Daniel Swims

Last summer, we opted to have Daniel participate in swim team with his brother and sisters.  However, there are those things that, as a parent, you can't simply decide that it's time for your child to do.  Daniel was straight-up NOT interested in becoming a swimmer.  After several weeks of tears and screams during swim team practice every morning, the same through private swim lessons, and again anytime that Joshua or I took him in the pool to work with him, we admitted defeat.

And the rest of his siblings swam beautifully the entire season.

Fast forward a year.  We decided again to have Daniel participate in swim team with his brother and sisters.  Again we were met with his stout resistance.

Thankfully, Daniel loves attention.  As the youngest child, he believes that the entire world is here to applaud him as he entertains us.  He's also an extrovert who befriends everyone in his path.  So.  The coaches adore his nutty antics and his teammates encouraged him every step of the way and the kid finally decided that perhaps this swimming stuff wasn't so bad after all.

During the first meet, Joshua and I stood and basically held our breath to see if he would jump in the pool for his race.  He did!  I mean, the start buzzer sounded, and he jumped in without looking back and made it all the way across the pool.  Dead last, but zero hesitation.

The next morning, he fell apart at the very idea of jumping in the pool and swimming.  Since we have meets each week on Wednesdays, and he balked at swim practice every day between the meets, Joshua and I again stood on the sidelines and crossed our fingers as the swimmers in his event lined up.  The start buzzer sounded and he jumped in, no problem!

But.

Each time he would grab the lane ropes to take a breath, he'd talk to the people cheering him on.  He'd smile at them and look around.  He went from 2-ish minutes to swim his 25 meters to 3-ish minutes.

Swim practice from there on out was a piece of cake.  No reservations, all systems go.  After practice, he'd slip into the pool house and hang out with any lifeguard who wasn't on the stand.  He turned up his charm to full tilt with his swim team coaches and was dubbed Mini Coach Dan.  And basically basked in the attention of All The People in his fan club, despite the fact that he was working backward.

It was the third meet that completely undid me.

He was the first to splash into the pool at the starting buzzer.  I was at the end of the pool he was swimming towards cheering for my little guppie just as loudly as I could.  He got to the middle of the pool (finally) and grabbed onto the lane ropes to catch his breath.  His feet were still kicking, so I guess maybe he thought he was still swimming?  His coaches were cheering for him and telling him to "Go! Go! Go!" His teammates were cheering for him and encouraging him.  The Whole Swimming World was focused on this little blonde imp in the middle of the pool.

And he was waving to them!

But wait, it gets better.

He spied me at the finish line and smiled and waved.

Then blew me a kiss.

The timer was still running.  The other kids were already all finished.  And here's my cutie, blowing me kisses. 

His time went up by another entire minute.

Competitiveness is clearly not one of his personality traits.

Fast forward a few weeks and at the last meet, he wound up in a heat by himself (which may have been intentional or may not have been, I haven't bothered to ask) and his time improved by over 2 minutes.

We're just so proud.  

November 9, 2016

Dear my Children,
Yesterday, after months of hearing about these people, these 'presidential candidates', we took y'all with us to the polls.  You'd watched a presidential debate where you aptly made note of the likeness of the candidates and 3 year olds.  You'd heard snippets and snatches of radio personalities, your parents, and other adults and you had definite opinions, though you knew enough to know you didn't know anything.

And so you were right on par with the vast majority of the voting population, just minus cynicism and experience.  

Last night, y'all stayed up late to watch as the results started coming in.  You asked questions and some of them were really excellent questions, too!  Some of those questions I would love to know if the average American voter was asking.  When we sent you to bed, nobody had any idea what the outcome would be yet.

But Daddy and I sat up to watch.  We listened to the talking heads for hours.  We talked trash over Skip-Bo - game trash and political trash.  It was all intermingled with the curiosity and the prayer and the tired.

Here's what I know, kids:  Yesterday, there was a lot of uncertainty.  It's been the hallmark of this election.  Who knows what he'll say or what she'll do. Today, there is a lot of hurt and a lot of fear.  Because now who knows what he'll say or what he'll do.  Fact is, though, he has the nation's stamp of approval to go forth and be our Commander in Chief.

But guess what?  That was the order for today regardless of the outcome of this election.  Fear.  Hurt.  Uncertainty.

This year, like never before, I feel like there was no real choice for America.  Neither one of the candidates who were put forth exhibit the qualities that we most want the leader of the free world to embody.  Honesty, integrity, wisdom, humility.  Here's the truth of it (as I see it, of course): He stinks.  She stinks.  There are evils associated with each that terrify me. 

And really?  I don't believe that most people voted for a candidate so much as they did against a candidate.

I know that as I sat there with the ballot in front of me, I realized I'd been holding out until the very last minute for something, anything, to change to make my voting experience a more palatable one.  With the tangible weight of voting on my shoulders and you kids watching me, asking questions about the ballot and the whole process and who was I going to vote for, I buried my face in my hands.  My eyes cried tears and my heart cried out to God.  I did the best I could with the information I had, which is all that can ever be asked of anyone, when I made my choice.

My choice was what I hoped would be the best for your future.  Because, like anything else, voting for this person or that person to have such a role in our future's history takes on a whole new meaning when you have kids or love kids who are our tomorrow.

Oh, my children, I want so much for your tomorrows.  I can only pray that our yesterday brought about the best decision for our tomorrow.  For your tomorrow.  And for your children's tomorrow.

Today, though, today I'll give you all hugs as I tell you who won the election.  Today, we'll do math and language arts and science and run errands while election talk and what-ifs pepper our conversation.  Today, we'll discuss again why it is so important to honor the office and pray for the man.  Today, we'll do laundry and clean the kitchen and mess it up again.

Today, we'll do the best we can to give you the tools you need for the best tomorrow. 

A Few Months Worth of Pictures

Our Herd - Swim team 2016.  We log a lot of hours at the pool during early summer!

Towards the end of swim team season, the coaches put on a huge fun day for the kids.  Shaving cream wars are a big it.  Here's Sarah Grace and I *think* that's her bestie, Abigail. 

Sarah discovered her love for back-stroke and participated in the city-wide meet.  We were all proud of her hard work!

Killing time at city meet with Abigail. 

This little dude did NOT do swim team.  He spent his pool time wooing the life guards and monkeying around during meets.

Flag foot-ball with Thomas was another summer activity.  It was his last year to play and he really enjoyed every aspect of it.

Shenanigans on the sidelines. 

 

Daniel. 

Sarah was often found doodling away during football games.  Or spinning stories for the rest of the family. 

The undefeated 2016 Packers!

Elizabeth's mission in life is to steer clear of the lens, but here's a true to life picture of our little Sunshine. 

Talk Like a Pirate Day, 2016.  It's a thing.  And Krispy Kreme gives free donuts to visiting pirates. 

This beauty has lows in the night on a semi-regular basis.  While it's not the way I would recommend getting one on one time with a child, it has proven to be a sweet time with her.  She has such a wonderfully good attitude, even if she occasionally has to be prodded into being awake enough to eat something. 

Speaking of sweet, these two have such a special bond.  They play together so well and their laughter is loud and contagious.  Here they are on their patiently awaited McWane Center date.  Full disclosure: I took this picture as we were going in just in case one of them wandered off. 

This little girl went to Camp Seale Harris' diabetes day camp this summer.  This was just before her first day - she was SO excited and loved every minute of camp!! 

Elizabeth Hope Freeman.  This little lady was baptized at our annual church retreat. 

Shopping sisters. 

This picture, y'all.  It's perfectly captures the spirit of the relationship these two sisters have. 

This kid.  He makes me crazy some moments, but I'm so proud of him.  I love him to the moon and back. 

We participated in the Kids Bowl Free program this summer.  It was a lot of fun but our favorite time was when my Dad came to bowl with us! 

Thomas and Sarah got ENO hammocks for their birthdays this year.  A LOT of time has been spent doing school work, reading books, giggling, and just hanging our in those hammocks.  I'm especially partial to when they stack them like this. 

Sarah had a big birthday bash at the lake this year and we learned that the hammocks were also a LOT of fun when used in the boat slip! 

Joshua and all the kiddos inside a B-17, a War World II bomber. 

A pic of my sweet friend, Bethany, and me at the beach.  She's wearing Peter, her 4 month old cherub. 

Lizzie making sure that Peter got to put his toes in the water. 

My guy.  I'm so thankful he likes me! 

Beach Camping

Last year, we tried something new with our family.  We all went camping.... at the beach.  We enjoyed it so much that we reserved spots for this year and did it again!

Here's the thing about beach camping:  packing is a bear.  You're packing to go camping - tents, sleeping bags, cooking gear, food, all the stuff.  BUT.  You're also packing to go to the beach - towels, swimsuits, beach toys, portable shade (for me!), sunscreen, all the stuff.

So by the time your ready to actually roll out of the driveway, you basically have half your house packed to go with you and it's time to find a place to cram all the people. 

It's a really good thing that being there is so fun because getting ready to go is nothing short of exhausting. 

But get there, we did!  And with the added bonus of friends!  16 people, 14 bikes, 6 coolers, 5 days of vacation, 4 tents, 2 vans, 1 trailer, 2 campsites, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Florida has beautiful state parks and we enjoyed the scenery, the short bike ride to the beach, the shuffle board courts, and the freedom to just relax.  Plus we took a day trip to another state park, Eden Gardens.  Just gorgeous!  

Sarah Grace as a Mermaid

Daniel and Lucy

Lizzie

Eden Gardens

Lillianna, Anna, and Lucy

Anna spent a fair portion of the week learning to cartwheel.  I have lots of pictures of her upside down with her legs thrown in the air and haphazard angles!

The younger crew stayed closer and were easier to get pictures of.  The older kids walked up and down the beach looking for beach life and played out in the waves for hours at a time. 

Meal time was fun.

The little girls kept us in supply of treasures to use as centerpieces for the tables. 

The only picture I took of Thomas - he was so rarely to be found sitting still!

Sarah Grace and Caroline.  These two girls loved their 'extended sleep over'! 

Managing the Money

When Joshua and I got married, we had no idea how to really handle our income.  We spent what we earned and vaguely thought of a savings account.  "Budget" was a dirty word, and even if we'd realized it wasn't, we didn't understand how to implement one.

We knew we wanted to carefully consider finance training with our children, but we weren't 100% sure where to start.    

Joshua and I agreed that we don't really want to pursue the route of 'doing chores equals income'.  We want our children to understand that our house is a blessing and we should care for it as such, making it honoring to those who live here and all those who visit.

In short, we aren't willing to pay them to keep their rooms clean, help stack dishes, or wipe down the bathroom.  We deem these things as a necessary part of being a responsible human.  We wanted more than 'just do your chores' to factor into the allowance equation.

But that left us with still no idea how to allot money to them.  It's challenging to teach monetary responsibility when it's all theoretical and no practical.

When the kids started getting old enough to want their own pocket change so they could make their own purchases, I turned to the ever-reliable Internets to explore how those who had gone before us handled 'allowances'.

Y'all, the Internets had a lot to say about How You Should(n't) Pay Your Child and Why You Should(n't) Pay Your Child.  It was oh.vur.well.ming.

You know how when you read parenting books and this paragraph resonates bigly but this paragraph is just so far beyond all that makes sense that you wonder why you ever picked up that book to begin with?  Well, how and why you do or don't pay your kids is the same way.  We took in a ga-jillion different perspectives, gleaned the parts we liked the bestest, modified it all to fit our family, then jumped in.

The three older children have a jar.  Each jar contains 30 one dollar bills.  We keep these jars sitting in the middle of our school room table, highly visible to their owners.  The kids have the opportunity to keep all those dollars or lose them based on choices that are either responsible or irresponsible.

The thought here is that one day, these not-as-little-as-they-once-were people of mine will go out into the world and get jobs.  In the workforce, your boss doesn't sit down with you and tell you he'll pay you 'x' amount for this task and 'x' amount for that task.  He agrees to pay you an hourly wage.  If you don't do your job well and right, you lose it.  Responsible people do their jobs well and right and have an income to show for it.

So now we had to define what our kids' jobs were.  In our family, the job of the kid is to do their daily chores using initiative (making the first move without being asked) and diligence (working hard to accomplish a task).   To be thorough (completing a job all the way) in school assignments.  To responsibly (doing what they know they should do) see to self-care.

As children meet these daily expectations, they keep their dollar.  Obviously, there is room for grace and mercy from Joshua and I.  We all have bad days, and on those days, we look at the heart of the child to determine whether the dollar stays or gets pulled.  

On payday, I sit down with the kids and we count out the ones that are remaining in their jars.  They are required to put 10% of the full thirty (even if they actually get less than that at the end of the month) into savings and another 10% of the full thirty towards giving.  As I give them their spending money, I always ask if they want to put any extra into savings or giving.  Then I record their savings in our record log.

Here's the part this kids love:  At the end of each quarter, Joshua and I make a deposit into their savings account equal to everything they've put into savings that quarter.  Realistically, we'll have to cap that at some point, but for now, it's so fun for them to see their savings matched dollar for dollar and their account grow.

After the first month or so, Anna began to understand what was going on and really wanted in on the action.  We have a set amount for her each month, though not as much as the older three, and she has proven to be our most frugal child.  She puts into savings only the minimum amount, but she then pockets the rest. And then, aside from the occasional pack of gum, she just lets it accumulate.  She's saving for something, but she doesn't know what yet. 

Naturally, Daniel needed to have his own savings envelope and record log.  We put two dollars a month into his savings for him and he keeps a dollar in the wallet that his brother gave him.  It's the same dollar from month to month usually, but he's just thrilled to have his own money.  When he is old enough to cycle into the game, he will have a little bit in his saving account to give him a boost.

This money that the kids are saving?  It's for down the road.  Unless they break a window or lose a library book, the money is untouchable for now.  There will be trips and big ticket items the kids are interested in as they travel into their teen years.  This particular savings account is to help with things of that nature.

There have been a few tweaks along the way.  I'm positive there will be more at the kids get older.  But for this moment, this is what is working quite well for us.  I'm so thankful to be able to do this with them and I look forward to studying stewardship with them in another couple of years.  I want my kiddos to walk out into the world as young adults with a mindset of money management rather than managed by money.

Here's to a plan to start with...

8.1.16

The baby.  He winds us around his little fingers so intricately, ensnaring us in his clever charms, ensuring forever our laughter and devoted love.

What I really mean is, 'This kid, y'all. He kills me!'

And I come back for more.

Currently, we're in the midst of the Great Belt Crisis.  Kid loves him a belt.  He slips it through (most of) the loops and has a knack for buckling it somewhere off to the side.  His zipper is usually down and his shirttail gets shoved in the band of his underwear in some places, between the belt and the actual pants in others, but rarely between the pants and the underwear.  On a particularly stellar day, the shirt is right side out and the tag is in the back.

The shoes are forever on the wrong feet.

The problem with the belt is that, while he can get it on and buckled, he can't unbuckle it when he needs to go potty.  This throws us into crisis mode as he yelps and flails about in the bathroom looking for all the world like a rabid dancer.

It's tough to be five.

He's so little still.  But don't tell him that.  One of his favorite people in the whole world is one of the young lifeguards at our pool.  In appearances, they remind me of Chester and Spike, though Lifeguard David is not surly at all.

He's got a string of young female lifeguards enchanted with his goofy grin and sweet heart. In fact, there's a wedding in the planning with his favorite, sweet Gracie. He's pronounced her his 'marrying girl'. I'm not sure he asked - in fact, I am of the understanding that he informed her of their pending nuptials. We've got some work to do with this young man...

Actually, a lot of work. He announced to Amy, another female lifeguard that she was his girlfriend and when Amy defended her friend Gracie and the supposed engagement of Daniel to Gracie, Daniel replies with "She's just my marrying girl. You're my girlfriend."

Words fail me.

500 Days

500 days.
That's how many days it's been since Anna was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

I've always reacted slowly to things.  I never got nervous until after a musical performance.  Tests didn't freak me out beforehand but I was so nervous in the aftermath that I couldn't eat.  Being pregnant and becoming a mom wasn't a problem at all until that first baby got here and All The Things swarmed into my head.

Anna's diagnosis was more or less the same way.  I shed a few tears as I arranged for the other kids to be cared for while we were in the hospital.  I held myself in check for her sake while at the hospital and reminded myself that this was a manageable disease and that my child was going home with me to live a full life with very few limits.

What I didn't do was start Googling T1D.  I didn't immediately seek out others who had traveled this path before me.  I really didn't even understand all the sympathy people kept showering us with.  In fact, I clearly remember asking one friend WHY was everybody so sorry?  Anna was alive and well and insulin injections would allow her to live a pretty normal life (normal aside from glucose checks and shots with every meal).

But the time came when I started researching a bit more.  Slowly because I know that, as a mom, I can spiral to the dark places fast when faced with medical facts.  I learned a haunting phrase, The Dead in Bed Syndrome, that says approximately 1 in 20 T1D children will die in their sleep from a sudden drop in sugar.  They may have had a 'perfect' day as far as the readings on their glucose monitor go.  There is no warning.

The time came when I became a part of an online T1D community - mostly moms of young T1D kids.  Not long after I became active, an obituary was posted: a little girl had passed in her sleep.  I was sad for the family's loss and held my little girl closer that day.  Weeks went by and I interacted more with these other moms and learned more about them and their families.  One morning I was on FaceBook and read that a little boy I 'knew' had passed away.  Dead in Bed.  I started checking Anna several times throughout the night.  Fear driven to be aware and in charge.

500 days.

We learn more each week.  Too much activity or too little activity can cause major swings in her numbers.  Sunburns sway her numbers.  Colds mess with her numbers.  Stomach bugs can take her out and land us in the ER in a quick hurry.

Changes within her body that we can't see any evidence of will cause a fluctuation in how much insulin she needs.  Puberty will have an added facet of 'fun' with Anna.

Birthday parties, potluck meals with our church, overnighting with friends or family.  These are things we never gave a second thought to until T1D entered our lives.  Suddenly these are big deals.  The variables are many and she simply can't do any of it without the help of an adult who understands how to calculate all her formulas and carb-ratios.  Diabetes math, while not all that hard, is more than a 7 year old can handle on her own.

500 days.

There are days when I have a new realization or read something or just have a stray thought and I hide in my room to cry for a bit.  It took a long time to admit to myself that we did, in fact, lose something.  It wasn't the kind of loss some people know, but it was still a loss.  The mourning comes in fits and starts and I've learned not to shame myself for being sad.  I don't dwell there in that sadness.  Anna's life is so much bigger than her being a diabetic.  But I no longer feel guilty when those moments come.

She is so much braver than I would have ever known.  For the most part, she cheerfully pricks her finger and tells us her number (6-10 times per day)  For the most part, she doesn't even flinch when she gets her shots (4-6 per day).

Sometimes, though, the mourning comes for her, too.  Sometimes she wakes up hating everything about the pricks and the needles and not being able to have what she wants to eat when she wants it.  Sometimes she has an old fashioned fit and scream-cries her displeasure over things.  Those times are infrequent and we don't stop her.  We hold her when she's ready and pray with her when she's ready.  But we don't stop her.  Mourning has to happen.

500 days.

She has danced, participated in swim team, enjoyed holiday feasts, learned to ride a bike with no training wheels, celebrated birthdays, camped out, spent sunny days on the beach, lost teeth, skinned knees, and everything else that a healthy 7 year old girl should be doing.  Diabetes doesn't mean 'no', it means 'thoughtfully'.

500 days.

And, in His plan, there will hopefully be so many more.