My Own Stories

I thought today since I never share stories from my own
family, I would share some of my escapades of being a mother
to six very busy children. I have had the most fun and
I have been blessed. I had to look and look today for
some pictures to match the ages of my children when
these stories took place.

This is a picture on the first day of school for us.
That is me much younger with lots longer hair and
braces so I must have been 40, I think they are
4,6,8,10, 13, 16.

One thing about homeschooling is you do it in your home.
With six kids I not only taught but I did laundry too.
Lots of laundry. I would get them started on something and
our school room was upstairs. So I would run down and put
clothes in the dryer and the washer and take the dry ones and
go toss them on my bed, then after school was finished I would
go and stand and fold all of those clothes. They worked okay but
not very long on their own so I had to be up there.

Our neighbor next door always decorated for Halloween and she
would make scarecrows and put them on her front porch. My kids
saw them and thought they were the coolest things. So they got
my six year old's clothes and started making scarecrows.

I hadn't paid to much attention on this day to the scarecrow making.
They were being quiet upstairs so I thought they were doing school.
I was down stairs in the laundry room and as I walked from the laundry
room to my room with a basket full of laundry, I saw out of the corner
of my eye, what looked like my six year old standing on top of the
banister, (it was about a 20 foot drop) I dropped my laundry basket
about the time I heard my oldest son yell, " No, Elliot don't do it!!"
as I watched the bundle of clothes hurdle to the wood floor at the bottom.
I yelled and started running just as it hit and then stood there looking at
the dummy. I looked up and all six were laughing their heads off and
it took me a bit to realize they had really fooled me. Then I sat on the floor
and cried and cried. I don't think that was the desired effect.

Then I got mad, really mad at all six of them. To mad to even whip them.
To mad to ground them. So mad I didn't know what to do. I sent them
all to their rooms until I could quit shaking and crying. Then I called
my husband at work and told him what they did, all the while he is trying
so hard not to laugh. He said, " Well, tell them I said to go out to the chicken
house and scrape all of the chicken manure off the chicken roosts." So I sent
them out there and I would sneak out there from time to time and listen and
they were still laughing about what they had done.

Now I laugh, we had really good neighbors next door.
I shudder to think about the things that man saw living
next door to us. Always by 2:00 I was exhausted. For so many
years I was either nursing or pregnant or had just had a baby.
I couldn't call it nap time so at 2:00 in the afternoon it was quiet
time. They had to stay in their rooms for one hour and they had
to be quiet. They could read or draw or build with Legos. But one
hour it was quiet.

Little did I know the older boys would take the youngest and would tie
a rope around his waist,
would lower them down out of the second story window to the
garage so the youngest could get soda's for the boys upstairs.
Then they would take the rope and raise the baby back upstairs
to the window.
My neighbor never breathed a word until my my oldest sons graduation
from high school. Or the kids shooting marbles with a slingshot
at the cat in their yard (it was our cat) but the marbles were going
in their pool. My kids shot arrows (homemade) from the bows they
made in the garage.

One time I just die over this one. My neighbors were having a swimming
party next door. The boys bedroom over looked the yard next door.
Our cat was laying in the yard but my boys hadn't paid attention what else
was going on, but all of these ladies were out by the pool laying out in
the sun. The boys wanted to get our cat back in our yard, started barking
at the cat from the upstairs window.
When they repeated the story to me, they said " Then the weirdest thing
happened Mom, all of those ladies grabbed towels and jumped up and ran
in the house. " :)

I was always taking my flowers I grew and cookies I baked and things like
that to those sweet people. But they never complained and they would even
stick Tootsie Pops in the top of the fence for each one all of the time. My son
did the yard work for the neighbors so they were very understanding and
they taught my boys so much.

It was so hard to move when we did, but the boys really needed more
room to be boys. So it was time.

I cried and cried though, because they were the dearest people
and they put up with so much. Holidays will be here and My kids
will sit around after a meal and they will tell stories on themselves
about things I never knew. We will laugh and laugh and I will
be amazed because I was always home.

It has been fun.
I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday!

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, for His wonderful works to the children of men!

(Psalm. 107:6)