A Day in the Life...

 

Hello!  My name is Jeanette Paradis and I am happy to welcome you to my blog!  I am currently a homeschooling mom who runs a home business and also leads women's ministry at my church.  Life is BUSY.  Ideally, I would have made it to the grocery store yesterday.  But that just didn't quite fit within our Tuesday.  Now it is Wednesday and my husband actually had a day off today.  He typically works Monday - Friday at a podiatry clinic near our home where he is involved with orthotics and specialty foot care needs.  So, a husband home for lunch = me trying to have something decent to put together for everyone!  I will admit that we ate lunch at 2:30 today!  Between a late breakfast, snacks, me out for two hours at a meeting and then starting our school day much later than usual... this is just how the day wound up taking place.  Oh well!  Life as a mom requires plenty of flexibility!

So, back to putting together something quick, delicious and clean??

Thankfully I did have two leftover chicken breasts from when I had cooked chicken last night.  And some feta cheese.  I do love feta!  The feta totally brought this one all together.  And if it were not for a couple of limes, I would have been sunk!  Other than that, this combo just involved some cucumbers, tomatoes and a sprinkle of tortilla chips from the bottom of that bag!  Remember the whole needing-to-get-groceries thing??  But honestly, this was really quite good.  :)  I will make it again, "on purpose" next time!  I am sharing this here to illustrate that clean eating does not have to be complicated.  It really is all about keeping things simple.  Eat whole foods.  Skip many of the "extras".  The more that you move away from so many of the artificial foods, "real foods" are going to begin to actually taste quite good on their own!

Life has felt a bit up in the air lately.  We are thinking hard and praying about decisions in regards to schooling for the kids for next year.  We are looking into a local Montessori Charter School and have visited there and submitted our pre-enrollment forms.  Next Wednesday evening there will be a lotto drawing to see which kids are offered the openings in each of the classrooms.  I have enjoyed homeschooling.  It is A LOT to juggle each day.  No doubt about that.  We have 53 school days remaining for this school year and so my focus is very much in the here and now as we also keep an eye towards the future.  In the meantime, we are praying for wisdom and clear direction on which path to take when the time comes!  Earlier this morning I posted the following image on my FB page.  Trust is a choice and it is one that I have to make daily!  

 
We were able to go together as a family to tackle three stops this afternoon.  Wegmans, Sam's Club and Petsmart.  The parking lots are all dry and that is soooooo nice after our long winter here in Erie, PA.  Yesterday I had been trimming up a Club Pack of chicken from Wegmans.  I cooked some for dinner last night and then put the rest into a "marinade" unlike anything that I have ever used before!  It was simply some of the Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Wing sauce.  This type of flavoring is a favorite for my husband.  And I like it as well!  The kids do not mind a bit of extra flavor, so that is helpful!

I pulled the chicken out of the marinade and browned it up in the skillet.  It is my own weird quirk that chicken must be browned first in order for me to handle it!  After browning, the chicken went to the oven to finish.  The other items which went onto our plates were simply some of the Wegmans Organic Baby Spinach which comes in the clam-shell container.  I just stand there in the store and go through a bunch of them to make sure that I am getting a spinach container with the least amount of moisture/condensation. I can not stand it to be anything but dry!  The green beans are just the "cleaned and cut" french green beans which are ready to go.  I happen to really enjoy my veggies raw and my family has become accustomed to this approach.  Easy enough!!  And the final item here is a special treat.  I try to remember to get a little something extra special on grocery day.  The kids look forward to this little tradition. Garlic knots from the bakery!  I did have two bites of one and then added it to my husband's plate.  That was just the right taste for me.  Tips on the chicken --- for the kids, I pull out the thickest chicken breast and slice that one for them.  It is less spicy, as it involves less exterior which is the most flavorful.  For my husband, I included an extra drizzle of wing sauce on his piece as I was placing everything in the oven.  This helps in making the same meal work well for everyone! 

As I was making my way through today's somewhat unusual schedule, I found myself so very thankful for one thing in particular.  My home business!  For one thing, I love the flexibility.  Plus I am thankful to be in a career where I get to truly help others every single day!  It is nice to go to the grocery story and not feel as though we are suffocating under the tightness of the budget.  Next week my sister and I will be hosting an information group which will be open to those who would like to learn more about coaching.  Let me know if this describes you!  

 

A First with My Daughter...

Last night I was cooking dinner and something happened for the first time...  I know that this is a feeling that I will remember for the rest of my life.  Friends with older kids have told me about this but I had not yet experienced it myself.  

My husband was doing some things on the computer which is set up at a desk in our dining room.  Our 5 year old son was circling the living room, dining room and kitchen loop while making tracks with a variety of trains.  I thought to myself, "Where is Kylee"?  She recently had her 8th birthday and has been spending more time upstairs in her bedroom.  She plays with her Barbies.  She sits at her desk and writes/draws in her diary.  She listens to music.  She works with her Lego Friends creations. I took a look into the dining room last night and my heart was so happy to see her sitting at the table.  She was working on some art project and was humming to herself.  I realized that this was the "first" time that I had felt a bit sad thinking of her off enjoying something alone in her room while feeling a bit wistful that she was not down here with the rest of us.  It hit me that this would likely become an all-too-familiar feeling over the years to come.  Aaaaaahhh!  Thinking and writing about this now makes me teary!  A moment later I heard her asking my husband to take a look at something that she had drawn.  They are both the artists in this family!  He instantly stopped what he was doing and turned around to be fully present in the conversation with her and my heart was full.  This is one area in which he does so much better than me. Granted, I am with the kids all day every day as we are a homeschooling family.  Balance is important and at times I am in the zone while running my coaching business from here at home.  But the combination of these moments last night will serve as a reminder for me to really hit "pause" on some of my endeavors in order to be fully present with the kids.  And my husband!

Nearly two years ago, I read a FB status that JUMPED off of the page at me and was a deciding factor in some decisions that we were making.  The statement simply said, "What you plant is what grows".  What are we planting into the lives of our kids?  There are a million things to do each week and sometimes the thought of proactively "doing another thing" can feel like too much.  It has been my prayer that in my everyday life, I am living in such a way that what I am naturally communicating to my kids is planting good seed and is cultivating what is at work within them. 

Yesterday morning I opened up my BibleGateway app to the verse of the day.  It was found in Galatians 6 and as I read surrounding verses in that chapter, some questions that I have been asking myself and the Lord were swiftly confirmed to me...

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.  Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.  So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

 

Our New Friday + Not Doing It All

I wear a lot of hats.  But the biggest one is that of being a mom.  My children are ages 5 and 7 and are as different from one another as I could imagine!  Our daughter came along first and then our son.  Things have been tricky lately.  Okay, most of motherhood can be tricky at times!  Nothing will keep you praying for wisdom or feeling so humbled as navigating your days as a mom.  Just this morning we had yet another scene where I was all too aware of my need for wisdom while also experiencing keen disappointment in the three of us.  I thought that I had properly prepped the kids for something but it just did not go as planned.  Kylee became shy in the situation which translated as "snottiness".  Sometimes she acts that way and has way too much attitude.  Nathan went against the instructions to "not lay down or tug at people.  Just stand still and be pleasant".  Hmm... I am mostly over it now but still.  What to do?  Motherhood.    

Back to the wearing of hats... in addition to the whole mom thing and being a homeschooling mom of a kindergartner and a 2nd grader, I have my own business as a health coach, I lead women's ministry at our church and as of this school year, I began tutoring for our Classical Conversations homeschooling campus.  This is our first year with CC and that group meets on Fridays. I have been leading my son's classroom there. 

Something unexpected was added to our schedule in late August/early September.  We discovered how our daughter is in need of some intense vision therapy to help with her tracking skills.  It is imperative that we work hard with this and get on top of the challenge so that she can get up to "average" ability in order to really progress with her grade-level academics, especially as this relates closely to reading beyond two lines on a page.  This situation has added an hour a day of at-home therapy, five days per week.  We also have extra appointments with her OT and our vision specialist.  This addition to the schedule has meant that there is a time each day where I need to keep our son at arm's length in order to focus with her on her therapy. Then I spend extra time with him afterward in an attempt to keep the emotional balance around here.  It has been hard!  At times I have wondered what I was thinking, that I was going to balance the wearing of all these varied hats?  Should I have said "no" to something at the outset?  Then I remember that the vision therapy came into the mix a bit later, after I had assumed these other responsibilities.  Between the extra time with both of the kids, this winds up adding 90 minutes or so to our days.  Ouch.  This has really cut back on the amount of time that I have to make daytime phone calls in relation to my roles of leading my coaching team, working with my own customers and also leading the women's ministry at church.  Instead, I wind up with a fairly substantial to-do list most evenings and this cuts down on the quality time that I invest with my husband.  You can get by with doing that for a fixed season, but not long term.

Our family budget relies on my income.  So I do need to work and am enjoying my coaching business of helping others to make healthy changes. I had contracted to tutor at CC for this school year.  Much to my surprise, this became a very difficult area in my life.  Nathan really, really struggled with having me teach him within a group.  We tried it for 6 weeks with all sorts of adjustments and attempted creativity.  He has been doing so well working one-on-one at home and I have loved seeing the spark of understanding and his academic growth.  It is exciting!  He does fine in classroom settings with other people.  But put the two of us together in an academic classroom, with me teaching him amongst a group of other kids... YIKES!  Picture a scene that is just toxic for everyone involved.  He has literally become the most angst-ridden, intense, angry, shut-down, difficult little boy in ways that I had never seen as being in him prior to all of this.  So this has been heart-wrenching, mortifying, frustrating and perplexing to me as a mom.  After much thought, prayer and discussion, we made the decision for the two of us to withdraw from CC.  Our daughter Kylee is having a wonderful experience and she will continue.  Nathan and I will spend some quality one-on-one time on our Friday mornings.  I think that this is going to be better for everyone involved.  Today was the first of our "new Fridays".  

This whole thing has been quite a journey.  Talk about a variety of emotions!  Sometimes it is so hard to know which way to take?  Is it time to push harder and really power through something?  Or is it time to step back, simplify and give it all some time?  I have to admit that it is helpful for my household for me to free up a few hours a week that I had been spending on prep work as a new tutor.  This also frees up a ton of space in my own head.  Phew!  There have been a few too many tabs open there!  Time for a big exhale on that front.  I am praying that we will find the keys to get to the heart of the matter with our son.  I know that it is not just about him acting like a "good boy", although this sure would simplify things as a mom!  I want him to really grow into who God has created him to be.  Even if this is not the cookie cutter personality that would perhaps be a bit more convenient for all of us?  :)  He is busy!  And is not a "traditional" learner.  He is tender and a hurricane all at once.  He makes me laugh and also makes me want to disappear from public view with some of his antics.  I realize that a lot of this goes hand-in-hand with being the mom of a little boy!   

I have also had to work through the emotions of feeling like a "failure" for one of the first times in my life.  This is just not my usual! I fall more in the camp of optimistic over-achievers.  But in this case, I felt as though I was failing to get Nathan on-board, pleasant and participating within the class.  He was just plain not being a good listener in addition to many other things that came into play.  We are really, really focusing on some things with him right now.  Plus I also felt as though I had "failed" professionally as a tutor.  I was not on top of doing the best by the rest of the class while trying to split my attention between them and my own child.  Our CC director and some close friends who have walked with me through this have been a big encouragement to me.  I probably would have continued trying to "do it all" if this area had not become so problematic that it was obvious that a change was needed.  So, here we are with a change.  

One of the biggest recent life lessons that I have learned came at a moment when Nathan was saying, "Mom!  Look!  LOOOOKKKK!  You have to look!  Look now!"  Aaaaahhhh! (internally from me!)  We hear this so often throughout our days.  The whole "look!" thing.  Sometimes I literally have my hands into something (raw chicken?) where I can not stop and go look.  Other times I am mentally engaged in something and just want to finish it.  And I am not saying that we have to constantly cater to our kids with all of their requests.  But on this one day, Nathan blurted out something that was THE DEFINING MOMENT for me.  "Mom!  I ask you to look and you never look.  And then I am sad.  Then I become angry.  It is because you never look."  As he said this, his voice and body language increased in intensity to where he went sprinting out of the room, blinded by his tears.  I was cut to the quick.  It was not true that I "never look".  I do look.  Maybe 1/3 of the time??  Since that day, I am working hard to change that moment by moment.  We all need to just take it down a few levels around here.  I want everyone in our home to feel seen, appreciated and loved.  The kids have their own love languages.  My daughter is all about the gifts and acts of service.  We have come to see how much my son values quality time and physical touch.  It is time to get back to square one as a family and really invest in one another.

I am not sure what this next chapter will bring, but I am looking forward to some Friday morning adventures with my 5 year old son.  Today we went to the Zoo and moved at his pace and spent however much (or little!) time he was interested in exploring with each of the animals.  Wilbur the pig and the alpaca/llama corral were with him today!  I will also be praying for wisdom and endurance as right now I am the mom who hears "You have your hands full" more often than I would think should be necessary with him at this age?  I guess that it is pretty obvious that my hands are literally full with a noisy, flailing 5 year old and this is the way that others think to comment on the scene which we sometimes create?  We have let things slip for too long and now it is just time to really focus from this point forward.  This means that we are not always able to go with the flow.  We have to stop and have some teachable moments and hope to get everyone here back on track!