We get so spoiled, to complain at a little rain?

Rain? on the last day of August? Are you kidding me? It has been blistering heat most of August. Now the whole day was overcast rainy and cool. September is a welcome sight. I do say that every time it gets a little cool. Thank God for A/C, central A/C especially in this kind of heat. God is sooooo good to have inspired people to create such a thing. It would be awefully breathtaking without it down here.
The cows and bunnies and horses are dancing when its raining down here. Every other day they are sprawled out, drinking fruit-cocktail(it looks like) and acting like they are on vacation. Today they had a hulahoop contest, in my imagination. They did look like they were having fun. Unfortunately, I don't have time to write all of the stories about their fun that I get to see, just every once in a while I get to transfer my notebook to my farmgirl blog.
In my mind I am going to...Carolina? Wow! I am here already!

I can SEE!

Shiny new glasses! We are trying to make sure that they last through the school year. Please be careful, Ethan. He says everything looks bigger. He looks like such a little Walker man with the new rectangular glasses. He is very happy about it. First day of homework time.
My highschool boy has French and he doesn't do too well at English. That was the argument of the day.
I think, that he may do better in French, since he is obviously not an English major. :) His father thinks that we should try to get him a tutor. Both are needed. We will see. We are happy with the obvious attempt at good work. We are leaving the outcome to God. Not, without a fight, first. Every first day of school, we are arguing about how much interaction the children need from parents. Ben says, the children need alot of push and parental interaction. I say, they need a prod and a little encouragement and help, when asked for. I said, Ben, your parents didn't do a thing to help the children and most of the Walkers graduated from college. Would you leave my children alone?
Then, we kiss and make up!
That's the fun part, we will never agree with eachother on that part and that is the balance.

The very last day of summer for us...

is frought with the usual last minute preparations. Everybody has socks and undies. Everybody woke on time, of course. We will see what becomes of our new school year resolutions as the time goes by. We have an army growing and learning in this house. How did they ever get so big?

They saved the best for last

I am just in love with the grammar school teachers and my Wally and Beaver guys (Ethan and Ezra). They have absolutely NO inhibitions. I felt like I was carrying Reverend Walker and Ben with me into the open house yesterday. They talk and talk and...well, you know. It is the most delightful thing to see boys like Tom and Huck letting their imaginations and thinking caps go in a scholastic setting. Grandma Ruth used to say, How do you stand it, Jayne? They all look like baby Ben and they all look like your mother in law? I was so grateful that she could see that in my children. They are the spitting image of all of the Walkers. I can't tell if I am their mother. LOL.
Ezras teacher is Ms Beasley. Ethan was correcting her spelling. Where is the apostrophe there? "Would you mind your business?" I didn't say. "What are you writing a book?" It is clear that they are from the seen and heard generation. Then on to Ms. Henry's class. That is Ethan's Homeroom teacher. She is a pretty young lady. They all look like kindergarteners to me. He fell flat in love and told her his whole life story, including the bookshelf falling on him and the broken arm. Is nothing sacred, Ethan? I forgot he is a (totally transparent)Walker. Then we went to the Social Studies class where he and Mr. Johnson went into a long discussion about the American flag development. That is where he sounded like my father-in-law.
I always said to myself, this father-in-law of mine talks like he was friends with Abe Lincoln. Well here was my Ethan talking about American History as though he had been friends with Betsy Ross. I love watching them growing into men. It was past my imagination to have any sons at one time and now I am the proud momma of the largest investment of Walker men in the entire family. I am grateful to have gone to the cabbage patch that many times, in spite of myself.




God give me grace with these wonderful children and adult children that God is blessing me to live to see grow up.

Tuesday is the first day of school AHHHHH!

The temperatures haven't stayed cool, but it always surprises me that the crickets start chirping here, right before school. It seems much too hot for them to be sitting on the porch with us. The sky is blazing with beauty. The house is hopping with the yelps and yowls of children sucking the last bit of fun out of the summer. We are struggling to keep our sanity and it would be difficult, if there were not the promise of next week. A week where somebody else will be watching my children for me in the daytime. God bless each and everyone of those teachers who are dedicating their lives to the instruction of my children. I am a very grateful mommy.

Freshman Open House!

I carried my eldest son to the open house. 15! He is a man now! He is starting Highschool and I took him.
We are blessed with a really great community and an absolutely brand new school building; beautiful and new.
I didn't get the tennis coaches job that I tried for. I am not beautiful enough. :) Not really, this school is going for the gold and I couldn't have gone to school with my big boy everyday.
We are already too close.
He has World History and English, Art(of course) and French. We are in for it trying to wrestle language skills into this young Walker boy. I have my hands full. I love it though. Last year, we had to charrette every time he had a writing assignment. God give me grace. He's a good boy. They all try, but English is their second language?:) That is what I wonder and I tell them so!
Today is Middle School open House!

She is home!

We waited and waited and the farm girl is home now.
She is a carpentress now! She learned real putting together of a house out there. She has so many stories that I have to lend her my mp3 to tell me about it. We might spend alot of time one day, just talking about the bus trip. God is good and He sent her back home to me! Her dog is especially grateful!

And Now.......

The Glasses!

Saturday! Saturday!

My big woman(Elyse) called from Grand Rapids and is on the bus, on the way home. She had a great time. She met new friends, probably built a house and participated in a wedding and went to the beach there. I didn't even know that they had a beach in Grand Rapids. Now, she is on the bus and calling to let me know. 24 hours on a bus? I don't really find that fun, but she does. I am glad that she is doing what she loves.
I can't believe that she is the spitting image of her mother. Running off to some spiritual adventure to find God. God is near to all who call upon Him in truth. Love affairs with Him are the precursor to a Great Adventure. We don't have much, in terms of stuff, but we know God. He knows us, I mean. That is her interest and I tease her, as though I don't know what she is going through. We are the children and Grandchildren of the NUN. Lo and behold we are walking this far by faith. It is a goodly heritage and God is acting as the Shepherd and leading us in the "way everlasting". I am blessed to see it passing to the next generation.
I can't wait for her to get off the bus tomorrow. We are going to have corned beef and cabbage to celebrate the girl who runs off to visit friends in a far away place for the glory of God. :)

Next week, I changed my schedule

to an earlier time. I don't know how I will be adjusting. I woke earlier this morning to try to get myself oriented. If you don't hear from me for a while, that is why. I do doubt that I will stop writing. It is a real "catharsis"(a mommy word)outlet, for me.
Now, is a great time to change, before the rush of the new year. But, I am sure that when Elyse comes home on Sunday, I will be tempted to do an all nighter to hear all about the cornfields of Iowa. I have never been there, except through reading about it with John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. :).
My eyes are getting more adjusted and my knee is better from the bad kick that took me out for most of the summer. We were celebrating Enoch's birthday and Evvy said mommy, how do you do that kick and I did 5 backward kicks in a row, don't laugh. The next day I couldn't put pressure on that knee. I am still taking it slow on the steps. Have only been out to the courts a couple of times with a brace and then couldn't walk after that. I am still coddling it. I cannot afford to lose my knees like this. I am grateful for the recent relief, I have felt. I thought it would never heal.

Glasses are ordered and gotten for my sight-deficient fellows. Now, there are 5 with glasses and 3 without. What a ratio!
At work, I am able to congeal my thoughts and get away from the ratrace and confusion of so many needs. I feel refreshed, somewhat, when I get home and can better enter into the 5 year old and 10 yr old and 14,15, 19, 22 year old varied conversations, not to mention, you know who. Work seems to put the differing relationships in perspective for me. I have been looking at it as wearing different hats and I can say, what am I doing right now? I am being this persons mother, I owe a listening ear and a sympathetic heart. I am being a wife and or a friend, I owe a loving commitment and feeling of loyalty to this or that conversation. It seems to help, when I think about it that way and I don't get overwhelmed as much. There is always going to be an unsatisfied customer in my house as there always is at work. I don't have to be everybody's everything, just their mom and wife, or visa-versa.

It is beautiful there and I have been trying to write to my Ezra, giving him some little stories about the grounds and how I think about him, even when I can't be with him. He reads like a whip so I leave him stuff on the blogs for him to read and hopefully get to know me. I am sympathetic to the lessened time that the baby of the family has with mom, being married to one of the younger ones of the family and I hope to leave him something that will help him to know that I thought about the fact that I didn't want to jip him by having him at an older age. I know that sounds stupid to you, but Ben misses his mom and dad and it does seem unfair that the older children got so much more time with them. It does all equal out at the end, I know.
We see how the older grandchildren, in the W. family have memories of my mother-in-law and mine don't. They have a few, but...Well, anyway Ezra reads so well and is always going on the computer for the PBS and other things. My goal is to work on an interactive website and put some of my games and stories on their. I am starting with the blog and he reads it, when I remind him. I am patterning it somewhat after AA Milne and a book when we were 6. I started when Ethan and Christina were 6 and the theme is outdated for them, so now Ez will be 6 in Sept. and I am hoping to finish it sometime this year. Time flies when you are having fun. It is just a tool to give him some exposure to me, even though sometimes my nerves are fried and I can't give him the attention that I would wish to. I am trying and I hope that he can see that, one day.

Jackie is going to say, You are thinking too much again Jayne. Okay, I am, but, what else is a mother to do?

Rain, rain, rain...Welcomed change.

It is nice to cool down the overheated temps. And remind us that school is in 2 weeks for us. We must get back to some semblance of a schedule around here. Getting in the bed and waking up on time~~~~? We have had a really nice summer and many blessings. The children are looking forward to school and I am hoping to change my schedule, so that I can be part of the homework and bedtime routine more this year than at other years. I have been working 11:30 - 8 pm and I have missed the evening routine for participating in the morning time with them. Ben will be working evenings now, so I hope that my job will be able to accommodate my need for this change. We will see today. It really doesn't worry me, we will work it out and oil the machinery that is our family and with 2 women and 2 elderly people Maybe not elderly, but Ben and I are elderly to the children:)(he's 50 now) Hooray!, we can work it out, whichever way.
What an interesting system of weather patterns brings in the back to school season. The weather seems to always say "We better start reminding the Walkers to get ready for back to school, they are having entirely too much fun with one-another, staying up till all hours and such." It looks like one of the angels, just walked pulling a blanket of clouds to cool things down.:) It is foggy and cooler today and looks like a day in NY in Mid September instead of a NC August day. We needed a day like this to get ready, it was just too hot last week.:) I am not complaining I love it!
We will get batteries, to take pictures.

Well,(hands on hips!) I think Sarah Palin is pretty.

And I thought it was pretty brave of her to take on politics and parenting at this point in the battle. Not an easy task for anyone. I saw on the oldest daughter's face the very first moment that there was going to be some kind of conflict with this juggling of roles. I have had that struggle many, many times. Now that she is a grandmother, and I am not, I applaud her taking the humble route, but I loved her glasses. Enough of her...
My eyes are adjusting to the glasses and it is very strange for me, who read for a living. I read all day, at work and I read all night at home. My eyes are a major part of me. I had no idea that they had deteriorated so. Now I feel a little dizzy with the change in the lens from distance to reading. I have to use my neck to look down at the steps and such. It makes me feel old. :(
I am just complaining, because my children don't listen any more when I do. How do you stand all those masculine voices in the house? "Calm down mom." I jump. They are all so strong voiced and dominating? I don't know about your boys, but, my Enoch is far more apt to take liberties at my word than the girls are? I can't send him to the store for Scott tissue. He always buys the store brand. What is that about? I want to beat him for that, not really. He is a dear, but I can't get him to see that there is more to what I am asking him to do than interpreting everything that I say. He is always trying to find some, "better" way to do what we do and say what I say. It is his masculinity coming out and he will be starting High School in a week or so. I hope that he will make some other friends and stop being so focused on fixing his mom!
Ev is just a barrel of laughs. He and she make a super team together, but this year they will be separated: she, in eighth grade and he, in High School. I am still the tallest woman in the house but Evv is catching up on me. I am stretching my neck to be taller.:)
I am really okay, just cyber-grumbling.

Elyse is square-dancing in Iowa,(not really) that is what we call, working with Habitat or something or other like that and I miss her alot. She saved up her money and planned this with an old friend who grew up with her in NJ and now lives in Grand Rapids. I hear it is alot of work. She said, she would never travel any other way but bus, now. I guess it is more comfortable than in the van squished between sisters and brothers. I hadn't thought of that before. She loved seeing the country that way.
Probably, Emily misses her most.

Of course, the batteries of the camera are dead.

I picked out the prettiest glasses that I could find. I call them Sarah Palin glasses and the first day, I put my hair in 2 braids in buns on the side of my head to mark a brand new day. I can see. I am sick from the glasses. I feel like one of my eyes didn't see or work at all. That was the eye that my brain is in. Now I have to reset my brain, especially at work. Everything that I learned at work I learned with only one eye. The other eye is trying to catch up and usually at about 3 oclock I have an anxiety attack about my vision. I feel like how am I going to get out of the building if I am so dizzy from these glasses. People say it takes time to get used to them. I am just very aware of how I see and what I can see. I can do my job standing up, alittle away from the screen so that is the best part. My brain just has to catch up to my eyes. I am not used to focusing both eyes on one thing. It is confusing to me. I will put a picture when we get batteries. I love them though and I can see that my shoes don't match. One day I went to work with 2 different shoes on, silly me! Now I can look and see things like that. Or I pay attention to that, Now that I look like "Sarah Palin"? LOL

I am seasick?

I am now the proud wearer of bifocals. It is an item that I was resisting as long as possible, like coloring my hair to cover the greys. I can't cover them anymore and I can't get away from wearing glasses. The first day was great. But now my eyes are growing accustomed to them slowly and I feel like I am walking on a boat sometimes. It makes me a little anxious taking on the stairs. I have had an astigmatism or stigmatism, I am not sure which for a long time and it feels as though I wasn't even using my right eye at all for a while. It is so tired from looking out of it.
Now that I am reading all day long, the glasses really come in handy at work and I don't have to sit right up on the screen to see. That is what comes from aging. My husband likes them.
We have to get Ethan his. He keeps breaking them. We have to buy them 2 weeks before school so that he doesn't get seasick, like me...(Family eyes)

Last night,

The beauty of the sky was balanced by the boats and reflection of the sun setting on the Lake Norman. We are not normally out on the lake at sunset, but this was a special occasion. There was a movie in the park and even though I had absolutely no intention of going to the park, last night. I had cut out the coupon and showed it to the children and there was no turning back.
Ben picked me up at 8pm, the time that I got off and I complained and groused all the way there. I would have changed my mind, if I hadn't remembered to tell Evelyn to bring the OFF. I had gotten mosquito bites standing there waiting for Ben to pick me up.
We got there and it was the most beautiful sight of my day. We were reminiscing how we used to go to movies outside at Eisenhower park when we lived in NY. This was very similar. I want to say, more beautiful, but I dare not insult my NY heritage. It was so comfortable and I didn't get one mosquito bite, (Thanks to my Evvy's nursing and thoughtful mind!). She has become our family, personal care specialist. She is the one who puts the little bandaids on people and puts a little funny spin on everything. An aside and to illucidate: We were in the car and Ben was starting to correct us about something and He was going on and said it was something about a word that we learned last week. What word was that we learned? We were all searching our minds for the word and she blurted out the word was "shut up!" It was fresh but it wasn't and the whole car burst out laughing because the solemn moment turned into a joke. How is that for a personal care expert?
Anyway she cares that mommy doesn't get mosquito bitten and give up movies altogether, as I am wont to do. We saw Night at the Museum/Battle at the Smithsonian. I think that was the name. I loved it. It was funny and historical and alot of the things that make a movie entertaining for me. I would recommend it highly. I especially loved that they showed Sacajawia as being such a polite woman, in the mix and some of the funny things about ancient Egyptians and the Romans, being shut up in a building together. I didn't see the first one.
I don't get to the movies very much and I rarely watch anything made in this millenium, but this was surprisingly true to much of my studies about some of the characters. The children laughed when I said that. I loved that they cast Robin Williams as my very favorite President Teddy Roosevelt. They could have advertised it to me by telling me that. They let me find out by surprise. I went there complaining and I came home laughing, it was very fun. If Elyse were here, she would have told me that Teddy was in this one and I would have stopped complaining. Horatio Nelson was missing, but, you can't have everything:)

Yesterday, was my day off and

look how big we've grown, this is 2006

Time it was and what a time it was, It was. A time of innnocence, A time of confidences...Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph, preserve your memory, There all that's left to...

Simon and Garfunkel

Oh! Boy, do I miss Elyse, who is in Iowa.






With Daddy at work, I thought I would take some time to observe the little ones in their daily routine, while I took some felt needed R and R. The morning routine was regular and then at 11 oclock they called "Learning Table!" The whole crew of "little guys"(who are not so little except Ezra) sat around the table and I kept the clock while they did their math worksheets. Even Ezra, was working on a timer. I said, I am sick of this. It is summer time. I hate homeschooling! Not really, but I said that to them. Lets play! Don't you guys want to do something fun? They wouldn't hear of it, until they finished their "learning table time". Give me a barf bag. Who raised these fuddy duddy kids, anyhow?
I waited patiently, or not so patiently and I said "lets go to NY". We started trying to make a map of NY that was the size of my coffee table. Evvy went to the internet and copied the small version of the NYS map. We continued to try to work out the measurements. Mr. Pre-highschooler worked on the exchange for the size of the little map to the size of the bigger map that we had, we worked out that the conversions were, about 3x bigger than the original (x='s stuff). I got a little too into it and they were ready to go and "get my medicine before it was all over. We had the plans in place to build a large airport, even though we only had one plane to land in their. The 2 little fellows parked all of their cars around the coffee table to get ready for the traffic jams that we so "sorely":( miss. (maybe we don't miss them, but we don't see that kind of traffic around here but once or twice a year) We didn't finish and gave up in the mid stream. We might start again today, if we are up to it. But it was so fun to play and work and think in unison with the "little guys!" I like not having anybody be the boss of anybody like little siblings do...?:) Maybe? I am bossy though am I not?

We had such a time on Saturday

reminiscing about the days that we used to dance in the living room with Patti Labelle. I showed them the moves that we thought were so dynamic. We did it over and over and synchronized our movements with each other to "You are my Friend". It was so great to see the Youtube show her having a great time with that song. We had a family "shindig"! They could not believe that we used to be children and do those silly things in the living room at 113. The conflicts often give rise to celebration when forgiveness is given and received. That is the beautiful part of being a family. That group DIVERSITY have nothing on us. I wish we could have made up some dances like that.
Now, I keep trying to get my young choreographer Enoch to make up some steps for me, for some stories. He keeps thinking that I am too old to talk about such things. Imagine that:). Too old?

The more things change, the more they...

Evvy's giraffe
stay the same?
We had an episode of elder sister terrorism, yesterday. Older sisters can be the most viscious people on the face of the earth, I am afraid. I never had one, myself. I am speaking from my own experiences. In my house one of the big sisters is gone and the second in "command" is tauting her newfound "authority" with joy. Sad to say. We don't go for that kind of tyranny in this house. One of the babies of the family is the head of household. So, we thought that we had a grip on exorcising that demon of elder sister tyrannical leadership out of our family.
Last night there were tears and the little sister, who has Aunt Jo's fingers and toes, came in, with her little woman self and was weeping. Her identity has changed in the family. (It was the bubblegum incident, all over again "Do you have gum in your mouth?") "Just because I took the last piece of chicken the other day that is all I hear about myself. I will never live it down. I am not greedy."("I am not a liar!") Poor baby!
I could identify, but only as I looked at it through the eyes of my Jo,Jo, toward me. The visceral emotions that were flying and the difficulty for me to calm them between the 2 women, now left to their own relationship, minus the usual powerful and prayerful peacekeeper, who is out on a mission trip. I see that she is usually the diffuser of these conflicts, either by might or by sight.
I did what I could to identify, but a letter from one who can really identify with living above the identities set by wicked step sisters would do much to comfort the little lady who is crying today that there is supposed to be forgiveness in a Christian household and the big sister is rubbing her nose in an offense when our backs are turned. We are dealing with it, but I thought the story was good "BoddenFodder". I love you guys.

Vinegary is a great word!

I walked around for days cussing in Spanish and praying for her. I felt like they were attacking all women. It looked like a very horrifying scene from a gang movie, if you know what I mean. I had a season of feeling like all white people were about trying to lord it over every minority and the grissle and anger was caustic. Then, the light dawned in my soul. I remembered the 100+ days that Clarence Thomas went through his grill and how angry I was at the feminists for that. And they asked her the question about whether she felt that she was ready to make such a lifelong commitment to this at her age. I realized that this is the beauty of it. I have been walking around blessing the process of the trial.
I have seen that for generations there have been powers in place that have tried people and they have been bias, for the lack of the other perspectives being represented. Of course, it looks very one sided when the other perspective is introduced into the mix, because it is. Still, whatever we may think of it, as a person she needs to be tried, because she is going to sit in judgement over us. She has to feel the heat.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic rings in my thoughts, as though it were Isaiah 6.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
HE is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
HE has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on!

The grapes of wrath are those foolish things that keep us from truth and cause us to sit under His judgement. The writer sees God's feet trampling them. That is pressure. He wrote that in the light of the civil war. I would much prefer the pressure of the pain of my emotions seeing a bunch of men seem to gang up on a little girl and pray for her to be able to stand her own under their grilling and have that "trample out the vintage", than a war.

No more civil wars, but, I would've come to blows over that in my anger. It brought me to my knees. My girl was on the slave block, I felt like. Do I really want her there with them? I am glad she seemed to stand. I am grateful for Obama, showing us how very far we are from true equity in the system and until all of the cultures and people groups are represented on the Supreme Court, the system will only be looked at by the one group who has complete control, namely men. God is not any one color! And the vintage, or wine that he is creating out of this exercise in history called America, is taking us all to another level of tolerance and grace. If we learn from it and don't come to blows again.
The discussion about her being a Wise Latina, I found especially caustic because she is a wise Latina and there were so many undertones to that discussion. Thank God, he hears prayer, even when laced with such caustic tones as I gave Him.

The Beauty of the "System"!

I love watching the confirmation hearings. I enjoyed the blessing that a minority woman could stand in the process of the heating of the brands to be cooked into what would make her a Supreme Court Judge for the rest of her life. I find it an amazing process. Over the course of time and education, lessons and experience burns off so many of your biases. She will stand in judgement over the whole law, as we see it in this generation. She is a New Yorker. She is a Woman, She is a minority! All those years of judging that are hers and all that they could say was that she had called herself a wise latina? A racial slur? A racial epithet? She would be standing in judgment over the law. I was very glad that I was not on that seat. I have so many racial slurs to my name. I can't seem to clean that part of me out of my mouth.
At first, I was getting so angry that these white men looked to be attacking, who I considered to be "my girl". I was praying for her, every day and she stood so well with their grilling. Then, Senator Graham seemed to bring it all into perspective for me. We are not attacking this woman, he seemed to say. We are treating her as we would be treated, so that her sympathies for those and that which she is to judge will be honed. She will know what it feels like to sit under the judgment. She will know what it is like to have your word and your thoughts inspected by somebody else. I rejoiced that there was a process that could make one, out of so many different people groups. I understood why she had to go through, what she did. She is a tough cookie and I have much admiration for her accomplishments. Moreso, now I have a greater respect for the process that grows us into people who can judge our own grievances and not live in savagery. I love that she has gotten there and I long for the day that it will be all women and one man coming onto "the Bench". LOL

I love that you girls are so full of wisdom for me these days.

My Sunday problems of voicing my opinions in the midst of public, gets me in a whole heap of trouble sometimes. There are so many cultural mores, that I was not privy to. Like what you should or shouldn't say in front of W people and in front of Church people. Not policy things, cultural things. We are in the South and I stand out like a sore thumb as a northerner. With my brash and uncaring thoughts and verbal exchanges. He was raised Southern in the North, but not I. I am always saying what I think about Sotomayor (Halleluia, Did you watch the confirmation hearings?) and other political and religious issues. My children know that that is me. I will talk silly sometimes, like that Madeline Kahn piece, I think is funny. Maybe a little too silly, I don't care, it makes me laugh.

There is such a funny scene in Big Fat Greek Wedding, Where the momma says "It is lucky for me that I have you to help me tie my shoes". That is how they get sometimes. Just part of life in the Grumpy Old Man stage, I will affectionately refer to this as "G.O.M." It is a sickness and they all get it, I hear, from Aunt Lorraine and brace yourself, because they don't mean anything they say and they tell you that too. They just do. I know we love eachother and this is a phase, but it is the fun part where you have to "hold on!"
I am learning that I am not his pastor or corrector, but his wife and lover. I have to discipline myself to try to find the loving thing to say in a situation and leave the rest unsaid until the conflict is over. I am memorizing 1 Cor 13 again. By the way, we are rejoicing that he has gotten a job!:)

Maternal and Paternal collide!

We were definitely raised in maternal family unit. Father was there, but, we all know Mom, Grandma and Great-grandma were the policy makers. Dad was the figurehead, very active, but submitted to the love that he had for this woman(of whom we were jealous). She called the shots and there were no questions when mom called the shots the shots were called.
My husband comes from a completely Paternal system. For 26 years, I really hadn't realized the complete opposite perspectives that we came from. Now that we are both in the grumpy stage of life, we always butt heads on just that distinction. I do believe that the husband is the head of the wife and signed on for that and so did he. Still, there are times when I want to assert my dominance overtly. He is strong enough to deal with that. Thank God.
Now, I just say, would you tell those children this or that. Asserting my way, in imitation of my mother, unwittingly. But instead of the condescencion that I saw at home from my father, Your wish is my command. He takes the reigns and goes, "Ya". I am always happily shocked at the sense of peace that there is in not being the boss of him. He's the boss and when I'm right, he tries to listen and when I am wrong he tells me so. You would be surprised how peaceful a life that is. Peaceful, I say, but not comfortable. I want a Coup De 'Tat! I want a take over, but the troops are well raised and submit to his leadership, so I guess I am out numbered. I do miss the maternal society I came from and just have to visit NY to see a comfortable maternally led family. Miss you girls. AAAHHHHHHH!