Mother of the year Award

Soo today I won an award! Yep it has seriously been years since recieving my last award. I think it may have been 6-7 years ago. Yep I remember winning a trophy for a horse shoe competition in which there was only one other team. Yes I won first place...I never really thought that trophy counted. This trophy, my friends, this trophy counts. Well wait there is no trophy per say. No it was actually a verbal award. The MC was a stranger from HyVee. Appearantly she and her husband were eating at the same time as the boys and I. Little did I know they had been judging us during lunch. Cool thing was the verdict came back and they picked me for mother of the year. I specifically remember there not being a single other child in the eating area at the time, and I am pretty sure they didn't see us in the frozen food section when I threatened the children that "if I heard one more word..." I recieved the award in the parking lot. The people had parked next to me and as the boys and I went flying by (literally I had ran behind the cart, and then jumped on the back; and then we hit a pot hole and they said something like "Oh their all going to fall.") Still even after putting my childrens life in parking lot race cart danger. Yep still won. She came over to me and told me "you win mother of the year." You would have though I had just won an Oscar. I yelled "I did." She did give me kind of a sympathetic look like, "it's just a figure of speach sweetheart." She said the boys were so well behaved and when they did get in trouble she said "you calmly explained to them what they had done wrong and what you expected." So this was not to brag at all. It was merely to say Thanks God for the awesome little pick me up. The cool thing was the award really has made my day. Every time I have had to discipline the boys I just think "well your lucky it's me because I am mother of the year...":)

new blog

www.secretthoughtsofb.blogspot.com It is totally random and has nothing to do with anything but it's fun:)

I've started a new blog. I will still post here. I will try to keep it about the boys on this one and about family stuff. My other one is my own mental notes and my journey as a stay at home mom and going back to school. Well and more stuff. It's just my thoughts in general. Here it is!!! www.secretthoughtsofb.blogspot.com Check it out if your brave enough to read what I might really be thinking. Sometimes my thoughts scare me...:)

What's in a name and parenting is not like riding a bike

So as we have tried to help Liam with screaming we try and give him replacement words. If he wants his brother to give him a toy to say toy please instead of screaming at him or bashing him over the head. So here are some funny examples of how well this works with Liam. Say for example it is time to go downstairs. I may say Liam go downstairs to which he responds with a scream. I respond to him with a "liam we don't scream please say yes Momma." To which Ironically Liam responds with a "yes Momma," and proceeds (ironically) to go down the stairs. It is so funny he does a total 180. One moment he protests with screaming the next moment he repeats you and then does quite happily your request. It's almost as if he feels it is now his idea and therefore safe for him to do. So sometimes we have food issues. I know I know this used to be my human garbage disposal. Once he figured out he is more in control of what and how much he ate sometimes meal times has become a battle of the wills. Well anyway for some reason he had picked cheese for this particular meal to be especially whiny about. By whining I mean screaming and hiding his face. Well we have a rule you have to at least take one bite then you can be done. Well this meal in particular Liam decided this was not going to fly. We spent about 20 minutes telling him to calm down and take one bite and he can get down etc. At this point his one bite of cheese had turned into two. I went over to him picked up one of the bites and accidentally said "Liam eat your hot dog." He then picked it up out of my hand and not only ate the one bite in my hand but the other bite on his tray. So I feel that parenting is not like riding a bike because when you have been away from it for even a few days you can find yourself forgetting very basic things. For me this happened after I got back from Mexico. I was giving the boys a bath. Everything had gone well and it was time to get Liam out. I got him out dried him off put on his lotion and set him aside. I then moved over to the bath and proceeded to get Wesley out. As I was pulling him out of the tub, I heard the sound of an elephant peeing on a flat rock. I turned around to discover there was not an elephant in the bathroom and there was no flat rock. It was in fact my little brown bear who had taken this of all opportunities to release what seemed like an unending amount of urine all over the tile floor. I panicked. I ran towards him with a loud exclamation of "liam no wait we pee pee on the potty..." By the time I reached him he had stopped (I think I scared the pee back in him:) So I turned back around to get paper towels out of the cabinet. At this point the peeing started back up again but this time he had turned his little pee-er onto the little bathroom rug. I ran to him this time determined to get some of that pee in the potty. I picked him up and set him on the toilet. I then turned around grabbing the paper towels and headed towards what appeared to be now two large pee pee spots to clean. It was at this moment Wesley exclaimed loudly and very dramatically. "mommy why did you throw my brother in the toilet." It was also at this time that I realized Liam was crying(now harder then before) I turned to discover that I had in fact forgotten that my 21month old could not sit on the toilet like his almost 5 year old brother. So when I thought I had set him on the toilet he had in fact lost his balance and fell into the toilet. All that was sticking out now was his sweet but sad face his arms and his legs. At the time I felt bad. How could I forget that Liam in no way knows how to sit on the big potty by himself. It didn't help that my oldest was accusing me of putting his brother into the toilet. Later I had to laugh at the whole situation and was bummed I didn't have my camera.

Hello

Yeah I know I titled my post hello. But I literally didn't know what else to put and sometimes the effort I put into titling the post is all for naught anyway because it doesn't really fit. So hello...goodmorning...salutations. I realized I only seem to write when I am needing blog therapy. So although I don't have anything to say I thought I would post anyway. I was looking back at what I put in my previous posts and realized it's a lot of venting. It kinda makes it sound like we aren't doing well and such. Truth is we are doing well. The kids are doing great. School is stressful but fun for me. Aaron loves his job. So really we couldn't ask for more. I just know that in those moments of struggle and ultimately growth it's hard. I want others to feel validated that at the Rye house it's not always smiles and ease. I did realize though that I should balance a little better between the two. Let's see highlight of my 2010 thus far. Hmmm...my trip to Mexico. I really had a lot of me time. Super selfish I know. Mom's aren't supposed to want to run to another country just so they can have peace and quiet. Well I did and I got it and it was awesome. Aaron is such a blessing as a husband. He is such a trooper and watched the boys. Course I don't consider it the same as when he is out of town and I stay home. When I stay home life continues. When Aaron stays home I try to work out breaks for him. Organize meals. And well I can't get the saying out of my head "when the cats away the mice will play." I am so happy they had fun though and I love coming home to three happy boys rather than what Aaron has to come home to. The kids are happy but I am usually a crotchety mess. I have been keeping up with my Devo which is good. I had a really good peaceful time with God while I was away which was such a blessing. I will leave you with a wise four year old's perspective on relationships. "mom from the time girls are little they always stare at the boys." He is in for a rude awakening:)

Spiritual accountability

So I have been thinking a lot about spiritual accountability. What does it look like? I ask this because I know that our personal walk with God can be so intimate but at the same time as humans and dealing with our flesh we can need a prompting from a fellow believer. I will be totally honest with you...I really struggle with my daily devotion. I mean I struggle with the fact that I don't have one. I really want an accountability partner but at the same time I don't know how to go about asking for one. Well last week I decided that I needed to start my day off with God. If I am looking to him for my strength all day then I need to be arming myself with the Word. I know that I have the Holy Spirit but I also have to trust that God has spoken to me through his word and I can pull from that throughout the day. Well until I figure out this accountability partner issue I want to post my devo. for today. My goal would be to post it every day but well it has been a big deal for me to be reading everyday let alone turning on the computer and posting so we will see. Here it is... From My Utmost for His Highest. Reference I kings 19:5 This verse is talking about Elijah fearing for his life and basically hiding out in the wilderness. The Lord provides food for him. The title of today's devo. TAKING THE INITIATIVE AGAINST DEPRESSION: It is talking about how all of us have the capacity for depression. If we didn't we would not be human. Whenever we examine ourselves we need to take into account our capacity for depression. The Spirit of God comes to us, just as it did to Elijah. Not with glorious visions but in the most ordinary things imaginable. (He fed Elijah). We are being prompted to look for the Holy Spirit leading us instinctively to do something. This reminds me of something wise my MIL told me about. She was diagnosed with an illness that takes a lot of adjustment and trusting God to deal with. She talked to me about gathering Manna. How we so often try to gather our manna and look to prepare ourselves for the future. We worry about things days, weeks, months ahead. We gather our worries or "manna" for the future. All our manna gathered for the future spoils. Just like when we worry about tomorrow it spoils our day or causes worry and stress over something we are not even guaranteed to have. We need to gather and prepare for today the moment we are in. Taking each moment for what it is and trusting that God has given us the grace and fruit we need to handle that moment.

My little brown bear and the vanilla one too:)

Basically I think kids go through phases. I think just when you think you have hit phase and moved on I think you quickly can find yourself back in the midst of it again. One phase I have seen Liam go through and move out of and go back into is temper issues. I do feel like he does relax and we will be there for a few weeks and then spend a month or two working through things that don't feel like "normal" toddler issues. I understand that I am probably reading to much into things but I almost feel like as long as I keep myself in check it might not be such a bad thing. I mean seriously a person can drive themselves insane playing the what if game. I have come to the conclusion that I will do what works best for Liam and the rest of the family. We can't treat Liam like he is our only child because he is not. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God planned it that way for a reason. I know he wanted Liam to be the younger brother or else he would have worked it out that Liam would have been placed in another family.But he didn't he is in ours and if I trust God he will equip us to be the best parents for liam and Wesley. It may take a lot more growing on our part as parents and it may take a lot more adjusting on Liam and Wesley's part. All I know is God does not make mistakes and I see proof of that in my family. I still think back on how there were a couple of people who did not think that God wanted Aaron and I together for whatever reason. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Aaron chose me and I chose him and God has blessed our relationship. The interesting part on that story is I had been warned ahead of time(while I was on a mission trip) that I would face a lot of spiritual warfare when I returned home. They warned us that it would be in the area that we struggled the most to trust God. Boy did they peg that one! Anyway I think Satan was just scared because he didn't want to see another couple united under the umbrella of salvation. On another note and why I am actually writing a post was to talk about the boys;)Even in the midst of learning how to parent and trust God in the midst of feeling clueless I have to trust that we will make it through. So back to what I was saying before about cycles. So I mentioned how liam seems to cycle through emotional behaviors. Well Wes seems to cycle through Physical regressions. Here are a couple of examples: It was time to get Wesley out of quiet read time: M: Wesley what is on your hand W: I got a little marker on it I should wash it in the sink. M: I think that is a good idea.... Wesley goes to the bathroom while I pick up... M: Wesley what is all over snuggie(his very special bear) W: I little bit of marker... M: (noticing his mouth) Wes what is all over your mouth? (I begin to pull his sleaves up and pant legs etc.) Wes what is all over you? W: (big grin) I markered myself! And when I was kissing snuggie I got it on his jamies... I proceed to discover marker on his belly, all over his arms and legs, and yes folks even his crack.... I wanted to be mad but it was next to impossible once I saw the marker trail heading down into his southern cheeks.. Second: I was sleeping. wesley runs into my room (it's 6:30) M: Hi baby did you just wake up? W: no mom I was awake for awhile. I cut my school picture up and seperated my friends on who is bossy and who isn't. He then proceeds to shower me with all the pictures of his friends who appearantly aren't bossy. Hmmmm! Don't leave wesley alone and tread on thin ice with Liam:)Lessons learned!I love how they make me laugh.