Should vs. Good

The scene: I have just finished the whirlwind morning of coaching the kids into kids dressed, feeding the baby, making breakfast (aka buttering the toast/pouring the cereal), doing the dishes, getting myself dressed, taking Jay to school, maybe doing a quick grocery run, and possibly even going on a real exercise-type run. I sit down in my chair with a sigh and call my sister to talk. After 20 minutes or so, I say "I really should be vacuuming," and she says "yeah, I should be talking to my kids." We continue talking but in the back my mind there is a twinge nagging me to get off the phone and get to work doing Productive Mom Things. I push the twinge aside and continue my conversation, but that tiny seed has been planted.

 

The question: why does that twinge get to tell me what I should be doing?

 

My answer: It doesn't! I am blessed to be my own boss: I decide what to do and when to do it. My job is to care for my home and family. There's no rulebook that says I must vacuum every 7 days or that I must read 12 stories to my kids each day. I had an enlightening-but-obvious epiphany this week: I am in charge! All of those twinges of "I should ___" are completely self-inflicted! Why would I willingly give myself a guilt trip? I wouldn't! It's time to eliminate the SHOULDs in my life. Liberate my shackled conscience! Long live the republic of Shaina! I am in charge.

 

"Should" is such a dangerous word. There are so many different areas that "should" can be applied to, and I'm starting to realize that there is no formula for what people/moms/I SHOULD do. It's different for everyone. I know this in my brain, but it's still hard for me to apply it every day. Should I be doing more ____? Should I be doing less _____? Should I do ___ or ____? Seriously, it goes on and on. Some days I do more work, other days I do more play. I think eliminating the "should" sentiment would get rid of a whole lot of unnecessary guilt/worry/stress/confusion. Instead of asking myself what I should be doing, it feels better to ask "what is the best way to spend this time right now?" That question will help me rank the demands on my time and prioritize without guilt. Should vs. Good-better-best: aka, should vs. good. There's also a want tucked away in there too, but I think that is want vs. need. Maybe it's a curve, with good-better-best on one axis and want-need on the other. I just drew it out:

 

 

Being "self-employed" as a full-time mother means I get to choose what work to do and when to do it. That's wonderful! The tricky part is that I also have to prioritize that to-do list, and it's hard to evaluate importance of items on the list that are as different as blueberries and bananas. For example, three things that I want to do as a Good Mom each day:

1. Spend quality time focusing on/doing an activity with/reading to my kids [this does not always happen every day, as much as I wish it did].
2. Make sure I stay on top of the housework (laundry, floors, and dishes being my top three nemeses).
3. I need some personal time each day (scripture study, exercise, etc.)

Clearly, spending time with my kids is the most important of these three activities in the grand scheme 'o life. However, the housework still needs to get done and my kids need to learn how to work by my example. I also need some personal time to decompress and recharge--who doesn't? The beauty of should vs. good is that I evaluate which of these things is the BEST way to spend my time at that moment, not which of these three things I SHOULD be doing. If I ask myself which of these three things I should do, the answer is: all of them! But when I ask myself which of these three things is the best use of my current time, the answer comes much more easily. Once I make the decision, I am free of any niggles or twinges of conscience from not doing one of many should-do's; instead I am doing the best of the goods-do's. That was tricky to capture with words. How'd it go?

 

A week or two ago, one of my oldest family friends posted a quote that sums this whole ramble-bamble up nicely:

"Only you know your circumstances, your energy level, the needs of your children, and the emotional demands of your other obligations. Be wise during intensive seasons of your life. Cherish your agency, and don't give it away casually. Don't compare yourself to others--nearly always this will make you despondent. Don't accept somebody else's interpretation of how you should be spending your time. Make the best decision you can and then evaluate it to see how it works." --Chieko N. Okazaki, in "Lighten Up"

 

The good-better-best battle changes every day. Sometimes it changes a few times in the same day! The trick is evaluating good-better-best with the right perspective and then embracing that decision 100%--just say no to any sneaky "shoulds" and believe in yourself as the only one who completely knows your own exact current situation.

 

Some days building blocks with Rose, answering 1,000 of Jay's questions, and holding Amber trump cleaning the nasty toilet. Other days mopping the floor and baking bread win out over drawing pictures with Rose and laying on the floor with Amber. Ideally I want to do it all: housework, play with kids, exercise, errands, church calling, personal time, husband time, scripture time, etc. But let's be honest: there may be enough hours in the day to do it all, but there are not enough hours in the day to do it all well. Days where I try to do it all leave me feeling like an exhausted failure, because even if I do manage to "do it all," I'm usually too tired to be glad I did any of it and/or I'm in such a hurry to do it all, I don't do any of it well, with my full attention. Hence the good over the should. I have been trying to remember this lately and every time I do, it's like I'm soaring in the clouds, light and free!

Get thee hence, should.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Baby food

Amber started eating off a spoon last week! She’s five and a half months old. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to starting her on non-breastmilk food because then her poo would change and make taking care of the cloth diapers harder. In hopes of encouraging her to sleep longer at night, however, we got out the baby spoons and gave her some food. She started with rice cereal and then tried oatmeal and also carrots. She has been pretty nonchalant about the whole process: no shudders or gags, or even too many funny faces. The solid food hasn’t noticeably affected her sleep—it may be a little better, but it may also be that she’s slowly learning how to put the binky back in her own mouth (very slowly learning). She still wakes up 2-3 times per night, but that is less than 3-6 times!

 

Milestone: check!

Now I have a few more Amberfaces to share, since I’m a photo-holic.

Lounging in the truck.

Storytime in the truck, courtesy of the big sister.

The chubs!

She rolls both ways now and gets her arm stuck underneath, ha ha ha.

  

Sunday selfies. I love it when she grabs my mouth and talks to me.

 

That grin! That flower bum!

Toes!

Big brother time.

She loves him.

 

Poor girl has been stuffy and snotty for a few weeks now. She’s always wet these days—drool, snot, barf, you name it, she’s got it tucked away in those rolls.

 

Going for a Sunday morning ride. I leaned Rody the Pony up against the furniture and stood by till she tipped. She liked it when we bounced her.

Yesterday I wedged Amber into a corner and took a few quick pictures of her FACE. I love her expressions! She was a bit grouchy yesterday (and today) so she made some awesome faces. I always like to take pictures of my babies’ smiles and their sad faces because I think both are so cute. I especially love Amber’s little Yoda ears.

Welcome welcome, onesie weather!

The White family showcase

Part 1: singing in church
Part 2: the gallery wall

Part 1: Our family sang in church today. I was dreading it alllll morning (and last night) for a few reasons, the main one being that I really don't like getting up in front of people. It makes me so nervous! This morning Jeff consoled me by saying "at least you don't have to give a talk! Our song will be over in less than 3 minutes." My brain knew that was true, but it did nothing to dispel my clenched stomach. I tried to decide which I'd rather do up in front of our ward: give a 15 minute talk or sing a hymn with my family. I went back and forth before finally deciding that they are both equally terrifying. Then as we were sitting in the pew before sacrament meeting started today and I was trying to soothe my anxiety, who should walk up to me but Brother Flory, our beloved executive secretary. He asked me to give a talk in May. While I may not be able to decide whether I'd rather sing or speak, having to do both within a few weeks of each other definitely was not what I had in mind either! I like my comfort zone, thank you very much. No matter how many times I give a talk in church, it will always be scary. So I may as well give less talks, right? Ha, I know, I know. 

Anyways, the special musical number (us!) was after the second speaker, so I had to keep my nerves at bay for 45 minutes before we went up. Sometime in there, I felt Jay's face and noticed that he felt exceptionally warm. A second opinion from Jeff confirmed my suspicion: Jay had a fever! Poor guy. So I let him lay on my lap until it was time to get up and sing. His hot little head heated me right up, so I was already rosy-cheeked when we went up front to sing. And of course, being stared at by 100 people did nothing to cool my face down! Ugh, blushing is the worst. Sister Cook played the piano for us and we clustered around the microphone. Jay and Rose both stepped up onto a stool so they could see over the podium, and we positioned the microphone kind of at their forehead level so it would hopefully pick up a relatively even mixture of our voices. Jeff was holding a sleeping baby Amber. We were quite the cluster. 

We have been practicing singing Families Can Be Together Forever for a solid 6 weeks now, so Jay and Rose knew the words just fine. It was more a matter of focusing them on singing. The first verse went fine. I mean, we were all singing and standing still together at the same time. During the second verse, Jay and Rose decided that they wanted to enjoy the microphone, so they kept grabbing it. Every time it was pulled down, it went right in front of one of their mouths, blaring their off-key singing for a few seconds before I grabbed the microphone. After a couple of those moves, I simply put the microphone way up high so they couldn't reach it, but they took it as a challenge and both grabbed for it and had a brief tussle before Jeff and I each held their hands for the remainder of the chorus [cue ripples of congregational laughter]. I confess to actually laughing a little myself because it really was a funny situation. But I'm a quiet singer at best, so taking a break to laugh did not help our musical number at all. Jeff was the only one who valiantly sang the whole song through in spite of the many distractions. Amber woke up in time for the eventful second verse, but thankfully she did not add her voice to the ruckus. Dear Sister Cook said it was perfect as we were heading back to our seats. It was a relief to be done.

I took Amber and feverish Jay home after sacrament meeting. They are both sleeping now. 

Part 2: After nearly three years in this house, I finally arranged a staircase photo gallery in our entryway this week.

 
Two weeks ago, I made this fun little project: baby pictures from our first year of life, newborn to twelve months. From top to bottom: baby Jeff, Shaina, Jay, Rose, and Amber. I searched through all of our old family scans to find approximate monthly pictures of Jeff and me as babies. I ordered the prints and stuck them to a piece of foam board with my tape roller. Then I had my first real experience with modge podge: I painted over all of the pictures with the white gluey stuff. It was scary because while it was wet, the pictures were covered in white. But when it magically dried, the pictures had a nice slightly textured matte finish, as promised on the modge podge bottle. It was a leap of faith that paid off.

It looked very lonely pinned up on the wall all by itself, so I dug out every old mismatched frame I could find and cut paper shapes for each one to create the stairway gallery of my dreams.

I used pages from an old giant coloring book. Once the arrangement was to my liking, I started hammering nails into the wall and hanging frames.

Next I ordered the pictures I wanted to go in the frames and picked them up at Costco a few days later.

It turned out better than I thought it would! The main reason I have been putting off this project for nearly three years is because I thought we didn’t have enough coordinating picture frames for a good gallery. Most of our frames are secondhand from various sources over the years—I only ever bought two or three picture frames in all that time. In spite of my qualms I thought they ended up looking artistically eclectic in the end. Use what you’ve got I say—the main reason our house looks the way it does. Just the way we like it!

I went with a “places we’ve been” theme for the wall and chose pictures from as many different sites, cities, and countries we’ve visited together as would fit in the frames. If we come into any more frames, I’ll have to do the “places we’ve been” gallery, part two on the next flight of stairs down because I left plenty of good ones out!

Jeff got a mission shadow frame. Wasn’t he cute and scrawny? And “tracting” at castles. Only in the Loire Valley.

Our other shadow frame is devoted to our Europe adventure, with pictures of us at Versailles, the leaning tower of Pisa, the Parthenon, the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, and El Alcazar de Segovia, Spain. I fit some of the funny little trinkets we picked up along the bottom of the frame: a thimble from Usse Chateau in France, a seashell from the D-Day beaches in Normandy, a classic British phone booth, a gargoyle from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a mini leaning tower of Pisa, a basalt rock from the beautiful Vikos Gorge in Greece, a Greek owl—symbol of wisdom, and a piece of pumice stone from Le Puy du Dome in France. So many rich, wonderful memories all in one frame! I adore it.

Here are other features of The Gallery, in no kind of order:

Carcassone, France—2008. It looks fake, but I promise, this is the original, unedited picture. Yet another reason to go back to France.

Salzburg, Austria, dancing at the famed Sound of Music Rolf and Liesl gazebo, in 2008.

Good ole Mt. Rushmore, in 2008.

Jeff running in the beautiful Appalachians in Virginia, circa 2007. Oh Blue Ridge, how we love you.

The St. Louis Arch, 2008.

The cuties, 2015

The Halloween 5k race kilts, 2011.

Elder White junior, January 2010

Smooching, November 2013

Nauvoo, Illinois: December 20, 2006

March 2011

annnnd, March 2015

Pictures are a joy of life.

Normally I run up and down the stairs but now I find myself pausing, gazing, and reminiscing.