...and random wisdom

ran into a friend today who has two young toddlers and just gave birth to twins

I don't know why but she thought I might be an encouragement to her?...hee hee...



Seriously, I hope I was.



After hearing myself out loud I thought to myself, 'ya know, you should write some of this stuff down, you might forget it one day and need it!'



so, I'm listening to myself.



the two tips I gave her today:



#1 - when you have the two toddlers and the infant twins, the toddlers feel a little neglected and what do they do? ACT OUT. It gets ugly. Really, really, ugly.

One of my tactics was to have the same grocery shopping trip planned every week. Same day, same time. It was always at a time when I could just take one child with me and leave the rest with either dad or a helper (or two!)

I would plop that one 'older' child down in the cart, right in front of me, and in between getting my groceries I would touch that child as much as possible, kiss her endlessly, talk to her, look her in the eyes, etc....while I was just pushing the cart, I'd wrap my arm around her and push with one hand and an elbow.

It was a very concentrated time of love, affirmation and pure mama time (she had no idea I was getting an essential done!) there were special treats involved just for her, individual attention and I never had a 'bad' one of these trips.

Actually, I remember them vividly with tears in my eyes of joy.



They were just as sweet and needed on my part as they were on the child's part. I missed my older girls when so much of my attention was being pulled toward the immanent needs of two newborns.



I switched the weeks. Lydia went every other week and Samantha went on the off weeks.

If it was a particularly bad week - I just found a reason to go grocery shopping or something twice that week so both could get a turn.



Yes, whoever didn't get to go went into hysterics when I was leaving, they still do.

Yes, it was hard to not just take both.

BUT. I can't describe to you on this measly little keyboard just how much of a difference it made in that one little girl for that week. Uh...ha...sigh. It was miraculous to say the least. Their little....big rather....cups were full again and we could go on.



#2 - FOCUS on what your child is gaining by being in the family he's in NOT on what he's missing.

That is precisely where the title "Embrace the Chaos" came from (well, first from you Kim and then my heart ran with it!)

You tend to 'beat' yourself up and think things like "my child will be scared forever because I can't _____ (fill in the blank) right now and he/she is being neglected", "my children are going to rebel one day because they didn't get enough attention or love from me when they were little, I was too busy with everyone else", "we are not going to survive this", "I am hurting my child by placing him/her in this craziness"......thank you Kim for tipping me off to Embracing and thank you Jody for tipping me off to just getting two things done every day #1 - hug each child once #2 - look into each child's eyes once.

And again, FOCUS, on what they GET out of being in a 'chaotic' family....flexibility, teamwork, sharing, kindness, and in a few years...just keep everyone alive that long....they will be receiving MORE love than an 'average child in an average family' gets because they will have more siblings to get love from.

You do love them and they will see that - God fills in the gaps and I can't help but think that because my kids might have more gaps than maybe others do, God might have more room.



(if you are a parent with smaller amount of children...THIS IS NOT meant to say that you are lesser or your children are lesser - I just had to find the positive in my situation, I was drowning and this is what buoyed me to the top for air)



So, in short....find times for individual attention, even if it's an every other week type of schedule and FOCUS on what being in your family is GIVING your child, not what being in your family is taking away from your child.



there might be more to come!!!!

who am I kidding....there's a lot of random stuff floating up there...there WILL be more to come!