Tree of Life Mothering

I have been teaching Primary for a year now. I love this calling! It is the best calling in the church! I love revealing knowledge that is new to these kids and asking them questions. I love learning the stories of the gospel with details that I didn’t know before and then I get to practice my storytelling skills and tell these stories to the children. Some of them don’t think about the question but some do and I can mentally picture the gears turning in their heads as they ponder.

A few weeks ago in my class the lesson included the following experience. I am including it here because it gives me such a feeling of peace, light, and gratitude when I read it. It really shows the power that the light of restoration has on us. We were all born with the light of Christ but we need more light than that to get back to God.

First I made the room as dark as possible. Then I told the children the story of a group of tourists who went into a deep, dark cave. Once inside the cave the guide turned off the lights, waited for a few minutes, and then asked each person to point in the direction of the exit. When the lights came back on, people were pointing in all different directions.

Then I made my classroom light again, and then I read this quote from Elder Robert D. Hales:

“If the power of the priesthood were not upon the earth, the adversary would have freedom to roam and reign without restraint. There would be no gift of the Holy Ghost to direct and enlighten us; no prophets to speak in the name of the Lord; no temples where we could make sacred, eternal covenants; no authority to bless or baptize, to heal or comfort. … There would be no light, no hope—only darkness” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1995, p. 40; or Ensign, Nov. 1995, p. 32).

I am so grateful for this light! I am grateful for Joseph Smith for being an instrument to bring this light to the earth and that I was born when this light was upon the earth.

Today I went with two of my middle boys, ages 12 and 9, to a competition based on Lego robotics. This was our first year doing a Lego League, which culminates in the First Lego League Competition held at Weber State. Excitement bounced through the air with all the kids, the costumes, the music, the characters, like the Storm Troopers, and the rush of beating a clock to see how many missions the Lego Robot could perform.

I have learned a lot this year about working with kids, other adults, legos, robotics, and team work. I am not sure I want to help with a team again. Most of the kids on the team were boys, many were 12, and they were, I don’t know what the phrase is. Let’s say energetically obnoxious. We could hardly get them to focus at our team meetings once a week. It was like herding cats, or maybe octopuses? I know my younger son did not learn anything about programming. I think the other moms involved with the team have all concluded that the minimum age we are going to use from now on to be on the team might be 12 and even then, they will have to show some kind of focused dedication before getting on the team. My older son was the one who did most, if not all of the programming. I just found this list of tips for managing successful team meetings. For sure if I do this again I will be having a parent to work with each pair of students to keep them on track. Our team meetings were crazy with all those boys chasing each other, wrestling, and putting each other in head locks. The two girls patiently endured all of it.

Great job on pushing through wanting to give up team, and I hope you remember the lessons for next year!

Needless to say, we did not win anything but we learned about not giving up and what mistakes not to make for next year.

My baby girl just finished her first week of college! We drove her to BYU-I a week ago today and got her settled in. Then we drove back. In a day. That is a story in itself. But before I get into that, I can hardly believe that 18 years of childhood have gone by in a flash! She was my first natural birth after I took a Bradley childbirth class. I had her older brother first, with an epidural. After that I decided I would go natural the next time after hearing people rave about it. (That is another story in itself which I shall save for another day).  She was also my first baby who I nursed past a year, and then tandem nursed too, with her baby brother. I’d like to say those things contributed to how wonderful and smart she is, but we can never know really.

She is a great young lady who has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and his restored gospel. She is kind, smart, and helpful. She works hard and is friendly. I am really excited for this new phase in her life. Here’s a picture we took before we left her apartment. We don’t look super chipper because it has been a long day, getting up early at 5 AM to drive to Idaho, helping her unpack and shop, me teaching a class over the phone, and then going to the parents’ meeting of the new students that BYU-Idaho offers in the fancy, large “I Center” which is equivalent to the Marriott Center at BYU-Provo, except it doesn’t have a basketball court at the bottom. After the meeting, we actually didn’t say good-bye yet, because she wanted us to take her to the local thrift store to get some clothes for her because she had “nothing to wear tomorrow.” Sigh. I was ready to bark, “You mean after months of knowing you were coming here and having a job and working and using the family car you have never gone shopping for clothes?” I had wanted her to get this clothes shopping done before she left but apparently she didn’t get to it. I was so tired, but out of pure love for her I didn’t bark or complain but agreed. So we drove to the D.I. in Rexburg and had fun. Being at D.I. at 9 PM with a three hour drive ahead of me was my parting gift to her.

After we first moved her stuff in earlier in the day we helped her unpack. We got her some dishes at the D.I. back home before we left. I think she has great taste. She said she got all Type 4 colors and styles for her dishes! Like I have said in previous blog posts, she is really getting into the Carol Tuttle energy types.

She found this cute kitchen hand towel at D.I. When I saw it hanging on the oven door I had to smile. It just looks so feminine, cheerful, and homey! It’s not really Type 4ish, however.

This is her new bed in her new place with a desk below the bed. I love the functionality. I was happy to see that she brought her toe shoes as a reminder of all she has accomplished in ballet. She also brought her Princess book that dh and I gave to her for Christmas a few years ago.

We got to meet her new roommates and all the moms of the roommates. They are sweet girls and ladies. Two of the girls were daughters of moms who were best friends in high school in Tennessee, and they were daughters of men who were good friends and business partners. I don’t think the girls had ever met before, as they grew up in CO and PA. So this sets a new vision for me, to encourage my children to be college roommates with my best friends. That sounds like so much fun!

I found this book on goodreads.com and got it at the library. We had it as a bedtime story for my littles tonight. I learned so many things about Noah Webster from reading it. Did you know that he went to Yale when he was 15? Did you know that when he finished college at Yale and came home, the colonists were fighting the Revolutionary War? You can learn those facts, plus the power he wielded to unite the United States of America by creating the first American dictionary, which took him 17 years to write. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It’s a little too cartoony for me but my three youngest and I had enjoyed the story and learned a lot.

Tomorrow is my first day of mentoring The Hero Project, a class on world wars for my homeschooling youth group. I get to share stories about heroes every week. So I get to share stories about Maria Von Trapp, Irene Sendler, Corrie Ten Boom, and “The Greatest Generation.” This is rekindling my love of the Von Trapp family. You know how you study certain people for a time, then you “forget” about them, and then something happens, and you remember those people and you feel all these warm feelings for them. That’s how I feel about Maria Von Trapp. I read her story years ago when I was pregnant with baby #5, 10 years ago this winter. Now I get to rekindle my passion about her story.

I would love to hear if any of you have any heroes from this time period (WWI to WWII) that you have studied.

We had such a lovely vacation over Christmas and New Year’s that I thought it would be hard transitioning back to the routine of homeschooling. We went to my sister’s baby blessing on Sunday and that in itself seemed like a mini-vacation, we got to eat food we didn’t prepare, play with cousins, and with the church meeting before noon we had the rest of the day stretched out before us. Possibly to stay all day at my sister’s house. For probably the first time, we actually weren’t the last ones to leave my sister’s house. It’s hard to tear the kids away from their cousins. My sister has had a baby every two years, so with baby blessings and now baptisms we go there to celebrate every year now. This year we get to go twice!

With my daughter at BYU-Idaho now and the next child down off of dinner dishes, two of my people helping with dishes are gone.  I am now pulled back into being more involved with child training in terms of training the younger ones how to work. We have the littles (ages 9, almost 8, and 4) on doing more dishes now. That means I get to work with them at lunch and dinner, showing them how to put food away, rinse out pots, load pots in the dishwasher, etc. The past two days have actually gone pretty smoothly in that regard. Plans work when I work the plan and don’t get distracted by other things.

When we all work the plan, it’s amazing how we have time left over to do fun things like read together or play games.

Here’s a video of a 3 year old working to make her family breakfast to inspire you! I love seeing things like this help me think how we can all do more things we at first don’t think we are capable of. I love how the mom in the video is so cheerful and responsive to the little girl.

Dh and I went to a wedding reception Saturday night. The bride chose a Disney theme, and her little brother decorated the cake, pictured above. Isn’t it beautiful?

While we were there we bumped into a couple who used to live in our ward. They have moved and are expecting baby #3. We congratulated them. They said they struggled for two years to get pregnant with baby #1. The first doctor they went to for help was no help. He simply told them they would probably never have any kids. The wife has PCOS, so she has a small window of time when she is fertile. They found a second doctor who was able to help them get pregnant with a simple secret. Guess what it was?

“Switch from using tampons to pads.”

So the wife did, and within two months they were pregnant and haven’t had problem ever since! Hooray for smart doctors who give simple solutions!

We dropped our daughter off at college last Friday! I will blog more about that later, but I wanted to share a spiritual happening that she heard of tonight at the fireside she attended at BYU-Idaho. I called my daughter to have a mentor meeting, just like I used to do when my son was off at college. We still had parent-child mentor meetings every week. I learned about doing that in the DeMilles’ Leadership Education: the Phases of Learning book. In our mentor meeting tonight, my daughter said that the speaker shared the following story. The speaker, a woman, said that a while ago, on a summer day, she heard a voice that said, “You are coasting. It’s time to stop coasting so you can prepare for the hard times ahead.” Then a few months after that the speaker’s toddler granddaughter drowned in a canal. The speaker heeded the voice and became more Christ-centered. That allowed her to get through the dark time of her granddaughter’s death. 

Now that Christmas and New Year’s are over, maybe you are settling into more of a routine. I hope that your routine includes reading more books, especially for these dark wintry days. This is the season for curling up with a great book! So how do you choose a great book? First, let’s start with avoiding bad ones. My friend Audrey explains in the video above how to avoid bad books for your kids.

Here’s Audrey explanation of how to get kids to like reading:

Here’s Audrey on how to choose a book for your group.

Here’s Audrey’s husband on how to find more to read. He reads 50 books a year, while running a business and attending school full time.

Finally, here’s how to get your kids to do their chores, which will help you have more time to read!

Do you know someone, a young man, young woman, or older friend, with a porn addiction? What can you do to help?

Join us on Monday Jan. 6th for a conference call with Maurice Harker, licensed marriage and family therapist and specialist on addiction, to learn how you can help. This call is specifically for helping young men, but porn addiction knows no bounds. It can ensnare old and young, men and women, so you can apply the principles you learn on this call to others besides young men.

(see preview videos HERE)

Monday, 6 January 2014
12:00 noon
Conference Dial-in: 1-267-507-0240
Enter Conference Code: 541012

Free Recording of Previous Mid-Day on Monday Conference
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