Children are a blessing...

Children are a blessing from the Lord!

He never said it would be easy being a parent.  He never said we wouldn't face challenges with each child.  He never said that we would have all the answers, and He never said that if we mastered our first child that the second one would be easier.  What He DID say was that they are a blessing from Him.

God has entrusted my husband and I with five children.  We also have one awaiting us in Heaven.  :) Each child brings with him/her their own uniqueness. We have four sons and 1 daughter on this earth.........each one a treasure.  I have decided that when children are small they are much easier to handle.  I know being a young mother with small children has it's stresses and difficulties.  I've been there, but training teens and young adults has got to be the absolute hardest job as a parent! Like one dear friend said to me, "When kids are young they trample on your lap, but when they grow up they trample on your heart."  It is true.  Along with the normal trials of parenting we have two children on the Autism Spectrum.  They are on the high functioning end, but nonetheless they are there and have struggled their whole life.  They also carry comorbid conditions..  They've had their share of social difficulties, struggles in school (one dissolving in tears because he had no friends), and just the routine of daily living in our world.  You see, their world is different. They view things differently, they take things literally, they don't understand body language/phrases of others and they struggle to make friends and socially interact. I'm learning myself how to handle their uniqueness. One wants to be independent, the other wants me to do everything for him.  One has accepted his uniqueness, the other has struggled with hating the way he is.  One looks at his burdens as a way for God to help him grow and get stronger, the other wishes his burdern would go away because it drives him crazy.  One has a creative mind and could write a book or create a video game that would take this world by storm if he could ever get it on paper or design it.  The other one is incredibly gifted on the piano.....a prodigy. One may study video game designing.  The other will undoubtedly study music and become a famous pianist one day.  :) I love them just the way they are.  God did a great job when He made them.  He has a plan for their lives that only they can fulfill.  They are strugglers. They are gifted. They are perfect.

Love,
Me

Mom stuff......okay, anyone can read this! ;)

Do you ever wish you could go back to yesteryear, a time where the days were longer, the pace was slower and everyone knew everybody by their first name? Lately, I've been pining for that kind of lifestyle.  Ain't happenin', but I can dream, right?  :)  I'm the type of person that has to get out of the house and go somewhere most days. If I have one day trapped inside then I'm gone the next.  I love to be out and about having lunch, thrift shopping and visiting with friends.  Getting "out of the house" makes me happy!  :D  It's easy for me to get out of balance, though, and get overwhelmed.  Laundry, sweeping, dusting, mopping, dishes, cooking, straightening, deep cleaning bathrooms............it never goes away.  Never!  It's always there...........like the plague! :)  I've decided when I get rich I'm going to hire a maid.  I guess that's just a dream, too.  Ha!  The one thing I have struggled with as a mother and housewife are the daily mundane chores like that dish I have washed a million times.  I think new dishes are in order!  I'm tired of looking at the same ones.  ;)  Or that shirt that keeps showing up in the laundry when you just KNOW it was never worn because moms know everything, right? Kinda like the jacket I've washed a hundred times in the middle of the summer because inevitably it goes in the hamper right after I've told them to put it away.  It becomes stinky and you go through the process all over again!  ARGH!!!  I know I'm not alone, and I'm sure that mothers in yesteryear probably sat here like me with a simple pen and piece of paper and "blogged" about how they wished they could go back to simpler times. They also struggled with the mundane chores, washing the same dishes and that one piece of laundry that never made it on the child, but ended up in the basket. They enjoyed visiting with their friends, meeting up at the park with their little ones and having a picnic. You do what you have to do to deal with the stressors in life, and you try to make everything else fit in its place and keep things running.  Yes, we live in a more difficult world today, a world with more sin pulling at the family unit due to all the media and technology, but Satan was still alive and well back then. He has always hated the family unit, trying his best to destroy what God ordained.  He just used other means.  That's why we need our friends!  We need them to help us keep our minds healthy and keep us focused in the right direction.  We do for them what they do for us............we help each other. I'm thankful for the friends God has placed in my life who speak truth to me when I need to hear it, and laugh with me (and at me) when I don't.  :)  I'm thankful for my family and all the mundane chores because that means we are alive and have clothes to wear and food to eat. I'm thankful for dishes to cook with and a washer and dryer to do laundry with. Cleaning the house means we have a roof over our heads.  I guess I really am rich after all!  "Honey, call the cleaning service!"  :)