The Yelling Mommy

There is a trend running the social media circuit right now of not yelling at your kids.  

“Take the 365-day challenge!  Have your children hold you accountable!”  Seriously??

Sorry, this one isn’t for me.  As if the “no spanking” trend isn’t bad enough.

I just can’t see myself sweetly saying, “Cooper, honey, don’t run into the street when a car is coming.”  Or for the fourth time, “Don’t dump your milk on the floor, Darling.”  Or, “That’s okay that you just threw a block and hit me in the head.  I’m sure you didn’t mean to.”

Or, with this challenge, if I do forget and yell accidentally, he can say, “Mommy, you’re not supposed to yell.”  Then I’m the bad guy and he’s the victim, even though he just ate a cookie after I told him he couldn’t have one, or came up to me and deliberately turned my computer off while I was using it.

God gave us the ability to raise our voices.  It’s a very effective tool for getting our children's attention and showing them that we mean business.  It works for me, anyway.

This is not to say that I enjoy yelling at my son, but sometimes the situation warrants it.  It’s a tool I save for when I need it.  I can’t say I never use it when I shouldn’t.  Sometimes I get frustrated more easily than I should and take it out on him.  We all make mistakes as parents, but I believe that yelling when I maybe shouldn’t have is a small one.  I can always apologize, with minimal consequences.

So, if you’re taking on this no-yelling challenge, then good for you!  I wish you the best.  May peace and quiet prevail in your home.  And may your children turn out perfect.  Mine may be scarred for life, but I have a hard time believing it will be because I yelled at him every now and then.

The Marble Jar

I realized a few months ago that Cooper was taking longer and longer to obey us when we told him to do something.  It wasn't defiance, really, just a bad habit he was getting into, which we were more or less reinforcing by repeating the same thing over and over, counting to three, etc.

It needed to improve.  If he was ever running into the path of an oncoming car, I wouldn't have time to count to three when I told him to stop.  Plus, it was irritating.

I couldn't really start punishing him for it all of a sudden.  So a friend gave me an idea: use positive reinforcement.

So, I created "The Marble Jar," a very inexpensive little project, which has been very effective.  I took a jar (in this case an old, plastic peanut butter jar) and got enough marbles to fill it, and then dumped them into a plastic bag.

I waited for him to do something the first time I asked him, no matter how small.  When he did it, I gave him a marble and explained what we were going to do.  I told him that when the jar got full, we would do something special.  It didn't take him long to catch on.

I never bribe him with it.  I never threaten him or take marbles back out of the jar.  I just make a point to recognize when he obeys me the first time and give him a marble.  Now he often informs me when he thinks he deserves one, but I make the ultimate decisions about it.

So now the jar is almost full.  And Cooper wants to go to the Wilson County Fair, a local fair that we went to last year and he still remembers.  So we are trying to get all the marbles moved to the jar by Saturday so we can go, and maybe get a few treats while we're there.  He's working hard for it.

Will we start over when the jar is full?  I haven't decided yet.  We have definitely made great strides in his obedience.  It is so refreshing to tell him to go sit down at the table for dinner and have him do it right away.  At some point, though, it needs to become second nature, not something that gets rewarded every time.  Maybe we will try it for a time without the jar, and if we need a refresher, we will get it back out.

At any rate, I think this is a great tool for teaching kids to obey.  It's a win-win for everyone.

Being an Old Mom

A friend who is in her mid-30's and still hoping to marry and have a family was asking me recently about having a child later in life.  I am definitely well-qualified to answer that question, since I had my son at 44.

Of course there are pros and cons.  The main thing to consider if you are deliberately delaying having children is that your fertility decreases as you get older.  Essentially, you start running out of eggs, and, since you use your good eggs first, those that are left are more likely to be defective.  So, besides having a harder time getting pregnant, you are also at increased risk for miscarriage (which I experienced with my second pregnancy at age 45, and it SUCKED), as well as certain birth defects such as Down's Syndrome or Trisomy 13. 

Of course, any pregnancy comes with risks, so having a child at a younger age is definitely not a guarantee that these things won't happen, nor is having one at an older age a guarantee that they will happen; it's just that your odds increase as you get older.

My doctor offered to test me early in my pregnancy to see if Cooper had Down's Syndrome so I could decide what to do about it.  I refused.  I wasn't going to "do" anything about it.  I knew that if God was going to give me a child with Down's Syndrome, then He would give me the strength to love and raise that child.

My doctor also told me that the risk of pregnancy to my health at 40-something is not much greater than it would have been at a younger age, though there were a few things they had to monitor more closely, like my blood pressure, which is often higher in older women.  I didn't have any age-related complications during my pregnancy, and my delivery was also uneventful.  I have heard that statistically, women who give birth later in life, live longer.

I am a big believer that God is in control.  Rarely does a woman give birth past her mid-40's, which means that, in a normal life span, she will live long enough to raise the child into adulthood.  I also believed that, if God didn't want me to get pregnant, if my body couldn't handle pregnancy, He wouldn't have let it happen, though I wasn't going to try to "override" His plan.  I know of two different women who got pregnant through in vitro in their 40's, both with twins.  Both died giving birth.  So I wouldn't have even considered going that route.  But that's just me.

Then there are other issues that I didn't really consider before getting pregnant.  Like, I have no one to relate to.  Friends my age have children in high school and college.  Women with children the age of my child are often young enough to be my daughters.  I have, in fact, had people ask me if Cooper was my grandson.  I try to keep a sense of humor about it.

There's also the energy factor.  You just don't have as much at 40-something as you did when you were 20-something.  And raising a child takes a lot of energy, especially when they're babies and toddlers.  My husband is around my same age, so we both often fall into bed at night, exhausted.  But so far, we have managed.  As people tell me, it keeps us young.

If anyone asks me if I would do it all again, I reply that if my choice was to have Cooper at a younger age or have him at 44, I would choose to have him at a younger age.  But if my choice was to have him at 44 or not at all, I would DEFINITELY have him at 44.  I LOVE being a mom, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Yes, I'll be 63 when he graduates high school but, oh well.

When I was pregnant, I came across a scripture that gave me peace about it all.  My pregnancy was something of a surprise, since, after 4-1/2 years of trying we had pretty much given up.  I questioned God, why now, after all this time, did He allow it to happen?  This was the answer He gave me:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.  God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.  Acts 17:26-28

I believe God planned the exact time and place that Cooper should live, that he might seek Him.  God has a plan for all of our lives, and He doesn't make mistakes. 

For those who are thinking of deliberately delaying having children for a career or some other reason, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, and certainly not planning to have one as late as I did, but for those like my friend, who have not had an opportunity earlier in life but would still like to have a baby, if you think you can handle the risks, then I would say . . . go for it!

Fresh Salsa

Our garden is being good to us this year, and we're enjoying all kinds of produce.  I'm not a big fan of tomatoes, but I love this recipe!  It's pretty easy.

5 Roma tomatoes, peeled (other types of tomatoes work too)

5 green onions

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Juice of 1/2 lime
4 small garlic cloves

1 tsp. hot pepper sauce (optional)

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. salt

You can vary the amounts of the ingredients according to your tastes.  I used more tomatoes this time because mine were really small.

If you cut the tops off of the tomatoes and put them in boiling water for a minute or two, the skins will split and you can peel them right off after they cool a bit.

Cut the veggies up and put everything in your food processor and turn it on.  If you like a chunkier salsa, you can chop them up yourself instead of using a food processor.

Get yourself a bag of tortilla chips, and you're all set!

It doesn't make too much, but it doesn't keep too long either, so I don't make a lot at one time.  I've doubled it before, though, and that works fine too.  Yummy!

Ewwwwww!

My son, who will be 3 in October, will eat anything.  Maybe he was just born that way, and I don’t know that it will last forever, but I hope it will.

My husband and I are both picky eaters, and I struggle with my weight, so I really put a lot of thought and a fair amount of research into doing the best I could for my son, even before he was born, to help him not have to deal with these issues.

Here are some suggestions, not necessarily scientific, but they have worked for me.  Everyone may not agree with or be able to follow all of them, but some of them may be helpful.

1.  Eat a variety of healthy foods while you are pregnant.  Easier said than done, I know, especially if you have a constant craving for purple Kool-Aid or something equally bad, as I did for most of my pregnancy, or are unable to keep anything down.  But the healthier you are able to eat, the better off you and your baby will be, and the healthier tastes your child will develop.  After all, anything you eat goes to nourish him or her.

2.  Breastfeed for at least a year, if possible, and eat healthy during that time.  Again, everything that goes into your body is nourishing your child if you are nursing him.  I firmly believe this is the healthiest start to give an infant if you are able to do it, and while being nourished, he is developing a taste for the healthy foods you are eating.

3.  Don’t start your child out on junk food.  I have often wondered why parents give their young children cookies and candy when the child doesn’t even know enough to want them.  Yes, it IS fun to watch their eyes get big when they taste something so good, or watch them smear icing all over their face as they get their first taste of cake.  Cooper’s first birthday was his first real taste of sugar, but he has had it in very limited amounts since then.  And he doesn’t know the difference.  I was proud of myself when, at his two-year checkup, a nurse in his pediatrician’s office gave him a lollipop (without asking me) when he got a shot, and he didn’t know what to do with it.  He thought it was a toy.

4.  Demonstrate good attitudes about healthy food.  Never use the term “I don’t like ___________” (tomatoes, for example), in front of your child, and try to prevent others from doing it.  Don’t even let the child know that not liking a food is an option.   Be a good role model.   Eat healthy in front of your child.  If you’re going to eat junk food, don’t let your child see you doing it.  It seems sort of dishonest, but you are doing your child a favor (and you will be doing yourself a favor if you don’t eat it).

5.  Don’t make your child a separate meal from what you’re having.  Our standard is that Cooper gets one serving of everything we’re having.  He doesn’t have to eat it all if he doesn’t want to, but he can’t have seconds on anything if he doesn’t eat the first serving of everything.  If your child is hungry enough, he will eat.  Don’t substitute junk food for healthy food just to get him to eat something.  Trust me, he won’t die if he misses a meal.

6.  Allow your child to self-regulate.  We’re all born with a regulator that tells us how much we need to eat, and most of us are almost immediately taught not to use it.  Formula-fed babies are usually encouraged to drink their whole bottle, whether they want it or not.  Children are taught early on to eat everything on their plate.  What if they’re not hungry?  Is it a good lesson that they have to keep eating after they’re full, even if they don’t want to? 

Junk foods and sweets are another thing that confuse our self-regulators.  They may not cause the feelings of fullness that healthy foods cause, so we are able to eat more of them , or they may cause unnatural cravings.  If you are full, you would probably turn up your nose at a plate of green beans, but a big slice of chocolate cake, now that’s another story. 

7.  Don’t make desserts a regular part of meals.  They should be for special occasions.  They shouldn’t be used as an incentive for your child to eat everything on his plate.

8.  Have a garden.  When he is old enough, let your child help you plant, water and pick the fruits and vegetables you grow.   Vegetables never taste better than when they are freshly picked and are never more exciting to eat than when you have grown them yourself.

9.  Avoid processed foods as much as possible.  What are processed foods?  Mostly foods on the inner shelves of the grocery store.  Those on the outer perimeter are usually the “real” foods (fruits, veggies, dairy, meats, nuts, whole grains, etc.).  Another definition is any food that has things you can’t pronounce on the label, but that’s not foolproof, because you may be able to pronounce “high fructose corn syrup,” but it’s REALLY bad for you.  Don’t be fooled by words like “enriched” or “fortified” either.  That basically means they have removed the real nutrients and replaced them with fake ones.

Or use the common sense approach.  Are Oreos really good for you?  Do they really fuel your body?  I think we all know the answer to that, deep down inside.

God designed our bodies, and He designed food to fuel them.  In our fallen world, man has distorted food so much that our bodies hardly even recognize them as food.  A fruit roll-up hardly compares to an apple for nutritional value.  Potato chips or French fries don’t bear much resemblance to an actual potato.  However, these foods may taste good, and if you let your child develop a taste for them, he may not want to go back to the real thing.

Artificial sweeteners aren’t necessarily the answer.  True, they don’t directly contribute to weight gain, but they can still instill the same cravings and bad habits as sugar does, and they are chemicals that our bodies weren’t designed to digest.

I’m not saying my child can’t go to birthday parties and eat cake.  Or that I will never make a batch of homemade cookies or let him have a Coke when we go to the movies.  I will.  As he gets older, he will become more aware of these things and feel deprived if his friends are eating them and he can’t.  But for now, while he is young and doesn’t even know these things exist, why should I push them on him when I can be using this time to help him develop a taste for healthy food and get him started on a path of good health for life?

Muffins

Muffins are kind of like popsicles.  You can go in many different directions with them.

I have one, mostly-healthy basic muffin recipe that I use for most of my muffins:

1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix these together.  (Sometimes I will make up several batches of this at a time and put them in zip-lock bags and have my own muffin mix.)

Mix together separately:

1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.

Now it's time to get creative.  You can add any number of things to this: blueberries, strawberries, cherries, chopped apples, nuts, raisins or other dried fruit, cranberries, chocolate chips, flax seeds, orange or lemon zest, etc.  Combinations are also good, like chocolate chip-cherry.

You can also add a little cocoa to the dry ingredients to make them chocolate, or some flavor extract.  A little cinnamon or nutmeg spices them up, or I replace half of the milk with orange juice to make cranberry-orange-nut muffins.

Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 full.  Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes.  This makes 10-12, depending on how much you add to it.

Yummy!

Urban Homesteading

This is something I’ve been doing for years on a small scale, but I didn’t realize until much later that it actually had a name. 

So what is urban homesteading? 

Basically it means that people who live in cities or suburbs, and not on a lot of land, are using what land they have to make themselves self-sufficient, at least at some level.

We have just 1/3 acre, but I have planted fruit trees -- kind of hard to see here, but there are 3 small trees: two are apple, which need each other to pollinate, and one is a peach, which doesn’t need a pollinator.  The smaller two are “dwarf” varieties, which don’t get too big or take up too much space, but still bear regular-sized fruit.

I have just finished planting my garden for this year.  It is 8’ x 16’.  This is the first year I have used a trellis, which saves space, as things grow upward instead of taking up ground area (peas, beans, cucumbers).  I also have broccoli, carrots, radishes, lettuce, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes and a few herbs.  This picture was taken in the late afternoon.  It gets full sunlight for most of the day.

I let Cooper plant some sunflowers.  I think it will be exciting for him to watch them grow.  Hopefully he will get bitten by the gardening bug too.  ( :

Behind that is my strawberry patch.  This is the second time I have used this planting method.  The last one lasted 4 or 5 years before it got overrun with weeds (while I was pregnant and couldn’t bend over to weed it) and killed the plants.  I think they need to be re-done every few years anyway.  By the second year last time, the silver rings weren’t even visible; they were completely covered by the plants and I had oodles of strawberries!  This is an 8’ x 8’ square, and the rings in the pyramid are 6 feet, 4 feet and 2 feet.  I ordered this setup.  The rings are just strips of metal which can be rolled up and re-used.  I got 25 strawberry plants for about $6.  I also had to buy several bags of garden soil.

I have 3 blueberry plants, which haven’t actually produced anything so far.  They get berries on them, but they disappear before they get ripe.  We suspect the birds are eating them.  Oh well.

I planted this rosemary  in a shady spot in my front landscaping several years ago, and it has done wonderfully!  Whenever I need a bit of rosemary for cooking, I just step out the front door and snip a piece off.  It has done well through the winters, though I have heard rosemary doesn’t always make it through winters in areas colder than Zone 7.

I also have a compost pile.  (I’ll spare you a picture of that.)  I don’t keep it up as well as I should, but still get some compost, which I use to fertilize my garden.  We just throw fruit and vegetable waste (peels, etc.), egg shells, coffee grounds, and other organic things in there (I don’t put meat in there, so it won’t smell bad).  It builds up faster if you add grass cuttings and leaves, which I rarely do.  You are supposed to turn it (stir it up) regularly, which I don’t do as much as I should, but anyway . . .

My next door neighbors are even more into this than I am.  They actually have 3 chickens.

Every now and then, they’ll bring us some of these.  Cool!

Some people do this on a much larger scale than I do and have bigger gardens, or multiple smaller ones wherever they have space around their yard.  Their landscaping may consist of blackberry or raspberry bushes (something I’d like to do in the future), or a grape trellis (something else I want to do eventually).  Some people even keep bees or goats (I recommend doing some serious thinking and research if you’re going to undertake those endeavors).

So all in all, in my way of thinking, this type of thing is fun, offers great exercise, saves money, and provides you with the freshest of produce.  You can do it on whatever level you want to.  A small garden with a few vegetables is a great place to start, and you can add more from year to year.  I highly recommend it!

Enjoying Today

From the time I became a mom, everyone has told me, “enjoy the moment.  They grow up fast.”  I think as an older mom, I tend to take that a little more seriously than I might have when I was younger, because I had to wait so long for Cooper, and because I have lived long enough to see for myself how time flies.

And there are moments I do treasure.  Many of them are already gone, but they still happen on a regular basis, like rocking him to sleep at night.  Now, when I sing, sometimes he sings with me.  Mommy and Cooper sitting in a rocking chair in his dark room, singing hymns together.

We went for a walk at the park the other day.  I thought he would want to walk alone and explore things as I walked, but he ran up behind me and put his little hand in mine and walked with me.  And I treasured that moment, for I'm sure the day will come when he thinks he is too old to hold my hand, or maybe to even be seen walking with me.

The other night we went outside after dinner as a family to enjoy a beautiful evening.  Don and I sat in our swing, and Cooper climbed up between us.  As we all sat, enjoying the evening, Cooper began to sing softly, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”  Don and I just sat and listened, and I prayed that the day would someday come when Cooper would make that commitment in his heart.

There are the moments I peek in on him sleeping, or see his joy when I give him news he wants to hear.  There is the enchantment of watching him experience something for the first time, or learn to do something new.  Nothing feels better than seeing his face light up when I come to pick him up from the nursery or come home to him when I’ve been gone a while, especially if it’s accompanied by him running to me with open arms, saying, “Momeeeeeeeee!”

Every day we have with our children is a gift, not to be taken for granted.  Some days it’s more easily recognizable than others, but I encourage you to savor the time you have with your little ones.  They may never come again.