The answer is yes.

A while ago, my friend’s husband asked her, “Does Chelsea have problems with her kids or something, that she needs to go away so much?”

I think I’m still reeling from the comment, because for weeks I’ve been seeking rationalization, and self-justification, building a defense against what was probably just an off hand comment he hasn’t even thought of since. He's a nice guy, she's seen me through the last 10 years of my life...nothing was meant to offend, but it struck a chord that's vibrated slightly ever since.

So after all the turmoil of trying to honestly acknowledge my motherly motivations, relentlessly examining my deepest desires, and cross examine my weaknesses, analyzing whether I have indeed let my priorities get messed up,  the way his comment implied—the question remained:

Do I have problems with my kids?

The answer…at 4:02 this morning, as I wandered through the house turning off all the lights Aaron had switched on before I locked him in his room because it’s the third night this week and tonight I just can’t do it…. is yes. 

I do. I have problems.

And maybe those problems seemed a bit large this morning because it’s that lovely time of year when Family Support for Children with Disabilities (AKA the keepers of the government funds) requires parents to submit all these lovely reports detailing just how crappy their lives are---even though that’s exactly what we spend every day trying not to do, because we know if we spent even a moment dwelling on the negative it will sink us. 

But we have to justify the funds and so yesterday I got to sit for an hour and a half and delve into the darkness that I keep tucked away somewhere near my gut, 

a safe distance from my heart.

Two of my champions sat with me. Adele and Deanna. My go to's. The one's I text when Aaron says a good guttural "G" , or uses "No" unprompted. I try and share every little triumph with them because they deserve to know them all because they love and work so very hard for my child, right along with me.  My “in the trenches people”, who write the reports back to those perhaps once knew war, but have long since forgotten amidst their mere paperwork battles.

So with my Adele, my heaven sent speech path dutifully translating my "mommy suffering babblings" into professional lingo all neat and tidy and typed,  I let the ugliness ooze out, 

a mix of pain and relief, like finally popping a ripe zit.

“I don’t sleep.”

Parent requires support in logging and interpreting sleep data of child, and developing strategies to increase duration of nighttime slumber, possibly through medication.

The reality? He’s not gonna sleep. Probably ever.  Acceptance is sometimes a better path than programming.

“Oh, speaking of crap.I regularly scrub poo out of my carpet. “

Should be doing it right now in fact.

Parent requires assistance in helping child learn toileting routines, including wiping so that he will cease using socially unacceptable forms of relieving rectal debris. 

Show parental need. It’s the latest trend in the hoops we’re required to leap.

Now I feel guilty. I’m grateful I have help, I’m grateful there’s so much  assistance.

I met a mom once who raised her autistic blind son in Jamaica, where a doctor diagnosed him and that was it.

“I cried every day” she told me in her thick accent, “and when I move here and get help…I remembered what it was to have happiness.”

I get it.  I’m blessed.

But at 4 am, sometimes in my exhaustion,  the blessings I cling to in the daylight, seem to elude my sleepy grasp.

And I find myself angry, thinking about that silly comment, the one I’ve tried so hard to ignore, because I know it wasn't intended to hurt me.

But do I have problems with my kids? (the question hangs at the back of my mind under the Christmas shopping list)

The answer is yes.

You bet ya!

As this blog proclaims, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm not a mother who's maternal instincts throbbed in her since girlhood, that settled into your domestic role content and utterly fulfilled ..I wish I was. Because I do know this challenge is exactly what I'm meant to do. 

Do I have problems, hard days and nights where I feel like an utter failure? Yuppers!

But…

Do I not love them? No.

Do I not want everything in the world for them? Of course.

But…

Could I use a break? Pretty sure most moms could.

My one friend talks a lot about exit strategies, that if we know how long something will last it’s easy to give ourselves to it, ie dad’ll be home at 6, we can do it. We just have to survive until 6!

She’s the one, that when I was lamenting (long before the comment) that I felt guilty that Ben and I did go away pretty regularly, said, “Of course you do! Other parents can look forward to that once the kids are gone, and you’re just doing it along the way, because that magical day of having no dependents might never come.”

Oh how I’ve clung to that.

So why then, has this other comment stuck with me? So much so, that tonight when Aaron came to tug at my hair for an hour, I felt this rebuttal well up inside my mind, until I had to start typing because sleep (however needed) was out of the picture.

Anger is a secondary emotion. I’m not angry I’m….hurt.

Hurt because my number one fear (probably one that subconsciously drives this very blog) is that people will think I’m a bad parent.

And when he said that, it felt like my fear was confirmed.

My naked child jumping on the trampoline when there’s snow on the ground

Bad mother.

The fact that I want to have my friend over but her sons peanut allergy terrifies me, because regularly in the middle of the night Aaron makes our house look like their was a massacre of peanut butter people, and though I wipe away the smeared peanutu hand prints, I’m scared the very air is contaminated.

Bad mother.

Child lunch consists of raw hotdogs and rice cakes.

Bad mother.

Child doesn’t sleep at night.

Bad,

tired,

mother.

And somedays I am a bad mother.

Maybe even tomorrow, cuz maybe I should have tried to go back to sleep instead of writing this.

So ya, we go on vacation.

But I think we all do. Whether it’s a bubble bath, or a half an hour stowed away with a book during naptime, or a girls night, or 30 seconds sitting on a toilet lid, with your foot against the door to keep the 3 foot bundles of whiny needs at bay for even just a moment. Some women craft, or bake, or exercise and it’s enough to detach them enough to go back in full force. And sometimes apparently I need a whole plane ride to achieve that.

I completely believe Sister Beck's counsel that

“A good woman must constantly resist alluring and deceptive messages from many sources telling her that she is entitled to more time away from her responsibilities and that she deserves a life of greater ease and independence.”

I also love the interviews she does on the topics of "Finding Balance"  and "Leisure Time".

The irony is I spend so much of our actual vacation time talking Bens ear off, asking his input on this situation with the kids, or this goal direction with Aaron. I write about the kids, and think about the kids and I step back and remember how much I truly love being a mom.

I know all the sandy beaches in the world could not give me the kind of satisfaction this impossible demanding job of mothering does. 

But sometimes they offer just the right opportunity to remember that!

And I know if we couldn’t go “away”, I would find another way to re-focus and re-group. 

But we can and we do. (I'm sure the fact that  Ben has a hard time containing his demanding job factors into that as well.)

So away we go. And I take my guilt with me, packed beside my flip flops and my  copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's “Gift From the Sea” 

I take it every time--that beautiful, short little book of wisdom, written by a women who went on  “vacation”.

She just puts it so well.

“Even purposeful giving must have some source that refills it. The milk in the breast must be replenished by food taken into the body. If it is women’s function to give, she must be replenished too. But how? 

Solitude, says the moon shell. Every person, especially woman should be alone some time during the year, some part of each week, and each day. How revolutionary that sounds and how impossible of attainment. To many women such a program seems quite out of reach they have no extra income to spend on a vacation for themselves; no time left over from the weekly drudgery of housework for a day off; no energy after the daily cooking, cleaning and washing for even an hour of creative solitude. Is this then only an economic problem? I do not think so. Every paid worker, no matter where in the economic scale, expects a day off a week  and a vacation a year. By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class. They rarely even complain of their lack, apparently not considering occasional time to themselves as a justifiable need. Herein lies one key to the problem. If women were convinced that a day off work or an hour of solitude was a reasonable ambition, they would find a way of attaining it. Ass it is, they feel so unjustified in their demand that they rarely make the attempt…. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for business appointments, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!” 

I wonder is Mrs Lindbergh had people questioned her “getting away.”

She is so right though! How many dentist appointments have I looked forward to, just because I could sit in quiet? Even our vacations, serve double duty---they’re for Ben's work, or with friends, or even with each other. How sometimes I long to not just hang up my “mother” hat but my “wife” one as well. Ben's traveling log ago converted me to the old adage that absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder.

Like unnoticed negative space that makes a painting, or the unheard silence in a symphony, it is the principle of opposition in all things--

that my being without my family (even at 4 am) makes me appreciate being with them again.

Ironically, Aaron is so good at it.

He knows he needs time alone.

So he takes it, usually around 4 am.

And indirectly, I get it too. He gives me an excuse.

“Up with Aaron”, really means justifiable solitude.

And Aaron comes back from his solitude, ready to snuggle. 

For, despite all his supposed social lack, sometimes I think he has some things figured out and simplified better than the rest of us.  

Love fiercely those who matter—including yourself.

Speaking of trips and Aaron.... 

We booked a trip to Disneyland!!!

Me, Ben and Aaron.

And every time I think about it, I cry.

Because as hard as all these quarterly goal meetings, yearly assessment of needs reports, IPP's and special needs financial  planning information sessions are on me…it’s his life.

All these goals I think its so much work to manage …he actually has to do!

So when I think about him seeing a life-size Buzz Lightyear or walking into Cars land for the first time,  squealing with delight (because I know he will) tears of joy inevitably well.

And even though it’s a very public place and Aaron might do lots of thing that might get us a few  “look at those bad parent” looks,

his smiles will be enough to combat it all.

We use to do this exercise in yoga, where we would visualize a place of peace and happiness. It was suppose to relax us.

And guess what? I never once conjured up a sandy beach or a single palm trees.

All I ever saw was Aaron smiling. 

Not the pure, innocent smile of bliss, I anticipate seeing in Disneyland.

But a knowing, thankful smile.

As I sat their in sukhasana, with tears streaming down my face (I did a lot of crying in yoga) having visions of my son, I didn’t necessarily picture the Savior but I always felt like He was there, watching me watch Aaron.

And I feel like He had a knowing, thankful smile too.

So ya, I have problems, we all do. 

We never really “get away” from them.  

There’s no airline that flies that far.

But whatever we can do to connect to our Savoir, that is what will really makes the difference. He is the real provider of peace and reassurance. It is only He who truly justifies any of us, because He is the only one that truly understands our whole story, who knows us well enough to judge us, with complete understanding and thereby perfect compassion. He who will purify us, and eventually take away all the pains and hurts that tend to apparently resurface at 4 in the morning.

Will it all be okay?

Because of Him, 

the answer is yes.

Ready (repost)

**** I was thinking about this post and decided to go re-read it. Here I am a year later feeling exactly the same way. i thought it was hand foot and mouth that had "slowed" us down last year, and yet here we are all healthy and still we've spent the last week just chilling at home, fighting the urge to fill up the last few days of summer. This summer I still scroll through my instagrams and think, Yup! my kids got another killer summer, lucky dogs. We're tired and happy to just look back at all the sun filled fun. Levi regularly turns to me just as he's about to fall asleep and says, " 'Member we went in da boat! and it bounced and bounced and bounced!!!!!"

Yes Levi, it was fun wasn't it.  (too bad your mom didn't blog any of it:) *******

Oh ya!  read this awesome back to school post too!



"Mom, I need you!"  Mckye says in that perfect frequency my kids learn before they can say a two syllable word. 

The frequency that makes your brain vibrate. 
You know the one I'm talking about. Most people call it "whining" but it's way too penetrating for such a weak description.

I've talked to a few other moms who summer is starting to wear on

Last week, I was frantically reviewing our summer buckets list, trying to cram in every last bit of summertime fun we could muster.

This week, I'm dreaming of routine. 
Craving some structure.  
Welcoming the consistancy that comes with the falling leaves. 








Most of all I want bedtime back. 
My kids haven't slept all summer. They stay up incredible late and though we've had a few sleep-in mornings, usually at least one decides to be on wake-mom-up-early-duty. 



At first it was fun, dozing off around a bonfire, jumping on the tramp under the stars. 







Oh, but it is taking it's toll. 

We can't drive anywhere past 3pm or the kids inevitably zonk. It's amazing how even a few minutes, sleeping with their heads hanging from their carseat restraits, can rejuvenate them so completely. Their re-found energy in those lovely after dinner hours, (well if you can call our random snacking and smoothies "dinner") are especially hard when your utterly exhausted from hauling them around in the sun all day.

Our kids rooms are way too hot, and a few merciful nights of letting the kids crash on our floor with a fan blowing on them, has turned into quite the habit. 

Combine that with a case of hand foot and mouth, last night I'm pretty sure I feel asleep no less than 50 times in atleast half a dozen locations, half of those being on the floor. I'd exhaustedly drift off laying next to one child only to be aroused by the cries of another. 











I'm ready for some winter hibernation! 
Some evening darkness to lull the kids under their covers.
"Is not bed time, look, the sun is still awake!" McKye informs us, rattling the blinds out of the way to prove his point. Can't convince a 3 year old that rule doesn't apply for three months of the year.

The result? an added measure of crankiness in our household. 

Maybe this hand foot mouth quaruntine is a blessing in disguise. 
At first I was annoyed that I'd miss any amount of summertime galavanting. 
But maybe our pace was a little unsustainable. 
Maybe I needed a bit more transition back into "home life". 

I've gotten pretty good at parenting from my camp chair, watching them splash at the lake or run through the spray park, having them riffle through the swim bag for random snacks when they get hungry.







But there is just something about their little voices bouncing back off the drywall that amplifies annoyance in my mommy-mind. 

Outside mothering welcomes the loud, the active, the wild, in a way that our suburban homes resist-- like an elderly relative just wanting the little ones to calm down, sit down and for heaven's sake be quiet!

I have loved this summer though. My boys have soaked in the sun, and browned despite the constant smearing of sunscreen. 

I catch myself just scrolling through my instagrams, smiling and think, "What a summer! What a childhood!" 

We've played HARD. With a level of independence my little family has never felt before (sans non-walkin and/or nursing babies of summers past) and I have truly reveled in it.

"Mom, I need you!" my growing  boy calls again. 

And I believe him.

He needed the freedom of sunshine and laxness of schedule and his mom to sit and chat with friends while he ran on the playground navigating his own new little friendships.
He needed to learn the thrill of spontaneity, the fun that comes in some flexibility.

But now he needs me to get back into the rhythm of routine, and feel the comfort of life's predictability, the calmness of the expected and the ordinary.

He needs bedtime.
And so do I.

A little "pay check"

He has said "Luv ooo too, mum!" 

lots.  

But it's always been a reply.  

A response to my initiation of feeling sharing.  

My idea, he'd just agreed to play along.

 Then tonight, as I knelt by his bed just letting him look at me through droopy eyelids, in a sleepy voice came the most soul satisfying three words I've ever heard. 

"Luv ooo, mum." 

Unprompted. Unsolicited. His idea.  

Complete with a little sleepy grin.  

Between his incessant torturing of his little brother, pestering of his older brother and continual whining at me, ending with my eventual exasperation, I'd figured he'd pretty much given up on me. His mean mommy. 

Who usually doesn't tuck him in, some lame excuse about "being done" and them needing some daddy time.

 I laid my head down beside him and he protested. "No wanna see your face!" So I sat up and we just gazed.
A mother and her boy. 
Smiling mouths. And smiling eyes.  

The smallest twitches, of two faces etched with the same DNA, communicating simultaneous enjoyment and much needed forgiveness.

 To think I almost missed that to go...what? Check my Facebook? Lame.  

Why do I get so distracted? Why does five minutes seem so darn crucial? 

Why do I let myself miss life?!?

Enough. Tonight, Chelsea, you chose well. 

And you were rewarded.  

With little hands touching yours.  

With little kisses on little cheeks.  

With a little mind thinking a little thought, and saying it with a little smile.  

"Luv oooo mum." 

And my heart soared. 

Sabbath humblings

Book of Mormon readers will be familiar with the concept of the pride cycle.

People get prideful, forget God, get wicked, destruction/chastisement/famine (take you pick) ensues which then humbles the people and they remember God again, repent, get righteous, until they are so blessed they get prideful, forget God...yada yada back around, hence the description of a cycle.

It's easy reading centuries of history condensed in a few hundred pages to think, "Come on guys! Smarten up already!"

And then I went to church today. 

Got up early (good for me, so on the Sabbath ball...*cough* PRIDE!)

Got distracted on FB, half hour vanished, 

instant panic to get everyone ready in time ( HUMBLED)

Made it to 9 o'clock church on time (mostly relief, but still a bit of PRIDE)

Sat on the the "Wrong" side of the chapel and had to chase Aaron down as he sauntered to what I guess he's decided is our regular pew. (HUMBLED)

Aaron was actually folding his arms for the prayer 

(for longer than the usual 2 second hug himself) (YOU BETCHA PROUD!)

The prayer went a little long and all three kids were loudly whining by the end. (HUMBLED)

At one point I looked over and all three of my sons were sitting!!!!! (this is extremely rare, if not an absolute first! PROUD)

It lasted about two second, and there were more than a few times where all three of them were on the floor...including McKye in the middle of the aisle.  (HUMBLED)

All three boys took the Sacrament (without touching ten pieces of bread or grabbing and/or spilling extra cups) (PROUD)

The reverence expires the moment that water is gulped and McKye started saying all too loudly, "All done, wanna pay kitchens now!" (HUMBLED)

McKye sharing pretzels"Here you go Levi!" (PROUD)

Same pretzels become fullon tug-a-war resulting in a ripped bag and huge mess. (HUMBLED)

And so for on and so forth.

I came home from church, exhausted from the emotional roller-coaster of it all. 

Moments where I felt like, "Yup, my kids are getting it, they are learning and growing and their little testimonies are taking root." Contrasted with moments of "I have to be doing something very wrong, because the other seven new Sunbeams can smile, say "bye mommy" and sit on their chair, no prob." 

Poor McKye.  Sometimes I'm just so desperate for it to be easier. Aaron takes so much support, and effort and planning, and I get so excited of the prospect of a kid just doing what kids are suppose to do. Then when McKye doesn't I think I feel a little cheated, and a lot disappointed (darn expectations!) So as I sat there with McKye, Aaron two rows back (both of them on the floor at one point) realizing that 80% of the noise coming from the entire Jr. Primary was being produced by Bretzkes, I was tempted to think: "It's gotta be me!" That's the obvious correlation. 

But as I returned home (after soaking in the calming affect of the Comforter in Relief Society, once I had handed crying McKye off to one of the counselors in Primary) I asked Heavenly Father, "What am I suppose to be learning from this?" 

To paraphrase Tevye, from Fiddler on the roof, "Would it spoil some vast eternal plan?" If I had an easier kid???

I opened the Book of Mormon , 1 Nephi chapter 16 were Nephi breaks his bow. When even hungry Lehi gives into complaining, because surely the whole company thought, Hey now Lord, we're doing what we're suppose to and this bow breaking thing seems a little much.

But what was the result? they were humbled. Humbled enough to calm down, stop trusting in their own capabilities, wisdom (and bows) and look to the Lord. Humble enough to receive instruction from the Liahona, small and simple as that process was.

When I start thinking I can, through my own genius, skill and hard work, succeed at this parenting business, that I and my kids are gonna far according to my own"management of the creature" I am setting myself up to fall. And pride cometh before that fall...come on now, I had an ed degree, I've worked (rather successfully) with kids professionally, in the community and at church...surely I should be able to handle these three little munchkins I birthed!

And when I can't. The Lord reminds me I'm not suppose to. 

And I am humbled by His help. 

Humbled. Yup "humbled" is the correct answer. The Lord needs me to be humble. Or I'm not going to look to Him, and if I don't involve Him (no matter how brilliantly I might feel I can do this on my own) it's not gonna work.

Now that I've identified this great lesson, I just need to actually be humble instead of letting my pride make me feel humiliated instead. That's all this is, if I'm being honest(which I'm trying very hard to be as expose all my deep down ookie dark parts), I bad ol' case of pride. Cuz it doesn't bother me as much at home. I think the world of my boys: they're unique and funny and energetic and loving (in their own hands on, wrestly way). They're smart and determined and I love being around them. 

But put me "on display",  get me in a situation where I (mistakingly) feel like their behaviour reflects upon me, I start feeling stressed. Because if my kid doesn't sit as nicely as so and so's kid well then what does that say about me?

PRIDE. 

Comparison. Enmity. Control. Envy.

This is not what I go to church for, I go to love and serve and worship but the publicness of it, I realized today, exposes this problem I have. Same thing at library time, or sometimes the park (anywhere but our safe little home)...I'm so worried others will judge me based on my children's behaviour. 

I pushed this deep down with Aaron (who rarely behaves in expected or socailly accepted ways), but with McKye I think I was ready for people to see my efforts: Good mother produces good, well-behaved child.

And that's were I went a a little ascue.

I need to be proud of my children (not secretly proud of myself).

A kid potty trains in a day, we're quick to take credit and hand out our advice and methods to other would-be succeses. 

But when things don't work (and we feel like we've tried everything, which is more my experience) then all the sudden maybe we're not so sure we have as much control as we thought.

Being proud of my kids would have been fine. 

But no that wasn't enough. Each time they "perform" I'm tempted to let my own pride pat me on the back, wanting to take credit. After all I work hard don't I?

I should have been happy with McKye's progress from last week: there were less tears and more attention, less time on the floor and my lap and more in his seat, but I was so fixated on him compared to all the other kids. How come they could just sit (must have better moms preparing better Family Home Evenings that prepared them more!)

I know this sounds horrible and ridiculous and I'm just hoping a few of you out there have a crazy a head as me. 

A wise friend of mine just this weekend told me she heard a stake president say that as serious a problem as pornography is for men, comparing ourselves to each other is a comparably serious problem for women. 

That floored me. I questions how could that be true? and then I realized both are addictions, from which the addicted derived some twisted kind of pleasure, and each stop us from doing and being what we need to be!

Comparison (of ourselves and by extension our children, our marriages etc etc) prevents us from seeking the individual guidance the Lord has for us. 

This time I'll paraphrase CS Lewis: "[A Proud Mom] gets no pleasure out of having [great kids], only out of having [better kids than other moms]... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone."

This is probably making me sound horrible. I'm just trying to honestly identify the source of some of my less edifying thoughts and feelings, so I can recognize their falsity, and hopefully stop thinking and feeling them.

So I can choose to be humble instead.

“The antidote for pride is humility; meekness; submissiveness...
Let us choose to be humble.
We can choose to humble ourselves by
conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters,
esteeming them as ourselves,
and lifting them as high or higher than we are...
We can choose to humble ourselves
by receiving counsel and chastisement...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
forgiving those who have offended us...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
rendering selfless service...
We can chose to humble ourselves by
going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
getting to the temple more frequently...
We can choose to humble ourselves by
confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God...
We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God,
submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives”
― Ezra Taft Benson

And I guess, I can choose to be humble by taking my three little boys to church each week.