Kathryn August 31st, 2011

Our Family...

A comment made on FB today caused me to reflect on a couple of other things I’ve read and conversations I’ve had. These things have led to this question ‘How do I define my success as a mother?’ that then led to ‘How to others define my success as a mother’ followed by how does the world define it?

Now, before we go any further I would like to add that I know my role as a mother is never complete. As Elder Lynn G. Robbins said, I can never ‘check a child off my list as done’ and I don’t plan to! I love my children and I will always be seeking to teach and guide them in appropriate ways, and to be the best mother I can be to them.

Let me share with you a couple of the comments that show a part of how others define their success. One said ‘No matter how many colours, shapes, numbers and letters I managed to teach my child before she goes to school, I will have failed if I haven’t taught her that she is loved and given her the confidence that she CAN learn new skills.’

Another made the comment ‘ Parenting is all about redundancy. In the end, we want to do ourselves out of a job.’ I personally LOVE that one! Thanks SR!

Now neither of those comments were made in response to my question, but I think that they both show in part what these women believe is important in their role as mothers and parents. Each of us have different life experiences that teach us to value things differently and that is reflected in the way we continue to live our lives. It’s reflected in the type of parents we become.

I don’t know if I can concisely explain how I can, do or will define my success as a mother. It’s something I want to give more thought to before declaring it to the universe!

What is so wonderful is that we can ask this question about any aspect of our lives. How do we define our success as a….. parent? Friend? Teacher? Student? Sunday School Teacher? Youth Leader? the list goes on!

Ultimately how others define our successes does not matter, although it’s often hard to remember that! Others will always have different priorities that will influence how they think you should be as a mother – but they are not YOUR priorities! They are theirs! And I am a strong believer that there is no one else in the world who can make better decisions about you or children than you can, as a conscious and loving parent!

Today I’m going to ask you to share some ways in which you feel you can define success in parenthood. Or how you feel your parents succeeded, or your grandparents, or the couple who lived next door to you for 20 years! Sharing these with me will help me, and hopefully others, become the best parents we can be by giving us the opportunity to consider where our priorities are and where they should be!

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Kathryn August 23rd, 2011

I love how just an ordinary day can be so wonderful.
Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary happened today, but it WAS a wonderful day, full of wonderful moments of gratitude, clarity and learning. I want to share my wonderfully ordinary day with you!

It started with the wonderful weather! It was truly wonderful to the outside in the sun!

This morning I took Joshua to his weekly swimming lesson, which is always a high-light! Joshua loves his swimming lessons and today he did particularly well. I love seeing his confidence grow, and seeing the look of achievement, satisfaction and joy when he realises he’s done a good job – it’s really priceless! I am often overwhelmed and almost surprised at how proud of him I can be when he learns or does something new.

After swimming Josh fell asleep which gave me the opportunity to do some housework. I am so grateful that I could have the doors and windows open to enjoy the weather while I worked! Housework it is not something that I ALWAYS enjoy doing but I am learning to feel a great sense of satisfaction and achievement in the work that I do. I feel good knowing that I am working, to the best of my ability, to look after my family and to make our home a happy, peaceful and clean place. I am learning to appreciate work in the home and value it.

I teach a few piano students on a Tuesday afternoon. I am grateful that Joshua spending time with his Grammy and Papi, which allows me to teach for a couple of hours, and that they are willing to give their time and energy to not only help me but also bless Joshua’s life as they help him learn and grow also.

I love watching my students learn, and seeing their accomplishments. It is wonderful to see how proud and happy they are when they realise they have done something good, and achieved what they set out to achieve.

This evening I will have a quiet couple of hours at home studying for an upcoming theory exam, feeling secure in the fact that I have a wonderful husband who is out serving in his calling, a beautiful boy who is sleeping peacefully just metres away, and that as I study I will be able to do well in my exam.

I am truly blessed to be able to enjoy many aspects of life. I can enjoy my life with my husband and son, I have been blessed to be able to continue to seek education and also to continue a small amount of work. I am blessed with the time and ability to serve others and hopefully bring a bit of comfort and joy into their lives.

Today was a wonderful and beautiful day for me. I hope that yours was too

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Kathryn August 17th, 2011

Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. – Anthony J. D’Angelo

Yesterday (and today) my thoughts have dwelt on 3 wonderful women. The first, I’ve known for about 5 years and in that time she has taught me a lot, and yet almost every day I continue to learn more from her and learn more about her. The second, I have known for probably around 7 or 8 years. She has in many ways become like a sister to me, she is a wonderful example to me and those around her. In watching her work in many areas of her life I have noticed that she puts her all into everything she does. The third, I have known for probably around 6 or 7 years, and our relationship is a great contrast to those I have mentioned above. In fact we rarely talk or see each other and yet I know her as a woman of immense understanding and wisdom, a woman who studies and learns all that she can.

I would describe each of these women as women of strength, humility and integrity. They are examples of love, service and sacrifice, and I believe each of them have helped shaped who I am today. The one thing that has linked them together in my mind at the moment is their passion and love of learning. They are continually seeking to increase in knowledge, wisdom and understanding. They are continually seeking to improve themselves and are not satisfied with less than their best.

I feel that far too often I accept less than my best… With too many things, I have noticed that as long as it meets a minimum standard I’m happy to move on to the next thing. I am learning through the example of these great women that I should not be satisfied merely with a ‘task complete’ I am learning that I should strive to complete and serve in all areas of my life, to the best of my ability. I remember one of these women saying one day that she did not necessarily want to be the best, but she wanted to be the best that SHE could be. So, from today I want to set my self a new standard, to be the best that I can be. It does almost seem daunting to realise that as I strive to do and be my best, that my best will continue to become better.

I have also come to know that the more I learn, the better I can become. Through learning, we can find and learn better ways, we realise a better standard. Whether the learning and knowledge that we gain is through formal education, the advice and counsel we received from others, from our own mistakes or through the Spirit it does not matter. What matters to me is that I take what I have learnt and use it to become the best I can be. I believe that the more we learn, the greater capacity we have to teach and help those around us. We raise stronger families and happier children when we have learnt through study and experience what makes us happy.

I hope that I can foster in my children a love of learning. I hope to teach them to give their all and their very best in every aspect of their life whether that be their schooling, church service, families or their construction of a toy train track! I want this for them because I believe that by learning this early in their lives they will be able to live their life to the fullest. I want my children to be able to touch the lives of others the way that these women have touched mine.

I leave you now with two more quotes….

- To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
Socrates

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Kathryn August 13th, 2011

Joshua turns 2 tomorrow, and it’s times like this that you start asking ourself questions like ‘Where has all the time gone!?’ or ‘When did he grow up!?’ Of course asking those questions never changes the fact that the time HAS gone, and that he HAS grown up, and will continue to grow every day from now until eternity! … I’m trying to embrace it rather than fight it, but we’ll see how that goes!

To celebrate his birthday we had a family party. I wanted it to be low key, but fun, and something he would recognise as being special and different. We decided to have a ‘Cars’ theme as it is, hands down, his favourite movie. He would watch it everyday, several times a day if I let him! To decorate we put up a few balloons along with a Cars poster and pictures of the characters, which he looked over carefully before deciding that it was in fact ‘Cars’. It wasn’t anything much really, but I knew that he would recognise it and it was something new for him.

Cars poster and characters.

Then we looked at the food! We just had basic party food including popcorn, biscuits and veges with dip and fruit. I also made some foccacia bread with pizza toppings and made some racing cars. I found the idea for the racing cars here and everyone thought they were great! Super easy, but as soon as Josh saw them he knew they were cars and of course, knew they were yummy!

Milky Way Racing Cars!

Earlier in the week it was Papi’s birthday and of course then, the presents were for someone else! So before the party started today he was giving the present to other people! Of course, when it came time to open presents it didn’t take long for Joshy to realise that they were for him, and that he liked opening them! He was spoilt with his presents, and he loves them. He has really started to outgrow a lot of his toys so it’s nice for him to have some more age appropriate toys, as well as the other presents he got which weren’t toys. We have a couple more presents to give him tomorrow as it will be actual birthday but he did very well for himself today!

Why is this card making noises!?

Opening presents on Mummy’s lap.

Joshua playing with his Mack truck

After the presents we had the cake! Joshua blew out the candles perfectly, even if it was at the beginning of the Happy birthday song! I decided to make a Lightning McQueen cake and although I was really nervous about it, I was really pleased with the end result. I’d never made a cake like this before and so it took a little while to do but as we went along we learnt a few things that will make it easier next time! It also helped that before I even started I had great advice from the ladies at the cake shop as well as the more experienced cake decorators in our family! Not to mention a very observant and helpful husband who assisted in the decorating as well.

Lightning McQueen birthday cake!

Joshua had such a wonderful time! He told us several times this afternoon that he was ‘happy’ and it was clear that he was really enjoying himself! With half of our extended family living interstate it was a relatively small gathering, which was kind of nice. Of course we missed all of our other family and wish they could have been here but the small numbers meant I could focus more on Joshua during the party and that it wasn’t too overwhelming and noisy for him! We spent the remainder of the evening playing with his new toys and despite being over half an hour past his bed time, he was very disappointed when he had to go to bed!

Eating dinner while playing with his new toys!

His birthday tomorrow will be a much quieter day, but we hope to enjoy spending some quality time with him. Part of the day will undoubtedly involve me spending some time wondering how I was blessed with such a precious gift. The unconditional love that exists between parents and their children is amazing. It’s also hard to comprehend how a small child can contain so much! He’s gentle, loving, energetic, inquisitive, playful, happy and determined…. and that’s just before he gets us out of bed in the morning! We love you Joshy!

Our precious Gem.

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