Welcome to my circus.

August 28, 2017
by Maralee
33 Comments

12 Reasons Large Family Moms Pretty Much Always Feel Like They’re Failing

Sometimes I’ll be mindlessly going about my day when I start to feel it—the slow simmer of failure. It’s like it’s always on the back burner, humming along as I go about my usual activities. Sometimes it burns and boils over and other times it’s just sitting here, humming away. But as a mom in a large family, I pretty much always feel like I’m failing.

If you saw me out in public, you probably wouldn’t know. The woman with a baby balanced on her hip, holding the hand of a toddler with an adorable parade of children following behind may look like anything but a failure (except when those children are punching each other, which they often are). Making dinner WHILE helping with homework WHILE soothing a cranky/hungry toddler WHILE on the phone with a friend may make me seem like the ideal multitasker, competently handling my life.

But that is NOT how I feel. And I think lots of large family moms feel the same. Here’s why:

I can’t get to all my kids’ events. If a basketball game conflicts with the baby’s nap, then we have to divide and conquer. Nobody wants a grumpy, screaming baby in a middle school gym. When two kids have basketball games at the same time, it’s not possible to be at both of them. When THREE kids have basketball games at the same time, you’ve got to figure out a carpool and trust that one kid won’t be eternally scarred by having no parent in attendance. Sometimes I hear parents talk about all their parenting failures and end it with, “But I was there for all his games/musicals/chess tournaments/etc.” Yeah, I can’t comfort myself with that one. If my kid needs therapy for all the times he felt unsupported by my lack of attendance, I’ll help him get the therapy. But there’s no physical way I can be at everything.

I have no idea how much milk they drank today. When I go to the pediatrician’s office they have me fill out this form. Part of the form asks questions I honesty have zero answers for. How many servings of meat daily? How many fruits and vegetables? How much milk they drink, in ounces. OUNCES. I fill it out with educated guesses, but I have no clue how much of what I served them actually went into their stomaches and how much they fed to the dog, slipped onto their sister’s plate, or put in their pockets. I can’t stay on top of all that. I can get good food on their plate, but micromanaging the number of ounces of milk they drink went out the window about three kids ago. Same for just about any issue your average parent is stressing over. I don’t even know to be stressed about it, but there’s always this feeling of failure that I can’t micromanage their lives.

You can’t co-sleep with six kids. When you have a first child you get a lot of adorable parenting advice about being the perfect parent for your one child. And then you have four or five more kids and that parenting advice is useless. Maybe this kid does “need” to co-sleep with me, but in order to do that he’d have to crawl over the three other kids already co-sleeping with me. It would be great if I could do extensive bedtime stories alone with each child before they went to sleep, but that is not physically possible unless the last kid wants to go to sleep at midnight (which he does, but that doesn’t seem wise). How sweet would it be to rock each precious child as long as they needed? But it’s not happening.

One-on-one time is a joke. I love the idea of spending alone time with each child. I take opportunities to do that where I can. But it often looks less like adorable lunch dates and more like grocery shopping or a trip into the public restroom alone together while we’re all at the zoo. If I wanted to feel guilty for not spending daily one-on-one time with each of my kids, I would NEVER STOP FEELING GUILTY. Continue Reading →

August 27, 2017
by Maralee
0 comments

A Life in Status- March #1, 2017

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I was irritated that the toddler had burst in on me while I was in the bathroom, but then he cheered and declared me a “Big Boy!” and then I felt kind of awesome.
#momconfession

Danny: Mom, can we watch this video about a Paddle Puss.
Me: What’s a Paddle Puss?
Danny: You know- it’s like a beaver, but with a beak?
#soclose #platypus

When I asked him to explain this, he declared it with pride, “A perfect shot!”
#WHY #boys #SOCKSAREEVERYWHERE

Image may contain: indoor

Joel: What’s that lady doing?
Me: She’s jogging.
Joel: Why is she doing that, Mom?
Me: . . . I have no idea.
#Idontrun #canexplaindrugsandsextomykids #cantexplainjoggers

Sent my daughter up to get dressed. She came back down still in her pajamas, but with the addition of a magician-style top hat.
#nailedit

Because sometimes playing defense is boring and you’d rather be wiggling your loose tooth.
#secondgradeboysbasketball #proudmom #getyourhandsUP#oratleastoutofyourmouth

(Seeing Captain Hook’s ship in “Pan”)
Bethany (8): Oh! It’s the Jolly Rancher!
#soclose #JollyRoger #deliciousconfusion

In my adolescence I used to think it was a coincidence that this happened so regularly, but now I’m realizing there is a perverse parental pleasure in vacuuming while a teenager is sleeping way past the time normal people are up and around.
#momconfession

How to Entertain Your Neighbors:
1) Awkwardly wrestle your large, dirty area rug on to your back deck so you can finally mop underneath it. Rug falls on top of you several times in the process, spraying dirt and dust everywhere.
2) Decide you need to vacuum it before you can bring it back into your clean house, so you drag your vacuum out on the back deck.
3) Realize there isn’t enough room on the deck for it, so you drape it over the picnic table. . . and then you vacuum it on top of the picnic table. And then you vacuum the deck for awhile because it was really dirty.
4) Hear thunder. Start to panic. Feel rain drops. Realize the floor inside is still wet. Try to wad up giant area run underneath the overhang on the deck.
5) Area rug falls on top of your head and swallows you up multiple times while you are wrestling it.
6) Give up and just stand defeatedly outside in the rain guarding the rug and watching the wet floor inside start to dry.
#whyIdontcleanoften #poorplanning #yourewelcomeneighbors

Continue Reading →

August 23, 2017
by Maralee
2 Comments

I Love my Envirocloth- now what do I get?

A few things to know:

-I am a Norwex consultant and I love the products, but if you don’t, that’s fine with me. We can still be friends. I will NEVER try to recruit anybody to sell products and I don’t really want to host any parties for you. I am a consultant for introverts/ambiverts/exhausted extroverts.

-I sell these products because they have made my life EASIER. If they don’t make your life easier, then either you haven’t quite figured out how to use them (there can be a bit of a learning curve, but I’m here to help), or they just aren’t for you. WHICH IS FINE. I am not going to shame you for using bleach wipes. We’ve all got to figure out what works for us and for me, cleaning with water is a game-changer and I’d love to tell you how.

So last time I gave you some Norwex info, I told you about the Envirocloth. They are your all-purpose cloth that can replace a ridiculous chunk of the chemicals you’re currently spending money on. If you have a Envirocloth and a window cloth, you can clean your whole bathroom, wipe down your kitchen, get spots off your stainless appliances, etc. all with just water. It’s kind of amazing.

So if you’ve tried them and you love them, what’s next? It’s not terribly realistic to just buy everything Norwex makes at once and you can feel overwhelmed just looking at all the options, so my goal is to walk you through the essentials a couple products at a time. Today, we’re all about the dusting mitt and the dryer balls.

The Dusting Mitt

Why you need it: With this mitt, you no longer need dusting spray. It traps and holds the dust so it doesn’t go flying around the house. The true test of this product for me was climbing up on a chair to wipe down our ceiling fan blades. Normally this means spraying product onto the blades (which I’m always worried will go in my hair and my eyes) and then wiping the dust off, which always means dust chunks end up on me and on the floor. Maybe there’s a more graceful way to do this, but I never figured it out. With the mitt, I can just wipe the blade. The dust stays on the mitt, doesn’t fly into my eyes, and there’s no need for product (so I don’t have to get my kids out of the room for fear of dusting spray going in their faces). It’s also great for dusting around electronics, getting dust off of knick-knacks, dusting high shelves, dusting around books, etc. If you don’t want to get dusting spray residue on something, this is the route to go.

Why it makes your life easier: I have one night a week where my kids are responsible for cleaning their rooms. But before the mitt, I had to go in and dust the dressers because I didn’t want my kids wasting spray, getting it in their eyes, spraying until everything was coated, etc. Now that I’m only dusting with the mitt, I can just hand a child (A THREE-YEAR-OLD, no less) the mitt and let them handle their own dusting. This has made it so much easier (and safer) for me to delegate appropriate cleaning responsibilities to my kids.  Continue Reading →

August 22, 2017
by Maralee
0 comments

Saying Goodbye to a Child you Love. Again.

Every baby that has come to us as a foster child, we’ve been able to adopt. That’s just how it’s worked for us. For people who only know that side of our story, I’ve seen some incredulity about how we can ask people to walk into the pain of potential love and loss of foster care when we haven’t experienced it ourselves. What people don’t know about us is that we loved and lost 17 young men prior to becoming foster parents.

We spent five years in group home work where we grew to love the boys in our home with all we had in us. We met them as strangers, grew to love them as our children, and then said goodbye. And today we did it all over again.

It’s been long enough (about nine years) since we left group home work that I almost forgot what this feels like. But today I wandered around my house and washed the last glass, threw away the last bits of trash, dusted the place where his computer used to be and felt that familiar feeling.

It’s loss. It’s grief that I can’t protect the people I love or help them make choices I think would be wise. It’s the sadness of the empty place at the table. It’s the avoidance of THAT room because if I don’t go into it, then maybe he’s still there. But he’s not there. He’s gone. Again.

We have been blessed to have one of our group home kids back in our world for a season (the last six months). It was beautiful and redemptive and hard and I’m sure I’ll write more about it at some point (with his blessing). But today I watched him drive away and there aren’t a lot of coherent thoughts I can put together. It all feels pretty raw.

His story doesn’t belong to me. I don’t get to tell it because I am not the main character. But I can tell you that he’s loved and that I know he knows it. I can tell you I have zero regrets about asking him to come live with us. My greatest fears didn’t end up being anything to worry about. My kids were safe and loved having this big brother back in their lives. But my greatest hopes weren’t realized either.

I am trying to make peace with the idea that I can’t create a happy ending to this story. But that’s good, because this isn’t the end. This story started about 14 years ago and as the years have gone by, there have been many new chapters. This last chapter has been precious. We’ve been able to have a front row seat to the life of someone we love, a person we influenced during a pivotal time, but a person we don’t get to control. We are thankful for this opportunity to once again be there for a season of his life, and we hope there are more seasons to come where we can be active participants and not just outside observers.

To love is to open ourselves up to pain. That’s the reality. They don’t tell you that when they hand you that precious bundle in the hospital. For a little while maybe you can control things and you think maybe your job is to avoid pain– theirs and yours. But you can’t avoid pain forever, and even if you could, it wouldn’t be a healthy way to live.

You get a little more of a heads-up when your introduction to parenting is through a courtroom or a social worker’s office or in an orphanage or through a stranger arriving at your doorstep. That person has already been through pain before you ever met. You may have walked through your own pain to get to this point, too. Parenting is not a journey of pain avoidance. It is often about learning to embrace pain, accept pain, and then heal pain.

Today was painful in the very best and worst ways. But this pain is not what defines my relationship with this young man. Today we watched the eclipse together and in the bizarre sunset of 1 p.m. I was reminded that sometimes what looks like an ending isn’t quite what it seems. While I see the sun setting on this chapter, there’s a lot of life left to live (Lord willing).

When children are granted to us for a season (maybe 18 years, maybe 18 months, maybe 18 days) we are not just committing to them for that season. That’s not how life works. Life is long even when this season is short. We are committing to love them in whatever capacity we are granted for the rest of our lives. We are opening ourselves up to pain and joy and uncertainty– whatever God has for us. There may not be a happy ending because the end hasn’t been written yet. As long as we’re here, there’s still a role for us to play in loving this child and these children. Having a door to your heart that is always propped open. . . it’s hard.

Risking loving again meant risking losing. Again. And yet we would do it all over again for the ability to pour love and hope and whatever answers we can give into this soul. And hopefully we will get the chance to do it all over again and again and again for as long as we get to be parents to the children God gave us for however long or short and in whatever capacity they need us.

Tonight, I don’t have the answers. I have lots of questions. I have doubts and grief and pride and hope. And I feel more strongly than ever that we need to offer what we have to give– our families, our homes, our love– to those who need it, without expectations (but with lots of healthy boundaries). We can’t control the outcomes, we can’t write the story, we can’t make the ending be what we most want. But we can give and trust that God will do something with that gift.

August 18, 2017
by Maralee
0 comments

A Life in Status- February #2, 2017

Come join the community and watch it unfold in realtime on Facebook and Twitter.

(watching “Lassie”)
Teddy (2): Lisa! Look! It Lisa!
Carrie (3): It not called LISA. It called Glassy! GLASSY!
#soclose

Men of the Internet,
If you want to convince me that mass amounts of porn consumption have not corrupted you, made you weird, or influenced your ideas on the value of women, you may want to stop posting comments on my anti porn posts about what explicit things you like and would like to see me do. You’re really just making my point for me.
Sincerely,
A Woman Who is Tired of Deleting Your Comments

My Mom: Anything exciting coming up this week?
Me: We’ve got a TV reporter coming out to do a story about that sibling bill we’re testifying for, and then we’ll be down at the capitol to testify on Friday.
My Sister:. . . I’m not even surprised by this stuff anymore.
#ourlifeisweird #fosteradvocacy #siblingsmatter

Everyone we know is sick right now and we are not sick yet. So I feel compelled to share with you our magic formula for not getting sick. It is a multistep process that involves being pretty bad at hand washing, not keeping a super clean home, hanging out where many germs may be present (most public school buildings, library, church), not taking vitamins or using essential oils. But we DO get lots of sleep, eat pretty well, drink water, I use Norwex towels to wipe down surfaces, and a couple of us got flu shots. So what I’m really trying to say is, I don’t think there’s a magic prevention strategy. . . and we’ll probably all be sick by next week. Wish us luck.

“but if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves; I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters.” -Acts 18:15. . . and also me when my kids try to get me to mediate Pokemon battles. . .

Continue Reading →

August 11, 2017
by Maralee
4 Comments

Questions to Ask Before You Post About Your Kids

I was a bedwetter. For a long time. I can say that now with no sense of shame because I am an adult. My bedwetting days have long since passed and now I can see with an adult perspective that I was in no way responsible for my bedwetting. I felt shame about it as a child, even though my parents did everything possible to reassure me that it wasn’t my fault. But there were ways bedwetting impacted my life that made me feel defective. I couldn’t do sleepovers and I was always terrified somebody would find out.

I often think about the experience of growing up as a bedwetter when I’m reading “mommy blogs” or watching what gets posted on social media. I think about it when I’m writing this little “mommy blog” here. I often try to imagine what it would have been like if my mom was a blogger and had decided her mission in life was to dispel the shame around bedwetting or to try and create a community of support for moms of bedwetters. My mom is a great writer and I bet she could have sensitively and beautifully brought a lot of wisdom to the topic, but at what cost to her relationship with me?

This is the question we sometimes forget to ask ourselves when we’re writing about our kids. There’s such a high value placed on “honesty” and “transparency” and “community” that I think we don’t stop to ask ourselves if we have the right to be sharing information that essentially belongs to someone else. My child’s story is not just mine to tell.

It is a very delicate balance to walk and I’m sure there are posts you could point to where I have crossed that line. I have tried very hard NOT to do that– I’m vague where I can be, don’t mention names when I don’t need to, focus on MY part of the story rather than on my child. Sometimes I read what other mothers are writing about their children and my heart breaks because I can’t help but wonder how that child will feel when they see how they were talked about, what private medical issues were shared, how their parents broke trust with them by publicly “outing” them in whatever context.

Continue Reading →

August 7, 2017
by Maralee
3 Comments

My Kids did not Have a Magical Summer

My husband and I were doing back and forth messages, trying to figure out when we could get the kids to the zoo. We have an amazing zoo not far from us and we have a family membership so this seems like a no-brainer family adventure. Except we’re running out of time.

School starts again soon and as I looked at the calendar and realized all the things we DIDN’T do this summer, I’m just feeling like a pretty terrible mom. In May I imagined all these evening walks to the park, trips out for ice-cream, pool parties and special outings to explore the natural wonders around us. What we’ve ended up doing is mostly just trying to survive the mass chaos of having a gaggle of kids (and neighbor kids) in and out of the house on a daily basis. I knew I was okay with the kids being bored, but I thought maybe that would happen in between all the WONDER and FUN and MAGIC that it turns out we forget to make happen.

It’s hard to plan for fun outings when you’re up to your eyeballs in laundry (WHY IS EVERYTHING WET ALL THE TIME) and granola bar wrappers. I spend so much time mediating arguments and explaining why you can’t just take the full bag of pretzel sticks to your room that I haven’t had time to think about what exciting activities we could be doing.

What we’ve actually ended up doing this summer has been a lot of hanging around the house, exploring the neighborhood and avoiding going to bed at a reasonable hour. Even when I’ve tried to get the kids excited about an outing, I’ve been inundated with whining because what they really want to do is finish the game of baseball they started in the cul-de-sac or jump on the trampoline with their friend.

Continue Reading →

August 4, 2017
by Maralee
3 Comments

Sex Education Resource Round-Up

I’ve written a lot about how we should be talking to our kids about sex and sexuality. Here’s where you can find it all (I think. . . ) in one place. I hope this is a helpful resource as you speak with your own kids about this important issue.

Having The Sex Talks:

Summer Sex Education

Kids become curious about these things at different rates. Some kids won’t have any interest in this conversation while others will make you blush long before you thought you were ready. Be attuned to where your kids are at. If they ask you a question that makes you concerned or uncomfortable, ask them to clarify. Answer what they are actually asking, not the adult version of what you think they may be asking.

Why “The Sex Talk” Doesn’t Work

Here’s my terrible analogy– sex education should not be like skydiving, but like passing your driver’s test. We are not aiming for a one time event that ends in us all just surviving. We are trying to give them the rules of the road, the information they need to make safe and wise decisions for the rest of their lives. That’s going to require HOURS of guided education, not just a one time investment.

Having the Sex Talk with Your Foster or Adopted Kids

What I learned during those conversations was that kids from trauma often have a very disjointed understanding of sex and sexuality. A child can have little to no knowledge about the actual biological process of reproduction, but can have shockingly detailed questions about particular sex acts. This is what happens when sexual abuse and/or porn (and I fully believe introducing a child to porn IS sexual abuse) are your introduction to the mechanics of sex.

Talk to Your Kids About Sex. Today. 

I get so very concerned when a parent tells me they have not talked to their child about sex because they believe that will keep the child from having an awareness of sex. It’s just not possible. It only means that the child won’t come to you with questions, so they will get their information somewhere else. A neighbor, a friend from church, their cousin, your computer, their own exploration of their body– these are all potential sources of information if you decide not to talk to them about it. Is that what you want? Continue Reading →

August 3, 2017
by Maralee
4 Comments

The Sexual Abuse Fire Drill

Remember that moment when you were sitting in class and the fire alarm went off? You’d have a brief second of panic, then remember to get up and follow your class out to your designated spot. You never knew if it was a drill or the real thing, but you knew what to do because it was something you’d been practicing since Kindergarten.

That’s how we want our kids to respond if they ever feel like they’re in an uncomfortable situation. We work to prevent and deal with sexual abuse by doing “fire drill” conversations  to help them practice how they should respond to those kinds of difficult situations. The hope is that if they should ever encounter one of those situations in real life, they know exactly what to do.

My parents did an excellent job of handling this for me and my siblings. We had a book in our home (I remember having it in a bookcase in my room, so it was not something reserved for special occasions) that addressed different scenarios where a child might find themselves in a shady situation and what they should do. I remember pulling it from the shelf to read along with my favorite “Frog and Toad” books and the classic “Bedtime for Frances.” My mom was entirely unfazed by me adding a book about potential exposure to sexual abuse to our regular bedtime stories. She’d read it, we’d talk through it, and we moved on to the next thing.

I mean, it’s quite possible she was SUPER FAZED by it, but she never let us know. Which is exactly how we want to be responding to this topic with our kids. We want to be calm and act like this is something we could help our kids work through and want to teach them how to handle. I remember my mom talking through different scenarios to ask us what we would do and walking us through appropriate responses.

I recently checked and there is an updated version of the book my parents read to me 30 years ago. I still read the original one to my kids, but I bet the updated version is even more helpful:

The worry is that we’ll scar our kids or they’ll become terrified to interact with the outside world if we talk to them about sexual abuse. It turns out, the opposite is true. When we practice what our kids should do, we’re empowering them. We’re telling them, “When you hear the fire alarm, just walk calmly to your designated spot.” We practice it over and over until they know exactly what they should do. Just having a plan helps them and we hope they never have to use it. Sometimes when we’re driving across town I’ll ask, “If someone wanted to see your private parts, what would you say?” and let my kids answer. Sometimes it’s while we’re having popsicles on the porch I’ll ask, “If a friend tried to touch you in a private area, how would you handle that?”

Continue Reading →

July 30, 2017
by Maralee
0 comments

A Life in Status- February #1, 2017

Be my friend! Find me on Facebook or Twitter.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who save extra ketchup/hot sauce/soy sauce/Chick-fil-A sauce packets, and money wasting heathens.

Adult: Here’s a ballon for you!
Josh: Can I have one for my brothers and sisters?
Adult: Sure! How many do you need?
Josh: You’re going to need a bag. . .
#largefamilylogistics #garbagebagfullofballoons

Tonight I am remembering the time my mom was trying to reference Lady Gaga and said, “That singer. . . you know. . . what’s her name. . . Madam Yahoo?” I am remembering that and I am laughing.
#stillcallherMadamYahoo

Lady: How old are you? Are you two?

Teddy: NO I TEDDY!
#howyoucantellheisdefinitelytwo

You know what sounds like fun? Reading a complex 15 minute tongue-twister at 8:30 at night when I am mentally and physically exhausted and just trying to GET THESE KIDS TO SLEEP ALREADY. So thanks for that, Dr. Seuss.

The three year-old thinks I see a “Crack-a-practor.”
#soclose #chiropractor #makessense

I’ve been a little quiet here recently. There’s a good reason for that. About a decade ago we left our group home work with tears and love for our boys and a promise that if they needed us, we would always want to do what we could to be a support for them. Which is how Thursday I found myself frantically scrubbing the guest bathroom, rearranging furniture, and then late that night running across my front yard to hug a young man who was once a boy I carried on my hip and tucked into bed each night. The ending to this story has yet to be written, but I’ve learned to trust God with how these things play out and just be thankful for every day I get to have a part to play in His good work of loving the people he brings into my home. So I’ve been a little busy rearranging my world to accommodate this new normal (for however long it is our new normal), but I couldn’t be happier about it. And it’s made me want to encourage all of you involved in the world of foster care to remember that goodbyes aren’t always goodbyes. When we promise to love kids “forever” it should actually mean forever even if we don’t get to raise them. Being kind to biological families can help keep the door open for relationships even years down the line. And no matter how tall you are, how deep your voice, how independent you may be, you never NEVER outgrow the need for support, love, acceptance, for family.

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