5.22.14 A Mother Hen

To continue on with the farm theme of the week. ...

This is a mother hen. To be precise a brooding mother hen. She has been sitting on her nest for about 14 days. She is usually a bit more puffed out. This lady just sits and sits all day long for a whole month. Rarely and quickly leaving her eggs for food and water. Stalwartly protecting and caring for those developing eggs. We have never had or seen a brooding hen before. My heart goes out to her.

Christ used many farm references in His parables. I am learning what it means to act like a mother hen. To gather your chickens under your wings. I want to be focused like the mother hen. I have tried to give my all to being a mother intent on raising healthy children who are able to fend for themselves and survive in this crazy world we live.

This year has been great school wise. We have had a peaceful, stretching, learning year. It was just good. I think a big part of this was the collaboration of many parents sharing their good kids with my kids. Friends! Yes, good friends have made a huge difference. There is a big knee jerk movement to want to protect and isolate our families from anything negative, different than our ideal, or even things that are below our objectives. However I'm wondering if this is not a healthy notion. As an adult I have to deal with the good- snuggle babies, strong healthy funny big kids, a wonderful date; and the bad- teething feverish babies, sassy eat all the food in the house and complain about chores big kids, and a gone a lot of the time husband. That's life. It's good and it's bad.

In the beginning with Adam and Eve they learned that to know good and evil is to become like God (Gen 3:22).  They had prayer, we have prayer and families. So much of mothering is helping my children digest and understand the world they live in. How political movements work for or against God's plan and families, how to treat and tolerate others, how to be strong and know their value as children of God. To experience good and evil and to choose the better.

After six years of public school I'm wondering if the bloom where you are planted is not rock solid advice? Make each place better. Make a difference where and when you can and the rest of the time learn to deal, think through and articulate why you don't agree or do, and above all know that this too shall pass. I really don't think there is an ideal. I think there are great and perfect moments, experiences, and opportunities. I think the come and go and on and on.

I do know that the good, fun, clean talking and thinking kids, and energetic creative adults who interact with my kids daily have made their lives richer and happier. They have allowed me time to focus on other projects and spend much needed time on my smaller kids. I do not kiss the school bus, nor do I want to kick the system. I am learning to work with both situations.

And how thankful I am to the other mother hens who are doing the same. The families who are likewise teaching, sheltering, loving, and sending great kids into the world. My kids have been academically challenged for the better by these kids.  They have learned to relax, to have fun, to play and love another kid. It is such a relief to my worried heart to hear stories and watch them with their friends. Thank you parents for sharing your children with my family. And truly the kids that aren't their best friends, the ones we have prayed for and wrung our hands over, the ones we get so frustrated with, we have learned MUCH from them too. I think it takes both. Isn't the saying "Come What May and Love it...?" The love part is hard. But we learned a lot of lessons, and had important discussions digesting the comments and perspectives of those kiddos too. 

So like this mother hen who is keeping her eggs protected safe and warm I hope to offer a place of security, digesting and analyzing, and spiritual strength to my children and even their friends. Yet I am coming to realize, sadly, that my job is not always to sit on my children, but to teach them to fly and fend for themselves.

I loved the counsel in Linda S. Reeves conference talk:

   Brothers and sisters, how do we protect our children and youth? Filters are useful tools, but the      greatest filter in the world, the only one that will ultimately work, is the personal internal filter that comes from a deep and abiding testimony of our Heavenly Father’s love and our Savior’s atoning sacrifice for each one of us.

How do we lead our children to deep conversion and to access our Savior’s Atonement? I love the prophet Nephi’s declaration of what his people did to fortify the youth of his day: “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, [and] we prophesy of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”⁴

And we work! We teach them and we love them. Have a great weekend.

Mark staining the deck. All the kids are working to earn money for summer projects.

A deck stainer I wasn't counting on. She is a busy little one who always seems to be in the thick messy part of things.

 Loved the book Holes by Louis Sachar. Intriguing and very entertaining story. Heard the movie is good too, maybe we'll find time over the summer. The Great Wheel, was really good. We are now reading Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain. Loving it! They call it a Marry Poppins but so much more realistic some good bullying and repentance lessons there. Oh summer days with a good book! Enjoy.