memoriesoncloverlane.com

(You can't always get what you want.)The gift of children knowing the world is not centered around them and their wants and learning how to cope with the discomfort that might entail is so so important. (Finish the task, hike, project, chore.)Enduring discomfort without an outside source (caregiver) rescuing. There is so much BIG work as a parent, and sometimes I see so much concentration today on the little ridiculou things as an older parent-things Childhood is such an awesome chance to learn how to live in the world we were plopped into, and we have the gift as parent to teach our children the tools they will need to get through the ups and downs of life.

Incredible true story-easier to read prose, heartbreaking as all books about the Holocaust would be, but filled with hope also. About a young girl surviving in a Siberian work camp-an incredible story-we are SO lucky to live in a peaceful country! Set in a concentration camp-another love and survival story-a wife is forced to serve in the camp brothel, and is saved by a relationship with the enemy, while still holding out hope for reunification with her husband. I have spent the last couple weeks spring cleaning, making my house smell good, freshening up rooms, and having fun evenings at home together as a family.

My faith is SO much stronger than it has ever been and the love for my family-for my husband, my children, and my parents, along with extended family is deeper than ever. I am lucky to have my family here with me and to have quiet evenings of closeness and laughter and yes, homework arguments and bedtime arguments and meal clean-up and laundry and boys riding scooters in the house and everything else that makes a home a home. And thank you for making me clean out the awful chicken coop, and thank you for raising me so simply without many material things Thank you for letting me see you persevere during your own crisis in life so that I know it is possible to come down the other side.

Time spent splayed out in the lawn chair, staring at the sky, was time "wasted". A walk in the woods with a friend and her dog meant that I wouldn't get my aerobic workout for the day. When Henry, at three, wanted to hear the same story every day for a month and have the same conversation about it every time, I could not help thinking about the stack of unread library books that was gathering dust in the meantime. Our children do not need any more possessions to be happy; they need only to feel sure that they possess our hearts, our attention, our acceptance of who they are."