Where I come from...

I grew up in a small town, never flew on an airplane until I was 19.  I think from an early age, I knew that the small town life wasn’t really where I would set my anchor and live.  My parents probably saw it too, they helped me expand my horizons beyond our little town.    I was on statewide boards for our church youth group and met friends from all over the state. 

It's hard to believe that the person I am today, who has flown 320k miles, travelled all of our Europe:  London, Nice, Monaco, Brussels, Finland, who's lived in London, England, Florida, California, lots of places in MN, grew up in that small town with less than 700 people in our town and a graduating class of 19.

Now that I have my own family, I realize that there are some great things to being from a small town, probably the same things that I disliked when I was young. 

·         Everyone knows your business, but that taught me accountability.

·         In order to field sports teams, band, clubs, choir, almost everyone has to participate.  However, I did learn that I wasn’t very sporty early on. But it taught me how to multi-task.

·         Money was tight, but it taught me to importance of working and managing a budget.

·         We were 30 miles from a larger town, but it taught me the importance of planning ahead and creating lists (thanks mom, this will help with my Black Friday planning).

·         Almost everyone went to church, it gave me a strong spiritual back ground and something I knew to some extent I wanted to pass on to my kids.

·         All teenagers had a job, I worked 40-60 hours a week (during the summers) for a great family with 6 kids, that even though I don’t see hardly at all anymore, I get to keep up with their lives via Facebook and think about them more often than they would ever know- and taught me such a strong work ethic.

·         Almost all of the women I knew worked- my mom, my boss (with the 6 kids), my best friend’s mom…  They taught me how to juggle life and to make sure I valued the right things in life.  That I made sure I picked a job and a career that would allow me to balance all of it out.

·         A solid education- while we didn’t get offered as many perks as my kids may get in a larger town (kindergarten computer and biology labs), I received a solid education in the basics that have helped me get to where I am in my life.

·         Great friends- while there are only a few that I still keep in real life contact, there are some I still follow on Facebook and truly care about their lives and their achievements and their kids achievements.  And for those that I still keep in contact with, I still consider them some of my best friends and they are the first people I want to tell about my news, good and bad.

So to all my ‘small town’ family, I think I appreciate you much more than I did 20 years ago, and you provide such a great and welcoming place to visit, and a place for my kids to create such great memories during their summer visits.  Thank you!

The Middle Child

I grew up as a youngest child, with an older brother.  My husband was the oldest of 4.  Neither one of us were middle children and to be honest, if I really stop and think about it, I’m not sure I know many kids that are the middle child, with an older sister and a younger brother.  (other than my mom!)

Now that O keeps growing up and passing her major milestones, I sometimes stop and watch her and try to understand what it feels like to be a middle child- she’s usually not the first to do anything she’s not the last to do anything.  She’s not big enough to do some of the things A gets to do, but she can’t act like a baby like her little brother either.  She has her mom, dad and her big sister bossing her around all of the time and telling her what she should and shouldn’t do.

I do think the one positive that little miss O has going for her is her personality is unmatchable, she calls the shots like she sees them, and she knows to ask for what she wants.  She has a great relationship with her daddy and they are like two peas in a pod.  She’s a great swimmer, she’s great at riding her bike, she’s athletic, and above all, as she says it, she’s cute.

I know she’ll go far, and I also know that I need to take the time to make sure she doesn’t look back and think, being the middle child just wasn’t fair.  She needs to have the same opportunities to try things for the first time.  I think I’ll add that to my project plan and make sure that what she needs to succeed doesn’t get lost in our crazy shuffle.  And we’ll take time to make sure her milestones don’t get passed over because she has her quiet way of just being ready to do them.

We love you O.

Bible Stories

C and O were baptized this summer while we were back visiting MN.  O received a children’s bible as a gift.  I thought it would be a great idea for us to finally start going to Sunday school and reading a bible story each night before bed.  A seems to be paying fairly good attention to the stories each night, but I wasn’t sure what O was learning until a night two weeks ago when A was sick and already asleep.  O and I read the story together, and said our prayer together and I told her we were all done.  She looks at me and says, “Ok mommy, I’ll read one to you”.  O:  “God saved the people from the mean people in the castle.  Then the people crossed the sea.  Then they all lived happily ever after”.  Sounds about right.

Good Choices

It has been a really long few weeks for the Van Sloun’s.  We’ve had strep throat, hives, new teeth breaking through, a fever, possible bladder infection, 3 trips to the pediatrician, one trip to the dentist, Halloween and crazy weeks at work and our college courses.  

Last night when I went to pick up my little posse, I was greeted with C in the office getting his temp taken- great, I thought, that means he’s booted tomorrow- what on earth am I going to do?  We’ll figure it out, I thought, we always do.  Then I walked in with a semi-grumpy and just feeling lousy 9 mos old (yippee- he just turned 9 mos, where did the time go?)-  I digress, I was greeted with 2 incident reports for A and O, awesome.  Turns out O had bit A during naptime.  We pack up our stuff, and I’m thinking about how to handle all of this.

We get in the car and are headed home- I look back at O (who’s 3) and asked why she bit her sister.  She gives me the half smirk I’ve seen in my photos from about her age and it makes me repress a giggle.  She’s says “Mommy, I just don’t know.”  Fair enough.  I truly think some days I would like to bite a few coworkers, and I guess at some stage (probably long after I was three), I learned that wasn’t appropriate.

Halfway home, my phone rings and it is one of A’s friend’s mom’s.  She asked if I got the report that A and her little buddies decided not to do their sports class yesterday (that we pay for) and instead sit in the sandbox.  I sighed, said I wasn’t aware (we get a stack of about 25 sheets of ‘art’ every day), but that we would talk about it and it we agreed it wasn’t their choice to make (at $12 a class…). 

We make it home, I take a deep breath, head inside and tackle it head on. 

O- no more biting or I’m taking a piece of candy each time from your bucket- “Ok mommy, I love you.  But sometimes my sister pushes my buttons.” (Sucker, she’s REALLY good at this for only being 3). 

A- you need to make good choices about participating in sports class, if you don’t want to do it anymore, fine, but we aren’t paying for you to hang in the sandbox-  “Ok”

C- and C proceeds to throw up all over me.

But thinking back on last night, I still smile a bit and realize that they we all have choices and that’s part of the fun in being a parent, sorting through those choices together.  Love them to pieces and I know every day that that is the only choice I have to make.