We Believe in Children

Our parental and familial rights are being taken from us. Please educate yourself on the United Nation's CRC.  It is terrible! Children are our greatest gift and their rights to parents and family deserve to be protected.

We believe in the rights of children 

to:

love God

serve others

pray often

ask questions

work hard, and love it

have wishes granted

hear God's word

laugh a lot

breathe in fresh air

play in the dirt

turn up their noses at turnips, and eat them anyway

be heard

sing happy songs

make loud noises

discover God's love for them

read good books

accomplish goals

sleep soundly

feel secure because of boundaries

know they are loved

hear encouragement

receive kisses and hugs

play every day
work every day

learn by curiosity, example, and lecture

have a personal relationship with their Savior

discover their eternal potential

be respected like adults are

give compassion

eat candy

remember where they came from

and

belong to a family.

I love this talk from a living apostle of Jesus Christ. Watch it, and then love your children and the children around you. They need you. We need them!

Why do we do this to ourselves?

We camped in our backyard two nights ago. We should have known better, us being adults and all.

We have a son who's earning his Webelos badge in Cub Scouts, and he needed to finish up his Outdoorsman, so we made it a family event. Why not?

Ah, camping! I love the idea of you, but the reality of you, not so much.

I used to love it before I was in charge of a nursing infant and a toddler-in-toilet-training. Because, really, who wants to spend the entire camp-over in the porta-potty? No one, that's who.

It was pretty much the best of both worlds. I made and cooked tin-foil dinner inside, with the convenience of all my major, modern appliances, and brought already-served dishes out to my family as they were sitting around the fire pit, ablaze in its toasty glory.

When dinner was over, I went back inside and mixed up the pumpkin dessert for the dutch oven. Once mixed, I marched the bowl with the batter outside and dumped it into the ready dutch oven covered in hot coals.

When Toddler needed to go potty, we went inside and enjoyed indoor plumbing, liquid hand soap, and the luxury of a clean, white towel. Then we skipped back outside to play.

When clean up time came, I went inside to use the deep sink, the industrial sprayer, the steam mode on the dishwasher, and the left-over shelf in the fridge. Then I went back to the camp fire to sip hot apple cider while Daddy played the guitar and the kids joined in the singing.

We sat in our camp chairs--positioned just so on our stamped concrete--and watched the sun set, the moon rise, and the stars twinkle. It really was so magical. I tried to focus on the moment and store it away in my heart, where it will be kept safe until I need to relive it again in the winter of my life.

But then it was time to sleep.

Let me just say that we have an amazing tent trailer, which means we sleep on a mattress, about three feet off the ground. But even still, I slept the sleep of the waking dead.

I don't do closed spaces very well, and for me, few things are more claustrophobic than a sleeping bag. But put a teething, nursing infant in there with me, and I have to go to my happy place to keep from screaming and waking up the other children.

Then there's the matter of the cold autumn nights. I don't do cold, either. And even though I was wearing my warmest, coziest pajamas, I was too cold to sleep soundly. In fact, I wore my pajamas and my long underwear until dinner time the next day because I just couldn't warm up.

But the worst part was that my husband didn't sleep either. And he messed up his back. So he was the walking dead while I was the waking dead, and we weren't a happy pair, to say the least. Throw five, tired, moody children into mix, and you can imagine how yesterday went.

In between mouthfulls at lunchtime, I studied my husband. He couldn't move his head to either side, his back was tight and caused him to sit perfectly upright, and he had to cast very sidelong glances in order to make eye contact with his fellow diners. Because I was tired, I was pesty, and I decided to pretend I had a back/neck condition, too. I just copied all his robotic movements and shared strained sidelong glances with him.

When he caught on to what I was doing, he snorted and then remarked, "Well! There's nothing so bad that making fun of it can't make it even worse. Thanks for putting this into perspective for me." I laughed with him, being careful to hold my head still so as not to hurt my kinked neck.

When he left to visit the chiropractor, I gave him a sideways kiss. When the coast was clear, I tiptoed to the garage to find our blow torch.

Alas! Our tent is flame proof.

Reminiscing about Retributions

I hate it when my children do something wrong because then I have to come up with a punishment. I'm so bad at that! And I don't really understand why I draw a blank, because my dad and mom were professional punishers. With them, the punishment always fit the crime, always taught a lesson, and was never cruel or belittling, though occasionally unusual.

But I'll maintain for all of my parenting years that Mom and Dad were punishing wizards. Our punishments were lessons, and through them we learned the most important lessons of family life.

We learned team work. To the brothers who couldn't get along, my mom tied them together with string until they could. You try making nine brown-sack lunches tied to someone who is aggravating you, and you'll see how quickly you learn team work. In fact, I think corporate America should start employing this tactic. I predict productivity would skyrocket.

We learned forgiveness. To the older sister who cut the littler sister's hair--accidentally--the Mosiac Law was employed: an eye for an eye, a hair follicle for a hair follicle. Of course the older sister pleaded for mercy, and the smaller sister forgave the blubbering barber. And though she was a few locks shy of a whole head of hair, the smaller learned how to stand taller that day.

We learned justice and mercy. To the sister who mouthed off, two thousand rocks had to be collected from the garden and moved to the adjacent rock piles. Considering you could sell your bowl of Wheatina for two hundred rocks, this was a mighty blow. But everyone paid attention when Daddy helped Sister fulfill the demands of the law. We didn't have to ask why he wouldn't just drop the punishment instead of moving rocks with her; we saw, and we learned.

We learned hard work and then play. To the social butterfly of the family who mostly finished the chore, a life sentence of grounding was given. This was so painful a punishment, it caused the perpetrator to ask in agony, "How would you like it if you were grounded for the rest of your life?" When his siblings' response was uproarious laughter, he cried harder. No matter their insistence that he wouldn't--indeed, couldn't--be grounded forever. When the sentence miraculously lifted, he vowed he'd always put the blankets away neatly before going off to play.

The examples are many and varied, but each proves the wisdom of our loving parents.

Which brings me to the point that I'm trying to be wise and loving. Really I am. But it's clear I'm no parental genius.

I did have a break through last month. When we were driving the ten hours home, I was trying to nap, but no one would let me. In that space between asleep and awake, where everything makes sense (including purple unicorns finishing the weeding in the garden), I announced that someone had to take a nap. And if it wasn't going to be me, it would be them. Presto! Silence and a nap were mine to enjoy for a whole half hour.

But when a child colors the white spots on the dog with pink marker, what am I supposed to do?

Dude, we totally had a pet.

My kids asked me for a hamster, and I was like, "No way! We have two dogs. No pets ever again, as long as we live!"

I hope, in their developing brains, that this translated to, "What a nice thought! But no, Dears, and I love you."

When I was growing up, there used to be a pet store in the same strip as Fred Meyer...when there used to be a Fred Meyer. It was fun to go in there, because I got to imagine how the other children in the world lived. 

I could picture it all in my young mind: a girl goes into the store, looks at every animal for several minutes each, finds the pet of her dreams because it locks eyes with her, she tells her daddy she wants it, and her daddy buys it. Then she and her pet live happily ever after, in playfulness and sweet friendship.

This never would happen to me, I knew. I can't explain why; it was just something I knew, like I knew one day a week we would have Wheatina for breakfast. 

And yet, the impossible can happen, as life continues to show me.

I'm not sure how or why, but one day Ron came home from that pet store with a hamster. And there it was: living, breathing proof that everyone got a pet--but me.

But come on, it was Ron, so he shared it with everyone. Ron named him "Dude", but it was totally the family pet. (Kinda like how Ron earned our Sega Genesis for getting his Eagle, but it was totally the family video game system.)

My memory might be sketchy on the time frame, but it seems like it was just two short weeks before Ron renamed our hamster. It was inevitable. 

Because one day, when we went to his aquarium to give him some food, we noticed that he had nine, naked infant hamsters in there with him. And being the bright children we were, we exclaimed, "Dude! He's totally a girl!" 

Ron just smiled and quietly brought us back to Earth with his calm statement, "I guess we'll call her Dudette."

We were fortunate enough to take part in the raising of several baby hamsters. They were small, and cute, and furry, and sneaky. We had to find them when they went missing and buy two more aquariums as they began to multiply and replenish. Eventually we gave up keeping track of all of them and giving each a fitting name.

Life could not have been more exciting for us. There were two helpings of hamsters for every Guymon child, and there were rarely two helpings of anything for us. It's just basic math.

I can't remember when, but I know for sure that eventually they all passed, because we didn't always have hamsters. I don't think we even had them for a year. 

And now, I can't help but ponder on life's little surprises, and that sometimes, our blessings multiply faster than we can count them. And sometimes, our realities shift completely, and our lives are never the same. 

Because now, I don't want a hamster.

I'm gonna go call my mom again and thank her for being so patient. Also, I'll ask her where she went to hide so she could cry in secret....

Come, sit awhile.

It's inconsequential really, my blog. But it's a blog about life. And life has eternal consequences.

What I write may shock and amaze you, but mostly it won't. Because I'm an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life.

But I'm expecting extraordinary results, the kind of results that come many, many. . . many years down the road.

So walk down the road with me. The miles are easier when you have a friend.

But if you're too tired for the long road,

Come, sit awhile.