Quotes Taken by "India Times" from melanie jean juneau

The only thing that will kill you with nine kids is pairing socks.

If you want in-style runners or brand-name jeans, you need to have a job.

Her pastry was flakier than mine, and she was 11.

I had Anthony on my shoulder and Mara made pastry for 12 pies.

If they're still treated like kids or overindulged, they don't have a purpose.

I always make a conspirator out of everyone

It was instant attraction. Everyone thought I was going to be a nun librarian.

Children help you forget what's not important.

If you have one or two children, you have to be everything for them ... Family starts with three. I found one child horrendous, two a strain. But three was easy. With three, community starts

I don't think Nan is going to leave us any wine, my husband guessed.

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"It's been hiding in the back of my pantry for almost twenty years and I have to tell you, it is the best wine I have ever tasted!"

Yes! I have raised a son with nurturing instincts!

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"You don't have a clue how much grace I have poured out on you".

If one more person praises me, I am going to scream or vomit!.

"Anthony, you really don't want to keep these, do you?"

"Fine keep them, but if they get any worse looking, I am throwing them out."

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"Problem" Teens: OUR Fault?

 In past simpler cultures,  communities had fewer problems with teenagers because young people took their place as adults in their mid to late teens.  In contrast, our culture leaves teenagers in limbo- bored, listless and often angry.

 In our experience, teens seem to thrive when they are given a chance  to contribute to the family or to learn practical, real life skills. Anything from how to fix  cars,  to cook, clean and organize a home or take care of finances, all these skills prepare teens for the adult world. The point is that teens behaviour improves if we don't treat them like misbehaving children.

As my children matured, they developed their own talents and preferences regarding their contributions to their family. Because our house was always so busy, I depended on all the kids and they recognized that their contributions were important. This was great for their sense of self-worth.

Melissa could dive into a messy bedroom with a younger sibling and organize their room (she uses this talent in a very well paying job today). Mara made pastry flakier than me at 11 (she is a red seal chef). Rachel always loved to mind the babies (she is an early childhood educator). Emily, from the time she was two, wanted to put outfits together and she helped the little ones get dressed and sorted through their wardrobe. Today she puts her mother together! Katie is very artistic and patient, she did crafts with Anthony and Lucy. The boys are very handy today because they helped Michael fix cars, renovate and repair anything and everything.

University bound kids don't often get a chance to learn any of the trades in high school.
 However, Mari Montessori encouraged teenagers  to run all aspects of a farm and the household as well as study. Just as she let little children hammer nails, sweep or pour hot tea into china cups, Mari believed that practical life skills were as important as intellectual studies  in forming well -rounded, mature, intelligent adults.

The Tragic-Comic Experience Of Shopping With A Teenager

It was and still is an educational experience for one of my adult daughters to shop with a younger sister. After a particular stressful shopping trip, they would stumble through the door, complaining about their hard to please sibling. Typically,they roll their  eyes and sputter,

 " Do you want to know what kind of dress she wanted me to buy?!"

 In reponse to their tirade I'd laugh,

"Oh, we understand what you just went through, sweetie. It is payback time! Now you know what your dad and I went through."

I remember scores of tragic-comic dramas as we shopped with our daughters.  One example is particularly telling. One of my daughters was just thirteen and about to graduate from our country elementary school to high school. Since I was still surrounded by little people and laundry, Dad volunteered, quite innocently, for the shopping expedition into the city.

Four hours later, she barged through the kitchen door, glared at me and announced very dramatically,

"I am NEVER shopping with HIM again!"

She stomped through the kitchen and slammed the solid wood door to the hall behind her with a dramatic flourish.

A few minutes later, her father slipped through the front  door, shoulders slumped and silently communicated his exhaustion and defeat.

 "So", I queried tentatively, "How did it go?"

 Michael sighed and began to describe one scene in a dress shop. He had picked out a few pretty dresses which he felt were age appropriate. Holding up a flowered print dress with a high, round collar, he called out to his daughter,

" This one is very pretty."

Our daughter responded by rolling her eyes dramatically,

"Daaad...that's way too childish."

The sailor style dress that Michael thought was perfect was similarly dismissed.

Then, our thirteen-year oldpulled out a black, spaghetti strapped, clingy, black dress and squealed,

 "Dad, this is exactly what I am looking for!"

  Poor dad sighed but allowed her to try the dress on.

She emerged from the dressing room complaining,

"It makes me look FAT."

 Right then and there, my poor husband's only desire was to sink into a deep hole because the  store attendant and her customer both weighed  about 300lbs. and 350lbs. each.

 Both women chimed in and exclaimed to our 115lb. teen.

"Oh no dear, I don't think you look fat at all!"

Somehow,everything always seemed to worked out.   On this occasion, it was Melissa, an older sister , to the rescue. She borrowed a cream coloured dress from a friend, embossed with swirls and a Chinese styled collar that was decent but not childish. Our daughter was delighted and her dad was relieved.

"Do you want to know what kind of dress she wanted me to buy?!"

Oh, we know, sweetie,we know.

Does Your Child Think Their Food Comes From The Grocery Store? Try Growing Even One Vegetable Plant In a Pot

For me, the garden was always the children's domain as well as mine because I wanted them in the garden, connecting with the earth.

              As my kids participated in planting seeds, watering growing plants and picking fruit and vegetables, they became attuned to the rhythms of nature. They marvelled at the power packed in a tiny seed because after planting one bean seed, they soon ate handfuls of green beans that they picked themselves. They had the freedom to pickand eat beans, snow peas, raspberries, strawberries and carrots straight from the garden as snacks because they were not banned from a perfect, show piece garden.

I love to dig in the warm earth without gloves so that I am able to feel the moist earth as well as inhale its rich aroma. This love of dirt connected with my children's fascination with dirt and even toddlers dugg with a small plastic shovel in their own area near me while I was free to garden to my heart's content.

Sometimes a baby slept in our old-fashioned buggy

under a tree, a toddler 'worked' beside me, preschoolers helped me plant and older kids filled watering cans.  

Everybody was involved in gardening and eating what we grew at our house. Now, after a lifetime of eating garden ripe tomatoes, corn picked as the water in a pot comes to a boil and huge plates of fresh geen beans with butter and salt and pepper, store bought garden produce tastes bland.

Our gardens were lush and colourful but not gorgeous show pieces. They were filled with perennial flowers that could withstand being yanked, stood on and sat on. The gardens were and are huge, containing many more fruit and veggies than we could eat because we grew enough to give away to our generous friends and family for bartering with. Our family even grows enough  for the wild animals surrounding our little acreage because, in their opinion, our garden is their own personal restaurant.

Some years the kids organized a road side vegetable stand. Everybody was involved

and the stand became an exciting adventure, especially to the littlest ones.  A few created signs (just getting them to stand up was hilarious), lugged tables and chairs down a 200m. drive way, and generally ran about yelling excitedly at each other as  kids hurried up to the house to get  more change, served drinks to the vegetable sellers, bellowed for a bathroom break  if they were stuck done at the road or screamed out to everyone how much money they had made so far.

Even Dad and the oldest siblings were sucked into the mayhem.

Of course, my children complained about weeding especially when it was hot . To solve that problem they dumped buckets of cold well water over each others' heads and  just generally ran around screaming before attacking weeds.

They made games out of their jobs, staged competitions when they picked potato bugs and helped make rhubarb jam and frozen strawberries, currants and raspberries.

Gardening wasn't just a hobby, it was a large part of their childhood. As adults, they still love plants and gardening.

Want To Be Happy? Delight in the Little things.

We all want to be happy. The secret is to  consciously take off jaded glasses, stop and look around. There is a lot be grateful for . I heard of a fellow who hated his job, so he tried to find something to be grateful about every day and started to write his discoveries in a blog.  He hit a nerve in people because soon he had a huge following.  He is now writing a book at the request of a publisher.


 I discovered the same secret after years of  mothering tiny children. They taught me to take delight in the plethora of tiny details all around me because little kids are born with a sense of wonder and the ability to enjoy little thing. Now I am the type of person who notices and remembers details. These stories for example pour effortlessly from my heart and mind. Repeating a conversation, verbatim, just comes naturally because the details remain vivid in my memory

My daughter's seem to retain an appreciation for detail and she remembers the little things.

A friend of mine once asked Melissa, when she was about six, what she liked most about Christmas. Mara replied immediately,

 "The Pineapple."

Martha was astounded.

My adult children were remembering their childhood and Mara said, 

" I always remember the fresh smell of clean sheets every week."

Such a small thing, yet a child, with a heart full of gratitude, takes great pleasure from it.

Another time Mara was recounting how pleased she was with a plant in her garden. Realizing that she was enjoying such a small thing she laughed,

"Oh my god, I am sounding just like Mum.

Another daughter and  her husband of three months  celebrated their marriage with a huge wedding reception for two hundred people. Mara has planned every detail from the match covers to the large buffet. Most of all, she  poured her creative spirit into making all the decorations by hand with sisters and friends. From green wheat grass in planters, tissue paper flowers in greens and plum to spray painted hydrangeas in purple, sliver, black and lime green. She is creative and can make the most from the least. Everything is gorgeous and perfect in every tiny detail.

The things that raise my spirits are usually small and most people would not consider them significant. For example, one Christmas I was very tired and only one gift sparked joy, real euphoria. It was hand crocheted dish clothes from my friend Cathy. ..dish clothes, beautifully made, colourful, something I used a hundred times a day.

Perhaps this is one of the blessings of a large family; the ability to retain the child's sense of awe and to delight in and to remember the little things.

A Mum's Rules To Live By

1. Ignore the bad and praise the good.

2. Don't get upset over messes.

3. If it's not broken, it probably should be.

4. Bored children never stay bored for long, so don't worry about it. They will pick up a book or pencil .

5. Kids teach you what is really important in life.

Anything that gets in the way of caring for

little people and loving them is expendable and doesn't  matter in the long run. When your house is empty and silent, then is time to buy fragile collectables and  become involved in hobbies, important time consuming careers or causes.

" I'm Bored."

Many modern parents enrol their kids in vicious cycle of classes, activities and sports to ensure that they will  push past all rivals and snatch the best scholarships in the best schools to prepare them for wonderful careers.  However, when these kids graduate and enter the work force, employers are not impressed with them.  Their bosses complain that young employees  feel they are automatically entitled to the best jobs and perks but  are unwilling to start at the bottom of the ladder and work for the privilege of promotions.

I was a mother of a large family on a hobby farm who could not afford to put all my kids into many activities. So I raised them the way children have been raised for centuries with chores and plenty of time for free play.  I discovered that children should not be kept busy all the time. They need time just to  relax, even time to be bored because that is when creativity and ingenuity are born.

Surrounded by babies and toddlers, I was not always free to run and solve every obstacle my kids faced as they played. At first, I frantically scrambled to  run and help my  kids with a problem with a newborn in my arms and perhaps a toddler wrapped around one of my legs.

Finally I just could not do everything at the same time. That meant that my other kids had to wait for me or try to figure out snags by themselves. Loud  shrieks for mum gradually grew less frequent because impatience was a wonderful self-motivator. While waiting for assistance, my kids often solved their own problems.

Six year old David is a prime. His grade1 teacher recounted this story to me. It seems  that she asked

her grade one class this question,

"How would you open the garage door if there were no grown-ups around?"

Everybody just stared blankly at her, except for six year old David. He  frantically waved his hand in the air and then  excitedly blurted out,

"You just stand on a milk crate,  push on the upper left-hand corner of the door with a hockey stick and push hard. The door comes up a bit, you jump off the crate and crawl in!!"

Then, David beamed proudly.

You don't have to solve all the logistic problems for your kids or provide all the best equipment and toys. Mara was about ten and at the family cottage with a cousin. Every game she suggested, her cousin would point out that they lacked some piece of equipment. After a moment to think, Mara would brightly say,

"Well, we could always use this instead!"

Her aunt and uncle laughed and remarked,

 "I wonder whose daughter she is?"

Ingenuity and creativity spring into motion if

everything they could ever possibly need is not handed to our kids before they even know to ask for it.  I loved watching card board boxes magically transform into cars or doll houses, especially when little people asked older siblings to help them and everyone became excited and involved in the project.

Today my adult kids are self-starters, self-motivated and they are all creative at work, school and at home

I give all the credit for those qualities to boredom.

Joyful Chaos

A glimpse into the life a a large family.
Picture this scene.

 Five- year old Anthony is leaping off the fourth stair in the front hall,  wearing his usual uniform which consists of a black cape, purple Batman sweatshirt and his 'Mountie' hat. This ensemble is his salute to his three heroes- Batman, Zorro and Canadian Mounties.

Three year old Lucy carries a huge, old purse stuffed

with cut pieces of paper and fake money.  She is trailing behind seven year old Katie who is trying to make a scrapbook. Rachel is in the same living room playing "Magic School Bus" on the computer and Emily is upstairs changing her clothes yet again, as she has since she was two years old.

Dave and Matt are building a lego plane across the hall in the family room but eighteen year old Matt is the brains behind the construction and has completely taken over. Matt loves lego but, please, he really is only helping his younger brother.
Mara is on the phone and Melissa is listening to music that is way too loud while leaning over the upstairs railing and complaining about life.

 Michael , my husband is tending the farm animals outside... and me?

Why I am putting in the fourth load of laundry that day and planning a folding marathon where I sort laundry and literally toss each kid their own clothes to fold.

 Guess what?

 I learned to be happy in the chaos.

 I don't have a living room; I have work and play areas. A table in the living room is covered in a 1,000 piece puzzle ad the coffee table is Katie's craft station.

There are goldfish on my too small counter, a huge dog trips anyone walking through the door and the cat thinks she owns the most comfortable chair in the house and I warn you, do not try to move the queen! My kitchen walls, fridge and cupboards are covered with all kinds of art and scribble art and I have  way too many indoor plants.

One day my father-in-law tripped over our dog (who did not move,

by the way) and he gruffly asked me,

"What is that dog doing in the house? He should live outside."

I laughed and said,

 "Welcome to OUR home. We love kids, animals, plants and even you. Just come on in!"

Everything Was A Big Deal

In a family of eleven, everything is a big deal.

Just to feed, clothe and house the eleven members of our family required energy, stamina, organization but most of all patience and goodwill.  Everyone's input was vital and important to our family, especially right after dinner because dishes, kitchen clean-up, homework and homework assistance, lunches, bath time, story time and bedtime all begged for attention at the very same time. 

Of course, no task was simple. For example, making sandwiches  for school meant lining up twenty-two pieces of bread and preparing each sandwich with a particular person in mind because I did want them to actually  eat the sandwich. Even peanut butter sandwiches were made with jam or not, with thick or thin peanut butter, with butter under the peanut butter or not. A component of this chore was often a survey of the crew to see who wanted what in their lunch.

 If that procedure wasn't daunting enough , someone had to make sure that everyone had clean clothes and shoes to wear the next day. There were indoor and outdoor school shoes, decent runners and play runners, rain, barn and winter boots, skates, both play and good sandals, slippers, shoes to wear with dresses and dress shoe for the boys. This abbreviated list adds up to about TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FOUR individual shoes with the potential to get lost, wet, dirty or become too small.

Of course it was an especially big deal when the seasons changed because we had to sort and put away the shoes that weren't needed for a couple of moths and decide which shoes were worn out and which ones could be passed down or were still big enough for the current owner.

I can still hear Emily yelling out as she organized the shoes,

"Anthony, you really don't want to keep these, do you?"

Anthony would protest,

 "But Em, they're so comfortable. I like them."

Emily would retort,

"Fine, but if they get any worse looking, I am throwing them out."

 However it was bath time, grooming time, story time and tucking people into bed  that took a lot of creative problem solving abilities as well as a big investment of time. On bad days it became an assembly line. I would add hot water to the tub and the next little one would hop in and start playing as they waited their turn to be washed. Meanwhile I dried a little body , brushed hair and set up a tooth brush for the clean child. They proceeded into the family room and Dad would put on a diaper if  it was needed and pyjamas, then cut finger and toe nails. Then the clean and groomed kid would hop up on the coach to look at books while waiting for a story.

Bedtime!

 I hung quilts over windows and used fans  in the bedrooms to create white noise to block out household noise that could disturb a younger child who needed more sleep. Another tactic that helped soothe kids to sleep was to tuck them in beside an older sibling who was reading in bed . Any fears or loneliness disappeared with the older siblings comforting presence.

Whenever we had a newborn baby, bedtime was transformed.  Kids couldn't wait  to climb under the covers because I would wrap the baby up tightly in a soft blanket and gently place her beside them. I can still see my childrens' delight as they gazed at the baby and the content, satisfied expression on their faces as they slept cuddled up beside her.

Basically though, even if  I could operate like an efficient machine, if I was stressed and tense, nothing went well because my little kids picked up on every emotion I experienced. Even if I was not aware of my emotional state, the kids reacted to my vibes.

Seriously, it seemed that I was a combination of a juggler and an illusionist or magician.

During this time, I could not tolerate everyone's "awe" of a mother of nine. They would gush,

" Oh Melanie, you must have so much grace."

I thought,

"If one more person tells me that I am going to scream or vomit!" I felt that I was operating on caffeine from tea and my own stubborn drive and their praise was grating on my nerves.

Then one night around 3:00a.m., while rocking a baby,  I heard within me,

"You don't have a clue how much grace I have poured out on you."

That put me in my place. The peace, joy and love in our family had a LOT more to do with His Spirit, than any of my strategies or patience!

A fun personality "test"

Write down your four words in comments. I will do the same, so I don't influence anyone.

Listen

A Photoblog- My Spring Gardens

I love gardening, especially with my fingernails right in the soil. I can go outside feeling completely exhausted and once I soak in all the feeling of life in my garden and allow my eyes to drink in the green scenery, I feel renewed.

      



Daffodils



To the left of top picture- opposite side of the house, steps to lawn, fruit trees, 30 white pines and creek.



Columbine off stone patio with bench



stone wall. I hauled hundreds of rocks from our property and I am still not done.



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White bleeding Hearts



If I Just Take A Moment To Look Up

Although I have a simple digital camera, these photos capture the glorious colour and drama that exists just above my head.

I simply need to remind myself to glance upwards, above my little busy world  and enjoy the gift. It is an extravagant present that continually fills me with the joy of life if I remember to take a break from my "important" business. 

 This is the view above that brightens our day and gives us perspective!  It is so important to LOOK and to share because it connects us to God and to each other . 

Different is Good.

ALL children need  lots of free play time, even boring times to discover who they really are, what they are good at and what they like to do. Our daughter, Katie became the philosopher/ artist  she is today partly because I didn't have time to try to "normalise" her or the money to put her in a constant cycle of sports or other after school activities. 


Katie was completely unique as a child with amazing concentration. While four year old little boys were struggling to print or draw, my second youngest daughter would cover sheets of paper with tiny intricate drawings at 18 months old. Once she drew at least fifty  tiny "eyes"  while she stood on a chair and leaned over that paper, in deep concentration, for half an hour.

After we bought her a chalkboard  for the Christmas, just before she turned two, she was so oblivious to everything but her drawing that she kept drawing her little designs off the chalkboard in a line on the wall and kept going around the corner. We laughed so hard at that example of her quiet passion.

When Katie was a newborn, her hair was thick, black and stood straight up on end and her eyes were huge and very dark brown; they were almost comical  looking the way they popped out in a constant look of surprise. Those eyes seemed to study everyone and everything. Her hair became brown with gorgeous blond highlights that looked like she had streaked her hair but she still has those big, brown eyes that study everything.

How did this toddler fall asleep?
Why by cutting tiny triangles out of magazines until she passed out, child proof plastic scissors still in her hand. I'd gently remove the scissors and cover her with a baby quilt. Once a week I'd sweep up a whole overflowing dustpan of tiny triangles! When I wanted Katie to help, she'd be so absorbed in a craft or art work that she would not even hear me.

My daughter really, really marched to her own tune and I am grateful that our lack of extra cash gave her the freedom  and opportunity to discover her talents on her own.

Turn Off The T.V. and Computer

The best thing we ever did, while raising our children, was turn off the T.V. and computer and hand them pencil and paper, blocks, lego, a book or a cardboard box.

 ANYTHING is better for a child's mental, physical and emotional health than sitting passively and staring at a screen.

Birthday Breakfast

I started the day out right! I ate a poached egg, no extra fat, a cup of strong tea AND A BUTTER TART!
My kids, gardening, someone else cooking and a glass of wine will make the day perfect.
In addition, it is sunny, warm and a large snapping turtle is laying her eggs among my boccoli plants this very moment.

What more could a girl ask?

My Infant Was Loving ME!

Want to know a secret, a secret few people seem aware of?
Living with little people keeps you young if you allow them to teach you how to live.  However, I did not discover this truth at first.

As  an expectant mother, I braced myself for the marathon that was to come by reading everything I could get my hands. I was tense, serious and tended to concentrate on pouring out love and nurture to my newborn with little thought of my own needs.  It was an exhausting regime of nursing, burping, changing, bathing, rocking and soothing with perhaps two hours of sleep before the relentless routine started again. It was in these early , hectic years  that I desperately attempted to carve out quiet time to sit and replenish myself but it rarely ever worked out.

One day while nursing one of my babies, I experienced a powerful surge of love pouring into my heart from my baby to me.I started smiling, heaviness and exhaustion lifted and joy started to bubble up from deep within.
My baby was loving me!

The ramifications from this discovery were life changing. I discovered that if I relaxed when my baby gazed into my eyes with his guileless eyes, a hidden source of energy flowed from my baby to me.This attitude of allowing my children to love me into new life has allowed me to discover the joy of mothering. 

Our Dog is BRILLANT Enough To Act Dumb

Labs are often trained as guide dogs because they understand complex commands and have the ability to remember up to one hundred and fifty of them.

I could complain  for this entire post about my still not trained chocolate lab who is brilliant enough to act stupid when it suits him. However I will limit myself to two antidotes and then I will astound you with his gardening skills.

We adopted Duke (Marmaduke) when he was nine months and he stubbornly clung to several bad habits  that were just too much fun for him but a pain in the neck for us. For example,  he constantly leaps up literally in my face, to engage in some sort of mock fighting. Since he is only 14 pounds lighter than I am but all muscle, he is the definite victor in these contests of strength.  After one frustrating encounter, I harshly commanded Duke to stay "down" and to "sit"  about ten times. I finally threw up my hands and said,

"Oh, why don't you just go get a toy instead of attacking me?"

Duke suddenly stopped in his tracks, his ears perked up , he looked at me with wide opened eyes and then quickly put his nose to the ground and began to search for his hidden toys! All of us were shocked, especially since it now works every time.

Another secret weapon that halts mock fighting is an invitation .

"Come on up and cuddle instead of attacking me."
These words instantly transform Duke into a passive lap dog. After a couple of hours, of sharing a crowded couch with a monstousity of a dog,, one of my daughters pushed Duke off the chesterfield when he refused to move. The intelligent dog's reprisal? He purposfully stuck his tongue in her coffee while maintaining eye to eye contact,  slurped and then turned right around and stalked out of the room.
Way too smart for a beast!
No wonder labs are trained to be finely tuned, obedient guide dogs.

For all his faults, Duke is an excellent gardener. I know that this seems to be an absurd statement but trust me. I speak the truth!

This last fall I was pulling out old grape vines around our property. Duke pushed me out of the way as I struggled to dig up roots and he proceeded to dig furiously with his front paws. Very impressive.

 As I pruned  over head branches, often I only managed to cut half way through the branch. I'd tug and pull but it was Duke's who deserves all the credit for finishing the pruning. He'd leap incredibly high, grasp the errant branch with his teeth and then hang his whole ninety pounds on the branch. that dog saved me hours of work.

Now if we could only become smarter than our dog, all would be well.

May Flowers

I am trying NOT to post but spend time away from writing But I must posts pictures from my garden. I will add more tomorrow.

Early May Tulips                                         White bleeding hearts

                                        

 Late April Daffodills

      Planted annuals on Mother's Day with my daughters