Letting the to do list go

Recently I have tried REALLY hard to not say the phrases "in a minute" or "I can't right now," to my kids if i am pushing them off for my "to do list". I realize that too often I push them off for later and am missing the "nows." Today was one of those moments. I'm behind on laundry, my bedroom still needs cleaning up, fix it projects and designs projects were calling. I even invited friends to come over to play with the kids so I could get something done.

Savannah came up to me after lunch and asked if we could do something together. I opened my mouth to give her excuses, or ask her to wait till later till I had finished this, this and this.... and luckily stopped myself. I asked her what she was thinking and she gave me a few ideas. I've known that I have really needed to give Savannah more personal time lately to see how it affected behavior, general happiness, etc. I knew this moment was her asking for that personal time.

A few weeks ago I asked my kids to pick one thing they wanted to learn how to do this summer and we would spend some time each week learning how to do it. Savannah picked sewing, Mirian cooking and Isaac picked learning how to ride his bike without training wheels.

Savannah asked if we could learn how to sew today. In my mind I thought... "oh not now, that takes lots of time to learn how to do that, and we have friends showing up in 10 minutes." But I held my tongue, agreed, and we set out our plan. She has wanted to learn how to sew on the sewing machine. I figured a easy quilt would be the easiest. Squares and straight lines. So I let her pick some fabric from some of my sheets I've cut up.

I taught her how to use the rotary cutter and cutting board and how to measure her squares so they were the same size. She decided she wanted to throw some strips in there as well instead of just squares. I helped her with fabric that was a bit too long for her to reach all by herself, and let her cut out all her squares. She did a great job.

I then had her take all her pieces and lay them all on the floor in a pattern she would like. I tried to encourage her to make both a pattern vertically and horizontally, and she went to work. It was fun watching her change colors, rearrange them, and finally declared that this is how she wanted her quilt to look. I have to keep the obsessive compulsive part of me under control when it comes to visual colors, patterns etc, and let her be herself. She did really good for her age. It was unique but had some pattern still to it.

I then had her find matching markers and draw her quilt on the paper and color in the different squares so she would know the order to sew them in. She drew it all in, got it all planned, put all her squares together and then went and started pulling out the sewing machine without me realizing it. :)

(see her pattern there on top?)

So I showed her how to thread the machine, set it up, and sew a straight line. She was a little nervous at first, but did really good about sewing straight. I then showed her how to follow her pattern, how to put the right sides together and start sewing her squares into strips. She was nervous at first, but ended up becoming a pro. She has some advantages to having Beau's analytical and systematic mind when it comes to organizing things. She easily could understand following the pattern, and figured out how to mark squares off when she finished them. She figured out how to sew her thin strips together, and ended up finishing up all her strips by the end of the night. Tomorrow she gets to iron them out and sew the strips to finish her top.

The best part was seeing how proud she was of herself. She was so excited to show Beau that she was using the sewing machine all by herself, and that she was making a quilt all by herself. It was worth everything I didn't get done to see the confidence she had in herself, how excited she was, and what a great job she was actually doing. She was sewing really really well (skill wise). I had some young women ages 12- 14 that I was trying to teach how to sew that did not do near as well as she did. She was bummed when she messed up one time during the whole thing and we had to unpick two squares. The only other thing she was bummed about was that she couldn't get the whole thing done tonight so she could sleep with it. I had to try and explain to her that this was a long p project, that we still had to put the batting in, quilt or tie it, put the binding on etc. But I can't wait to see how excited she is when she finishes it completely.

I was also excited to see how well she did. She also mentioned how a couple of months she sewed some headbands by hand and embroidered her friends names on top to give to them. She explained that one girls was really excited and happy about it and wore it all day. The other one didn't really like it, shoved it in her backpack and never looked at it again, while commenting to someone else that she wanted something different instead. Savannah mentioned how that made her feel really bad. She had spent all night sewing it by hand, and had given up all her free time to make it for her friend, and then to have her not want it. It was a great chance to discuss how the two different girls made her feel, and how we need to be careful how we react to people when they do nice things for us like that. Do we show that we are appreciate of it, and help them feel good, or do we make them feel sad about all the time and effort they put into creating it. What a great time for life lessons not only in physical homemaking skills, but people and life skills too.

Now I just need to give her some more training and I can start getting her to sew all these projects I never have time to do!

That time of year!

Savannah had a field trip yesterday to pumpkinland. She was so excited! Ever since she got back she's been asking if we could carve her pumpkin. So today she drew her face, they cleaned it out, and I carved it. I forgot how much fun it is. Hopefully soon the whole family will get to go get our own and have a night of fun. I love this time of year!

Teaching The Truth

I just had one of those moments with Savannah that are very trying, but very worthwhile after the whole ordeal.

We've been trying really hard to encourage the value of modesty in our home. We encourage them to make sure that they wear modest clothing to try keep their bodies covered, as we believe that our bodies are sacred and should be taken care of and treated as such.

Well Savannah, understands this. She knows what modesty is. She can tell you exactly what modesty is and what it isn't. But that doesn't mean that she always cares to be modest. In fact she loves to wear her sister's clothes which are always 2 sizes too small. So the pants are super tight, barely cover her bottom, and ride up to her knees. The shirts look like the 80's belly shirts.

Well this morning she was adamant! She wanted to wear this outfit. So of course being the frustrated mom, I tried technique one: "That outfit is not modest, go change it right now." Which results in tantrums and timeouts, angry kids and an even more frustrated mom... not the right way to parent I'm sure.

So the second method. Try to help her convince herself that she needs to change. "Savannah that outfit is not modest, I can see your stomach and when you bend over we can see your bottom. How are you going to change that?" Being the very smart girl she is.. replied with the answer. "I'll pull my shirt down and I just won't bend over." How are you going to do that when you play and are picking things up?" I asked. "I'll sit down first so I don't have to bend over (as she demonstrates the technique)..." It worked but we still weren't getting to the issue.

Finally I had her come over and look me in the eyes while we talked. "Savannah, the prophet, President Hinkley, has asked all the girls in the church - you, me, Emily, Amanda, Laurilyn (her good friends), all of us, to wear modest clothing. He asked us to keep our bodies sacred by keeping them covered, and to wear clothes that aren't too tight. Who does the prophet talk to? That's right.. Jesus Christ. He talks to Jesus Christ, because Christ tells the prophet what he wants us to do. So Christ asked the prophet to tell us that we need to keep our bodies sacred, and modest." At this point she stopped me and said "I'll go change my clothes." "That's a good choice Savannah. Because do you know what happens when we choose to disobey and not follow the prophet? The scriptures teach us and show us. If we do not follow him and obey him, then the spirit leaves from our lives and Satan is left to tempt us."

"What is tempt?" she asks. "It means that Satan will try and make us do bad things."

With that she ran off into the room and appeared later wearing her own clothes that were modest and gave me a big hug because she felt better. She felt good knowing she had made a right decision.

It made me realize all too often it's easy to demand as a parent, tell them what they need to do and enforce it. Sometimes it works to think it out with them and help them come to the conclusion on their own. But most important... the most important way to teach is to teach truth. Often times I forget assuming they are too little. They are not too little, the spirit bears witness to them, just as it does to us. They know what is good, they know what is true, and they have a desire to be good. Once she was taught the doctrine and the truth, she acted herself. Truth is the most powerful teaching tool we have, and I need to learn to use it more as a parent.

Proud Mom

What can I say. I'm a proud mom. I was just going through some pictures of mine and ran across this one of Savannah when she was just tiny. Isn't she just the cutest. I have to say that I just think I have some of the cutest kids possible. All of them with their daddy's blue eyes. It's amazing to see how fast they grow and to see how fast Savannah has grown up lately. I was just watching her tonight at the park swinging with Dad and Mirian. I have one year left with her at home before she heads off to school. How fast time has gone by. She has grown up so much is so independent, and so smart. Today she 'surprised' mom who was really tired and sick by helping aunt heather do the dishes and clean the kitchen she was such a big help, and so proud of her surprise. How sometime you wish you could hold time for a moment and sit and really enjoy her at this stage now. That's the same with all my children. There is something just magical and enjoyable about this age. (I'm surprised I'm saying this after having all of the very sick all week.) But they really are. They are such a gift from God and every day I count myself blessed to be able to enjoy life with them. To be such an important person in their life, and experience real joy with them. Here's some of my other two cuties Mirian and Isaac.