Tackle it Tuesday

Empowering the Adult
Parenting 101

This morning rang frustration as my parenting skills suffered a big wake up call.
Often we say things about how our kids drive us bonkers and I am no exception.
I realized that it was not him per say
but that it was my inability to parent him without the knowledge I needed to address the issue.
My response to him was from a kids perspective.
I love being "kind" to the kids feeling like "oh the poor dears just got home let them chill out a while tell them what to do and then watch myself get angry when they
"let my trust in them down".
WRONG!!

RIGHT...
...is to hold them accountable and not just make life easy for them.
Having them do their chores, duties and homework when they get home is security and that is an innate need .
Letting them know how they can create for themselves the environment they desire.
A "grown up controls them" into the desire of the big kid they are and what they wished it would of been like for them. It is the example they knew.

When my kids got home today first
they wash hands (every day!) this is so important.
They had an apple and a few minutes to talk about the day.

So the timer was set for a 10 minute tidy...

Then for a 15 minute kick back time..,
For Dove TV for Dash no TV
Lie to me about your homework = no privileged.
TV/ computer is privileged not a right
:)
He owned it tonight and apologized for his lies.

Then it was homework time.

It is my ADULT responsibility to hold them to it
not just accept their word
but
to check it.
I got very angry at Dash for he lied to me again...
but I realized that he needs an adult to stand over him and hold him to it.
It was me the "grown up" that really was a thorn in my saddle.

He actually seemed to appreciate it that I caught him in it yet again!
The adult pointed out correct procedure and made sure he got it.
No excuses
he was thriving on it!!!!!!!!!
I gave him a charting system that I will have to check and see each day that he did it.
He can check his own work before he tells me if he is done.
He will know when he is done.

You see Dash is pretty much a genius...no kidding.
He is off the IQ chart for his age range...
off the bell curve ...
off the paper!
He thinks he is too smart to do the mundane...
:)
We have him in an Extended Learning Program
Being young we do not advance him for the sake of his emotional development.

Smart kids are a hand full and then some.
It is really a gift and a challenge to raise him.

It is all well and good to trust our kids.
I learned though that some kids test the system
to see if I cared enough to really check on him.

Any way after homework...
he now is in a good mood confident in his security that mom is not so stupid after all He finds security in that...
see what I mean about raising a smart kid...

They gleefully did their chores!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jaw dropping to the floor once again...
They then had the down time all done by 4:00p.m.!!!!!!

I was able to have supper done
not having to wait on Dove to get her dishes done.

No more Grown up nagging about
"you need do get your home work done".
Dove.."Get your dishes done soon dad will be home...
I need to do the kitchen...soon Dove please get them done"...
Then in utter frustration yell at her to get them done embarrassment because Steve is going to walk in the door and the kitchen is not finished.


"Adult"
lets them know what is expected of them
and holds them to it.


I must of been a hand full!
I am told that I too am way intelligent...
perhaps that explains some of the "grown up's" frustrations and abuse on me as a kid.
Come to think of it the siblings who were very smart got the worst of it.

I must keep my adult in charge.

Grown up verses Adult
Over at A Life Restored I will do a post on this issue
Including the way you can tell who in in charge of your parenting:)

To those of you who were raised as Adults more power to you!
Your example to the world around you is priceless.
I am wishing I had your parents
:)

But for those of us who had to grow up with grown ups who were never the adults we needed
we have to become adults with intentional vigor.

My soul is refreshed.

I have posted on A life Restored tonight.

My soul is refreshed

Hi
I just got done watching Extreme home make over" is was the Filch episode where a couple adopted 8 children adding to there own.
The team sent over plain loads of toys, bedding and food to Haiti I balled my eyes out.

Remembering that Christmas in Russia so many years ago.
Steve and I had a little extra money that we did not spend...
We had the orphanage worker take us to the medical supply, to a kiosk for a Christmas tree...the orphanage did not have one...
We were able to get some toys to hang above cribs and some toys to manipulate and equipment for bottles...
Those little children around my feet with cleft lips and downs who will never be adopted...
Dash who may well have never been adopted had it not been for the offer of a boy child and an open heart to receive any child...

I have lived all of my life ...and in a greater view it is/has been a beautiful gift.

I will be starting to work on the manuscript again after years of being silenced.
It will take a lot to do.
It will call up a lot out of me.
But God has a plan...His ways are high.

When I think though of the difference we all have a chance to make in the world around us
I can no longer of choice withhold the way God restored my life out of the fear of lies and rejection.
I had given my strength to it and became once again enslaved.

Those survivors sitting on the floor weeping left helpless without emotional support or medical means..
It is the full circle.
There are others some of you here and some on the other blog who need to know that your life will get better that all the hard work is worth it.

Forgive my self engrossed focus and know that all of you matter to me.
All of those babies matter...
Every life we touch can be made better different if we are willing to make it be so.

My heart faltered...my courage faltered...

There is a passage that speaks about speaking on the things that we have seen in Him and heard in Him and witnessed in Him.

Today I was reminded and am going to chose to be reminded of the things He has brought me through.
I have kept silent in regards to my recovery far too long
I am again compelled to do the work to finish what he began in me.
To share with those who never have had or will have the privileges I have had.
I just wanted it all to go away.
That was, even in my attempts to protect others ...selfish of me.
It is not my job to protect others it is my job to speak the truth and give my voice to freedom.
So in the lyric of this blogs' name sake ...


don't worry mother, it'll be alright
and don't worry sister, say your prayers and sleep tight
it'll be fine lover of mine
it'll be just fine

lend your voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery
and you shall lead a life uncommon

I've heard your anguish,
I've heard your hearts cry out
we are tired, we are weary, but we aren't worn out
set down your chains, until only faith remains
set down your chains

and lend your voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery
and we shall lead a life uncommon

there are plenty of people who pray for peace
but if praying were enough it would have come to be
let your words enslave no one and the heavens will hush themselves
to hear our voices ring out clear
with sounds of freedom
sounds of freedom

come on you unbelievers, move out of the way
there is a new army coming and we are armed with faith
to live, we must give
to live

and lend our voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend our strength to that which we wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery
and we shall lead...

lend our voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend our strength to that which we wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery

I wish to be free of the fear of telling the truth and sharing the freedom fight that so many wonder if it could really ever be won...well...now lets see...lets hear it...
"tell it...like my mother said tell...tell all donetta"

hi

I'm alright...I'll post later.

Dawn is lighting up the world

As I sit this morning 4:30 this morning I am catching my breadth. I awoke at three and just laid there and prayed and thought. Knowing we are short on bread and the kids board of Cheerios I calculated that I could have a loaf of bread done if I just got up and started it.
So I did and it is rising.

The weekend was full of generosity toward a needy kid who spent not one but two nights here. Only to leave feeling upset.I think I broke a trust. By telling her guardian that she was very hurt and missed her mother. The kid may have heard and felt afraid to trust me now. How do you win? Dove is devastated that her friend is upset.

I do not have ease to open up my heart here now. My blog feels well infiltrated. Those who ...
Well if it were not for all the comments of support I would not be standing as well as I am this morning and I will say that the earth is quivering under the strain and stress I am experiencing.

I had a wonderful date with my husband this week end. We went for a long drive and tried to find a museum never did found a rest room in a panic, then drove up to the old neighborhood where we first married saw the old house. Had a nice lunch...boy how things change the quality is so reduced. We drove over to the other side of the city and went wandering in an antique store. It was nice.
I wish we might of found the museum for a change of events...our very seldom dates seem to always be the same old thing. We are so boring. We do enjoy each others company. Unfortunately I had a migraine that I just lived and pressed through. The kids had a wonderful swim time at our friends home.

Yep I am pretty down this morning. The dawn might come soon so might my joy...They say it comes in the mourning. Steve said I am just tender...He was sweet and held me. He changed the linens last night to my pleasant surprise. Dove is pre teen pulling away from mom time. I am so glad I understand the process. I do think that it is a challenge to not allow myself to take it personally. It is the time though when all I can do is hope I have set her up well to succeed as a young woman. I have so many wishes for the things that could of been done better or differently. I wish I would have had a better teacher and example myself.
Dash is at a little bit of a difficult stage. He too is gaining those independent things that at times can push my buttons then he can just be so profound. They are really wonderful little people. I feel sorta down on myself about my parenting and the things I have screwed up on. I just try to think how it feels to be in their shoes.
It will not be long now until the pulling away stage into Independence. A good thing. A bit bitter sweet to a mom. Many things haunt me that I so wish I would of done better.

I feel so sad...I watched so many children grow into adulthood and so many a child have a difficult time. I want so badly to see these two succeed in spite of Steve and I and all of the things we could of done so much better...I know in many many ways we have done marvelous things to help these two along. I just wish I could of given them so much more. A healthily extended family, a safe world to go out into. I am not finished yet of course...it is just coming upon us that we have very precious little time to impact their lives for the best effect toward their futures. What a huge task to parent. Parents have to mature themselves while at the same time maturate the children who demand so much more knowledge than we often have been able to acquire.

Well it is 5:45 and time to go punch the bread down. I guess I took the blog back at risk.... Lord help me I feel depressed and sad and just plain old overwhelmed.

I had a dream last night that reminded me that the EMDR lady is surprizingly kind and she has the keys to the cell.

I must pull up courage, resolve and gentleness...I am really grieving over many losses.

Of course a plastic face never really did flatter anyone.

Spiritual Sundays

Standing up to Meanness

Friday I opened my heart up just an inch about the loss of my nephew this year to suicide and the pending arrival of the child he fathered.
I tenderly spoke of how his death pains me.

Anonymous found it necessary to be mean.

Meanness is a silencer.
It divides and conquers the very absence of fellowship that it demands.

It's amazing to me the ability to track that our technology and a very intelligent person may have.

Mean people come in all packages.
I have always believed that meanness is based in a wounded heart.
Thus they tend to do a bit of transference to everyone they come around.
Funny though that they often can desire (or perhaps appear too) to be kind and may even spend time and effort being so.
Thus the most confusing part of loving mean people.
I am called to compassion yet I do not have to tolerate, nor Mean Person do you , have to tolerate those covert behaviors in your own self.
We all have the choice to mature in our Character.
I would hope for your sake that you continue to do so.
If not it will be a terribly lonely life for you I am sure.
Meanness pushes away the very thing your after...

All the attention you were denied!


Now when hearts are tender and they receive meanness from others it can really impale us.
Down from the stake this morning come I.
I realized the transference.

I grieve for those who find it satisfying to transfer there wound onto others.
But it is their responsibility NOT OURS to care for, manage and do the work to heal themselves...not ours.
The depth of loneliness, shame and impending rejection that they must live with every day.

Now although I do care about those Mean Folks...
I will spend no more of my time pulling away because of them!
This is MY BLOG!

So anonymous with the deepest sincerity I do grieve those things that left you the way you are.
I do pray for you that your heart might heal.

It is in the Spirit of the LIVING LOVING GOD that I am able to do so.

My Dear Covering of a husband opened my eyes to the error of just erasing your comment.
It would perhaps of been good to let you my readers address such a one.

As He said also it is good that you who love me and who are those who truly care of my sorrow over the loss of my Dear Nephew
that was such an important part my young adult life
Never being able to be close to him due to the madness of my family of origin.
that was such an important part of our early marriage...
this child who I saw come to my door in a vision so many years after last I saw him...
Who knocked on my door that vision just days before my first trip to Russia...
Who asked me if I would be willing to receive those who came in the car that day with him.
It was at his request and the Lords preparation of a repeated vision of the event that took place...seeing what played out year after year in that vision...
This child whom I prayed and wept over year after year as did I his cousins and the siblings I was forced to remain in isolation from...
in order to not take my own life...
This young man who poured his heart out to me several months before His death...
This young adult that I simply could not help.
This soul who was so used and chased by people and the world around him.
This young man who chose to follow the path that lead slowly to his destruction who found it too difficult to follow any other way .
Far to many obstacles in his life ...his path.

This child whom I loved.
I grieve over.

Though I am not his mother,his sister or the mother of his child .
I watched his life unfold from a
(necessary self imposed for survival)
distance and grieved and wept and yes at times rejoiced.
A child with a heart so loving and so generous and kind that he in his own way even went so far in his despair and wound as to lay his life down in utter defeat.

So to all you Mean Spirited folk as Much as I have compassion for you and chose moment by moment to practice kindness to you...
I will not be defeated by the wound that lashes out from you!

For Greater is
HE WHO DWELLS IN ME
than he who provokes the wound.

Perhaps joining us over here might just give you what you need

NaBloPoMo

A message to all members of NaBloPoMo

The theme for next month's daily blogging is BEAUTIFUL. It's a word that means something different to everyone, which makes it ideal for a month's worth of interpretation and reinterpretation.

If you'd like to be included on the September blogroll with everyone else who's giving this daily blogging thing a shot, go here and follow the directions at the top of the page -- http://www.nablopomo.com/blogrolls/september-2009-blogroll
As always, blogging on the theme is not required for inclusion on the blogroll.

I've got some HTML badges up, but please feel free to invent your own and leave a link in the comments! http://www.nablopomo.com/htmlbadges/september-2009-html-badges

Good luck, thanks, and happy blogging!

Eden
http://www.nablopomo.com/profile/toasteroven

Visit NaBloPoMo at: http://www.nablopomo.com

Lyrics of A life uncommon by Jewel

don't worry mother, it'll be alright
and don't worry sister, say your prayers and sleep tight
it'll be fine lover of mine
it'll be just fine

lend your voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery
and you shall lead a life uncommon

I've heard your anguish,
I've heard your hearts cry out
we are tired, we are weary, but we aren't worn out
set down your chains, until only faith remains
set down your chains

and lend your voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery
and we shall lead a life uncommon

there are plenty of people who pray for peace
but if praying were enough it would have come to be
let your words enslave no one and the heavens will hush themselves
to hear our voices ring out clear
with sounds of freedom
sounds of freedom

come on you unbelievers, move out of the way
there is a new army coming and we are armed with faith
to live, we must give
to live

and lend our voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend our strength to that which we wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery
and we shall lead...

lend our voices only to sounds of freedom
no longer lend our strength to that which we wish to be free from
fill your lives with love and bravery

Hard Drive Crashed

My computer died last night.
I am on one of the kids.
This machine does not have full capabilities.

Dear Serendipity...

I will try to do a more detailed post on the window tinting.
There were some good tricks I learned after doing so many of them.
Keeping the film very wet and the window very wet is so important.
It the sticky side of the film touches it is nearly impossible to save it.
By they way...
the bottled spray that comes with the kit for $5 is just a few drops of dish soap (just see that it is a plain dish soap nothing fancy) and water just a heads up for I would of spent considerable money just keeping it filled :)

I have a free day...
well laundry and kitchen and week end food prep.
Other wise free.
For me that is low work load.
I will have to do a time line of life events for the EMDR on Monday.
So If you do not mind keeping me in thought and prayer I would appreciate it.
Going over event history can be difficult to say the least.
The hope is to use the EMDR to reprogram the neuro path ways to stop the memory lock ups. The human brain is such an amazing thing.

I also will be working on my great nephews nursery.

My nephew committed suicide earlier this year. This young man was a very special kid in his early youth Steve and I grew very close and he and I had a special bond.
Knowing the depth of the loss that his mother and sister and the mother of his son to be born I have not allowed my own pain in his loss much attention. It is really very painful however and It is just tearing me up inside.
Working on the nursery and feeling a bit unacknowledged for the loss that I feel has been sorta tough. It really hurts that My nephews life turned into such a desperate end. It is terribly sad. I do not think any of my family really understands the magnitude of his death to me. Funny how it can be assumed that (or seemingly so) that his loss does not effect me. How could it not. Time spent with someone or time simply on the outskirts of an others life does not differ the depth of love that I feel for this boy (man). In my mind and heart he will always be the heart of who he was not the man that his choices and life caused him to become.
So now a beautiful young single woman will bear a fatherless child...it appears that it may have been all in his confused hopes that his absence would of been better for his children's lives. In his mind he had become convinced of this hopeless of being able to offer them a future.

Oh please my friends choose wisely.
The choices we make will have a greater effect on the lives around us than we perhaps could ever understand.
In this great epic we are but a line in the story .
Yet a well written line can change an epic for all of time.
It can turn the end into a completely different story.

May my life be a well written line in the vast epic of time.

So I close a little saddened but not dis heartened
Thanks for the kindness of friendships.
I will try to get back on this machine later in the day.
Have a wonderful day thinking on those that you love.
Be a well writing part of the greater story today.

Thankful Thrusday *Rescue

We are under a heat advisory

Sometimes it is a literal rescue received that is a cause for celebration
This week when the mower actually started for me after 30 minutes the day before and several minutes that morning I whooped and hollered!
I was rescued. The day before I was in a prison of attitude anger and frustration.
The morning it started I was able to rescue another my brother my husband from a task that would add to his long day.

The heat here has been a bit of a torment.

Skill and effort with means caused for me to conclude a week long job of tinting our East and West facing windows.
With job done and some effort I was freed from the agitating stress of a messy dining and living room.
This has been tinkered with, I am in the midst of re organizing the decor.
Some rescues are at our own hand and choice.
We often hold our selves captive through inaction's or plain overloaded work schedules.
See the difference it makes it has a rating of 77% heat block.
This is a W-SW facing door on the patio.

Tools of the trade of Window tinting

The back door needed a layer of reflective film.
This is the corner guide. It holds the corner so trimming can be successfully achieved.

The tinting will save us from the heat infiltrating the house.
It is a good investment at apx $6. a window.
You can actually feel the difference of the heat on the window.

The Lab approved...
I avoid use of the dogs names for a reason :)

Many years ago I saw a wonderful old painting that was 6x8 if it were an inch. I loved that painting. This a gift to me last week by a friend.
It is amazingly beautiful.
The photo does not do it justice.

This was a wonderful day of friendship for me, as my dear friend came.
I saw us doing our nails. How is that for a fun girly thing to do.
As moms to rescue our hands from the busy neglect we sat and had
sweet chocolate coffee with soy milk.
It was so nice. We first did a hand treatment and then came in and sat down to a manicure. I painted her nails.
I have never done that for someone before. It was cool!
We spoke at length.
My dear friend was a hospice councilor years ago before adopting her kids.
Our kids are close.
This morning I received a touching e-mail that may be followed by a phone call from a mother who is at bed side of a dieing child.
Debbie here today...rescue us Lord with your knowledge, your provision.

She made a wonderful suggestion

Have the ailing write out specific instructions as too her wishes.
This lets the Mother off the hook so to speak.
It is a painful thing to have a power of attorney
Someone will always be unhappy with you.
There you are doing the most difficult thing a Mother could do and having to also deal with the emotions and feeling of others while your own are rampaging, yet you have to function.

My friend also told me about hospice.
You do
NOT
have to have a DNR for them to help.
The rescue of receiving the help is a freedom of a heavy weight.
This will help the family .
Most folks do not understand that.
Hospice is simply there to support the family.
They are not the grim reaper.

At the end of our visit our rescue is this that each of us with the nails painted hands nurtured will pray foe each other this week for we will only have to look at our hands to think of those things on each others hearts.

I will be doing our Moms in Touch via the phone so when they are at her table I will stop and join them here.
My plate is gratefully full
Discovered is a way to have my cord of three strands
and join in prayer with them too.

I just pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven
it smells divine