Quiet Elfie

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Quiet Elfie has made his appearance.

Let me introduce him. He is a little elf that we got on our first Christmas together as the CDF’s. We actually bought him in a box, then you read a story about him and then you name him. We called our little guy “Quiet Elfie”. Once you give him a name, he turns magic.

Every day he hides in a spot around the house and the kids have to find him. He also brings chocolates and leaves them in our advent calendar. He also brings a gift or two for the month of December. In the past it has been Christmas movies. He watches every move the kids make because at night, he returns to the North Pole and gives a full report to Santa on their behaviour – Naughty or Nice. You can also talk to him, but there is no touching. If you touch, he loses his magic.

One year, in secret, Josh told him he wanted a elf hat. He was so happy when one showed up in his stocking. Quiet Elfie actually listened! The kids love telling him their secrets.

They also love finding him as he hides in a different spot every day when he comes back from the North Pole. One year he was hanging in our big maple tree outside! Often he is hanging from chandeliers and up in corners of walls.

This year however he caused quite a stir as he didn’t show up on December 1st. He left a note (and luckily sent the chocolates anyhow). Apparently he was having transportation issues??? See his note (it’s a little crinkled):

But then he arrived the very next day – in all his glory. On “Horsey Brown” no less.

He explained in his note:

He brought Season two of Magnum PI for everyone too. Odd choice for an elf.
Now we have a giant rocking horse to take care of too. Josh was thrilled as “Horsey Brown” had been on his Christmas list as I mentioned back here. He is actually using him:

The kids finally found Quiet Elfie hanging out in the kitchen.

Now the search begins every morning. The kids sure love the chocolates he leaves every morning in the advent calendar too. He’ll be watching and reporting every night….

This where we found him this morning:

Welcome back Quiet Elfie!!!

Lessons from a 10 year old

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There is nothing that gets under my skin more than when people don’t take responsibility and accountability for their actions.

My kids will all attest to this.

Make all the mistakes you want. Do things wrong. Speak out of turn, or unkindly. Hurt someone’s feelings, overreact, be disrespectful, forget a special occasion, never call, ignore, yell, scream, blow your top or call someone a name. Cheat, lie, steal, covet, gossip, backstab, insult, deny, or be fake.

Those are bad things.

But not unforgiveable.

We are human and will make all these mistakes somewhere along the way. I’m good with all that. Because, we have been given a very very powerful gift: the power of repentance and forgiveness (the gift of the atonement).

To have the humility to stand accountable and responsible for our actions, words, deeds, and thoughts, is perhaps one of the values that I value most; along side the value of forgiveness.

Earlier this year we encountered some situations with our kids where there were some serious wrongdoings. So, we decided we would dedicate several family nights to teaching some very important life lessons that we all needed to learn/review (for us adults too!).

We sat down and talked about the steps of repentance and forgiveness: including admitting your wrongdoing, taking accountability and responsibility and admitting your mistakes, trying to rectify your mistakes, expressing your apology (sometimes words alone are good enough sometimes actions are required), asking with a genuine heart for forgiveness, giving forgiveness,and then moving on trying hard to not repeat the same mistake. Sometimes we may think no wrong has been done, or that we are “innocent” or “falsely accused”, but unless both parties feel that way – there is repair work to be done.

Somehow some of our kids had learned: ignore the situation and move on. It should make everything ok.

Or, if we are ok with it – who cares how the other person feels. The other person just overreacted and will have to get over it.

That just doesn’t sit well with me. I’m really not the kind of person who can sit in a room with a big white elephant in it, or “sweep dead bodies under a rug” pretending like everything is fine. I’m a “repentance and forgiveness with humility” kinda gal.

So, we spent a lot of time on this with the kids, and I have to say, it worked. And I say this with a heart full of pride (yes, humility is important, but sometimes it’s pride’s turn to take the front seat). My kids are learning (along with Rob and me!) these very important values and the power repentance and forgiveness have to bring you closer together. They continue to mess up (as we do too), but they are learning how to fix things the right way (yup – I think there is a right way).

Zach has been taking violin at school and quite enjoying it. Last week he arrived home without his violin. Rob asked, “Why” and Zach responded, “The violin teacher kicked me out”. Of course he quickly added, “Don’t tell Mom”.

Like that was going to happen.

Zach told me (after first asking if I was in a good mood) and explained he had been talking too much and the teacher kicked him out. He told me it had not been the first time he had gotten in trouble for talking either – so I suspect the teacher was fed up.

We had a long talk about “talking”, about being disruptive in class, about respect, about getting under the teacher’s skin. Zach knew what he did was wrong. I think it’s also important to note he knew I would be upset and mad too. But that was part of taking responsibility too – you have to learn to deal with other people’s emotions and the consequences. Ignoring or trying to hide a situation usually just makes it worse, so he knew he had to come clean and face the music.

Personally, I thought the consequence from the teacher was too severe, and I was upset that the teacher had not let me know there was a problem (especially since I had just had the interviews with Zach’s home room teacher), but I told Zach sometimes we can not predict what consequences would be, and we just have to deal with them. (I sent an email to the teacher asking to discuss – not because I thought he should reinstate Zach, just because I wanted to discuss). I simply told Zach he needed to take responsibility for his actions.

The other day, without my prodding, Zach arrived home and informed me he had gone to the teacher and apologized for talking, being disruptive, and being disrespectful the week earlier. He apologized to the teacher in front of the whole class. The teacher’s reaction was to say “What’s next”? Zach had no idea what this meant, and so simply responded “I go back to my class? (they go to another class for violin). The teacher, said “Ok” and Zach left. As he was walking down the hall, two boys came running after him and yelled, “And don’t come back”. Zach was confused by this – and so was I (and you can be sure I have a call into the teacher and the principal’s office now…but that is not my point of this story:)

I was so proud of Zach. Yes, his talking was wrong. And disruptive. And disrespectful. I know it, and most importantly, he knows it.

But he, a 10 year old boy, took responsibility and accountability for his actions, had the courage to apologize to an adult in front of a class full of kids, while still accepting the consequence he had initially been given.

I think we also learn an important lesson about the teacher’s reaction. The teacher may have been wronged, but the way he handled Zach’s apology now puts him (the teacher) in the wrong – ten fold. He might have been justified to be upset initially, or justified to be upset had Zach never apologized, but once an apology has been expressed, the onus now lies on the affected to forgive. It’s just part of the repentance forgiveness circle.

However, you can’t control someone’s ability to forgive. What you can only do is make sure you have done your part in the repentance forgiveness circle. I am so proud of Zach for doing that. I’m so proud that my kids are learning and practicing this with us and with each other. Humility, repentance and forgivess all go hand in hand. We are all better people when we exercise them on a daily basis. Mistakes happen. We just need to do the right thing after the fact.

Way to go Zach.

Quote of the Week

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“It’s better to wear out than to rust out”.

I often fall into bed completely exhausted and am practically asleep before my head hits the pillow.

As tired as I am, I am grateful to be so tired. I am grateful that I have 5 kids that keep me hopping, a husband that shares the ups and downs with me, a job that challenges me, a home to take care of and nest in, and great friends and family that fill the spaces in between. But I’m not going to lie. I’m tired. Often. Always.

But I really wouldn’t want it any other way.

I remember trying to decide whether to go back to school to be a Speech Pathologist. I had been out of school for a few years and working full time. Going back to school meant a drastic change in lifestyle, financial constraints and a logistical nightmare. I sat down and discussed it with my ex husband’s aunt – Elaine – one of my all time favorite women (who sadly and suddenly passed away on December 24, 2001). I deeply respected her opinion. I was complaining about how it was going to take me 3 years to complete my degree and would require much sacrifice. I was considerng not doing it for those reason. She said to me “Three years are going to pass, whether you become a Speech Pathologist or not. You might as well use that time to become what you want to become”.

It really stuck with me and I often think of that conversation.

Time passes. You can be doing something you really want to do or you can sit around – rusting.

Boys

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I came across a website not so long ago called Mentoring Boys that you can get to from here.

I had been looking up “Boys” and raising them – considering we have 4 of them and all – and stumbled across this gem. I was very intrigued by what Barry MacDonald had to say about the differences with raising boys.

He was coming to town, so I purchased tickets to his conference entitled: Mentoring Boys: Boy Smarts Action Talk. Yesterday, Rob and I went, and it was excellent.

Anyone who has boys, or is married to a boy, or is a boy, should check out this site, read this man’s books and attend one of his seminars.

Being a Mom and Smom of boys (and then 1 lonely girl:)), I can firmly say we (society) have a huge bias towards girls especially in the school system. And if you think we don’t, it’s probably because you have girls.

We praise a certain kind of child (you know the one that causes you no problems). Of course, right there, that is a bias against girls too, because there are many girls that don’t fall in that “typical category” that our educational system seems geared to. So, maybe I should clarify and say we have a huge bias towards a certain type of child, and most boys happen to fall outside that type. But I totally know there are many girls that have to deal with the bias as well – and I feel for them and their parents as they have to fight the bias – but for this post, I’m going to stick to talking about the boys right now (as MacDonald clearly stated in his conference too – may girls struggle being on different ends of the girl spectrum too). The stats are pretty staggering however showing how boys fair in falling behind in school, behaviour problems, learning disabilities, ADHD, and ending up in correctional facilities. Even though girls may have some similar issues, there seems to be a big disparity in the stats that somehow must be addressed.

I wish I could hand all my boy’s teachers copies of Barry’s MacDonald’s books and force them to go to a seminar. Would that be too much?

What I loved most about MacDonald’s approach, was that he was not looking at “how to cure your boy’s behavioural problems” or “how to deal with a difficult boy” or “how to control your boy” or “how to contain your boy and make him behave”. He was looking at: get to know your boy and embrace and love him and find (or change) an approach to work with him.

The key message: You can’t change your boy, so you need to change your approach.

I also loved his message to educators: You aren’t paid to teach only the “cooperative boys”. You are paid to teach all boys (or really all kids).

I loved that he talked about boys being on a continuum ranging from “very sensitive” which he calls “Spiderman boys”, to “rambunctious” which he calls “Rambo boys”.

Rob and I are so lucky. Our boys go across the entire spectrum. We appreciate their thoughtfulness in allowing us to experience the whole spectrum:) The most important point: there is not one part of the spectrum that is better. All boys have a natural tendency towards one end of the spectrum. This absolutely does not mean that they don’t at times fall in different areas of the spectrum, or develop skills along this spectrum. A Rambo guy can be extremely sensitive, or a Spiderman guy can have lots of energy or aggression. An introvert can be an extrovert, and an extrovert can be an introvert. But when push comes to shove, there is a natural tendency. And that is OK.

He talked a lot about our expectations, learning styles (more boys are visual learners, but we often have a bias towards auditory) fidgeting and movement (just allows kids to process and have bilateral movement in the brain – they don’t just have ants in their pants to annoy us), attention (they may be paying attention – just not the way we would), and then what our bias’s are (this was a big one). He suggests we should not get caught in the trap of thinking we know what learning looks like (kids sitting quietly, not fidgeting, maintaining perfect eye contact) because with our boys, it just may not happen like that.

I loved that he talked about discouraged boys. It really doesn’t help to talk about their discouragement. They need success. The answer to discouragement has something to do with one of their strengths. How many times have I gone to sleep worried about a discouraged boy, talked to a teacher about how I needed to “talk to him more about a certain behaviour” when really my energy should have been put towards something else that would bring him success, and likely spillover onto everything else.

MacDonald also talked about teaching kid’s about responsibility too. Again, you need both soft parenting and hard parenting as I talked about here. Overindulging your child only teaches your child to be the center of attention and that is it. Self esteem does not come from indulgence; it comes from meeting a challenge.

The last piece of great advice he gave was to, “paddle downstream with your boy more than upstream”. There are so many things that our boys are good at, don’t try to push back on them too much against who they naturally are. Let them be who they are instead of who you think they should become. Obviously they need guidance and structure, they need immediate consequences and we need to teach them to be more independent. But, we need to do this in a loving, and accepting environment. They need to know we celebrate who they are.

He suggests that the next time a teacher brings up the fact that your boy is so talkative, has a hard time paying attention and is so full of energy, your response should be “Yes, isn’t it wonderful”!

I’ll try it out and let you see how it goes over.

Mirrors, Ropes and The Dark Room

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I talked about the book “Connected Parenting” by Jennifer Kolari in my last post here.

As I said, it’s a great read and has some great parenting strategies. She talks about the importance of empathy in parenting and the need to always establish a connection. She introduces her technique called the CALM technique. It goes something like this:

When your child is talking to you – especially when they are having an “issue”, you need to:

C – Connect. Looking right in your child’s eyes, leaning towards them, trying to look like you understand his urgency.

A – Match his Affect. Model however your child is feeling – make your body language and facial expressions reflect his.

L – Listen to his words and paraphrase them back to him as if he were saying them.

M – Put it all together and Mirror.

When you do this, you are expressing empathy and this helps your child work through whatever issue they are having as they feel understood.

I must admit, when I was reading this book, although I liked this strategy, I thought it was a little too wishy washy, sunshine and lollipops for me. I mean, I could do with dishing out a bit more empathy, but honestly, I can’t stand being around parents who sit there and try to explain and rationalize and justify every tiny move to their child and then watch that kid walk all over them like a doormat.

But then, Kolari introduces part two of her strategy.

She states that parenting comprises two distinct roles – that don’t often seem compatible: soft parenting and hard parenting. Mirroring and connecting with your child, loving and nurturing, are what she calls “soft parenting”. Setting limits and containing bad behaviour is “hard parenting”.

Mirroring helps children organize thoughts, understand their emotions and helps them build confidence, build resilience and increase self esteem.

Setting limits is preparing them for life. It is a way to let your child learn what is expected of her within your family and in the world (ahh – expectations again) – and that she is fully capable of handling whatever that may be. Limits help kids feel safe and in control.

Kolari likens it to a rope – you holding one end and your child at the other. If the rope is too tight, your child will feel constrained and may just think of you as mean. But if the rope is too slack, then your child may become anxious. They may have too much power and that creates anxiety and not enough connection. With the proper tension, children can relax and just be kids because they know you, as an adult, are in control, and they are protected, secure and safe.

She also likens setting limits to walking into a room with the lights off. You have to grope your way around the perimeter – touching walls to avoid hitting your head, bumping into the furniture. Eventually though, if the walls are consistenly there, you know your way. You can move around the walls because you know where they always are – you can deal with them, and like the predictability. But, if the walls keep moving, or are there sometimes and not others, then anxiety will set in because there is no consistency. It is really stressful to not know where the walls are.

I loved this analogy. Because in life, we are often walking around a dark room, with walls and pathways, and light switches placed here and there. And we create the room for our children to grow in.

As parents, we need to prayerfully figure out the design of the room for our kids, and then introduce it to our kids. We need to show them around, let them know where the walls are, what the best paths to take are, and where the light switches and emergency exits are. If we change something in the room (which we often need to do – renovations are always needed:), we need to let the kids know. We need to be consistent and not arbitrarily change the walls and floor plan because that is confusing for our kids and can actaully cause them stress and anxiety and take away the security and safety that they desperately crave.

So I guess the best way is to combine hard and soft parenting. I daresay we are usually better at one way than the other. Always something to work on:)

Kolari ends the book posing 3 amazing questions to ask ourselves as we are on this parenting journey:

1) What do I want my children to remember about their childhood?
2) What will I feel when my chidlren are gone and I look back upon myself as a parent?
3) What do I want my children to remember about me?

These questions will help me stay focused on the main goal: raising happy flowers and skids:)

3 to 5 Years

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They say it takes 3 to 5 years for a step/blended family to really come together before they feel like a “real” family. I am careful when I say “real” family – because, I know the argument, “What is a real family anyways”? But by “real”, I mean a feeling of belonging, identity, support and love of each other above others around you. There’s a real connection there. You know what I mean.

I remember reading this “3 to 5 years” stat and thinking , “Are you kidding me?” (yup – I actually thought that – my kids make fun of me for using this phrase a lot. Whenever they imitate me, it usually starts with “Are you kidding me”?) At any rate, 3 to 5 years seemed like a very long time, and I was sure that we could do it faster. We were committed to the process.

Well, Rob and I have been married for 3.5 years and yup – they were right. It takes 3 to 5 years.

Not to say that we have not felt like a family and functioned like a family throughout these years – because I feel we have.

But it struck me that I’m noticing some subtle differences now.

I was shopping for some of my favorite parenting books to give to a friend for a shower gift. She has just been blessed with adopting two sweet little kids, and I thought giving her some of the parenting books that made a big impression on me (or ones I just found worthwhile reading) would be a nice gift.

One of the books, called “Connected Parenting” by Jennifer Kolari is really really good, and although has nothing to do with step parenting per se, it helped me have some clarity about step parenting (and is an amazing read for all parents in general).

Kolari talks about connecting with your children as being of utmost importance. Only after establishing (or at times – re-establishing) a connection, can you then introduce limits (which they desperately need and want to thrive), or reason with your children or calm them down.

She talked about how at times you need to revert back to what she calls “Baby Play” with your kids to re-establsih connections or to strengthen bonds in general. This is where you revisit what life was like with them when they were younger; remind them of tender moments; tell them stories about their baby/toddler life; cuddle them like you used to. It helps the brain make that connection to that very special bonding time and makes everyone feel good all around.

I can totally see how that works. I kept a “baby journal” for my boys when they were very little and they love reading from it, or have me tell stories about when they were little. It does give us that connected lovey dovey feeling.

Similarly when you are having a hard time with your spouse – revisiting your intial attraction, courting, “how we met stories” brings you right back to that moment and re-establishes that bond and connection.

But with skids, you can’t do this, because you don’t have those memories to revert to. With your biological kids and your spouse, you have that foundation that everything else was built on. You can go back to that time, because that time existed and was real.

With skids, that time didn’t exist. I can’t pull Gabe into my arms and say “Oh Sweetie, remember how you used to like it when I tickled you this way” or remind Zandra of a certain doll that she loves. I can however remind Sam of the first time I babysat him where I found him stripped down naked on a chair in the living room eating a bag of cookies watching TV! He does love that story – and it certainly is a bonding moment to revert to – but it is not the same as reminding them of things that they may not actually even have memories of, but the connection is still in their brain (or in my brain).

And I will never have those memories – or that foundation to build on. Which makes the Skid/Smom relationship a challenging and extremely unique one.

So I guess that is one of the main reasons it takes 3-5 years to establish a real bonded family. You certainly need effort, and commitment, and desire, and hard work, and openness and a whole lot of love, patience and humility.

But most importantly, you need plain old time. You need the time to try to build memories and share experiences, where in the future (or the present) you can re-visit those moments to help build or re-establish your bond. Maybe I will never be able to do “Baby Play”, but I will be able to do “Child Play” as long as I am engaging in the present actively now.

You have to start much later at building that foundation – and admittedly it is much harder when the kids are older. Your roles are also more confusing as everyone is trying to figure out how they fit in. You also don’t have that non verbal, physical intimacy that you have with babies and young children. So it is much harder.

The only thing you can rely on is time: time to create routine, time to create traditions, time to build memories of funny meals, vacations, day to day moments. Time to figure out the little quirks and funnies you all have, and time to learn to appreciate everyone’s individuality and uniqueness. You can’t rush those things. You can’t establish a history in year. It takes years to build up that reserve of memories that you can draw on that bring you closer down the road.

So 3 to 5 years it is.

And now, 3.5 years later. I’m starting to see it and feel it, and hear it. “Remember when…” comes up more now with my skids, in addition to my boys. We can sit and laugh at our inside jokes, reminisce about things people did in the past, look at pictures and ooh and ahh about how everyone has grown (it’s amazing how quickly kids change in 4 years!).

We are becoming more connected in many more ways, which solidifies our bond, and that makes us feel more like a “real family”.

Quote of the Week

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“Music is what feelings sound like”.

I thought of this quote as Rob pulled out the Christmas CD’s this weekend. Actually, he bought a new one and has been playing it on and off. It really does get you in the Christmasy mood.

Rob loves music.

I love it too, but in a different way.

I have a hard time having “background” music. I find it sounds like noise. I need to be really listening to it.

So, he’ll often put some music on right before dinner (to have a little background music), and then I usually go turn it off (or very low) as I’m sitting down to dinner. It always makes him laugh because I’m so predictable.

I like it when that’s what I am doing: listening to music. But I’m not good at having good conversation with background music. And to me, dinner time is for good conversation.

But that is not to say that I don’t fully appreciate and love music. I do. Very much so.

Last year in fact, for my Christmas present, Rob made me a CD with a whole bunch of his favorite songs. He also included drawings to go with most of the songs – quite incredible. Talented man:)

I loved the gift – because music is really what feelings sound like – and I love that he gave me a gift of his feelings.

Whenever you are not sure how you feel, just listen to what you are listening to and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how you really feel.

More importantly, whenever you want to feel a certain way, go put on that “feeling” in music and sure enough, you’ll be feeling that way in no time.

The Polar Express

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Zach and I watched “The Polar Express” the other night.

I hadn’t seen it in a couple of years – and I had really forgotten what it was about. It’s kinda cute! It’s fun to watch these movies as the kids are getting older, as they have different perspectives.

Last night when I was saying good night to Zach, he informed me that on Christmas Eve he was going to sleep wearing socks, pajama bottoms and a nice sleep t-shirt. I was curious as to why?

“Because the carpet downstairs in the living room is really scratchy – so when I wake up on Christmas morning, I’ll be comfortable”.

I do have to agree. The carpet is a bit scratchy. But I pressed him, because I sensed there was more….

“And just in case the Polar Express comes by on Christmas eve for you too”? I asked.

“Exactly” he said, “Imagine going out on the Polar Express without any socks and proper Pajamas”!

Tonight, he suggested that each child in our family do the same:

“Everyone should wear socks and nice pajamas on Christmas Eve. Just in case the Polar Express comes by”.

Got to hand it to Zach, he’s a planner.

Christmas is so magical.

I hope The Polar Express does come by to get him on Christmas Eve.

Breathe

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I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath, until I let it out and breathed.

The kids got their report cards this past week.

To most parents the report card lets you in on how your kids are doing academically, as well as some insight into the social and emotional too.

For us, the report cards were pretty symbolic of how the kids were fairing in their complicated family lives.

It has been 6 years since I split with my ex-husband. Not a year has gone by since then that has been “normal” for my boys. Whether is was good or bad things: they have always started the school year off with some kind of familial stress. Same goes for my skids. There was always something going on that was impacting someone in some way – above and beyond “normal kid stuff”.

So for the past years, every report card has had some issue: whether it was extreme talking, low self esteem, conflict with peers, distractability, failed course, insufficient effort, not completing work – there was always something. And of course, every year we were raising the bar of expectations (yup – we have expectations) as they were getting better and better study skills and as they understood that there were expectations at our house.

All this meant was at the parent teacher interview, there was always something to discuss. It was actually exhausting and depressing. I never wanted to make excuses for my kids – but I often found myself thinking: Ok – can we have a little compassion please? They are dealing with this right now; or imagine if that was happening to you right now; or it has been such a big adjustment…. Blah Blah Blah. Regardless of the reasons that we understood were behind some of the issues, we still had to deal with the issues.

Well, report cards came out this week and we attended the interviews. In addition to Zach and Josh’s interviews, I got to attend Zandra and Sam’s interviews with Rob as their Mom couldn’t make it. I missed Gabe’s though as it conflicted with Zach’s.

All the reports were – well – glowing. And the interviews were pretty dreamy. There was nothing really to discuss. I mean, improvements can be made of course. They all talk too much (which comes as no surprise -I told the teachers if they thought it was bad in class, they should come to dinner one night). They all could work on a few things here and there. But, compared to the issues we have dealt with in the past – it was seriously dreamy. They were all proud. And we were so proud.

Then I thought about it. It is the first year – and I mean the first year -where nothing was going on in their little lives – except for regular kid stuff. All they had to worry about was school, their activities, and their friends. They are leading “normal” lives.

And that was really reflected in their normal report cards and positive interviews.

So, I breathed a sign of relief. I let the air out that I didn’t even realize I had been holding.

I think we’ve all turned a new corner. We’ve all gotten into the groove of things. We know the routine. We know the expectations. We’ve established some stability and security. And it feels good. Finally.

Just in time as we enter the tween and teen years. Lol.

Quote of the Week

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“You can’t talk your way out of something you behaved your way into”.

I heard this quote a few years ago at a conference.

To me, it goes with quotes like, “Actions speak louder than words” and “I can’t hear what you are saying because your actions are speaking so loudly” (or something like that!).

Things you behave your way into, require you to behave your way out of. You can’t just do something with an action and assume that a quick word will get you out of it. You need to show change, demonstrate that you are taking responsibility by changing your behaviour.

This has a lot to do with forgiveness. Yes, you need to express regret, and extend apologies; but most importantly, you need to change your behaviour and behave your way to earning trust and confidence again.

You need to walk your talk – and not just talk it.