Anya Esther Robertson on Blessing Day

Here is my beautiful little Anya Esther in our family heirloom blessing gown. My Grandmother found this dress in an attic of an old house in Sanford, ME in the 1940's. My mother was christened in this dress. Myself, and all of my siblings were blessed in it, and now all of my daughters have been blessed in it. I think that Anya is just beautiful, and good natured. We are very blessd to have her in our family. My parents flew to Wichita from Maine and my sister Amber flew from Utah. It was a nice day. I am glad that my dad was there to assist in the blessing. Family is a blessing, and we are so glad to have our six little child making our family bigger and happier.

The Truth about Me

It seems to me that from people's commentary they have a very mistaken idea of who I really am. People seem to think that I am a really good mom who does a lot on very little sleep. Well, for about the first 7 weeks after Anya was born I was getting very little sleep. But Anya has been sleeping from 10:30pm until between 4am and 7am since she was 2months. (She is just over 3 months now). So I can actually get plenty of sleep if I go to bed early enough. But I usually don't go to bed before midnight so I only get between 5 and 7 hours of sleep. But that is still very do-able.

Now as far as me being a really good mom. That is just plain old not true. I lose my temper and yell way too much. I make my kids do a chore if they shout a lot in the house, but I am still too lazy to walk to find some one I need, and just shout for that person across the house. When some one spills anything, I just about flip out. I amaze myself at how little control I can have when one of my kids dumps a bowl of cereal on themselves. My first instinct in dealing with my kids when they are screaming about something is to give them a big old smack on the bottom and tell them to shut up. Thankfully I usually have more control than that. But I think it is scary at how little sympathy I have for a kid who has just fallen down. When my kids are sick I think "gross germs" and "I don't want to deal with this" instead of "my poor little baby, I want to help you and hold you and make you feel better".

Here is a good illustration of how bad I really am: A couple of weeks ago Rachel went through the house and in the space of about half an hour dumped books off from every book shelf, broke some of Ruth and Kate's things, and drew on the walls in three different places just before dinner. I was ANGRY!!! I put her in time out. I started cleaning up and Johnny would not stop talking to me about Zelda and I yelled, "JUST SHUT UP AND DO YOUR CHORE!" That got John's attention and he asked why Johnny needed to be yelled at. Then I just felt more angry. Ruth and Kate started complaining about having to pick up messes that were not theirs, Rachel and Anya were both sitting in chairs screaming and then I saw another enitre shelf of books completely dumped out at the bottom of the steps and I lost it. I grabbed Rachel, spanked her and started yelling at her to put the books back on the shelf. John came at that point told me that I was out of control, and took Rachel away. So then I was even more angry and yelled at John to stop talking to me and said that I would leave if he did not. At this point Ruth and Kate started crying and holding onto my legs. John then pointed out how horribly I was behaving, and said that he was going to take the kids out until I calmed down. Well, I grabbed the crying baby and said I better feed her. Then John and the other kids left. I felt like crap, fed the baby and cried and cried and thought that I would have to move away from my family while I cleaned the whole messy house and made dinner. John came back later and we fed the kids and put them to bed. I painted with Kate because I had already promised her that I would and then cleaned all of the bathrooms and went to bed with out talking to John. The next day John asked why I was mad at him. I thought that he took the kids out because he thought that I was just a terrible mother. He apparently took them out because he thought I needed a break. So as everyone can see, I AM NOT A GOOD MOM. I can even be a very bad mom.

Most days I try to shoot for ordinary mom, and I pray that I do not ruin my kids.

Now some people may think I am a good mom because I am fairly organized, but that is because I don't like chaos (as illustrated in the very embarrassing terrible story) I can clean the floors and paint walls right after a baby is born and put a belt back on my washing machine because I cannot stand to get behind in chores. I think that just means I am psychotic. I happen to know a few other moms who feel the way I do about getting behind so I feel justified. But John is always begging me to take a break and to let ht house get messy. Oh well, I know it is weird, but I feel more sane if my bed is made and there are no dishes in the sink.

That is the truth about me.

Why Babies Cry

I walked into the room while Rachel was holding her baby. I heard her say something like, "No, Baby!" I asked Rachel if she was talking to her baby. Rachel looked down at her doll and said to me, "Baby is crying." Then she kissed and hugged her baby.

Never Let The Crowd Slow You Down

Johnny can now read well enough to follow along in the hymn books at church. Today in church, during the songs, Johnny sang one to two words ahead of the rest of the congregations because he can "read faster than everyone else."

Kates punishment (by John)

I told Kate to come over to me and I drew a picture of a book on her hand. I told her it was a book-mark. The next day Kate came and wrote the letters "ing" on my hand and informed me it was a mark "ing". Johnny, not wanting to miss out on the fun drew a line on my hand and informed me that it was a line "ing" (except I don't think he knows the word "lining" and there was no "ing" involved in his,..I'm afraid he just didn't get it which made his pretty funny in its own way).

Washing Machine

My washing machine broke down officially yesterday. Well, at least officially enough that I went and bought a new one. The belt keeps falling off and the drum has begun leaking. But I keep draining the darn thing with our wet vac, tipping it over, putting the belt back on and using it. John helped me a couple times with the process yesterday, so he was VERY happy to take work time off and help me find a new washer. I am getting a front loader this time. I had to use laundry mats the years that we lived in big cities and loved the front loaders (not the laundry mats). One of the biggest problems I had with this last washing machine was it was always getting unbalanced. Front loaders don't have that problem. We got one for $600 at Home Depot. I felt really blessed to find what I wanted for under $800. When I bought my current washing machine 3 1/2 years ago all the front loaders of decent size were at least $1000, and we just couldn't afford that then. So I bought the cheapest large capacity Maytag. This time we surprisingly have the money and front loaders are cheaper. Again I am astonished at how the Lord blesses my family. We just payed off all of our credit card debt with our tax return and I am anxious to make sure that we make it through this next year debt free. When I was draining the washing machine for the second time yesterday I was surprised at how peaceful I felt. Of course I was praying for help to know what to do. When it became clear that I would have to get a new machine I still felt very peaceful and sure that it would be okay financially. We bought the front loader on our Home depot credit card because they give you six months with no interest. After we were home and the kids were in bed I looked a little at our finances and discovered that next month we get an additional paycheck. So we will have the money to pay for the washing machine before we even get the first credit card statement. I know that we could have bought another cheap top loader washing machine, but I wanted a front loader, and I think that Heavenly at times is happy to provide us with our wants as well as our needs. I am very grateful for the careful and thoughtful care of our Heavenly Father.

News

1. Rachel had a birthday yesterday and she is now 2. For the last two months Rachel has been preparing to turn two with a lot of temper tantrums. But she did love her birthday. She got a doodle pro and a bunch of helium balloons that all the older kids won't let her play with. Poor little girl. No wonder she screams so much. We gave her both cake and ice cream to see what she likes better and she only ate the ice cream. Now we know.
2. We legally changed Esther's name to Anya Esther. We had to set up a court date, take off work and see the judge to do this. The lady working for the State Department of Vital Statistics said that this is not inconvenient. I would like to know what is inconvenient for her? The judge had to have us raise our right arms and have us swear that all of the information we gave them was true. Crazy, but I am glad that we did so. I feel much better about the name now. I suppose if I thought we were definitely having another daughter I would have not cared so much. But with six kids, who knows??? We may be done all together.
3. Ruth turned 10 on March 22. She now has to vacuum every night instead of picking up the floors, and she now has to listen to three sessions of general conferences. But she did get all of her own hair things and she likes doing her own hair, and my mom bought her a Nintendo DS. So that I think she finds her growing bigger responsibilities worth it. Next year she gets to become our official baby sitter. I am glad that Ruth was born first. She is an amazing help.