Sweet sleeping girls.......yes this is one of the same ones who wore the earrings to school last week......look closely and you can see her baby doll!! My heart was just breaking with love for these two.

I have been a negligent mother this year and have not been to the school even once for anything. Not even parties! Emma had her tonsils out on the day of Lily's Christmas party so we sent Alex! Pretty cool really. But poor Lily has not had me up there at all.

In an effort to repent I decided I would go up once a week to eat lunch with the girls. On the way to horseback lessons with Lily I asked her what day she would like me to come.

With a little horror she said, "you're going to come EVERY week?". I said yes and would that be ok.

"Not really......."

So I suggested once every other week. She guessed that would be ok.

Such is the life of the youngest child, I guess. I have never been one or had one. Maybe it's just her!

I will make her endure once every two weeks. I'm sure she can stand it! If nothing else I will enjoy it.

I have been reading so much about mothering and parenting. I have alway been so proud of my job as a mother and never felt that I wasn't contributing. I was momentarily shaken when Lily started school and I found myself at home all day. I am not a very organized or self motivated person. I have used the kids as a motivator to get things done. But, now with the day to myself, I have floundered a bit to find my groove. It has caused me to think quite a bit about my role.

One thing that I read that has influenced how I think is about being a "deliberate mother". In other words, don't just wait for things to happen and then react to them, but decide what I want to do and work to that. I knew this, but reading it and giving it a name has really help how I plan my days........who am I kidding.....not just how I plan, but TO plan! I realized that I have to know what I want to achieve with each day and over all and make things happen to get me to that goal.

Another thing I have read is the article and then the book "Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother". I read the article from the newspaper first and then HAD to get the book. While I do not agree with the intensity of this mother and definitely not some of her tactics, I do agree that I am responsible to help my children feel successful in school, extra curricular, and even our church obligations (Tiger Mother did not address church....she is non-religious). I can do more than I have done. So Zack and I sat down with the girls and outlined our expectations. We tried to be very clear and help them understand where our expectations come from. I also realize that Tiger Mother did not just lay out these ideas for her kids and then kick her shoes off and relax. She was a very involved part of their day. This is going to require more work from me. Being on top of their work more. Being more in touch.

So, we have changed many things at this house. I have developed what amounts to a behavior modification plan (as I learned from my teacher training) at the Zachary home. All the girls have nightly chores. They are expected to get A's. Now this does not mean that if they get a B we will freak out and punish, but they know that is not acceptable and they need to figure out what went wrong and work a little harder. If they don't do their school work or bring home what is needed then they are responsible for ALL the nightly jobs.....all their sister's jobs. This has only had to be implemented once and let me tell you there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth! But it only had to be done once and it has not happened again. ALL the girls' grades have improved and they are being much more responsible with their work.

There is also value in feeling successful in church goals. The bishop has asked the youth to read the entire Book of Mormon by May 20. Not only is there value in the doing of this, but the feelings of success and accomplishment is a real boost to self esteem. The Tiger Mother says, and I agree, "Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't."

The worst struggle for me is to keep myself held to these higher standards we have laid down!

Just ask me how much I LOVE this picture!! Sarah Beth and I went to the store after her physical therapy. We laughed and laughed about her in the cart as we shopped. I love this girl!!

Sleepless Nights

Sarah Beth had knee surgery on Monday morning. It all went well and we are looking forward to her being able to return to activity, specifically volleyball and bike riding.

But in the meantime, I am suffering greatly from no sleep. The first night we thought we had it right by settling Sarah Beth in the little girls' bed downstairs. I stayed up a little later than normal to give her the next dose of medicine and to ice her knee one last time. Poor girls could not get comfortable and called me about every 30 minutes. Finally around 1:30 we decided to move her to the recliner in the family room. She finally got comfortable and went to sleep.

Of course I had to get up around 5:30 to get everyone up. Yeah, that was difficult. Tuesday was a rainy stormy day. Since I had finally doubled up on Sarah Beth's medicine that night, she was still quite sleepy. ;-)

So we both dozed off and on the rest of the morning. We did wake up to watch Mitt Romney on the "View". I even dozed off for part of it, though. We rescheduled her first physical therapy appointment for the afternoon since the weather was so bad.

Then last night, she woke me up because we had accidently left her ice pack on her knee and during the night it started to leak and she was soaked. We had to change her clothes top to bottom.

She is sleeping now, but I had to get up with the kids right after that and am determined not to go back to sleep.

This toddler is sure making me tired.......this toddler is 5 foot 9 now!!!

Emma came into the kitchen this morning for school, late as usual, sporting some earrings she found in her sister's room. They looked a little large on this skinny little girl. I asked her if they were heavy and she said, "a little". They must have been because when I dropped her off at school on this blistery cold morning she was holding her ears to prevent the wind from blowing them. She looked pretty proud of herself though.

Emma at eleven. Emma is so fun and sweet. She is our most determined child. She has also learned to be very patient with Lily. Some times she gets agitated, but mostly she just humors her and then smiles knowingly at me. Very mature, Emma!! She is really working hard on the violin and loves to tinker around on the piano. She is ready to take up her cross stitching we started during the summer. She is pretty good. She also is wanting me to teach her to sew on the sewing machine. On Saturday she made a dress for her American Girl. She cut the pieces for it by holding the fabric up to the doll and measuring here and there to get it just right. It has a bodice and skirt attached with straps at the top. Pretty impressive. The other thing she loves is to draw house plans. Truly a day can be spent huddled over her writing pad drawing away. As I alluded to earlier, Emma is unbearably slow. She takes almost all afternoon to get her homework done. She is always the last one ready in the morning for school. She is the longest in the bathtub at night. It makes me crazy so many times.

So, Emma will not be winning any races soon, but she sure is a wonderful girl. So innocent and childlike still. She was introduced at New Beginnings in Young Women last week (I can't believe that she was even there!!!) and she told that her favorite TV show was "Arthur" from PBS. No peer pressure there..............yet. How thankful I am to have this great girl in my family.

Girl Baby

At Christmas we found an ornament that we gave Zack for Christmas the few days before Mary Catherine was born. It was signed from Alex, Taylor, and Girl Baby. It was all he got for Christmas that year. I remember that I got a Precious Moments figure with a little baby perched on a cloud. I loved it. Especially because we were going to have our little girl baby in 5 days. We were poor but those gifts were so sweet.

So now our little girl baby is 17 and so sweet, too. She and her friends had Sarah Beth do a photoshoot for them. They turned out so cute.

On her birthday she had a house full of girls added to our home. Our expert cake bakers and decoraters....Emma and Lily.....made her 2 cakes. One was traditional, the other a theme cake. Since she had girls spend the night, they decided on a bed and made pillows, and a chair out of fondant icing for her. So sweet. Makes my heart warm when they are so thoughtful. And boy were they proud, too.
Her wonderful brothers presented her with this cute horse that Elaine is demonstrating. They had a blast with that thing outside by the fire roasting huge marshmallows.
They boys also had a bolt of inspiration and made her this light bulb hat to show how smart they think Mary Catherine is. Brilliant!! They kept exclaiming how smart THEY were. It took a little electric skills to rig this up. So funny!!

So Happy Birthday to our first Girl Baby. We sure do love you much!!