Positive Thinking

It is believed that the only way to completely get rid of a negative thought is turning it into a positive one. In fact, at Power of Moms retreats and workshops, we often do an exercise about this very concept. We share with mothers the importance of changing the hundreds of negative thoughts we have each day into positive ones. I'm not always the best at thinking positively. But after doing this exercise with a group of mothers last week, I've been trying to change my own attitude into a more positive one lately.

So...
While reading my scriptures the other day I realized approximately 12 pages had mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind small remnants of the ripped pages instead. Instead of glaring at Drew, I concentrated hard to have the thought, "How wonderful that I'll have 12 less pages to read to finish the book."

On Saturday night after retiring to bed I couldn't help but replay over and over in my mind the number of times my voice had been less than kind. I let myself believe, "How wonderful that my children will probably never be able to forget the sound of my voice."

While I was on the phone the other morning at 9:30am, Joshua and Drew worked their way through a bag of potato chips and a package of mint gum. My positive replacement thought? "I'm so glad the boys have fresh breath for when I am face to face with them explaining that we don't help ourselves to potato chips. Especially at 9:30 in the morning!"

Instead of the too-oft arguing that ensues about piano practicing around here, I let it go the other day and thought, "How nice that there will be one less set of fingerprints smeared across the piano bench today."

After wiping 2 bums about 6 times total within a 20 minute period last week, I positively exclaimed, "How wonderful that Joshua and Drew have such nice clean bums."

Instead of feeling mean and out of patience after we told Megan she would have to pay us each time she came into our room again at bedtime I thought, "How wonderful that we will probably be able to buy a weeks worth of groceries with Megan's penance."

After returning home to find the dinner clean-up hadn't quite been done as instructed, I thought to myself as I slammed loaded dishes into the dishwasher, "What a great thing to know I will never die of boredom."

I admit. Not exactly the 'what and how' of the thought replacement activity/idea, but if it works, so be it.
(Yes, pun intended. We love that phrase around here...)

I'm "That Kind" of Mother

You know the kind?

The kind that leaves a 10 year-old babysitting while they run to the junior high to pick up 5 teenagers.

The kind that upon arriving back home finds their 2 year-old running around the neighbor's driveway playing with a borrowed dump truck found in said neighbor's garage.

No big brother is in sight. Well the 4 year-old one is, but he's distracted with sidewalk chalk also from the neighbor's garage.

Not only is the 2 year old running around unattended. He's running around unattended like this:

The outside temperature reading in my suburban read 44 degrees.

And where was the 10 year-old you ask?
Obediently sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework, mere feet away from the open back door and open mud room door. While the house heater vents were blowing out warm air to compensate for the 44 degree temperatures creeping into the house.

I am slowly yet surely discovering myself to be "that kind" of mother. "The kind" that everyone else tries so hard to avoid becoming, yet somehow for me, I am becoming "that kind" of mother far too easily.

I heard the outside temperature is supposed to be even cooler today.
Good thing I don't have a junior high carpool to drive.

Too Many Memories in a Plastic Tub

There are a few different parts to all this.

1. My overwhelming project I alluded to the other day is a far too large plastic container with miscellaneous photos in it. You know the kind of photos. The ones that people have either given you, or the ones from the days of "double prints" when you put one in an album and you couldn't quite throw away the duplicates. Or the ones that you did put in the album, but the other 5 attempts at the photo couldn't quite get thrown out either. (Thank heaven for digital cameras now-but even still-don't photos need to be printed out and looked at? Not just stored away on a hard drive?)

2. While visiting with great company tonight, I decided to make the most of my time, and pulled out the big plastic tub to write names, dates and places on the back of photos. Currently, I have a fabulous memory and can remember places, days, people and events very easily when looking at a photo. I want every photo labeled in case one day my memory begins to fade.

3. We all seemed to get wrapped up and distracted by the few hundred photos discarded in the container. As Mike said later, "Id be looking through several photos not really reacting and then all of a sudden one would pop up and I couldn't  help but exclaim, 'Oh yeah!!!'" Oh the memories.

Until about 4 years ago, I was really good about photo albums and/or scrapbooking. But even back then a lot of the everyday stuff didn't quite qualify for a whole scrapbook page to itself, and sometimes not even a slot in a photo album. At the time it may have been "cute" even "funny." But I guess I didn't really realize how "big" some of these everyday moments would one day seem.

You know the whole, "Enjoy the little things in life, one day you'll back and realize they were the big things."

And that is where my stress has come in with this big plastic tub.

There are literally scores of photos in this tub that have stories behind them. Perhaps the photo is somewhat mediocre, even insignificant to most anyone looking at it--but there was a tender, funny, heart-felt, sentimental story to either me, Mike or both of us.

I was quite surprised this evening after our company left, when Mike referred to the container of photos. He too was feeling somewhat melancholy after reflecting on so many memories that we currently only have recorded in our minds.

Snapping out of his sullen state, Mike wisely suggested, "How about I pick out a "oh yeah" photo each week and you be in charge of recording the memory and/or story behind it? Just think in a year, we will have 52 memories permanently recorded that otherwise may get forgotten."

What wisdom! Even though it is essentially adding one more thing to my 'to-do' list each week, it is at the same time clearing out a "stress" from my mind too.

A win-win for everyone.

I'm reminded of a fact I read somewhere recently referring to journal keeping:

"If you wrote one sentence everyday for 5 years, you could capture over 1,825 memories."

Time is passing way too quickly. There is so much I have to remember so watch out. Memories and yesteryear photos coming soon.

Because really-who wouldn't want to hear the story behind this bad hairstyle of mine?

Remember we lived in England, t-shirts from Utah were cool.

Doesn't Take Much

You know there is always so much talk about how entitled children feel nowadays. They expect a lot... they think they are owed something... and so on.

But Ellie? Not so much.

A little over two years ago all Ellie wanted to do on a date with mom was to go to the store and buy deodorant. (You can read about it HERE.)

It was recently Ellie's turn for a date with Mom and Dad. The possibilities are somewhat endless for the child to choose what to do. Same criteria as always--should fit within a 1.5 hour time period and of course fit our family budget. Restaurants, mall trips, fishing, trip to Cablea's are a few examples of what have been done in the past.

Ellie was told she could choose. Her choice??

"I really want to go to the dollar store and buy glue sticks?"

wwwhhhaaattttt??????????????

With the glue-sticks in hand, Mike and I offered to throw in a trip to an ice cream store for good measure. New glue-sticks or a Baskin Robbins ice cream cone? I won't tell you what Ellie preferred.

Once Upon a Time

I'm in the middle of a big organization project. (Which will be a whole post in itself. I'll be needing some feedback.) I found this old gem of a photo in a container yesterday and found myself staring at it for longer than I probably should have.

Life looks so much simpler! We look so young! Contrary to what this picture looks like, I was not 16 years old in this picture. I was 25! And even though it has only been a little over 12 years since this photo was taken, I feel as though it was a lifetime ago.

(November 1999)

This picture was taken back in the days before I had to question why there was pee all over my bathroom floor and a little boy says, "Because it was dark and I couldn't see the toilet."

...Before homework was put away in a backpack only half done thinking I wasn't going to find out.

...Before we have to turn around and go home because the Science Fair poster wasn't put in the car.

...Before I would ever have a plastic container sitting in my garage with fish in it from the nearby swamp that I am expected to take care of while the owner is at school?!?

...It was back in the day when my house was probably cleaner, my pantry stayed full longer, the noise level was much quieter and the contention almost non-existent.

...It was back in the day before I had the permanent line/wrinkle between my eyebrows that is surely a result of scowling and frowning far too much.

Recently a friend said something along the lines that she is in a bad mood, and maybe it is permanent. At the time I laughed. Except the last few days I'm beginning to wonder the same. This morning as I was less than patient with my children I had the horrific thought that maybe this is not just me having a bad morning, but THIS IS ME!

My poor children.

Our Love/Hate Relationship with the Piano Teacher

Between our three (kind of four) piano playing children, we've gone through a few different piano teachers over the years. I have the occasional moment when I feel as though I can't completely forgive our all-time favorite piano teacher for a. moving away and b. deciding she needed to be a mother to her two children rather than teach piano lessons to my children.

For the most part I'm content with our new piano teacher. Except the times that she comes barging into mine and Mike's bedroom carrying her three-ring binder. Every time we know we're in trouble.

"You need to make sure their practicing calendars are filled out every day, not just once a week when they can't remember how many minutes they practiced."


"You need to tell Luke to practice THE WAY I  HAVE TOLD HIM TO."


"I am done. I am not going to be Ellie's teacher. She won't listen to me."


"Luke and Ellie need to treat me like I am a REAL piano teacher. So do you guys."


"Your piano bill is like way past-due."


Other than those few phrases we hear at least once a month. Megan is a pretty swell piano teacher. At least her four non-related piano students think she is. Luke and Ellie are still deciding.

Last Thursday, Megan hosted her first piano recital for her students. Each student performed a musical number, including Joshua who floats in and out of piano studies depending on the day. It was a proud parent moment seeing Megan watch her students with pride in her own eyes as they played their well practiced pieces. Megan's own efforts as well as her students' were rewarding to watch.

I even refrained from a "told you so" moment when Ellie performed her piece from MEMORY. Contrary to the nagging I received from the piano teacher for 36 hours prior to the recital, "She will be the ONLY one without her piece memorized. You need to tell her to memorize it."


I may not be a piano teacher, and I may have never memorized a piano piece in my life, but I am a mother and I often know best. I politely told the piano teacher to refrain from crossing over into my parenting skills attempts, and to just let the natural consequences be.

Ellie performed her piece flawlessly.

Who can't love Megan?!
Piano teacher or not.

Yellow Snow

Upon arriving home from Nana and Grandpa's on Sunday evening, my two oldest children were given the simple task of taking the garbage cans out to the street.

Mike and I thought nothing of the screams and wildness we could hear coming from Megan and Luke out on the driveway. We generally aren't very quiet around here. (Sorry neighbors.)

The screaming got louder as Megan burst through the mudroom door, and then more dramatic as soon as she realized she had an audience. I will however grant her my approval for the level of dramatics she displayed this evening.

Luke, (I really can't believe I'm going to admit this so publicly--but I'm keeping it real folks) being a boy, decided to pee outside on the snow. Okay-no big deal really. Boy, snow, pee. Not exactly appropriate, but oh well.

Megan must have decided to take disciplining Luke into her own hands, and threw a snowball at him while he was doing his business. Unfortunately for Megan (and ultimately for Luke) he decided that when Megan hit him with the snowball, she deserved a snowball thrown right back at her. Only problem? Luke decided to pick up the snow at his feet. Yes-that would be YELLOW snow he decided to scoop up into a nicely formed snowball!!!

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on who you are, Luke very accurately aimed and hit Megan's left cheek and upper body.

No wonder Megan's screaming probably reached decibel levels that were close to breaking the city sound ordinance. Despite initiating the said snowball fight, Megan was less than pleased to have yellow snow covering her face and clothing. Needless to say, Luke was sent upstairs to think about his actions and how he would apologize to Megan.

Sweet Luke returned downstairs a few minutes later with a nice, hand-written note complete with a piece of candy, gum and artwork with his apologies to Megan.

(I am sorry I threw pee snow at you. You can pay me back with a noogie. The noogie can last five minutes. P.S. Again I am very sorry. P.S. I will wash whatever got pee on it.)

There was one major problem to this. Can you see the monogram on the bottom right corner of the card? Yes, that would be an E. As in E for Ellie. Further stated as, the cards belong to Ellie. And everyone in this household (well apparently not Luke) know that Ellie's desk and everything on Ellie's desk are off limits to everyone and anyone.

And so we had a whole new set of tears and drama about a card being used that shouldn't have been.

And without any advice from anyone, Luke wrote an apology note to Ellie (on a scrap piece of computer paper-he was not going to take anymore risks) apologizing for using her card, and attached some candy and gum for good measure.

It was still not quite enough for Ellie's dramatics to end swiftly, but I was pretty proud of Luke's efforts.

Luke may be pretty uncouth when it comes to a lot of things. Namely his bathroom habits and then throwing it (albeit disguised in snow) at his sister, but at least he has a tender heart and is not above compensating with a sincere note of apology.

Even if the note cards weren't his for the taking.