Happy . . .

Birthday to me today. Since I am turning this blog into my photo album for the year, I decided I better include these pictures from the little party my family and mom and mom-in-law threw for me this past Sunday. This is the first family photo we have had taken in awhile. 

This is definitely a memorable birthday. Having older kids who are aware of your birthday adds a little excitement. Jason took the girls shopping last week for a few gifts for me. The girls also made me cards and both of the cards said "I love you, mom," to some affect. Having not yet ever heard them say "I love you" to me, their cards meant a lot to me. 

We (and mom and Rhonda) gave the kids some gifts for Easter - all having to do with gardening. Here are the boys in their rubber boots with their gloves, buckets and shovels. They are LOVING these things still today.

We all spent all day Sunday in the backyard planting herbs and flowers. Jason and the kids have been working in the back yard on the weekends lately, tilling up a spot for us to have a garden so there was an easy spot to get dirt from.

My mom, the expert gardener (who is definitely supervising our first-ever gardening effort), brought a table for potting, of course. The girls absolutely LOVE working in the yard and taking care of things out there.

We made a flower garden in this little corner. The girls planted flowers in it after these four got it ready and the girls put up a little barricade to keep the boys out!

Back to my birthday . . . This morning my sister and a couple friends came over to celebrate my birthday with me. I'm grateful for the window of grace God allowed for that to happen. Remember my post yesterday when I said we haven't had a raging episode in a month? I kid you not, not two hours later yesterday I was in the midst of a raging episode with one of the girls and had to call Jason to come home from work.

I'm not terribly surprised since I have tightened up the boundaries lately (thanks to the conviction of God and His power and grace to do it). I don't dislike the raging anymore because I know that it produces good fruit. (The raging always comes in response to me/us holding our daughter to a firm boundary and that firm boundary produces the fruit of felt safey - we are then strong enough to be trusted in her mind).

It is just rather comical that I posted yesterday about how things have been going better and gotten to a new normal and within two hours . . . WHAM! The last 24 hours have been full of lots of challenging behaviors from all four kids. But, this is my new normal and God's grace is sufficient. So sufficient.

For example, my sweet friend, Jill, sent me this verse below yesterday. It was in the context of something else, but I felt like it was exactly what God is calling me to in regard to my kids. It was a bit of a kick in the pants that I needed to keep going in parenting and disciplining my children.

I am sending you to them (in my case, He sent them to me) to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in  me. Acts 26: 17-18

Through cooking my kids meals and reading them books and providing nurture and giving them chores and letting them play, etc., God is primarily calling me to help turn them from darkness to light in their hearts and to ultimately receive forgiveness of sins. This only happens through not letting them to themselves. ("The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother." Proverbs 29:15). In all honesty, up until this week, I had been slacking on this, letting my kids to themselves in different ways. I strayed away and made my task list (and who knows what else) more important than parenting my kids' hearts. I'm glad Jesus still loves me when I stray and loves me enough to discipline me and bring me back to Himself.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

I wasn't exactly planning on going from my birthday to Easter to all that . . . but that is what is going on in my heart and home.

The Attachment Dance

The kids all piled on the hammock last night and sang the Veggie Tales theme song at the top of their lungs and then would laugh hysterically together at the end.  I was a little worried that our neighbors might be getting annoyed but it brought me tons of joy to see them all having a great time together!

I am definitely slowing down on the blogging. Life is finally reaching a new normal and I have less need to blog for therapy, I guess. And I need more time in my day to keep life moving along in our new normal pace. It is still a slow/not going many places pace (which I LOVE - at least the slow part), but I am trying to add in more planned activities, more vegetables in our meals . . . you know, normal life things!

Life does not feel like one big crisis-mode like it did there for awhile (no big raging episodes for a month now - praise God!). So thankful for that. In the past 3-4 weeks all three kids have been making increasingly greater strides toward attachment: the girls are showing much less control and manipulation, feeling safe and attached enough to both deal with some grief, they are more obedient, they will hold my hand and they look in my eyes more, Zoe is sleeping WAY better (which is a good sign of feeling safe/attached). Isaiah is coming to LIFE, talking and much more interactive than before. Praise the Lord for all of this! Seriously, it is so amazing to get to see Jesus work and change hearts right in front of my face nearly daily.

The new normal was a little bit hard for me to adjust to at first. With each emotional step my girls take toward me, I take emotional steps toward them . . . and so begins The Attachment Dance. When we were in crisis mode, or control-and-manipulation-at-every-single-turn-mode, I woke up every morning knowing to expect control and manipulation. I could prepare myself by separating my emotions from their behavior - i.e. not getting worked up when they did all the crazy C and M. The problem with the normal at first was that the girls and I would be strolling along our day with a somewhat normal connection and WHAM - out of the blue would come a big control reaction or big emotions. It would catch me off-guard and emotionally unprepared and I would react with more anger than I had ever experienced before because I wasn't prepared for it.

Jason and my weekend away came at a perfect time for me to deal with this stuff. The last week and this week have gone so much better. God has helped me be more prepared and more self-controlled (or not so emotionally connected to their behavior. I'm still doing the same stuff as I was before - very tight boundaries and loads of nurture, but it is starting to become our lifestyle now instead of something I felt like I had to force at first. One current challenge (much like any mother/parent) is teaching/training all four of my kids to obey the first time with a good attitude. It is just a little trickier teaching a 10 year old to obey and coming up with an appropriate consequence when it is not done correctly the first time (and when she hasn't had years of training). It is so good for me though because it keeps me depending on Jesus and His wisdom just about every minute.

I'll end with a story about Claire. A week and a half ago she and I were doing dishes together and she said, "Mom, can I ask you a question?" Okay, first hearing her speak perfect English like that was something! She went on and asked, "Why does everybody (meaning her siblings) like to play so much?" I was thankful for the Holy Spirit in that moment because I knew exactly what she was asking. {Sidenote: I'm learning that behind nearly every single action or question of a not-fully-attached child is something besides what you see or hear on the surface.}I said to her, "It is hard not really being a kid anymore but not being an adult yet, isn't it?" She quietly nodded her head in agreement. I gave her lots of affirmation and a big hug and said that I knew that was a hard place to be in (I seriously remember that awkward stage when I was young). I had seen this coming for a couple weeks so I wasn't surprised that she was wrestling with this. That night when I rocked her I brought it back up again and we talked about some things she likes to do that we could do more of (cooking and reading books - but she doesn't read English yet). I made a mental note to try to do some "older" girl things with her but in the midst of life I didn't plan specific things out for her.

But, God did.

Last Monday I spontaneously decided to go running shortly after 5:00p because Jason got home early. God gave me the idea to ask Claire to ride her bike alongside me. She LOVED it! The next day while I was doing Zoe's hair and the boys were playing on the kitchen floor, I asked Claire if she wanted to make salsa and she lit up. She needed a little of my help with the food processor, but otherwise made it all, washed all the dishes for it and put them away. I could tell she was so happy and in her element. Another day last week I asked her to help get the boy's snacks while I was working on Zoe's hair and she loved helping in that way.  All of these things allowed her to do somethings separate from the other kids, but still under my authority.

My CA friend told me that as attachment happens, the kids' maturity/emotional levels start to increase. It is so awesome to see that happening with Claire. One more sign that Jesus is attaching her heart to mine.

Thank you, Lord!

Just an Update

We're still alive and well here, just haven't blogged in awhile. Here is a pic that never got posted from a couple weeks ago when it was pretty rainy and the kids made tents in the basement.

This past weekend Jason and I went away WITHOUT THE KIDS. HAL.LE.LU.JAH!  It was fabulous. Whenever Jason asked what I wanted to do or what I wanted to eat I would say, "I don't care. I'm just happy to be away and with you." We stayed at a hotel in Des Moines and did a little shopping - that was about all. But it was great and definitely needed. Not only was it great to just be with Jason with little to no agenda, but getting away always helps regain the bigger perspective on life and I needed that desperately. Saturday afternoon we drove to Cedar Rapids so Jason could attend an ALS event. I got to spend time with a close friend from college, which was wonderful.We drove home really late Saturday night and picked the kids up at my sister's house Sunday morning before church. 

First, let me just say my sister ROCKS! She watched our four kids, along with her four, for two nights. Quite the undertaking. But, I'm incredibly thankful to report that everyone did very well. Isaiah had no troubles sleeping like we thought he might and the girls did great, too. One of the girls hid from us and wanted nothing to do with Jason and I when we went to picked the kids up Sunday morning, but I expected that. Getting her from Mya and Sydney's bedroom to our van was difficult and she cried all the way into Ames. I thought church would be a disaster, but she asked to sit with Mya and we decided that was a good compromise to make during this difficult transition back to "real life." She did great at church and we ate lunch with Ehresman's, too, which provided more coveted Mya-time by this child.

I expected a big meltdown at home but IT NEVER HAPPENED! I am seriously still in awe at how well she did once we got home. She almost acted better than normal. In some ways, realizing that she has a mom and dad who return probably did feel wonderful to her once she worked through the tough stuff. Our other daughter did awesome with the transition and Isaiah was pretty clingly, but in a good way that showed me I am truly his mama and he missed me. So thankful for that! 

On  Monday night we did some work in the yard. Isaiah LOVES to help. I will not be surprised when he gets older if serving is his gift. He lights up when he gets to help. Here he is helping Jason dig up the nasty bushes that have been in our front yard (yay!).

You kind of have to see this to believe it: Abram pulling Claire (who weighs three times his weight!) in the bike trailer hooked to his trike. It still cracks me up every time I see it!

My one request of our weekend away was to go to Goodwill in Waukee and Jason was kind enough to say yes! I found some needed clothes for the boys and also some really nice roller blades for Zoe for $7. She could hardly stand up in them when she put them on Sunday afternoon, but by Monday night she was going to town in them. Love it!