Category: Parenting

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Time to Write

Olof

Things are changing. They are always changing. Every moment when I get into the rhythm of “I got this” life happens and I have to learn to dance to a different beet and sometimes life doesn’t even provide me with the music to dance to and I sort of have to be super creative. Now is one of those moments where there is music but it the station keeps getting changed a lot and I have learned to just roll with it. Funny thing is that it keeps mixing my favorite hip hop station with my least favorite techno station and I have NO idea how to dance to techno. But even my favorite Hip Hop station is throwing me curve balls that I can manage and they are not horrible but throw me off beet. Thankfully there is more Hip Hop than Techno.

So here it is. Remember when we purchased the house the summer of 2016? The 1978 monster of a house that was frozen in time in 1978. There was shag carpet everywhere. Even in the bathrooms. There was carpet in the kitchen. Yep you read that right. IN THE KITCHEN!!! We knew that was not going to fly with 4 young boys, a dog and 2 cats. So we ripped out ALL the carpet except in the formal living and dining room which looked newer than the rest. But Ya’ll the carpet in there is cream colored and that is where I have the boys fenced off when I need to finish dishes, laundry, cook dinner or what have you and the dining room is the play room at the moment and the formal living is the game room with the ugliest pealing pleather couch that you could think of. We stalled out of updating the house about 7 months ago. Getting all of this done with 4 kids, a dog and 2 cats in tow on top of homework, school pick up, mountains of laundry, all the meals and all the normal stuff we have going on just wasn’t happening. One of our investments did well and we suddenly had the money to pay someone else to do the work and it was like a light shown down from the heavens. This is where I spend most of my time. In this house and we have had nasty concrete floors for over a year. The toilets and everything in the bathrooms is an ugly beige that makes me want to stab myself in the eye. But we have a great friend that does AMAZING work and was willing to take us on as clients and I am so excited to see what he will do for our house. Hopefully by the end of February I will have the house of my dreams. Before then we ran into some snags.

We found bats in the attic Bye Bye $1170 for removal and clean up

We hired a structural engineer because of some uneven floors and wanted the foundation to be fixed before we put new hardwood floors on. We need piers and foam to stabilize the foundation. Bye Bye $10,000

We needed some trees trimmed and removed from our property and the rental property. Bye Bye $2400

This all before we even start on the whole house remodel. The new appliances needed and the furniture that we need after that is done. We never fully moved into this house because it was never finished. The attic above the garage (that doesn’t have bats) is still full of our stuff that I never moved in because we had so much left to do. Also we moved from a 1500 sq ft house to a 3390 sq ft house. We still have whole rooms that we don’t use at all because they really aren’t usable because there is just subflooring.

As I was dealing with all the contractors (I’ve already been stood up 2 times and we haven’t even started on real renovations) I get a call from my 3rd boy’s principle. It is that call that no parent wants to hear. “You need to come pick up your preKer because he has been violent towards another child and has left marks on him.” I was in complete shock and disbelief. He is stubborn and sneaky and a hand full at home but never would I have imagined that he would be violent towards another child on purpose. I left a note on the door that I would be back in a few minutes for the contractors and speed off to school. Ashamed of my sons behavior. When I asked him why he did it he told me that he wanted to come home and this is the only way he gets to go home. It was one of my few days where I get to get stuff done without having small children under foot. My youngest (who is almost 2 and throws the greatest tantrums ever at the moment) was at his little preschool and I was trying to pack as much into my window as I could. Alex, my #3, got suspended for the rest of the week. He thought he won the lottery and got to stay home. I took away screens, I took away games, but honestly there is little I could do to make staying home with me less great. He hates school. Says his teacher doesn’t like him and even though I have asked for a change, written emails and showed up to meetings and other things nothing but a Behavioral plan has been done for him. The child that hasn’t done anything like this before is suddenly labeled a psychopath by his teacher because he is trying everything in his power to get out of there. What really makes me sad is he begged to go to “big kids school” for almost a year before he started. He had been dreaming of it for so long and I remember sitting down with the teacher at the beginning of school and thinking “oh no” that she was not a good fit for him and this might not go so well. I thought he would be unruly for her but NEVER violent. I can’t change things for him at school. I can just be a loving place for him at home. Make sure he talks about his choices at school and try to move on. This part of parenting sucks. When they have to learn to be outside of your zone. If they never really learn this the rest of life will be hard. I don’t want that for him.

As all of this is going down, the endless estimates and contractors and Alex making himself seen in our large busy family, I am also planning a trip to Iceland to see my family for Christmas. We won’t be there for long so I’m trying to introduce my boys to all of the different families on a one on one basis. This takes planning. I also have to make sure that I have all the outdoor clothing we will need for all 4 of them. Good shoes for all kinds of weather and that I make time for friends and us too with out hurting too many feelings.

Like I said at the beginning of the post, most of my music is good music that I love to dance to, finally getting the house done the way I like it and money not really hindering that, but I find myself stumbling through the techno noise and feeling like I am failing in ways along the way, when I am navigating the parenting outside of my control zone, watching my child not thrive and knowing that he needs to learn to be without me and I will not always be able to pick and chose his caretakers or bosses along the way. I hate that he is learning this so early. He is only 5. But also sheltering him even longer might not be helpful either.

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Week 1 of the Elimination Diet

Olof

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OK I have decided to share with you my journey in the search to healing my body. 6 months ago I was really sick. I was in so much all over pain that I needed pain medicine to function for my family. I hated it and tried not to take it because I did not want to turn into a narcotics statistic but then my family suffered. My joints hurt so badly that I was having a hard time getting around. Then my body just started hurting all over. I went to the Dr to have blood work done and everything came back normal. He sent me to a rheumatolorgist and even though I had inflammation he couldn’t place it so he just gave me the umbrella diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and sent me home with a medication that I should just take. I read the side effects and was not OK with it.

I had the Mirena IUD placed 4 months post partum because of abnormal bleeding, which ended up only making the bleeding worse, and the Dr still kept talking me out of having it removed again and my symptoms had been getting worse since then so I decided that I was ready to heal my body. Not cover up symptoms. Clearly my abnormal bleeding was a clue that things were not in balance and I needed to have the Mirena removed to know really what was going on. I scheduled an appointment to have it removed and the PA that was removing it for me tried to talk me out of it again and told me that there was no way that it could be the Mirena that was causing me any of my symptoms. A week later My joint pain was almost gone and I had started running again.

I made an appointment with a holistic Dr to help me get rid of some symptoms I had had for years now which included brain fog, dry brittle nails and hair, dry skin, hard time focusing, sugar and processed food cravings,  poor quality of sleep, seasonal allergies, my cycle was short why my periods where long and heavy and excess weight. This lead to blood tests that tested both my genetics for how I process vitamins, blood count, state of my nutrition and so on. I learned that I have genetics that make it hard for me to process B vitamins and folates so I need to be sure to supplement those and that I was low on CoQ10 and Omega 3s. Just starting to take these suppliments changed so much for me. I was functioning again. I quit hurting. My skin got a little better. But I wanted to tackle the rest of my skin issues, the rest of my brain fog, my short attention span, my sugar cravings that were still going strong and my weight.

I was seen by another holistic Dr and she told me that it was probably my gut that was wreaking havoc on my system. So she prescribed an elimination diet with supplements and antifungals. Warning me that I was likely to feel much worse on the diet before I got better so to wait until after the holidays to do it. She believes I have something called Leaky Gut Syndrome. So pieces of my food are actually penetrating my bowl and leaking into my bloodstream causing inflammation and all my issues. The 4 week plan will hopefully help my gut heal and then I can slowly introduce some of these foods again.

An Elimination diet means that I would not be eating eggs, wheat, corn, Soy, sugar, shellfish, beef, pork, alcohol or coffee (when she said this I told her she went too far LOL). She did hand me a long list of things I could eat. Including rice and oats so that was something.

I decided that Jan 1st was a good a day as any to start and it gave me time to wean myself off of coffee and switch to green tea which I could have. The Dr had sent me a meal plan and a grocery list and like the ADD person that I am I waited until the first day of the diet to fill my prescriptions and go grocery shopping. That trip to the grocery store was a $300 trip. A lot of the items I will be able to use a gain nest week because it is a 4 week plan so this weeks trip will be less expensive. I ended up going to 3 pharmacies to fill my prescriptions because the anti fungal that I needed at those places had simple syrup added to them which I couldn’t have. I’m on day 7 now and still haven’t gotten that yet because of pharmacy transfers and other issues but hopefully Monday will be a better day.

I have cooked sooooo much this week and it was all new to me recipes. Most of them were very good and we had fish 2 times this week which was nice. I haven’t been good enough at cooking fish and that is the reason for my Omega 3 efficiency.

Day one I felt good and was doing fine. My older kids were still at their grandparents so I was still getting to sleep in with the 1 year old. Day 2 wasn’t that bad either, the kids came home that day and I went for a run that night. Day 3 I hurt all over and the brain fog hit me to the max. I was always full because the meal plan leaves no availability to go hungry but I was dragging. Day 4 I was dragging even more. Day 5 I was still in a funk but still sticking to it but missing coffee and Day 6 was hard. It was Family night which means pizza and a movie on the couch with the kids. Husband, being the good husband he is, brought home the pizza and handed it to me while he changed out of his work clothes so that I could pass the pizza out to the troops. That was the first time I really wanted to break the diet. Handling and smelling the pepperoni pizza. I didn’t want to cook so I ate leftover beans and rice and made my self a bad smoothie. Day 7 and I am a little bit peppier. Good husband let me sleep in since I was up and down all night with the one year old and have been all week getting around 4 hours of sleep on average a night. This does not help me heal but it is the way things are at the moment.

I’ve been doing my research and apparently the trifecta of getting rid of sugar, gluten and dairy + antifungals (the one I have) and probiotics is causing a storm in my gut flora and the nutrients I am getting from my food.  So my Dr was spot on about things feeling much worse before they get better. I’m just hoping that by the middle of next week I will start to get the ability to think back. I seriously could just stare at a wall and I wouldn’t get bored because I just can’t think at the moment. Writing this post was hard. But I know I am doing this for a reason and hope that since the antifungals have done their job and I no longer crave sweets all the time that I will be able to keep it up after I quit this diet. I will be incorporating some of these meals into our normal meal plan because the fish we had was really good and so was some of the chicken. The smoothies have not been good at all.

I am also happy to announce that 12 lbs have been shed since we purchased this house. 2 during this week. If I lose 2 lbs a week for the next 3 weeks I will be very happy and this will have been worth it. I’m more than tired of my gut and my double chin. If I could just stop being so tired all the time that would help too.

If you read this all the way through then thank you for reading. Have you done the whole 30 or an elimination diet? Is it something that you need to do but have been putting off? Tell me about how it went. Did you have withdraws? Anybody have any recipes they want to share with me?

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So Much Change!

Olof

OK since the last time I posted a lot has happened and since I am suffering a bad cold at the moment and stuck on the couch I thought I would update everyone. You know because having a 4th kid wasn’t enough. A) we got a puppy! and B) we bought another house!

I know I’m crazy and my body is completely telling me how crazy I am but that is a whole other blog post. 13217393_10156975132635118_3143750346418388979_o

This is Freyja! She is a mess of a Beagle Pug mix. Shortly after mom died I had a dream. My mother visited me in the dream, held my then 3 boys, and told me “Olof give the boys their puppy and everything will fall into place.” At the time I just took it as a grief dream and I didn’t give it much thought. Almost 3 years later I suddenly needed to get a dog. Husband wanted (and still doesn’t) nothing to do with this dog. She is a mess. She can’t be trusted with the kids but she is now only 8 months and getting better every day.

Shortly after adding a dog to our, already large and busy, family, I suddenly needed to move. It was like an urge that I just had to fill NOW. My children needed a better school and we needed more room. I used to daydream of a beautiful colonial home and drive though a neighborhood here in Tulsa that has these BEAUTIFUL colonial homes. I knew that a house like that was not in the cards. Especially not in that neighborhood. I also was wanting a home in a neighborhood where my kids could go outside and ride their bikes. I had a tall order for a house on a limited budget. We wanted to stay under $200K and at least 2000 sq.ft. We needed at least 4 bedrooms because I was not going to move again before the boys move out unless we are moving out of state or out of the country and then I would just sell everything and not bother with moving all of it.

I started looking at Zillow and texting my awesome Realtor to start looking at houses. We had looked at a colonial in a good school district but the people that owned it wanted more than we were willing to pay for it and the kitchen was small. We looked at so many houses. The only ones I really liked were under contract before I could even make an offer. We were looking for something that we wouldn’t need to do anything to. Yeeeaaah…….. The ones that were within our budget were too small when it came to bedrooms for the boys. I had looked at our current house on Zillow. Loved the exterior, the space, the school, and the neighborhood  BUT the interior was horrendous. It was stuck in the 70’s with original shag carpets, wood paneling and all.There was carpet in the kitchen and the bathrooms! I looked on Zillow but did not want to do all the work so I did not want to go see it in person. Then I started getting really frustrated. I needed to move! It was like I was being pushed and pulled to move by something. I finally went to looked at this house with my realtor and husband and kids. I saw the potential but knew that it was going to be a process. This house is more than double the size of our last house that was 1500 sq. ft. At 3392 sq. ft. 4 bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms and a bonus room over the garage, it is a monster of a house. I still have to pinch myself that we actually have a house this big and in such a great neighborhood. I couldn’t believe that I had squirreled away enough money to pay for a down payment on a house like this without selling our other house. 13346319_10157062611325118_5197928201563293277_o

The closing was a mess of papers and the move was a sweaty mess with 4 kids in tow. We were moving during the hottest time of the year here in Tulsa, Oklahoma but we needed to be moved before the boys started school. We were so lucky that my in laws, my brother, and several friends were an amazing help. Both moving and with renovations.

We have only gotten flooring on a small portion of it. We started by tearing all the carpet, except in 2 rooms, out. Scheduled a large trash pick up by the city and got all of the carpet on the curb. We had to wear masks. It was Soooooo gross. But it got the smell out of the house that was stuck in it.

Then we got all the doors off, even the cabinets. They were all a dark wood. Making the house really dark on the inside. We painted them all white. It was a great face lift for the kitchen. We have managed to put floors in 2 of the bedrooms and 2 of the 3 bathrooms. We have amazing dreams for this house but it will be slow going since we have now used up all of our extra money. All gone! What is left is our emergency fund and that is for emergencies. But slow and steady the paint is getting done and flooring is getting put down. We don’t want any carpet.

Every time one more thing gets done I feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Because, you know, taking care of feeding and keeping 4 kids clean and a 11 month old safe from himself leaves me plenty of time to paint and keep working on the house. My health issues have not helped either but I’m hoping that I will start seeing the end of the tunnel soon.

What did we do with our other house, you may ask, since we didn’t sell it? You guessed it, we are now landlords. Friends of ours offered to paint, repair and clean the old house and in return they will be saving $1500 over the next year on rent. I thought it was a great trade and I knew that they would be amazing tenants.

I’ve had to make some changes since moving. HOA laws say that we can’t have chickens so my chickens went to a wonderful home at my amazing in laws. They are treated much better there than I was able to with everything else on my plate and they are about to take my bees too. My plate is more than full at the moment and these beings deserve being taken better care of than I can at the moment. I was so thankful I could get them somewhere they are really cared for and that I can visit. One day I may get back into bee keeping but right now I am going to focus on making this house our home. Less than half of our house is being used at the moment. There is so much left to be done. I will slowly make this house a home my children will hopefully love to come home to and my friends and family will love to come visit. Having plenty of room for visitors. I will get into my plans for this house in a different post. I hope I start blogging more often and share my story again.

What are you up too? Any advice for our renovations?

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Introducing Ragnar Baldur

Olof

 

As I have told you in prior posts I was expecting a baby. That baby was born December 7th of last year. His name is Ragnar Baldur and he is the easiest baby I have ever had. He is both easy on the eyes and sleeps really well. He goes for 5-7 hour spurts at night. I am so lucky and thankful for his sleeping so well.

 

Since I have other kids I’m not getting much more than 6 hours at night but most nights it is continuous sleep which I have never had before with a little one like this.

He was less than a week old when I started to need to cart him to school Christmas events. He almost never fusses at being dragged all over creation as long as he is dry and not hungry then he usually just sleeps through it.

This mamma is just so in love with this little human. His brothers are so happily surprised that he doesn’t interrupt their lives too much and they are great helpers.

Pour Ragnar got really bad baby pimples. But they have since cleared up.

I’m sure you are thinking Ragnar Baldur is an interesting name to pick but if you watch the show Vikings (and if you don’t you really should because they are a really good depiction of what the viking culture was really like) then you might have noticed that the main character’s name is Ragnar. It means a warrior sent from the gods.

 

His middle name Baldur is a Nordic god name. The god of poetry and beauty. So now we have our oldest Odinn, the god of gods, our next oldest Magni, the god of strength, our 3rd child Alexander Thor the god of thunder, and now Baldur.

 

Ragnar was 10lbs 3oz at birth. Many of you might be thinking that that is big. It is not small. But Alexander Thor was 11lbs 14oz. I worked so hard this time not to have a giant baby by watching what I ate and going to the gym daily until I got sick and started coughing and didn’t stop. So the 3rd trimester I was not as active but I made sure I didn’t put on more than 29lbs and lost 21 of them giving birth.

 

When I need to get housework done and he is awake usually putting him in his bouncy chair with a toy will keep him busy for long enough to clean up the kitchen and start a load of laundry.

Waking up in the morning to this face never gets old. No matter how tired I am I smile and am thankful for all the love and beauty he brings to this family.

Most of the time when we have appointments for my son’s orthodontist or a Dr’s appointment this is the norm. He sleeps in his car seat and I knit or read something. During swim lessons he just hangs out in his ergo baby.

There have only been a hand full of days since this child was born where he just needed to be held and all else had to wait and during those days I hold him with gratitude for he will only be little once and since this is rare I have an excuse to just sit and snuggle him. My surprise baby that was far from planned.

 

Most of the time he is a happy laundry helper but in that pic you can see it is not ALL the time.

 

 

He found his thumb a couple of days ago. Magni and Alex also did that for a little while at this age but never got into it. But who knows, I might have my one and only thumb sucker.

Love his little baby voice. And that is it. Sorry about flooding you with images and videos. As you can tell I am head over heals about this guy. My surprise 4th. The baby I cried for 2 weeks over when I found out that he was on his way and I thought that I couldn’t handle any more children. But here he is and he is perfect.

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Long time no post…

Olof

Hello everyone,

It has been a long time since I posted my last blog post and just typing this seems really odd to me. I feel rusty and not quite sure where to start. My last post was almost 10 months ago. I posted about choosing to be home with my family instead of going back out into the workforce and what that takes in effort for me. The last 10 months have not been easy. I have stumbled and gotten back up over and over. I have wished I was working many times. I have also been thankful for being home and being here for my kids moments many times. Finding a balance for a mother is hard and some of the biggest news since I posted last is that we are expecting baby boy #4. That is right.

This came as a huge surprise to us. We believed that our family was complete. I was sure that I would not want to give birth again after my last being 11lbs and 14oz. We were preventing. I cried for a couple of weeks but then I held out for the hope that just maybe this was a gift from the universe and I might just be having the little girl I always wanted. When I found out that was not the case it was even harder to carry this baby. All the aches and pains became worse. The thought of going through labor and delivery of another giant baby became harder to process. I’m having another giant boy. It has already been confirmed. I am now on a special low carb diet so that I can try to do something to limit his weight gain. This makes this pregnancy even less fun. No ice cream or any of the other food I crave.

Since mom died over 2 years ago I have struggled with my faith. When I found out I was pregnant this time the thought that I might be getting a little girl resparked my faith for a little time, sort of holding out hope that maybe mom sent me the little girl I always longed for. But when I found out that this was a little boy my faith crumbled again. I love my boys. I would never return them. I’m sure that this is a blessing and I just haven’t seen it yet. Maybe this child will be the easiest kid ever. Maybe labor and delivery will be no problem unlike last time. Maybe this will be the kid that sleeps through the night sooner than age 2. Maybe…….. But I’m not holding my breath because this is a human child that is born to me and the likelihood that he will be that much more different than my other children is slim to none.

I turned 34 yesterday and I had told myself that I would not have more children after the age of 32. I’m only 2 years younger than my mom was when she had me. Mom has been at all my births until now. Now she is gone. Now my husband and I need to do this on our own. Now I need to put my big girl pants on and face the music. My baby is due on Dec. 9th and my babies have all been at least 5 days past due so I will have a newborn this Christmas. Still bonding. Still getting breastfeeding down. Usually at 2-3 weeks my nipples are cracked and bleeding. I worry about making this Christmas magical for my children. I worry about a lot of things having this 4th child in 7 and a half years. I worry about my abilities to keep up and meeting everybody’s needs. There is only one of me and now a 4th child and a husband that really need my attention and my love.

New  baby clothes from Target

Knitting a little jump suit for the belly dweller.

I am trying hard to do things to bond and make sure that I greet this baby with open arms and an open heart. I have gone to therapy to work through my feelings, I have done some shopping since I had gotten rid of All of the baby stuff we had and Alex had outgrown before we found out that we were expecting again. I try to appreciate those belly moments where he is active and be thankful for all the other great things in my life. I know as soon as he is in my arms I will love him as much as I have loved all of my children. Thank goodness for my bodies ability to form bonding chemicals. I become that crazy mom that can’t let my baby out of my sight and you better not touch it with out asking permission first unless you are family.

I will end this post here. I could go on and on about how rough the summer was being pregnant with 3 small boys and the pelvic pain that started in the 3rd month but I believe that you get the point. As much as children are a blessing being a parent is hard and being pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy and having 3 other young boys is really hard. Especially when you don’t have a village.

What are your struggles at the moment and how are you being mindful and working in a direction of healing and happiness?

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Choosing My Family

Olof

This Christmas day had me thinking about what I want out of life. What I want for my children and my future. What is more important to me and our family. I always go through certain stages of grief when I become stay at home again. It is almost always the same. I go from Super Mom and Wife in the first 2 months where everything is cleaned up and put away and I dive into closets and drawers to rearrange and clean out and suddenly around month 3 I hit a wall. I know what it is. I can analyze it but to stop it is harder. I hit the dip. The depression and I have a hard time getting myself out. I get tired of doing it all and getting no thanks or acknowledgment for it. I get tired of picking everything up after everyone but I don’t want to be the wife and mom that bitches and moans constantly so it builds up and I stop doing it all. I start only doing the things that have to be done and if there is no deadline it doesn’t get put on the to do list. Oh, my to do lists. They are sad now. I write them out and then ignore them and then I see them again and just get depressed. I, by all means, do not sit around all day picking my nose. I have a very active, giant two year old that I run after all day getting him off the top of my desk or stopping him from pushing his chairs or rocking horse over to a child gate to climb over it. I am constantly putting out fires it seams of dirty diapers, laundry, meals and picking up children from school, helping with homework and getting them in bed.

My husband started a new work schedule. He works 8-6 M-Thur. so that he gets every other Friday off. This is another adjustment. By the time he gets home most nights it is 6:30pm and the kids go to bed at 7:30. So each day he only gets an hour with them except for one Friday where he is home when they get home from school. It makes for a VERY long day for me.

2014 Willow Tree Ornament 

I have my outlets. I have play dates at my house on Tuesdays where my fellow grad student stay at home parents come to talk to save their sanity and mine. Where our children play and we get to talk about how non-glorious it is to be a parent. The poop, vomit and little to no sleep you get. Then we turn around and boast about how great our children are and how we couldn’t imagine life without them.

My being home now is a choice that I go back and forth on if it is really what I want. I love working. I love being around other intelligent grown ups. I love the immediate change I have made. Being home is different. I know this is what is best for my children but the rewards are small and far between. There is no paycheck and the gratitude is little to none when it comes to kids. I take enjoyment from hearing my kids interact with one another. They are really forming good lasting relationships. If I had them in aftercare then they wouldn’t even be in the same room after school. Being a mom and wife is frustrating a lot of the time but the good moments are REALLY good. I get to go on field trips and see the plays. Pick them up from school and ask them about their day in a non-rushed manner. I get to be in the moment with them and not constantly worrying about if I have everything for dinner or will I have to feed them fast food again.

Dough raising for homemade bread

As a parent how do you choose? How does one keep themselves sane and do what is best for their family? I’m reading Radical Homemakers which is really helping me see my value as a stay at home mom with a very expensive Master’s degree. In our current society, that values more what you can buy instead of make and produce, it is hard to stay focused on all I do for my family by growing our veggies, raising chickens for eggs, keeping bees for honey, knitting, sewing, baking from scratch, and learning now to clean with safe chemicals. Making a home. Raising a family. Being here for them. Choosing to produce instead of buy.

My backyard flock

I choose to be home because I choose my family. I choose forming good solid bonds with my children, I choose spending more than 2.5 hours a day with my children that are just rushed because dinner needs to be made and then things need to be cleaned up. I choose having time and energy to make home cooked meals instead of fast food or frozen meals full of chemicals that I can’t even pronounce. I choose to cut back, have a smaller home, have second hand items and older cars because in the long run that is not what kids really care about. They care that their mamma is there for them. That she is willing to cut back and live a less lavish lifestyle so that she can be home with her kids. They care that their mamma is there to cheer them on and not some care taker that might not even work there tomorrow.

As you see in this post this choice was not easy for me as an individual that loves other grown ups and needs to be mentally challenged but as a mother it was a no-brainer. I choose my children because they are little for such a short time and before I will know it they will be too busy with their own lives to need me this much. I tried working. While I was happy at work I felt guilty about leaving my children to be cared for by someone else not even related to them.

Road Trip back from the grandparents.

I am far from perfect. I do the best I can with what I have but when women say that they can’t afford to stop working what they are saying is that they are not willing to give up the huge house, the new car and the cable package for their children. It is possible to live on one income. It is hard. It takes a lot of work and planning but you can choose your family over running the rat race. You just have to downgrade to the point where one income is enough and then make that a home. Your home made by you and not what commercials tell you it should look like. I have a friend that does an amazing job of keeping a home on her husband’s income. Her home always looks like it is out of a magazine but almost ALL of the things are bargain finds at flea markets, second hand stores, craigslist, and antique shops. If she can’t find it that way she has her husband make it. She even dug her own fence posts and built a fence around her back yard herself. They bought a beautiful home that needed a LOT of work cheap and did almost all of the work themselves fix it. I have another friend that is home with 5 kids all 7 years or younger who she homeschools, keeps a neat home, grows her own food, keeps chickens and goats and makes a lot of food from scratch. These women are superheros in my mind. On top of this they themselves look amazing.

I don’t have the first friend’s talent for homemaking. I also don’t have the second friend’s patients to homeschool and I certainly am not keeping myself in shape at the moment even though I am trying.  I am not an interior designer  or a school teacher at heart. I knit, sew, cook and bake with the best of them but the work it takes to keep a home like she does is more than I have the energy to do with 3 kids 6 years and younger. I do the best I can with what I have. I am a housewife first and foremost.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule when it comes to being able to stay at home. If you are a single parent or you have lost your spouse then you have to work. Also if your spouse is unable to work then that also leaves you to be the bread winner. I have friends that are stay at home dads and that is awesome. At least there is one parent there to take care of the child or children and home. People are not bad people or parents if they choose to work away from their children but if there is a will there is almost always a way. It just takes choices that you might think are steps back when really they are steps forward. 

Backyard, bees, chickens, Parenting, simplicity

Long Time No Post…

Olof

The bees are still alive!
All the girls enjoying the warm day!
Buff posing for the camera

This is where Buff likes to lay her eggs
Fridge full of eggs

My shaggy big boy.
Shaggy next to biggest boy.

My current project
My Valentine Present from my Hubby

Today’s bounty from the girls
The baby sleeping next to his Pabbi on the couch.

Thought I would just give you a glimpse into my world at the moment. My backyard is still busy with my farm animals and bees. My home full of boys both big and small having fun and being loud most of the day. We have all been fighting a cold this weekend. When I went out to let the birds out to free range today I stopped in the sun and felt the warmth of the day. I work inside most days nowhere close to windows and even if I were the weather has been cold and dreary for so long. The beautiful weather was such a blessing and warmed both my body and soul as the feathered ladies waddled around me.

I work a lot these days keeping me too busy to keep up with this place. I am finishing my 3000 hours of supervised experience at an inpatient facility for people in psychiatric crisis. I have to finish my hours before my time runs out for my license since I took time off to have Alex and be home with him for the first year he was born. I don’t regret being with him. I do hate that I only get about 2 hours of time with them after work on weekdays before it is bed time these days. But I keep telling myself that this is what it is at the moment. My boys just need to hold on tight for one more year and then we can reevaluate what is what at that point. I did the math though and even after I finish my hours and make more money because of having my license I would still be paying more for childcare for my 3 boys those last 3 hours of the work day than I would be making in those last 3 hours. At the moment I pay about 2032 dollars a month for daycare for my boys. Which leaves me about 168 dollars of my paycheck each month for gas and physical up keep. So I am working at the moment just to finish my hours. I am not making any money.

This brings me to my Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids leadership classes and my thoughts that have come up those teachings. I started my group yesterday and I look forward to the many more group calls to come. I won’t be able to teach Simplicity Parenting until I finish my hours for my license because I signed a no competition contract with my current employer. But I will have it in my tool box for after. As a back up plan and be able to maybe help friends and family with my teachings even though I might not make any money with it. It has me thinking back to my childhood. How was I raised? How did that have an effect on the person I am today? What impact do parents really have? How much can we guide after a certain age? How much is it teaching as much as it is modeling? How do we give our children the ability to find their own way with their own unique talents? How do we guide with out pushing our fears and needs on to our children? How can we just be that training wheel until they are ready to ride life one their own? How long do we hold on to them and how do we know when it is time to let go and let them fall and learn from their own mistakes?
There are so many parenting styles out there. Picking one is not the easiest thing to do. My thought is that if it works for your family then go with it. If it doesn’t work then it is time for change but make sure to pick the change that falls with in your value system and try to be as consistent as possible.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my update. What is your view on the perfect parenting style? Do you believe there is one true way? How much does genetics and personality have to do with parenting? 

child, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, introvert, Job, Parenting, therapist, working

Heigh ho heigh ho it’s off to work I go!

Olof
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/fCJjJJRHA48&source=uds

I’ve been a little quite around here and I’m sure you all understand with my mother passing away and all. But there are other reasons as well. Since even before I had children I have wrestled with the idea of how to be a good, working mother. Because in my mind for some reason you couldn’t be both. But I have a calling. Really two callings. I desperately wanted children and I am a good therapist. Puzzling the two together for everyone’s benefit has proven to be hard. Especially with the strict criteria to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). To become an LPC in Oklahoma I have to finish 3000 hours of candidacy under the supervision of another licensed counselor.  To earn your hour you have to finish at least 20 hours of work a week and they have strict restrictions on what they call work. This fall, I planed on working for a friend of mine that is starting her own agency and build up my client base slowly so that my kids wouldn’t have to go to daycare full time until maybe after Christmas. But things were not adding up so I had a decision to make. Find another job or stay home for another year with my boys.

When I had to go home to Iceland for my mother’s funeral in July it threw our finances for a loop. We would have had to tighten our belts even further for a while to make up for the financial hardship that trip put on us if I were to keep staying at home. Also since I had already started working towards my 3000 hours I have to finish for my candidacy as an LPC in 2012 I only have 5 years to finish them or I would have to reapply and start over again.

Last time I worked I made the mistake of working under contract and under circumstances that were causing me to become very ill which in return lead me to have to quit working. I decided I would not be bullied into taking clients I didn’t think I was equipped to work with again and that I would never again have to put forth so much effort for so little pay unless I wanted to. I was a therapist scorned after I quit my last job because of medical issues. Even started thinking about giving up on the profession since everyone I talked to told me that the only jobs out there for people still finishing their candidacy hours were those types of jobs. The ones you feel used an abused after when you dragged your emotionally worn out soul back to your family.

I believe that the most important thing for a therapist is self care. To be kind to one’s self and take care of body and soul. I believe that employers of therapists need to impose self care on their staff. That there should be at least a week and a half of vacation days each year that the person has to plan in advance to actually take a vacation and not to take care of their sick kids or go to a Dr’s appointment. That gentle relaxation in the morning before the work day starts is mandatory. As a European I think most companies in the USA treat their employees poorly and don’t understand how important it is for the employee to take a vacation from work. OK enough about that….. back to what I really came here to talk about.

I GOT A FULL TIME JOB!!!! I had this urge to check out a local agencies website and there was one job that I applied for. I decided that it was my Russian roulette and if I got it I would go back to work but if I didn’t get it I would just try hard to save our family money and stay home for another year. When I got the job I was in shock. I go back and forth about how great and crazy it is. I go from telling myself that I am a horrible mother for going to work from my only 11 month old child to telling myself that it will be good for him to be around other children during the day. If you only knew how much I beat myself up for looking forward to being around adults for 9 hours a day. How much mommy guilt I have about how happy I am when I drop them off at daycare and I hear silence in the car for more than a min. They have been going for 2 days now for a half a day each time and I enjoy the first 3 hours and then I start getting anxious to know how they are doing and if everything is OK. I’m an introvert so I get my energy from quite and being alone. I have gotten little to NONE of that for the past 16 months since my oldest two quit napping and now I look forward to having patches of it here and there.

This new job is a 8-5 job. I will have to drop the kids off at daycare at 7:45 and then be at work at 8. This being 40 hours a week will help me knock out my hours SUPER fast. I don’t have to go to people’s homes to do therapy, which is why I got so sick at the other job, and it is just doing intake and testing. So I decide if the person needs the services that are offered at the location I am at or if that person needs different accommodations. I only work with adults and 16-35 year old’s are where I do my best work. I get to work in an office environment and I am just super excited all around. But then the mommy guilt comes to haunt me.

Working mammas, how do you do it? How do you leave your kids with strangers and just go to work? 

Asha Dornfest, Christine Koh, decluttering, Dr. Kim, Laura Thompson Bradly, Minimalist, Parenting, Simpicity Parenting

Minimalist Parenting Book Review

Olof

As those of you that have been following my blog know I have been doing some research in parenting techniques and trying to find an easier way to parent my group of boys. I was overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start before my Hectic to Harmonious Home Cleans with Laura Brady and she mentioned the Simplicity Parenting book often to us in that month. Since I took so much from my cleans with her I decided to read Simplicity Parenting and even took the online parenting course with Dr. Kim. When I had finished that I started looking at what else I could read. I wanted to learn more. I wanted more information. I stumbled upon Minimalist Parenting by Christine Koh and Asha Dornfest. It sounded like something that I would enjoy. Laura Brady and Dr. Kim helped me simplify but I still had this nagging in my mind that I was not doing enough for my boys. That what I was doing wasn’t good enough. That I should be taking them out more and doing more for them when really I was doing as much as I could with having given birth to 3 children in 4 and a half years on top of finishing grad school at the same time. I was still a little stuck in the rat race of parenting but still doing a lot better than I was before the process began. Minimalist Parenting helped me let go a little better. Helped me figure out what was best for my family and I and really had great homework to help me figure out what was important to my family and I and what I wanted to pass on to my children. Simplicity Parenting has pretty strict rules about what is OK and what is not and some of those rules did not fit with my husband and I’s philosophy.

I had two BIG aha moments while reading Minimalist Parenting and that was when they wrote in the simplifying your home and decluttering that you should only keep the things that you would replace if your  house burnt down or wish you could replace and when it comes to the family meal that as parents we are only suppose to make and offer our children healthy food and it is up to the child to decide if they are going to eat it or not. If they are hungry they will eat. So we need to stop being short order cooks and only making the things we believe our kids like all the time and make sure to offer the things that are healthy and different too. These were only the BIG aha moments. Through out the book I kept getting great ideas and felt like the authors were really helping me let go of my preconceptions of what “good” parents do. Like thinking the best parents put their kids in private school. Public school has a lot to offer and socially teach children a lot. There are better school districts out there than others but still every situation is different and parents really need to figure out what works best for their individual child.

Minimalist parenting is not one of those books that you sit and read all the way through in one sitting. I had to put it down many times and just digest what I had just read. so when reading this book give yourself time. Parenting is not a race but a slow and steady evolution of your relationship with your children and your partner.

If you are overwhelmed and need a starting point then this is a great book. It helps you help your child figure out what they are passionate about and then help your child follow their passion with out putting the whole family out. Helps you keep a calming home that everybody in the household is happy to show up to be a part of the family. It also helps you get time to yourself and take care of your needs too. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Minimalist Parenting.  You will not regret it.

living, Mindful, Parenting

Mindful Friday…..

Olof
As I sit here getting ready for my day with my cup of coffee I am trying to remind myself of being mindful of my state of being. Mindful of my body and surroundings.

The desk that needs to be organized and decluttered today

Alex likes to sit on things.

Magni having a lazy morning with PBS kids

The laundry I get to do today.

The cookies Magni and I made yesterday that doubled as breakfast this morning

Morning cup of coffee. Nom Nom.

The to do list for the day.

The grief books I am working myself through at the moment.

Alex helping me with photo set up.

Last week’s menu plan.

Right now I am:

:: feeling the throbbing pain in my head after hitting my head on the mantle after trying to find a toy in Alex’s toy basket to keep him good while I write this post.
:: feeling the tightness in my shoulders from the last few weeks of stress and grief.
:: thankful that my family is healthy and strong.
:: listening to PBS kids which I turned on to keep Magni busy while I wrote this blog post.
:: breathing deep to try to dissipate some frustration since my youngest has made it over here and is grabbing and screaming at me (that is his new trick. Screaming like he is being tortured to get attention.).
:: looking forward to  hearing what Odinn’s second day at school was like. He did so well yesterday for his first day.
:: anxious to hear back from the job interview I went to on Tuesday.
:: hoping I can make it through all the laundry, menu planing, grocery shopping and organizing today.
:: missing my family in Iceland and my mamma
:: looking at the grief books and wondering where I should keep them when I am not reading them.
:: glad that even if I don’t get the job that there is room for Alex and Magni at the mother’s day out program down the street so they will go 3 times a week for 5 hours at a time and this mamma will have time to get stuff done.
:: looking forward to Family Night tonight where we order in and watch a family movie together.
::wondering what we should eat this week.
::realizing that Alex will not let me do any more of this today so I better wrap this up and post it.
:: wishing you peace, love and happiness. Hoping that you are living the life you love and love the life you live.
:: going to take care of my children.

Thank you for stopping by and hope you are able to be in the moment today.