Sarah Bolton - The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of work.

Every morning when I wake up, I drag myself out of bed, knowing that as a mother I will be needed all day, but hoping I will find some moments here and there for myself. Today there were no such moments. I tried to tell myself to sit down and read or write or do whatever I was interested at the moment, but every time I tried to do that, I felt guilty for not being with my children. So, instead of getting much needed rest, or write on my book, or catch up with friends, I was found doing puzzles, constructing paper models, solving mazes, and helping with math. And as for my free time in the evening, I spent it doing research on how to teach my children better, and proofreading Gillian's books before she read them. I love being a mother, but as they grow older this job is getting harder and harder. I'm trying to balance teaching them academically and spiritually, as well as have them learn the value of work, obedience, and manners, without forgetting the importance of learning through entertainment and fun activities. Sometimes I don't achieve that balance. Today we did well with reading books and scriptures, and having a lot of fun (a reoccurring weakness of mine), but no time was spent by the children doing work. Something interesting happened in the end of the day that it should have been obvious to me because of many similar experiences, but we are human and forget. Therefore, we get the same experiences over and over till we learn or just to remind us. So, first let me recap our day. After dropping the older kids off to school, James and I read scriptures, and ten nice good books. Charlton woke up and I read to him as well. I was reading a book the night before that reminded me I need to read to him as well, and not treat him as a pretty doll to be kissed and fed only. He did want to eat the books I was reading, but that's my fault for not introducing books to him earlier on. Then, I timed James for 20 minutes of computer time, while Charlton ate some snack. After picking up Jefferson my day ceased to be calm. He is so demanding on my time, and wants to do many things non stop. He gets that from me, I know. First, he did homework, and then ate, and then the fun started. We assembled one of the Star War paper models to begin with. That took a while. He wanted to do another one, but I tricked him by tempting him with book reading. I read 5-6 picture books, and two chapter books. I had no more spit left, so we moved on to puzzles. James finished three on his own, while Jefferson and I were working on a 200 piece. We haven't finished it yet.

Jefferson lost patience and wanted to do some mazes. We had a good time with those. Fortunately, they weren't the very hard ones; I get frustrated with those. Well, Jefferson got bored with the easy ones, so he made another attempt on assembling another model. I could tell that's all he actually wanted to do all day. My hands-on guy! He can't help it. Both my father and Elijah's father loved (well, Elijah's father still does) to work with their minds and hands, creating things that are in their minds by using their skills that come easily with their hands. My brother and I didn't follow much on those footsteps. Elijah on the other hand longs to do things with his hands. Guess what he is reading now? "How to build max performance Chevy Rat Motors." I'm sure you noticed the word 'build' in the title. So, you see Jefferson gets it from all sides. Nevertheless, I told him one model was enough for a day. He stopped and came to help me cooking. We picked up Gillian from school, and then Elijah came home a bit earlier. He was going to try to attend our stake temple night. We had dinner, Elijah left for the temple, I gave a bath to banana and carrots smeared Charlton, and then we headed for the library. We had missed our library day yesterday, because I didn't feel like it. When we got there, the children went every each way, knowing exactly what they wanted. I attacked the hold area. We were there for over an hour. They wanted to read more and more, but I had to threaten them with my favorite: "no book reading tonight if we don't leave now." After putting Charlton down, the boys were all ready in pajamas waiting on the couch. We read for about 40 minutes, and then I told them to read on their own in their beds for another 20 minutes before I turned the lights out. And then it started. Jefferson wanted Gillian to PLAY with him some game board. Gillian point blank refused; she really wanted to finish the book she started after coming back from the library. Jefferson started crying and James joined in with upsetting scream accusing Gillian for being mean. I just stood there shocked. Where did the beautiful and happy day go? What had I done to deserve this? Why were they acting that way? I joined in the scream, and sent them all to bed turning the lights off immediately. When I yell at my children I get physically and emotionally sick. I couldn't calm down for a long time. I was upset at Jefferson for wanting to play more when he had spent his whole day playing; I was upset at James for throwing tantrums; I was upset at Gillian for not being considerate of her brothers who wait all day to play with her; and I was upset at myself for loosing control and letting anger take over. I hate it when my children see me that way. I know that a lot of my weaknesses and strengths come from observing my parents' behaviour. I don't want my children to express anger like I do. I try working on this weakness every day. I'm still working on it. After I was done being mad, I thought through the situation. And I prayed. I came to the conclusion that, as I mentioned earlier should have been obvious, my children need more of a balance in their lives. They need to learn the value of work as much as they are learning the value of reading and entertaining. I'm not done thinking and praying about this issue, but for now I'm going to have them do chores every day of the week, and not only on Fridays. They used to be very good at chores when I homeschooled. Every morning, after breakfast, they would finish their chores without complaining. They actually enjoyed it and would fight over certain ones, like they all love to mop. I was always on top of my laundry issue then, because they helped. I have pictures of Jefferson cutting vegetables for me, and James making sandwiches for lunches. As much as I hate to admit, work brings true enjoyment to someone's life. I had let this slip because I was so worried about my children being tired all day in school. I understand now I'm doing a disservice to them. Elijah will be planting a garden this weekend, so we'll have the children work on the garden every day as well. I know I'll come up with more ideas to help my children relearn the value of work, but I think the most important fact is changing my mentality. Life is hard work, and the earlier my children learn that the happier we'll all be.