking in… I also just simple adore reading.
When I am reading their book choice, at the same time as they are, I get so much energy out of talking about the book with them. I am jumping in to a new world with them! Whether they like it or not this Mama is cannon balling it, I know I am not subtle. “Mom, not another book talk!” Oh yes, I like to refer them to other literature that is similar to their current reads, and to discuss reaching out to try new genres. I feed off of questions they have about their book, or books in general. I AM THAT MOM who reads to them at night and acts it out, voices and all… by all I mean when the owl got knocked out by the bat throwing a large icicle upon his head, ending a magnificently tense scene, in tonight’s bed time chapter, I fell on the floor to demonstrate.
Well it sure hasn’t deterred them from reading, quite the opposite. They seem to really enjoy that we have this comradery. Can I just add how amazing it feels to be sitting on the couch in the evening reading with my oldest daughter and oldest son on either side reading too? Three little heads bowed, noses buried in books… I have waited for moments like this! My kids make reading more fun for me and that says a lot since it has always been a joy of mine.
TTFN
