Mother's Day

I seriously love being a Mom. I am beyond grateful for my sweet miracle Cameron, and our miracle Will. 
Being a Mom is my greatest calling, accomplishment, and challenge. It's really indescribable. 

I hope and pray daily that I can continue to be what my family needs, and have confidence and the spirit to guide me! 

My favorite Mother's Day moment happened when we took flowers to my Mom's grave. Cameron sat right down on her headstone, and started to softly pick some flowers off our plant. I asked him what he was doing, and he replied, putting flowers here. 

He placed the petals on her headstone, and said, Here you go Gramma Pammy, I love you!

I didn't truly miss my mom appropriately, or feel that empty ache until I became a mother myself. It was such a sweet moment when he did that. 

He also made me my very first home made mother's day gift at school! It was a good and special mother's day. 

This is so true- from the moment a boy is born. I love being a boy mom!!! 

As CS Lewis put it- Children are not a distraction from our work, they are our most important work. I believe that and I love some of the support, faith, and words given by apostles and prophets regarding motherhood. 

Trials of Motherhood- Pregnancy edition

It may or may not come as a surprise to you- Mommin' ain't easy!!!

Trying to balance all my roles- woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend- daughter of God- has been hard, and I am sure it will continue to be as life continues on and we grow and change.
The thing I have figured out- though it is sometimes still super hard to embrace- is that if I will be patient, humble, seek out my Father in Heaven each day- each moment- that I can do hard things- that all my capacities fall into place- and balance comes. None of my roles take away from me as a person- but rather enhance who I am if I let them, and let my Father in Heaven guide me.

This truth is never more apparent in my life than it is when I am pregnant. Cameron was my conversion to the concept that my Father in Heaven knows what I need and when, and that things happen in His time- and His time is best because he knows me so completely. This realization has enabled me to calm down, and accept things as they come- still grinding my teeth sometimes, still struggling many times, but knowing that all I go through is for my benefit and growth.

This pregnancy is SO different- I have been SO sick- and not in the typical pregnancy ways. Yes I had morning sickness, that went away gratefully- but I have struggled with vitamin and mineral deficiencies, blood pressure issues, bedrest, sleep deprivation- (being pregnant after you already have kids is a whole different ball game. You can't just rest, even when you need to.)

So far, I have learned to rely on prayer- and faith- and know that my Heavenly Father is watching over me and our baby. I have had so many blessings and prayers, and confirmations that everything is going to be okay- but that it doesn't necessarily mean it will be easy getting to the end when things are okay.

There is a very real possibility of me ending on bedrest, possibly even hospital bedrest- and having to be humble enough to accept help and let others clean and cook and do things for my family is hard.

That being said- we are past our first scary hurdle- and after a short time on bedrest, I am doing okay! Our baby is healthy, and continues to grow! Cam and I made the best of those days by having movie days, and Grandma playing at our house!

I will have to see the high risk specialist- perinatologist- throughout my pregnancy and have ultrasounds with them every 2-4 weeks- and visits with my regular OB every 2 weeks to keep on top of my health and baby's growth.
Here is our munchkin and his baby skeleton face, weighing in at 7 ounces, measuring at 17.5 weeks!

I am so grateful to all of my friends and family that love me so completely- that love my family, and take care of us. Thank you so much for your love and prayers! I truly have everything to be grateful for!

Motherhood and Sentimental Feelings

I gotta just blab for a minute. I haven't done that on here for a while. Cameron will be 18 months on August 9- and while I love watching him grow and explore there is a tiny part of my heart that is so sad about how quickly he is growing and not my tiny baby anymore.
I can't express how beautiful, wonderful, and hard it is to be a mother. I didn't think I would be able to have any children, and there is a strong possibility he is my one and only miracle from my Father in Heaven to treasure and raise and teach. I feel so blessed and I just love how he takes up so much room in my home- and even more in my heart.

 It has been super hard to learn how to co-parent with Dan- we are still learning, but it definitely brings a new love and appreciation for him as a father!
We were up in the mountains this past weekend, and there is this smile that Cameron has- he reserves it for me. It is that smile that just says- "you are my favorite person in the whole world and I love my mommy so!" I told Dan about said smile, cause he was so sweetly flashing it at me- and Dan said, of course you're his favorite! I said, yes, but it won't always be that way, and for now I just love it and it melts my heart!!

There is this book, Wherever You Are, My Love Will Find You- I read it to Cameron every night. It makes me teary- every night.

  "I wanted you more, than you will ever know. 

So I sent love to follow wherever you go.

 It's as high as you wish it, It's quick as an elf, 

you'll never outgrow it, It stretches itself.

So climb any mountain, climb up to the sky, 

my love will find you, my love can fly!

It never gets lost, never fades, never ends, 

If your working, or playing, or sitting with friends.

You can dance til your dizzy, 

you can paint til you're blue, 

there's no place not one, that my love can't find you!

If someday you're lonely, or someday you're sad,

Or you strike out at baseball, or you think you've been bad,

Just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair,

That's me my sweet baby, my love is right there. 

In the green of the grass, 

In the smell of the sea, 

In the clouds floating by, 

At the tops of the trees, 

In the sound crickets make at the end of each day,

You are loved, You are loved, You are loved, 

They all say.

My love is so high and so wide and so deep, 

It's always right there, even when you're asleep.

So hold your head high, 

and don't be afraid, to march to the front of your own parade!

If you're still my small babe, or you're all the way grown,

My promise to you, 

is you're never alone.

You are my angel, my darling, my star, 

and my love will find you, wherever you are."

So so fitting!! And now I am boobing like a baby.
I am seriously so blessed, and thank my Father in Heaven everyday for my life, my husband, and my son. It has not been easy, but it has been wonderful.
It goes by so quickly I try to treasure every moment!!!

I just love being his Mommy. And I love that his Daddy loves being his Daddy.

I loved this- A lot

I wanted to have this to reference back to. It is such a good article.
Here is the direct source: Paying the Babysitter

And for the article...
{and I quote}

PAYING THE BABYSITTER

October 15, 2013 · by jancisco · in Children, motherhood. ·

This weekend , I tried a new approach to the guessing game of paying the babysitter.  I told them how much I was willing to pay for their help ahead of time, and I outlined what I expected to happen while I was gone.  It was a Take It or Leave It approach, and it worked.  But there was a little bit of eye-rolling when I stated that my price for three hours with two kids was $15.  Apparently I am way below the curve of what people are paying in our neighborhood.

My position is that it is not a hard job: I don’t expect them to be the mom, I expect them to watch a movie with my kids and feed them a little pre-made dinner.  Probably almost exactly what they would be doing at home for free.  If I pay them more, they ought to do more, like clean my house, make the dinner and do the dishes.  If I had a new baby, I would pay extra for the inevitable emotional drain and possible sore muscles from carrying the baby.  If I had really intense or difficult kids, I would pay them more just to make sure they are willing to come back.

After the babysitter took my offer, because we are friends and I was interested, she and her brother started talking about what they get paid for other jobs.  He said that he usually earns $30-40 each time he mows someone’s lawn.  He was bewildered when a man in our ward said $20 was too much to pay for just mowing his lawn.  Then he said that regular, non-LDS people pay $50 per time that he mows their lawn!  FIFTY DOLLARS.  I believe my brother charged $50 for a summer-long commitment of lawn mowing for each house on his route.

So the kids are saying, “This is so great!  I am making so much money!” And the adults are saying, “Well, I guess if that is what people are paying, I had better stay competitive with what I pay too.” And the price keeps inflating higher and higher.  But what are the consequences?

First, I get a babysitter twice a year.  I can’t afford it otherwise.  Other moms feel the same way.  So the teenagers are potentially losing out on steady work and the commitment of holding a regular babysitting job because the going rate is more than many families can afford. My friends and I get around that by simply swapping kids with each other, which is fantastic and cheap.  So we aren’t the ones missing out in the situation–its the teenager who could have some money more often, rather than lots of money occasionally.

And second, we are creating an unrealistic expectation for kids in what their time and energy is actually worth.  When I was a kid, babysitting was a low-paying, under-age job, but at least we earned something until we were 16 and we could go out and get a grocery store or restaurant job and really start earning money.  Now, we are inflating teenager’s wages for babysitting and yard work and the minimum wage job at the grocery store down the street is not enticing at all.  They don’t want to do actual work for less money than they they are used to getting around the neighborhood.  I had one teen tell me that he hated his pizza place job because “they treat me like a trained monkey.  I think they want to work me to death.”  Yeah, real jobs are hard. Because it is actually work, not watching a movie with kids with a little light dish-rinsing thrown in.  When they can mow a lawn and earn $50 an hour anything less than that seems like a rip-off.  Or slave labor.  We complain about the plumber charging for his labor, or the mechanic, and yet we freely overpay these unskilled teenagers to their detriment.

A recent article stated that only 28% of teenagers (16-18) have their drivers licenses, down from 46% of licensed teens in 1983.  Their unemployment rate is 24%–fully three times the national average.  Yes, it is getting more expensive to do things, but also–kids just don’t seem to be very motivated to chase after things.  Many of them are content to be carted around by their parents, have things paid for by their parents, and take their time reaching adulthood.  Maybe this is the same argument that has been made in every generation (starting with the words, “In my day. . .”), but from my perspective teenagers have never before been so impressive or so useless.  Their potential spans a great chasm, and we should all be anxious to help them climb from mediocrity to impressiveness.

The Value of Hard Work and Desperation

In my day, my siblings and I would do anything to earn a little extra money. We were desperate.  Lemonade stands, selling fruit from our orchard door to door.  I even remember setting up a restaurant in our gazebo in the yard, making sandwiches with the food from our kitchen, and then expecting my mom to come and buy the food from me (so she had to buy the same stuff twice–at the grocery store, then the gazebo.  She refused, but in exchange for a free sandwich, she let us keep selling her food to other people).  If I could scrape together enough money to go to the movie, I was set.  That creative ability to solve my money problems has led me all over the work-world–to Taiwan, a mountain summer camp, cleaning college buildings, working nights in a cherry factory, doing “handyman projects” that I (and my boss) were totally unqualified to do, crocheting afghans, cleaning houses, even writing a couple of articles for a local food magazine.  Nevermind my college degree and legitimate, steady jobs.  I was willing to work almost anywhere and I have patchworked my 31 years with adventure, travel, boredom and new skills.

And my level of ambition is put to shame by the previous generation’s.  My father-in-law is a remarkably tenacious worker.  When he was ten, he decided that he wanted a horse.  Period.  His parents said, “No, we don’t have any place to put it, you can’t have a horse”.  But he was undeterred.  He got on his bike and made some inquiries.  He found a stable that he could board a horse and a place to buy hay.  Now, he just needed a horse, and money to buy it.  He first saved up his money so that he could buy a lawnmower, then he mowed lawns, saved his lunch money every day instead of buying lunch, turned in pop bottles for about a dollar a day, saved his birthday money–in short, he didn’t spend a thing. (Keep in mind: he was TEN).  When he was 11, he had finally saved up about $300 in 1970 dollars (equivalent to $1,775 today).

He saw an ad in the paper for an Appaloosa for sale in LaVerkin, Utah that he thought would be a good fit.  $200.  So he called up his bishop, who had a horse trailer, and they went down to buy the horse.   He got Callie (named for her Calico coat) all set up in her stall and then went home and told his mom, “I bought a horse.”  “You did not!”  “I did.  I’ll show you if you want.”  So they drove down there together and she was blown away.  He would ride his bike across town each day after school to feed and ride Callie.  He kept working to earn the money for her hay and board.

Desperation begets creativity.  Creatively solving problems gives kids confidence to do more.  Confidence in doing more leads to success.  Overpaying kids upends the whole cycle.

Guidelines

So I propose a unified approach to the question of What Do You Pay The Babysitter:

• Set your price relative to the price of a movie ticket.  Everyone’s cost of living is different, so it isn’t reasonable to say $3/hour across the world.  But if it takes about two hours to earn the money to go to a 2-hour movie, that seems fair.  Movies here are $10 a ticket, I think, so I would pay $5 an hour, regardless of how many kids I have.
• Lay out your proposal from the beginning so you can avoid the awkward car ride conversation when you are dropping them off. “Is that enough?  Is that okay?” “yeah, it’s fine.  Whatever is fine.”
• Point out exactly what you would like to have them do while you are gone.  “I need you to feed them all, and then clear up the table and put the dishes in the sink.  If you do the dishes, I will pay you $2 extra.  Then put the kids to bed, make sure they have their pajamas on and their teeth brushed.  After the kids are in bed, if you want an extra $2, feel free to clean up the house.”  Think of hiring a teenage babysitter as a training opportunity for their upcoming “real job”.
• If kids decide that they really want to develop their babysitting skills by taking CPR courses, or making a babysitting kit to bring with them, then we ought to respect their improving skills and pay them more.  I have a friend who saved up all of her money for college by babysitting kids in the DC area, even holding summer camps in her home for groups of kids.  I’m not saying that we should underpay anyone.  I’m saying that these kids should earn their money.  So if it is an easy job, they have earned $5 an hour, if my kids are difficult, then they have earned $10 an hour by putting up with them.  If they save them from a house fire, they get a bonus! If they have developed themselves professionally to a point where they are actively engaging with my kids, taking care of the house, feeding them healthy foods and getting them to bed on time, they are earning more than $5.  But to sit and and watch a show, leave the house a mess and put the baby to bed with a saggy diaper– they haven’t earned much.  We ought to require responsible, accountable employees.
• Paying the “going rate” blindly or proudly isn’t doing our babysitters any favors.  If this resonates with you, please share the article with your neighborhood friends and ward members.  It will be more effective if all of the parents in your circle are on the same page.  Let’s do what little we can to reinforce responsibility and healthy desperation in these kids!

{End Quote}

I will definitely re-visit this someday. Thank you for sharing on your blog Jan Francisco!!

And so it starts....

Cam has been on the move for a little while, just not very far, not very fast, because of course, he hasn't figured out forward yet. Tonight he did the funniest thing though.
I had got him to sleep and down in his crib, and not too long later, he woke up. I got him and sat him in the livingroom on the floor while I went into the kitchen to make a bottle. I came back in, and he was gone! I said, "Cameron, where are you?" I peeked around the side of our recliner, and he was sitting there. When he saw me, he started giggling- joke was definitely on me!!!

I can never express enough and in words how grateful I am for our miracle son. What a blessing! What a perfect joy to have in our home! The lack of sleep and other inconveniences, are worth every minute of love, joy, and giggles we get from our baby! Being a parent is the most. amazing. journey. EVER!

I am a stereotype: Mormon Stay at Home Mom

Alright- let's be honest. Being a stay at home mom is a whole lot of each of these. I have received a few comments about why I don't work. I kindly reply and then think- what business is it of yours? Why do you work? 

First off, I have to applaud Mom's that choose to work, Mom's that have to work, and especially single Mom's who do everything. Parenthood was never meant for one person. It is too involved and requires so much! I honestly don't know how women be a Mom, a wife, and work outside the home. I tend my nephew 4-5 days a week, and have 1 easy baby of my own, and I am busy. 

"Busy from son up, til son down!!" 

No seriously though, I am extremely busy! My days are always full of dishes, laundry, all the boring house work. Cooking and shopping. I also tend my yard and garden, which is a lot of work but very satisfying. I have raspberries, hollyhocks, carrots, beets, beans, corn, tomatoes, and squash in my back yard, and tons of flowers finally filling in my front. It has taken me 5 years of cultivating to get this flowerbed filled in nicely.

 Part of the yard work is battling these damn gophers.

  

We play lots and lots, and read lots and lots. We practice ABC's and counting, and we sing silly songs and nursery rhymes. We play in the sprinklers, and play with the doggies. Sometimes we watch movies! Boys nap, and I use that time to work out. 

Sometimes we go on field trips: playdates with friends, planetarium, water park, park and picnics. 

 I have to acknowledge that I know I am extremely blessed to be able to stay home. It is my choice, and Daniel provides enough for our family to allow me to do so. I know that for many families, that it isn't possible.  

So down to the question, why don't I work?

I do. 

Also, I choose not to work outside the home because I want to be the one who teaches my children. I want to be the one who cheers them on, and who picks them up when they fall. I want to know that they have been taught values, principles, and manners. I want them to grow up knowing and feeling that I was always there for them. 

Staying home is also in many respects a spiritual choice. My faith doesn't require that I stay home, but certainly in situations that allow for a mother to stay home, that is preferred. Children learn gospel and spiritual principles in their own homes, and their natural tendencies for kindness and happiness are best fostered at home. 

“The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.” 

― Harold B. Lee