Some days I feel as if I am just sliding by, waiting to put the kids to bed so I can breathe on my own for a few minutes before I fall into bed myself, continually hoping that maybe tomorrow will be better than today. I don't like this. I want to enjoy my children, I want to enjoy laughing with, playing with and teaching them. I do enjoy my children immensely but if I'm not proactive in keeping this goal in mind I find that the everyday tasks required to keep up with a house of four children start to take over. I find I'm frustrated with my children when they won't leave me alone long enough for me to finish the dishes or sweep the floor.
Along these lines I am working on a song for my kids, so far I have this:
"I want to dance with you.
I'll hold your hand.
Tell me all your stories and your dreams.
The dishes and the laundry will wait,
this house won't crumble down
while I spend these moments here with you."
Hannah has helped with the tune a little.
But back to the story at hand:
I really was not looking forward to today. Erik is gone most of the day at a Rope Rescue Drill and I always look forward to weekends when he's around to help out. He's amazing at helping out and when he's not here I miss that (and him); sometimes so much that I turn grumpy. So last night I prayed for creativity and the ability to live life and not react to it. I'm so glad that God cares about these little things too. Right before falling asleep I had an idea; why not go for a walk through Manzanita and see if we can find objects or letters for each letter of the alphabet?! Fun and educational! So this morning after a yummy breakfast of pancakes we headed to Manzanita and started looking. I'll admit to helping a little and receiving help from a man that goes to our church who was out walking and the nice ladies at T-Spot but Hannah and Ivan were really excited to play and did quite well on their own too. We also had to cheat just a little for Q, X and Z.
This is what we found:
Alpaca yarn/toy
Bank, building, birdhouse, burritos
Coffee, car
Dog
Espresso
Flower, fence
Grass, gate
Hand
Ivy
Jogging
Knit, kite
Light, Left Coast
Magazines, motorcycle
Nehalem Valley Historical Society sign
Overboard
Puppy
sQuirrel
Rock
Stop sign, sand
Tulip, tree
Unfurl
Vino, vacancy
Water, whale bench
meXican resturant
Yarn
ManZanita, SyZygy
I must say that we are blessed to live in a creative town that gives their stores interesting names; that helped to.
I've found that "learning to live life instead of react to it" is a common theme in my life; one that I have to learn over and over and over again. But it's a good lesson to learn and I don't mind the review.
My kids don't mind so much either; we've had a lot of fun so far today.
4 comments:
I admire and affirm you, Em. You're doing a great job. I told someone recently (I think it was one of my kids)that if I had raising my kids to do over again, I would want to be more like Emily.
Blessings on your day.
fun stuff! the boys think I was more fun when we lived on the peninsula...I had more time at my disposal then. Im glad you had such a fun date with the kids. My favorite is mommy movie night..pop corn, kids movie, snuggling ;)
Nemmy you are awesome! You really are a great mom and it's so fun to hear about (even though I can't be there to see - though I do get the occasionally glimpse of the excited child with new 'jogging' shorts on)!! Just want you to know that I think you are an exceptional momma!!
I'm totally going to do this with Caleb today! What a great idea! Its such a great age when they want to learn, but it can be hard to come up with new, creative and FREE ways to entertain some days.
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