Mission: Summer Memories

I find it hard to believe that I as I sit here writing this blog, my boys are half way through the last day of school.  It seems as if just yesterday they were getting ready for the first day of school & we were putting summer vacation behind us for the exciting school year that laid ahead.

 I am not sure where time goes, but I've come to realize that my boys are getting older & summer vacation is not as easy as it use to be.  When they were little we use to sit around and play all day. Now if we are home, they are going to play alright; they are going to play video games, computer games, iPad games, and maybe some board games that they will invite me to play with them.  It seems that in past summers, even when I have made really good plans, summer still comes and goes before we have made really good memories.  And if I'm being honest, that's not the kind of summer I want.  I realize now more than ever (& maybe it's because in a couple of weeks I will have been a mommy for a whole decade) that my children are growing way quicker than I would like & I am not having much success at stopping that growth.  So this summer I have a different sort of plan & I have worked really hard on putting it together.  We are going to make a Summer Passport to Fun tomorrow morning.  The 4 of us (the boys, Emily & myself) will sit down with all my list of places, all my descriptions, all my distances from the house & we will collaborate on what we want to do this summer.  Our passports will be separated in to short adventures, long adventures, outdoor adventures, indoor adventures, rainy day fun & bible challenges.  We will visit historical land sites, aquariums, museums, rural beaches, have water balloon fights, do science experiments, scavenger hunts & the list goes on & on.  After we decided what we want, we will make our Passports, with pictures & all, and finally we will mark up our family calendar with our plans.  We will pray together as a family that our plans work with God's plans for us this summer & that he guards us on this extraordinary summer of making memories.  I know that we will not accomplish our entire Passports because my boys, they are big dreamers just like me.  They will fill those passports with much more than we will be able to do.  But the point is that we will have a starting point, a guide to lead us this summer & where ever we end up & what ever we end up doing we will be doing it together & we will be making memories together.  I am so excited about this summer & endless possibilities of memories to be made.  I can't wait to see all the pictures we take & look back on them & go "Wow, that was one great summer!"  Okay, well maybe I'm lying just a little bit, I can wait...but one day I'm going to love having all those pictures to look at.  

I hope you & your family have a wonderful & blessed summer vacation.  I pray you find a lot of things to do, whether it be at home or some far away place. Mainly I pray that you do it as a family & that you enjoy making the memories that will last a lifetime.  Today I am linking up at Time Warp Wife on Titus 2sdays.  Please jump on over there & read some of the other link ups.  I know your life will blessed for what you read, as mine always is!  Enjoy your Tuesday :) 

Monday's

I've been laying in bed for the past half hour pretending to sleep.  Emily left to go "see what the brothers are doing" and she never leaves quietly.  No she leaves with those soft little hands first rubbing my arm & then the side of my face.  She gets up close and whispers "momma, momma" I open my eyes a bit & then she kisses me, first on the cheek, then on my lips.  Now we do nosy, nosy & some sort of  half awake/half asleep butterfly kisses.  Finally she whispers "I love you momma, now I go see what the brothers are doing." I say okay and close my eyes.  I can't help but wonder if she thinks whispering keeps me from being completely awake or what, but somehow it just seems sweet at the moment that she so tries to be nice during our morning routine.  So as I lay there, door closing, eyes still shut, hearing the noise on the monitor that sits beside my bed I think...Monday, really?  You couldn't wait to come for a few more hours?  I think how I would like to sleep just once till the alarm went off, but then I remember I am a mom & I don't have that luxury just yet. The last 30 minutes before the alarm goes off is spent with the day's events starting to play out in my head.  How they will go & when I will do what.  It's a busy Monday, but then again aren't they all.  Only 2 days of school left & I vow on Wednesday I will sleep till the alarm goes off.  I start to let the day get me down before it begins & then I hear Kolby's voice & I suddenly remember the funniest thing I had read last week " I am thankful that double ee always says E"  and suddenly a smile comes to my face, because really how could a mommy not smile at that.  I start to think of a kind teacher who helped cultivate the gift of joy this school year by helping my little guy keep a Grateful Journal (although I have always suspected she didn't know the true joy of giving Thanks).  I think of how much joy I found in reading his journal & all that he gave thanks for.  I think of how he told me it was a grateful journal, but he went ahead and wrote thankful because he was giving God thanks...just don't tell his teacher that.  Yes, that brought a smile to me face for sure.  It's in those moments that I realize that if I don't do another thing right in this life, I know I've at least brought 3 precious children to love & know the Lord.  I start to think that yes, it's Monday...AGAIN & yes my day will be crazy busy at best, but surely somewhat chaotic if it happens like it normally does.  But it's okay because I have much to be thankful for.  So I grab my pink little notebook that has gold circles on it (they remind me of my beloved sister, Felicia, who loves gold although I dislike it greatly) and I write the date & begin today's list of giving thanks.

46. The smell of my love on his pillow
47. My sweet baby's voice first thing in the morning
48. Soft baby hands on my face
49. Kisses from my baby girl
50. Nosy, nosy
51. Butterfly kisses while I'm still half asleep
52. The morning sun coming through the window all to early on Monday morning
53. The sound of my children playing together
54. A big brother taking care of his siblings
55. Alarm clocks that never go off
56. My baby boy's Grateful Journal
57. And the teacher who helped him keep it all year long
58. That double ee always says E ( I mean why not, it makes life easier right?)
59. For the sound of my coffee pot making me coffee & the smell that tells me it's almost done
60. For the chaos that my life is
61. And the faith in God that lets me know it's all okay
62. For 3 beautiful children that all love the Lord
63. For Good Day Girls & the wonderful insight those ladies bring to my life
64. Anything by Jennie Allen
65. My quiet time with the Lord, to ponder & think & learn & just be still

My list will go on today & tomorrow there will be more.  I've found that making my list just helps me stay calm in the stress that life is.  It helps me realize that God made me promises and that all things can be made good in HIM, who loves me.  At the start of my list, I first listed Ann Voskamp & her website A Holy Experience (the link can be found below) because if not for her I wouldn't be making list & my life just wouldn't be the same.  So thank you Ann & thank you for bringing me closer to HIM.



Today I am linking up with Ann Voskamp at a holy experience.  Please check out her blog & the blogs of other ladies that linked up with her today.  You will surely be blessed by what you read.  Thank you for reading & have a Blessed Monday!

Being like Thomas Edison....

isn't a bad thing, unless of course you're talking about ADHD.  Yep, that's right, this genius who had 1,093 patents was expelled from school because he had what we would call ADHD.  His mother was encouraged to send him trade school because the teacher felt dear old "Al" which is what he was known as back then just couldn't learn, he couldn't pay attention, he couldn't focus.  Al's mom, having been a former teacher, knew her son could learn so instead she home schooled him & taught him how to read, write, & do math.  For us parents who have walked in those exact shoes, most of us, aren't the least bit surprised that he went on to read non stop and to be obsessed with invention.

A few weekends ago we were lucky enough to visit the Edison Ford Winter Estates and one of the first things we did was take The Young Inventors Tour.  It's a tour for kids, that are too busy jumping, too busy touching (yep, they even have some light bulbs & a phonograph that the kids can touch during this particular tour), too busy thinking, just plain too busy to sit still!  I have to admit that when the young man giving the tour, who had a bit of ADHD himself, was telling the "young inventors" about Thomas Edison having ADHD more than one child (almost all of them, I'm thinking the other's might not of heard because they weren't paying attention) turned and looked at their mother & father in shock.  It was something that they didn't know, something that they didn't expect.  And really why should they?  Our precious children, who are labeled so quickly with ADHD, are not really told many pleasant things about themselves from the outside world.  And really no matter how much I build up Logan & tell him just how wonderful he is there are days that he breaks me down with too much activity, too much talking, too many questions, too much inattentiveness and before I know it I am telling him to be something that he's not.  I would be lying if I said I had never told him that he was embarrassing me in public.  I try not to worry about what the outside world thinks about my boy.  I try to ignore the stares in public, but really I am human & I do care.  I know I shouldn't, but I do and that's when I break & in the process I break him down just a little bit at a time.  I try to repair the damage & really if you know Logan you know his self esteem isn't lacking.  But I still wonder if in his mind he thinks we wish he were different.

The truth is I don't think so many children actually have ADHD.  I do believe it assist & I do think some children really suffer badly from it.  But I believe that in the worst of circumstances medication should be the last option & the label need not be applied so quickly. What I actually see is boredom in the worst way.   I see creative minds, inquisitive minds, minds that don't learn the way the school system says they must learn and these minds are bored.  They are getting left behind every single day.  Parents are hearing from teachers what Mrs. Edison heard all those years ago.  I see boys that aren't able to go & run & be boys like they were 50 years ago.  I see people judging parents left & right, blaming them for their kids issues.  I see less outside family time & more inside video game time.  I see parents blaming behavior on issues without consequences for the children.  I see all this messed up thinking & the ones who are suffering are these amazing little minds.  I don't have all the answers, but I do know that we are losing a generation of really brilliant minds.

For us ADHD has been only part of our journey & yet it's been the one that has caused the most issues.  We have tried medication, but only for a few years.  Looking back I wish it was something that I had fought harder & I hadn't felt so pressured by a school system to do.  But when your child is in constant trouble & teachers are telling you he's a defiant child, you start to feel a little hopeless.  Now we focus on behavior strategy & modification.  We had to switch doctors to get here, but it was worth it.  Maturity has played a huge part in the progress we have made.  It's not that now Logan is mature enough to behave, it's that he's mature enough to understand he has to try harder than the average kid to meet expectations. He knows that he has to find ways to maintain concentration.  It's hard & I hate to see him battle.  But I also believe that this is something that he will deal with the rest of his life & therefore he needs to know how to cope.  The main thing is finding ways to keep his little mind stimulated & learning.  For me the main thing was accepting my child was a little different, he wasn't going to be like all the other kids & because of that I needed to change.  My big change was finding patience.  I don't really have any, so every day I pray God to give me some & most days if I really look hard I find just enough to make it to bedtime.  But that's okay because Logan is a lot like Thomas Edison & Henry Ford.  He's like a lot of inventors & mathematicians & really brilliant people.  I like to tell him that everyday, several times a day in fact.  I like to remind him that while right now society finds him a little out of place, it's okay because he's actually sitting in very, very good company.