Eating Worms

I'm not that big of a complainer. Actually I think I am pretty upbeat and positive most of the time, especially considering what I have to deal with sometimes. I enjoy laughing at things and making sure I put a positive spin on things. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not at all saying that I NEVER have a negative word or thought. I do. I often do. I'm one to be irritated that Kaidon talks to loud, while Mikael speaks in a barely audible voice. I am not happy when my six year old has a fit that sends the neighborhood indoors because they don't want to hear it. I roll my eyes when I walk into Emma's room only to find that a tornado hit the house and she failed to tell me so I could make an insurance claim....again! I'm annoyed by Graysie's abrasive personality especially when it is to an innocent bystander in line at the grocery store. When Mihya decides to play her guitar practically sitting on my lap when I get on a phone call, I'm not all June Cleaver with her. So, clearly, I'm not saying I don't complain at all. I'm just saying I don't make a habit of consistently sitting around wondering what I can complain about next; and you know, there are people who do that.

I think we've all experienced "the complainer" at some point in our lives. Ya know, the one you see and instantly act like you're in to big of a rush to stop and chat. The one your spouse says "what's wrong now?" as soon as you walk away from a conversation with them. Seriously, these people are draining and tiring and need to find something else to talk about! I sometimes wonder if they just have really poor communication skills and they have no idea how to engage in a conversation or maybe it's just a bad habit? I don't know what or why it is; I just know that I try very hard not to be this type of person and to be sure I don't surround myself with these people either. With all of this said, I have to admit that yesterday I was a complainer!

From the start of my day it was bad. Josh is out of town on business, my youngest child's goal right now is to finally send me to the loony bin, I'm not getting a break because of summer vacation and I am admittedly hormonal (not to be mistaken for pregnant...please, please don't start that rumor it wouldn't be good for my weight complex). Let me clarify too (although I almost don't want to say this out loud) many good things happened yesterday. My mom is here visiting, we spent several hours shopping, we got pedicures and I set a hair appointment instead of going with a box color (because remember I learned my lesson?). So, much of my day was good but it felt like most of my day was just plain old terrible, horrible and no good (hmmmm, now that's clever, I should write a children's book or something). I ended up complaining. I actually called my man and vented! I complained about everything from the sun in the day and the moon and stars at night (gosh, I am good, I really should write a children's book.....or we can agree this is starting to look like plagiarism?) oh, boy, did I ever complain! I'm sure my main squeeze was thinking "what in the hell? who is this? was I sober all those years ago when I sealed the deal? what does she want me to do....." and I'm sure many other things he'd probably be willing to tell you. Instead, he listened and he loved me and understood me and showed me compassion and grace and honor and I didn't deserve any of it but he praised me for a job well done and appreciated me for being me. I love that about my guy! He knows how to keep this girl focused on the positives and lifted up so high that I actually believe in myself when the world doesn't.

As I sat here later, still munching on a few left over worms, I realized what an awesome catch I have. I don't acknowledge enough how good I have it and how lucky I am to be married to someone who's life goal is to leave people better. It's what he lives by and I love that he's so genuine about it that I reap the benefits often. I love you Josher, you're my everything!

Cheater, Cheater Pumpkin Eater!!

Kids are funny. They take risks and push the line in ways that keep me baffled. For instance, this week EmmaLeigh and Kaidon are enjoying a tennis camp. The coaches are awesome and the kids have thoroughly enjoyed getting out in the warm summer sunshine to burn some energy and tackle a well loved sport. At the end of each three hour day the kids gather all their raffle tickets that they've accumulated for doing whatever great things the coaches caught them doing and they have a fun little prize give away. Now, some of the prizes are insignificant to you or I, but of course the kids adore them, like candy and gum. Still others are much more rewarding like a tennis club bumper sticker (really coveted here amongst the masses as seen HERE) and tennis attire or tennis magazines. Point being, the kids want to get tickets; and even more they want to win!!!

Monday, on the first day of camp as the raffle started many of the tickets being called ended up having no owner. Every now and then, however, a winner would yell out in elation over the winning of yet another piece of Laffy Taffy. I noticed, and clearly all the participants noticed, that this was solely based on the honor system.....you say you win.....you get a prize.....viola' it's a done deal! As time went on and on and on...a boy, we'll call "Drew" ('cause that's his name) would pause look around and then say "that's me!". Again, no questions asked and after winning 5 prizes with only 4 tickets this, Drew, was a lucky little booger don't you think? My kids questioned Drew's honesty. As their mother I challenged them to think better of their peer. "but.....but....but...." were their responses. I have to admit, they had valid reasons to question his integrity and yet, I just wanted them to trust the goodness in human nature.

Tuesday at camp, it was time for the raffle again and again, Drew, would pause and look around before shouting out that it was he who had the winning raffle ticket. Suspicions rose amongst the adults in the crowd, but nothing was said except for the quiet murmurs of "wow, he should buy a Lotto ticket if he's really getting that lucky!" When the next prize announced was going to be a French Open tennis shirt, you could almost feel the air heat up another ten degrees. Low and behold Drew hops up and shouts out "that's me!", when finally to all witnesses silent probing the coach asks for the "winning ticket" to be revealed. Drew blankly looks at his peers, he mumbles around a few pleading "it's me, it's mine, I won, I have the ticket" but amazingly never really even attempts to look down at his numbers. With more probing from the coach, Drew begins to sort through his tickets and comes up empty handed!

Honestly, I felt sort of bad for the little cheater pants! I felt like "wow, public humiliation is the absolute worst", wouldn't you agree? So many times I've been humiliated one way or another in the eye of the public and it never gets easy. I've tripped and fallen countless times, I've gotten frustrated and said nasty things to people who didn't deserve it, I've had to apologize for my child's bad behavior, I've lost a baby who we loved to the core. Some of these things, I couldn't even control; and yet, the humiliation behind them is paralyzing. I felt bad for this child, until the very next drawing where Mr. Cheater pants himself tried the scam again to no avail! The gull of that child! I'd like to hope that if my children were caught cheating they'd feel the pang of embarrassment and shame and remorse enough to wait more than a split second to do it again. There's no telling, but I would hope so.

On the car ride home I had to admit to my kids that they were right. They had definitely spotted a cheater pants. We talked about how winning by cheating never feels as good as really winning at something. We talked about honesty and integrity and how in one split rash decision of greed, they can change how other people judge their character. We talked about how only Drew had the capability to decide how he was going to be viewed by his peers. We talked about how nothing in that whole giveaway was worth jeopardizing how you saw yourself as a human being and unfortunately when you cheat, steal, lie etc. you not only affect those around you but you negatively affect your own self esteem! BUT.....we also talked about how his mom and dad should punish this bad behaviour and in my usual Hunt style here's what each of my kids said:

EmmaLeigh: As my genuinely honest, good natured, selfless girl; she was appalled that Mr. Cheater pants even had the thought to do this. Her idea was each of his honestly earned tickets would need to be dispersed evenly amongst his peers, giving him no chance to lie about winning anymore.

Kaidon: This boy values good, hard work. His idea of a good punishment was that for each prize he had "won" he needed to replace it to the coach with another prize of equal or more value than his cheated prize.

Mihya: Full of grace and a heart for the underdog. Mihya said she would make him give back the things he stole. Then....(because we asked if she thought he would learn his lesson by that minor punishment) she said she would not let him play tennis, he'd have to only be allowed to play other things! (ouch. severe huh?)

Graysie: This is my child who may at times (uhhum) struggle (huh um) with honesty (mmmhuh) herself, said he would get a spanking, owe her chores to pay back the prizes, give away the prizes he still had, be grounded, etc. etc. etc. (Wow! I know what to do for her next laps in judgement now don't I?)

Mikael: My man of many words and great insight said...................(shrug his shoulders)...........(silence).........................(quiet pondering)...............then at last "I don't know". Hopefully Mikael marries a great wife who doesn't mind taking on the role as the "heavy" in his household!

Kayela: Who has found herself in her room more than out of it in this first week of summer break suggested the old tried and true soap in the mouth for lying, spanking on the bottom and a year's worth of grounding! (oh, how that sounds so magical now, until she realizes that when little kids are grounded their mommies are too!)

There you have it, proof that personality does in fact play a role in parenting styles. Can't wait to see how they all do as parents someday!.......PAYBACKS!!

Hero

Well today was the last day of the school year. Another one bites the dust! It was filled with the anticipation much like the first day. Anticipation of change and transition and new and the unknown. Anticipation for everything relaxed and fun and warm in our new city and life. Today is a good day for this mama and for her big stinky kids who just wanna find adventure.

Today was also a very special day because Mihya has been working on a secret project. A project she has put her heart into and stressed over finding the perfect words. A project she has diligently thought about and labored over because it was that important to her. A project she was assigned and in a matter of an instant knew the perfect recipient. Today Mihya gave her "everyday hero" presentation to her peers and to her peers hero's. Today Mihya stood with pride when she introduced her new friends to her everyday hero that she cherishes and watches and mimics each day of her little life. Her hero was unsuspecting. Her hero thought she was going to watch one of her baby sisters graduate from the third grade. Her hero was honored and surprised when she found out their would be a celebration in her honor. I'm predicting this hero will have many celebrations honoring who she is as a person, because she's just that special and she has a way of making every one else who surrounds her feel like they are important.

Here are a few things Mihya had to say about her hero:

My hero is in my everyday life. My hero is a real friend who tells you what is right and what is wrong. My hero is faithful. My hero is always honest. My hero is respectful to others and caring. My hero is loving and is always their for you. My hero is bold and helps me through my big problems. My hero is hardworking and she's a miracle!

I'm pretty confident that Mihya found the perfect words to describe her hero, EmmaLeigh! I am so proud of my girl Mihya who didn't have to pick someone who is rich and famous or sings her favorite song, but instead picked someone who really has meaning in her life!

You two girls make this mama proud and I'm honored to be in the front row of your show!

It's All for the Blog!

My family seems to think they are my agents. No, not just a few of them, ALL of them! Daily I have "suggestions" on blog posts. Daily, I think how in the world would I work that into the blog, let alone make it more than a one liner? Then again, every once in awhile someone says or does something regarding the blog and I think "BRILLIANT! I am SO using that!!" and as you might have guessed this whole post is going to be just that.

When you have six kids, you do things different. You have to in order to survive out there in the trenches of parenthood. Most of what we do is not because we've analyzed and researched some phenomenal parenting method sure to produce happy, functioning, contributing adults. Instead, it is pretty much the game of survivor. "outwit, outlast, outplay" could be the title of a parenting book that I could author on any given day, and I think I am going to embrace it as my own personal style of parenting. When the question pops up "how do you discipline your kids?" My new answer is going to be "Well, we just outwit, outlast and outplay our children.....how about you?". When I say we do things different, I mean most of the things we do are different. We are still bathing our children (although I do take advantage of the showers at the pool or beach when we are done swimming so I don't have 6 kids fighting over hot water), we still have bedtimes (except mine are probably much earlier than yours just because I am worn out much quicker), we still have the kids in sports (but maybe they are not in their first choice because I just can't watch 24 years of the same sport), and we wear clean matching clothes (I just have to be sure I get 3 loads a day done or we might be wearing our undies inside out)....see? We do some of what the rest of the worlds parents do, we just "adapt" accordingly.

This is true for sleep overs too. When we have one extra child spending the night we just go ahead and have everyone invite a friend. It sounds crazy and loud and sleepless...... and. it. is! Although, I've learned to dread the "sleep over" I can't imagine doing it any other way. If we let one at a time have a friend sleep over we'd be doing it for 6 consecutive weeks and by the time the last kid had a friend, we'd be starting the whole cycle over again.......I really don't like other peoples kids that much! REALLY! If they are over 2 years old and I'm not the boss of them, I pretty much don't want them around. So low and behold, we end up with 12 kids in our house about once every couple of months where we can do it up good! The kids can get out games eat lots of candy and stay up late and eat pizza and have donuts for breakfast and get loud and not have sleep and cry over someone looking at them the whole next day! It's a blast, let me tell ya!

Guess what we did this weekend? What? Am I that predictable?

Saturday night we had 11 kids to be responsible for. Only 6 we really liked, but 11 we were in charge of! (I know the math doesn't add up because one of my daughters couldn't invite someone. Because this not-to-be-mentioned kid has had a problem with following the rules and when she gets caught disobeying and in turn gets in trouble she's been peeing. Peeing on things....peeing on lots of things....like anything she can reach her booty over to pee on. So, when it came to inviting friends she didn't have the choice; for obvious reasons. Which I'm sure she has hidden pee somewhere for me to find because she was so mad about that decision. This is clearly not my oldest child, and it's not my boys because they are not my daughters and it's not either of my middle daughters either...but I'm not going to mention WHO it might be that didn't get a friend because how embarrassing for her right? Oh dear, back to blog post....) So, we have this house full of kids, who have lots of energy because they've been about to burst with excitement for days over friends coming and now they are finally here so they can let out this energy. We made personal pizzas on pitas and the kids were scattered all over the place when I decide somehow we've got to wear them out! It's like 7 p.m. and I'm already so tired it's disturbing, and yet, these kids are bouncing off the walls! So I suggest they race. I know "Hunt's" will present in this challenge well because my girl Grays has some skills!

The kids jump on board because the unsuspecting friends think they can beat my girl! I know better than this but I'm just glad to get them sprinting. I want them spread out too, it's not going to be tiring enough to just have them race across the yard a few times, so I have them running from our yard through 3 neighbors yards where Emma is standing as the "finish line". Now, two of the neighbors houses are vacant because they are new builds and aren't yet complete but the last house across has just recently been moved into. We've not yet met the neighbors but no one has fences so it's the perfect place to race....or so we thought! After a few rounds of racing and Josh and I sitting on the back porch so pleased with our energy burning idea Emma brings the finish line one house closer. I holler to her and say "Emma, move back" and she proceeds to tell me "No, the neighbor just yelled at me to stay off their property!" WHAT? The kids can't even run in their grass barefoot? I looked at Josh with my mouth hanging open and said "welcome to the neighborhood, new neighbors" Seriously? I find this really bizarre! They don't have gardens or shrubs or anything but big trees and grass. How in the world would these 11 little kids hurt their grass? I was a bit irritated at the whole issue and found it totally frustrating that seeing us out there they chose to yell at my child instead of coming over and talking to me about whatever issue they had. Instead of marching over there, handing them a beer and telling them to relax I just told the kids to run the same length we had originally planned, just outside their grass on the common area surrounding the pond. Good compromise right? WRONG AGAIN!!!! Now, the husband came to the window and yells out to "get off his property!" and here's where I am so proud of my girl who will not be bullied she answered by (respectfully) saying "Sir, this is the neighborhood property. We are off your grass. (looked back at next racers and yells) GO!" The man proceeded to yell at her from his window to stay out of his yard, and that he would be calling security!!! Yes, he really said that! Josh and I sat on our porch hysterically laughing at what he might tell security when he made the call "ummm...their are neighbor kids playing in the common area" or "These kids are laughing so loud and having so much fun they are disrupting my bad mood". Clearly, we didn't let the kids hear us cracking jokes, but I certainly was not going to make them move their races elsewhere either. There is a good 10 feet of common area behind this particular home that then backs to a pond where people fish all the time. Is he going to kick them out too? C'mon people! I don't know much about Southern hospitality, but I do know these people are probably not from around here!

When the races ended (yes, my girl smoked everyone of those kids) Emma came to talk to us. We got the whole scoop of what our new neighbors said. They told her what we had heard and then she said "when I responded the wife asked 'was that the child or the mother who responded to you that way?' " Funny, how that question even had to be brought up, as if a child can't state to an adult what they know is right. Funny, that seeing us out there they knew they had no right to kick the kids off the common area but thought they could intimidate a child to move. To be quite honest with you, I have no problem with my girl having enough confidence to stand up for what she knows is right. She doesn't need me to fight her battles or to confront a situation head on. When someone is irrational, whether they are an adult or not, I expect my kids to stand firm on what they know is right. I expect them to be polite and respectful, but I expect them also to be socially savvy enough to not come running to me when they have an issue. Obviously, when it went a step further and security did show up I stepped in and took over. (the security guard had a good laugh over the "suspects" since he was told that a "bunch of teenagers" were circling this house....hahaha!). Clearly, security told the man the same thing Emma had, that as long as they got off his property and were just on the common area he would just have to relax. When security left and we finished getting the scoop from Emma, Josh and I told her that she handled it well by letting them know she respected their request to stay off their property but that they would continue to race on the common area. We acknowledged that at 12 years old that could have been a little intimidating and that's when she said "oh, I just was thinking I was giving mom some good blog material!" ....hahahaha! YES, you did. Thanks for the suggestion Emma!

I'm still not convinced I will take all the suggestions for blog posts, but this one just had to be shared!