Importance of Eye Contact

I've really been trying hard to change the little ways I interact with my children. With the whole realization that time is slipping through my fingers, I'm working towards a deeper relationship with them before it is too late. My days are busy, and while some moms may think, "I already do that." some of these things are not easy for this mom with 4 children.

My mornings are crazy stressful. Paul is usually out the door before the children wake up, or he's leaving as they are crawling out of bed. That leaves the morning routine in my hands. Encouraging 4 children to get ready, eat, and have everything together to go to school is easier said than done. In the past, mornings were crazy with a lot of arguing between everyone and frustration getting out the door. Now I'm working to make things calmer and encouraging a positive environment before they go. I want to make contact with each child in a positive and encouraging way before sending them off all day to school.

In my opinion, the afternoons are much harder than the mornings. Now that Ethan's participating in safety patrol, we are getting home around 3:35 and need to be out the door for swimming by 5:00. This is the most stressful part of my day as I need to help 3 children with homework while making after-school snacks, entertain a 3-year old, make dinner, and monitor a sick dog. It can be so crazy at times, and I rarely take a moment to really connect with my children while helping them with homework.

Tonight I was encouraging Elizabeth to write her one sentence even though she didn't want to, while explaining to Isaac why he needed to think critically before answering his question, shredding cheese for dinner, and trying to listen to Ethan explain his thinking about an article. I could hear in the background of my mind Ethan intently telling me why he thought a certain way about an article that he needed to discuss on his class site. Something in my mind told me to stop what I was doing and look into his eyes, and that is what I did. What happened next hit me like a ton of bricks. I stopped shredding the cheese and I asked Isaac and Elizabeth to hold on a minute. I then looked straight into Ethan's eyes and asked him to continue on. He talked for a full 10 minutes about why he thought the article was the most important one in the Time for Kids magazine, and explained why he thought another student was wrong. 10 precious minutes went by and I had completely focused on one child while he looked into my eyes and talked intently and passionately about homework. I had made a connection I hadn't made with him in a long time. I stopped and took in all he had to say, and then realized how much I was missing out on. By not stopping and taking more little moments to listen to my children really talk, I miss little opportunities to build a stronger relationship with them.

How many times have I hushed my children because I just wanted to finish dinner so we could move onto the next agenda item? How many other times has a child walked away sad that mommy was too busy to focus on them tell her something on their hearts and minds? At that moment, I felt like a failure, but I also saw that I could make changes to do better. Today,  I took a moment to refocus and let something go so I could make a connection with a child that needed me. While you may be thinking that you do that all of the time, or it is easy for you, it is not for me. In my humble opinion, having 4 children is very hard and demanding at times. No matter how many children you have, take a few moments each day to look deep into their eyes and listen to whatever is on their mind.

Sarah

Kids and Swimming

After spending another weekend at a swim meet, I thought I'd update everyone on the Otto children's achievements. As some of you know, Ethan began this swim journey the spring before he turned 8. We put Ethan, Isaac, and Elizabeth into swim lessons at SafeSplash Swim School in March in hopes that someone would learn to swim before summer. We have a free neighborhood pool that our HOA dues pay for and we wanted to enjoy it that year. Within a few months, Ethan had learned the freestyle and backstroke strokes, and we started talking about next steps. Ethan joined Aces that next fall. Isaac followed suit by swimming with the neighborhood team that next summer. We quickly became involved with the Smoky Hill Sharks and Ethan(8) and Isaac (6) had a great summer. That fall Isaac joined Aces and swam year-round. This past summer, Elizabeth decided she wanted to swim with the friends she made last summer. As a 5-year old we were not expecting much, but she quickly caught on and proved to be quite the backstroker like her big brother, Ethan. She too wanted to try for Aces, and we decided to let her go to rookie week expecting her to change her mind after the first practice. We were wrong again. Elizabeth has become a fierce competitor as a swimmer, and has shown more dedication to a sport than we ever expected from a 6 year-old. We are 100% committed now to being a swim family and our lives pretty much revolve around practice and meets. At this last meet, David started taking off his clothes because he expected that he was going to swim too. It might just be time to get him involved with lessons in the coming months.

Broken down by child:

Ethan - he's 10 years old and has the body of a swimmer. Ethan has such long arms and legs that he has this natural ability to swim long distances. We've learned that sprint swimming isn't his thing, and although he does well with the 50Y events, he excels at anything 100Y or longer. His coach thinks that Ethan will be even stronger with long course swimming. Ethan has qualified to swim at both Silver State Championships this year, as well as State Championships. He has been swimming 4-5 times a week since the beginning of the season to make those cut-offs.

Summer 2013 top times                                Aces 2013-14 Top Times

100IM   1:44:12Y                                          100 IM   1.29.15Y       200 IM   3.05.63Y
50 back  40.88Y                                             50 back  37.04Y         100 back   1.20.66Y
50 free  34.15Y                                              50 free 32.43Y              100 free  1.13.77Y
50 breast 1:05:57Y                                        50 breast   51.13Y       100 breast 1.45.15Y
100 free  1:22:34Y                                        200 free   2.45.55Y      500 free   6.59.61Y
50 fly   48.86Y                                               50 fly       42.40Y             100 fly  1.41.26


Isaac - he's 8 years old and has the determination of a swimmer. Isaac hasn't had a growth spurt in several years now, so he's built more stocky than Ethan. Rather than having long lean arms and legs, Isaac has very muscular arms and legs. The child is pure muscle. His goal at the beginning of the season was to pass the Jack's test and move up to swim with Ethan's group. He just turned 8, and has proven to the others that he belongs in that group. He moved up 2 months before his 8th birthday, and has had to work extremely hard to catch up. He tends to finish his set as they are beginning a new one so he rarely gets a break between sets. His favorite part of swimming is moving to the dive well where he gets to compete against the other 8 year olds.  Isaac will get his shot at a championship type of event when he swims at the Aces Mighty Mini meet. Each event is broken down by age and gender and there are medals for each event. It is the highlight of the season for children aged 8 and under.

Summer 2013 top times                             Aces 2013-14 Top Times               

25 back  24.10Y                                          25 back  22.39Y               50 back  50.48Y
25 fly  22.04Y                                             25 fly     22.00Y                50 fly     57.39Y
25 free 19.14Y                                            25 free 17.34Y                  50 breast  1:06:43Y
100IM  2:16:24Y                                        100IM  1:50:38Y              100 free 1:30:60Y
25 breast  30.79Y                                        25 breast  25.69Y
50 free  44.64Y                                            50 free   40.03Y


Elizabeth - she's 6 years old and a princess in the pool. My little girl loves to swim, but it must be on her terms. She has her routine down pat to get ready for swimming, and knows just what she needs to do during practice. She loves her coach and does her best to get his attention all of the time. She loves to swim, and I'm not sure which is her favorite: freestyle or backstroke, but she's proving to be strong in both strokes. This past weekend she swam her breaststroke, but she's still disqualifying it, and she does not like the butterfly at all right now. It is amazing to watch Elizabeth swim. She doesn't work as hard as the others in practice, but if you put her in the pool for a meet, a whole different swimmer comes out. She pushes herself so hard during her events and strives to touch the wall first. Elizabeth will get her shot at a championship type of event when she swims at the Aces Mighty Mini meet. She'll finally swim with just 5&6 year olds for a medal.

Summer 2013 top times                    Aces 2013-14 Top Times

25 free   31.11Y                                   25 back   27.34Y          50 free    59.68Y
25 back  28.17Y                                  25 back   26.06Y
25 breast  52.88Y                                25 breast  35.93Y

I'm going to keep this post updated so we can keep track of their top times for the age. They are excited to see the differences over time, and we are too.

A New Chapter

This past weekend I had a complete meltdown. I wasn't quite sure what was wrong with me, but my emotions were out of control, and I knew I needed a huge break from my family. The same thing happened a few times last month. Throughout December I should have been happy and looking forward to Christmas, but I was depressed and didn't realize it. Depression does run in my family, and I've dealt with it a few times, but never to the extent that I did in December. I'm a pretty strong person with some heavy duty walls built up inside of me. Some of the walls have been broken down through the years, but I'm not one to cry. If I'm crying, there is usually a very big reason why and my kids know something is very wrong. It just is not something I'm able to allow myself to do. With that said, I cried a lot in December.

This has been a new week for me, and I'm coming to realize that I've moved into a new chapter of my life. For the past 10 years, I've been a mother to young children. I've been married for 12 but those first 2 years Paul and I didn't live together at all due to military assignments that kept us separated and Paul's duty in Iraq. As soon as Paul came home, we had Ethan, and almost 2 months later we moved to California.

Our years in California were by far the hardest for our family. Paul and I didn't take the needed vacation time after he returned home from Iraq for a couple to reconnect because we wanted to save those days for when we moved. As soon as we moved, Paul immediately started working around the clock pretty much 7 days a week until he started school. Talk about a lot of stress on a young married couple with a baby. It was so hard for me not to have those precious moments to rekindle the marriage relationship with my husband when he was working so very hard for our family. We quickly moved to both of us going to school full-time and working part-time so we could make ends meet. We chose to keep Ethan out of daycare so we juggled our schedules but rarely saw each other. We managed to have another child during that time, and I chose to put my education on hold so Paul could finish his degree. The day after he graduated from CSU with his bachelors we moved to Colorado.

Moving to Colorado and making the transition to family life was tough. We had an amazing church family and some great mentors to help us navigate the bumps along the way. We had Elizabeth and then I immediatly went back to school to finish up my bachelors degree in Accounting. Fast forward a few years and David came and Paul jumping into is focusing on his Masters Degree a month later. Juggling 4 children while working full-time at a very stressful job that included on-call (meaning pretty much 24/7 duty) and working on a masters degree was crazy for us. We both sacrificed to make it happen and Paul graduated in June.

We've had a crazy 12 years of marriage between us. I've been a mother for over 10 years now and I'm still struggling to figure things out. Some days I wonder how my kids turned out the way they did with such a crazy mother. There are days I feel like I've completely failed them. I love my 4 children with all of my heart, and if you add my 2 dogs in the mix, I have 6 children that need me.

Back to December.....December was a hard month, but I didn't take time to really think about why I was struggling so much. Today, in the car to Costco, I thought a lot about my emotions and the struggles I've had. I realized that I wasn't overwhelmed by my job, but overwhelmed by the emotions to a chapter of my life ending. See, for the last 10 years I've had someone at home with me at all times. Monday started a new chapter in my life because David started preschool. 4 days a week, David is gone for 2.5 hours. I wouldn't have given him up so easily because David and I have so much fun together, but he really needs the speech help. He is so far behind his peers with speech that it wasn't fair for me to hold him back. With that said, my heart has been broken all week while he has been away. While I desperately need some "me" time, I miss my little guy so much while he is gone and I don't know what to do with that time I have each day. I've also been thinking a lot about Ethan. This is my last year with Ethan in elementary school. He already shows me he doesn't need me anymore because he is so grown up. My first-born has become so responsible and independent that I miss him wanting my help all of the time. Elizabeth started Kindergarten this year, but she begged to go all-day. We've made sacrifices to pay for full-day Kindergarten because she loves school so very much. I miss her and our time together now that she is gone all day as well. Isaac has always been my independent child. He is getting better at spending time with mom, but he's always wanted to do things alone. We have our song though....he's my sunshine my only sunshine and he knows that song is his alone. I'm realizing that my children are growing up and I'm moving into a new chapter of my life but I'm not doing it as gracefully as I would like.

I'm ready for this new chapter to begin, but part me of still need to let go and move forward. I'm so excited for the new things I'll be doing, but deep down I'm missing my little guy so much. Next week I'll be joining a Bible study and for the first time in 10 years, I won't have to worry about a child. With David loving preschool so much, I'm hoping he'll finally go into Sunday School without me. I can do things I haven't been able to do for 10 years, and I'm not sure where I want to start yet. Right now I'm digging into a different Bible study which has been so great for me, but I'm ready to put the effort into friendships that I've neglected. I'm ready to put myself first for awhile and that is hard for a me to do. It is time to let go and let God bring me into a whole new stage of life with more trials and more refining....I'm looking forward to the woman I'll be in the coming years.

Thanks for taking the time to read my very long post. Hopefully I'll use some of my new found freedom to write more, but just not this much.

Blessings,
Sarah