Hannah's Song--and my multi-tasking tendencies

So, I tend to do many things at once...which I call "multi-tasking" and, yes, I am a busy-body. Not only do I work from 9-3 (only for one & 1/2 more months~tee-hee), but I am also the PTO Secretary at our school, I head up our church's Kidz Ministry Worship Leaders (schedules, songs, interviewing, training--the whole bit), I am the one that does the grocery shopping, schedules the doctors appointments, pays the bills, organizes the class parties & chaperones the class field trips, goes through the hundreds of papers sent home from school every week, etc--I could go on for a while. Well, the bad thing about multi-tasking is that you are not providing your full attention to one thing, but rather to many things. I think I may be multi-tasking too much these days...

My DD, Hannah, has taken up songwriting these last few weeks and I came across one of the songs she is currently working on. It was so non-chalant. Hannah hadn't even finished it or told me she wanted to show me what she had so far or anything. It all happened when I was tucking her in bed and saw the notebook by her nightstand. I asked her what it was, she said it was the song she was working on, I asked her if I could read it, and here is what I read:

"Every day, I want to see your face right in front of me
But I never get to see it because
You're always doing stuff like filling out papers, talking, and all that business stuff
Just quit
You have enough money
You have enough stuff
You have enough papers
So why don't you quit"

So, that was it! I started tearing up immediately. I asked her if she felt like I was too busy all the time and not spending enough time with her. She said that I spent enough time with her, but she was just writing down her feelings. I think she was trying not to hurt my feelings because she is just sweet & kind like that. WOW, if this wasn't a wake-up call, then I don't know what is.

This is just another reason I am SO GLAD to be staying home soon. I will be able to fill out all my papers, talk, and do all that business stuff during the day now & have more FOCUSED time for my family at night!!! I just want to thank God for this wake-up call and blessing us with the ability to do something about it. Yes, we will have to make sacrifices, but God will provide and it will be SO worth it!!!

Breastfeeding--read on if you dare

So, my children lost just a little bit more of their childlike innocence today. It seems to happen more as they get older, unfortunately. Today, they learned about breastfeeding. It all started because I was looking at some maternity websites online & Hannah happened to look over and see what I was doing. So, we were just looking at clothes together (as girls should do!) when I stumbled across some breastfeeding covers on the website. Hannah wanted to know what they were...and...well...I figured she would find out about breastfeeding after I give birth in February anyway...so I decided to tell her & her brother (who happened to be sitting right there at the table with us). Here's how it went:

Hannah: "Mom, what's that for?" (referring to the breastfeeding cover)
Me: "Well, do you guys know what breastfeeding is?"
Kyle & Hannah: "No."
Me: [Pausing & stumbling a little bit trying to come up with the right explanation] "Well, when babies are born, they need special food to nourish them. The best food for them is the milk from their mom's breast."
Kyle: [Face is a little blushed and his expression is one of surprise]
Hannah: "What is a breast?"
Me: "A breast is a boob."
Hannah: [A completely shocked look on her face] "No." [utter disbelief]
At this point, they simply did not believe me. They really thought I was making this up!!
Hannah: "Do the babies feed from the inside or the outside?"
Me: "The babies feed from the outside after they are born." (I wasn't going to go into graphic detail.)
Kyle: "I thought only dogs fed their puppies like that, not us." (as I am trying not to laugh)
Me: "No, God created women to feed their babies that way, too."
Kyle & Hannah : They are both repeating "gross!" and laughing non-stop.
Me: " Did you know that you both were fed that way?"
Kyle & Hannah: "NO!!!!!! AUGGHH!! GROSS!!!"
That was their lesson on Breastfeeding 101.

After they settled down, we were able to discuss it a little more seriously, like how beneficial & natural is it for the babies. It may seem gross to them now, but this is the way we were made. They were also prompted NOT to tell anyone at school as their parents may not want them to know this yet.

Overall, I guess it went well. I always like that we can talk light-heartedly about these things, rather than being uncomfortable & awkward. One thing I do admire about my kids is that they are not afraid to ask these questions.

By the way, the mommy covers are AWESOME. Here is my favorite but I like this one a lot, too!

So Proud of Kyle---our tween!!

Kyle will be 11 in October, and he is officially a "tween"---which is what they call it those few years before he actually becomes a teenager (I'm sure you all already know that!!) Well, we've had a few situtions that are really making me feel like he's getting older!! He's able to joke on our level, he's lost some of his childhood innocence (we had the birds & bees talk--just the basics!), and now---this happened the other day. Be prepared, it still makes me sick to my stomach to think about it.

The scenario: It's chaos as usual at our house. Hannah's friend is getting dropped off at our house, the neighborhood kids are running around playing with Hannah & her friend, and the dog is barking non-stop at something (or maybe nothing) in the backyard. While in the middle of talking to Hannah's friends' mom, I go around the house to see what Shadow is barking at. It's Kyle & two of his friends (who I have not met yet) cutting through the yard on their bikes. Kyle is talking to one of the boys saying, "Go home! We don't want to play with you! Stop following us around! Leave us alone and go home!"

Well, I am shocked that he would talk to ANYONE like that, even if he didn't want to play with them! Thoughts were running through my head like, "I thought we raised him better than that" and "I can't believe he's talking to someone like this". I was mixed with shock & frustration--upset that he would even think that it was okay to talk to someone like this!! So, I tell him to go inside with both of his friends while I spoke with Hannah's friends' mom & I would be in talk to him in a minute.

When I go inside, I call Kyle down to talk to him. FYI~~One of the boys was Dylan (who I knew he was becoming friends with at school). Kyle had asked if he could have Dylan over earlier that day & I had said that was fine. The other boy will be called "T" in this story. So, here's what Kyle told me---

He was at Dylan's house playing & his neighbor "T" wanted to come inside & play. Well, "T" is in 6th grade (Kyle & Dylan are in 5th) and while they were inside playing "T" wanted to get on the computer. While he was on the computer he told Kyle & Dylan that he was going to look up naked pictures of girls. (Yes, take a moment to read that last sentence again. It makes me sick. They think of that in 6th grade?!?!?) Kyle then said that him & Dylan were telling T to get off the computer, they don't want to look at that and they're not suppossed to look at that. Well, let me just tell you that I told Kyle that "T had to go home right now and play with kids his own age". Kyle begged me not to say anything about what he told me. So, I told T that Kyle could only have one person over today & he had asked if Dylan could come over earlier. So, T needed to go home.

I was SO PROUD OF KYLE. For so many reasons---making the right decision (even with his peers around), telling me the truth, and telling an older kid to go home even when he knew it was rude. He had decided that making the right decision was more important than worrying about what his peers thought. Yes, I am beaming right now!!

While it is SO hard to think that we're coming up to this tween stage and it's terrifying to know that we're approaching unchartered waters! It's so comforting to know that everything we've worked hard to teach Kyle in all these years actually may have paid off! I hope and pray that he continues to make these good decisions. Not only Kyle, but Hannah and Baby Evans, too! Who knows what Middle School will be like by the time Baby Evans gets there! It's also reassuring to know that as long as we do the best we can, God will take care of the rest.

One more thing, after telling Kyle how proud we were of him (over & over & over), this did open the discussion about if doing something like that was wrong & why. We got to talk about addictions, what the bible says about temptation, and the fact that we're all human and will make mistakes sometimes & that doesn't make us a bad person. I'm proud to say that as long as Kyle keeps this up, he's going to do just fine! Let's say lots of prayers for Hannah, though. She's not always the one to stand against the crowd, if you know what I mean!!

Stay tuned for more Tween Parenting stories!! I'll post the one about the "birds & the bees" talk with Kyle. What I thought was going to be awkward turned out to be really funny! Kyle was open to talk about stuff, but in the end was just grossed out with it all. The discussion was brought up because they were working on disease reports at school and one of the kids chose to work on the disease "AIDS". When he was looking up information about the disease, it actually said "A man having sex with another man". Again, I'm so proud of Kyle for coming to us to ask about this. I'll post the entire story later.