"I KNOW ITS IN THERE SOMEWHERE"

This was a statement made by my little sister Katie (she's Photographic Adventures under family blogs). She was referring to her drawing talent she recently discovered in an art class. During the conversation she also suggested I had a talent in an area I'd never really thought of. It got me thinking about my own kids. They have many undiscovered talents--how exciting. Uncovering them is part of my job--I know they're in there somewhere.

Of course, some talents are very obvious, like the child who spends at least half of his day drawing or singing or creating. But others take a little more coaxing it seems. Isn't it nice to know that you might have some talents you've never considered before. Its not like there is a time limit of when you have to figure them all out by (that probably wasn't proper grammar). We still have a whole life left to dig them out. Then there are those talents that aren't necessarily physical. I'd say Carl doesn't have a lot of obvious physical talents (although he is very athletic even when he hasn't worked out for years). He was born with a calmness (says his mother) that has helped out in so many situations. He is also nonjudgmental and just naturally likes everyone, I'm hoping over time that that gift has somehow rubbed off on me a little.

Don't you think its so great that there is such a variety of talents. There's really no need to try to keep up with someone else's abilities, but we all try, don't we? As a mom I think its nice that I have some talents I can use for my own unique kids. I think they probably need my specific talents. I realized a couple of weeks ago, after going through a long spell of not singing to them at night, that I can use that one small talent to help them be happy. I had to swallow my irritability and just be happy for a few more minutes in order to sing to them that first night, but its amazing what happened. I loved it and I could see on their faces that they loved it too. What's wonderful is that one of my things is singing and your thing might be reading or painting or listening--it really doesn't matter as long as you can use it to help others.

Model #2 Katie Belle

Model #2 (see my profile) at almost eight years old, is quite the creation. Her emotional database has exceeded the producers plans. We see more excitement and sadness and love from her than from any of the other models combined. Very friendly, she is easily able to make friends and has quickly adapted to this new culture. Most people that come in contact with this creation refer to her as SWEET. She has some technical difficulties in speaking when spoken to by boys? no, adults? not necessarily, only piano teachers. We think that over time this difficulty will work itself out.

The fuels that keeps this machine going include painting fingernails, sesame sticks, lullabies, playing duets with mom, and getting hugs and kisses from parents and grandparents.

Order Your Care Bear Swing Today

We've just discovered that Alex is very project oriented. He's always asking things like, "do we have a box without a lid" or "I'm looking for another one of these" as he holds up the end of a toilet paper roll. I was a little surprised the other day when I came downstairs and found him swinging his care bear from the ceiling. "It worked! Look Mom." He had been talking about making a Care Bear Swing for the last week but I didn't really encourage the project since there is always a big mess that goes with it that usually trails throughout the house. A few weeks before the swing he asked me if I'd teach him to sew. So he hand sewed a Care Bear backpack. He is now working on making a guitar. I guess I'll have to learn some patience with these projects since he clearly learns best this way. It just occurred to me that there might be some connection between creating and taking apart every toy he can find that has screws. Hmmmm.

A June Cleaver Idea

June Cleaver didn't actually come up with this, it was Marie Ricks, author of Project: Organization. In order to keep track of stuff and limit you piles you get 2 baskets or bins. Label one "in" and one "out." Place them strategically in an area you normally pass while going to and from the car. When you come home with project materials, school work, doctor forms that need to be filled out etc. place them in the "in" box. When you're done with them put them in the "out" box to be filed, mailed, taken back to the library, returned to a friend etc. Wouldn't it be nice to just look in that "out" box while going out the door and run a quick errand on the way to wherever you're going instead of searching the house for that missing item. The trick to really making this work is to set aside some time each day to go through the "in" box so you don't get backed up on projects and school forms.

SHOUT OUT--A GREAT WAY TO RIDE

We had our first PEACEMAKING COUNCIL today in an effort to help the kids get along for the long summer break. (This idea was inspired by a Smart Mama blog post.) We only talked about one thing--being positive. I'm really glad the kids were in the mood to participate at this meeting because Jordan helped us remember that negative is the opposite of positive and its really cold if its a negative temperature. We went with that theme and talked about saying warm things to each other and having warm actions like hugging, high fives, pats on the back etc. We hopped in the car and I had a flash of inspiration to do a few "shout outs." "Lets give a shout out for Alex for doing his reading lesson today." The kids really got into the "hoorays" and came up with some of their own shout outs including, "lets give a shout out for mom for being a good mom today." (Yes being a good mom is a little unusual for me.) All the kids got at least one shout out and we (for once in this entire month) had a car ride without any fighting. You know, I get easily distracted and sometimes live as if the kids are holding me back. I say things like, "I'll help you just as soon as . . ." and "maybe we'll do that later." My best days though are the ones when I'm focusing first on helping them grow and learn good things. In the long run it will be these 4 little people that will be my greatest reward and not my endless list of great projects.

Big Cook, Little Cook

One great thing about Carl is that he doesn't really have any expectations of me. So when he comes home from a hard days work and sees that dinner isn't ready he just jumps right in and starts making it. This happened a few days ago. Well, as soon as Grant saw that Carl was cooking he ran to the closet, got his apron and dragged a chair scraping across the floor to the stove. He loves cooking.

Model #1

I thought I'd slowly introduce our 4 models (see "about me").

Model #1-JJP is approaching his 10th year. He has picked up speed just recently and has become more efficient getting his work done before school over the last few weeks. We're not quite sure if its a change in fuel quality or if the gears shifted just right but producers have been working on this aspect of Model #1 for about 5 years now are are pleased to see an increase in efficiency.

Fuel Source--lasagna, reading, baseball, basketball, playing with cousin Jack, sitting next to mom for a chat, lullabys at night (this was not desireable to this model for the last few years but has proven to be of help lately). All these things seem to help Model JJP stay happy and keep up his excellent efficiency.

I Can't Believe I'm Doing This

How many things have you done that you've said you'd never do? I've said I'd never . . .

Get married before finishing college

Have children before finishing college

Buy a house for over $200,000-is that even possible these days?

Be seen licking my finger then using it to clean off a child's face

Move to Utah (while not in college)
Start a blog!

So here I am eating my words.

When we were growing up there was a very long list of shows on TV that we were not allowed to watch. So we watched a lot of reruns, one of which was Leave it To Beaver. I'm a big fan of June Cleaver. Why? 1. she didn't trust Eddie Haskal, 2. she was only seen wearing a dress and high heels and 3. she was a nice mom. Of course, I haven't watched Leave it to Beaver for years but those are the things I remember about June. She's been on my mind lately because I found this $10 dress that reminded me of her.