The Best Bedtime Songs for Kids

The Best Bedtime Songs for Kids

By Samantha Allred

Music is a fantastic tool to use in all stages of parenthood. Adding a lullaby to your kids’ bedtime routine can help them wind down at the end of the day. Listed below are some of the best songs for helping your little one relax at bedtime. 

1. “You Are My Sunshine”

This is a well-known beloved lullaby and a hit song for many performers. The verses are quite melancholy, but the lyrics to the chorus are loving, memorable, and can be sung over and over again.  

YouTube Link: You Are My Sunshine

 

2. “Edelweiss”

This sweet waltz is the perfect song to lull your baby to sleep. There are many versions of this song, but this cover by JJ Heller is one of my favorites. 

YouTube Link: Edelweiss

 

3. “Your Song” by Elton John

This song is my go-to song to sing to my baby girl. I can’t help but tear up when I sing, “How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.” 

YouTube Link: Your Song

 

4. “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles 

The melody of this song is perfect to help littles ones drift off to sleep. Sweet, uplifting, and simple. What else do you need from a lullaby?

YouTube Link: Here Comes the Sun

 

5. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” covered by JJ Heller

This song has lulled many babies into a golden slumber. Just don’t think about the flying monkeys and you’ll be fine. My favorite cover of this classic is, once again, by the incredible JJ Heller.

YouTube Link: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

 

6. Stay Awake” by Julie Andrews 

Disney movies have so many songs that make fantastic lullabies. Take a tip from the incomparable Mary Poppins and use some reverse psychology to help your little ones drift off to sleep. 

YouTube Link: Stay Awake

 

7. “You’ll Be in my Heart” – Phil Collins

Another Disney classic. This is exactly the message you want to sing to your kids at the end of the day. 

YouTube Link: You’ll Be in my Heart

 

These songs are simple, easy to remember, and can be sung by singers of all skill levels. If you aren’t feeling up to singing, consider making a playlist on your favorite audio streaming service and let the music lull your little ones into a sweet slumber. 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Infertility and Adoption: The Truth

Infertility and Adoption: The Truth

By Camille Parker

May 2019

An essay written as part of a project for Alana Hutchins, Last of Her Kind: How a mother of eight can help you move from striving to thriving.

I never considered that infertility could be in my future. As a young bride of 19 years old (just a baby myself, really), I married a wonderful man and was blissfully naive to the possibility of being infertile. After our first anniversary I planned to get pregnant and have a child every two years until I turned 30. Five children; that’s what I wanted, and believed doable, with the full support of my man. Fast forward 10 years, and six weeks after my 29th birthday we adopted our first, and only, child. Funny how life is. And by funny, I mean fickle, inconsistent, painful, chaotic, unruly, and so very heartbreaking.  We enjoyed lovely days together, my husband and I, during the 9 solid years of invasive infertility tests and procedures, coupled later with aggressive adoption interrogations and paperwork. We worked, traveled some, and spent time with friends and family, but mostly I remember experiencing extreme sadness, anger, frustration, jealousy, and a constant pleading with God for one successful conception and pregnancy; but it never came.  The grief that accompanies infertility, and in my case, barrenness, is ongoing in some ways. I still flinch a little when a friend or relative announces her pregnancy. I still struggle when said friend or relative asks me to hold her newborn baby, because it feels too painful to engage with a precious life-form. I still try to avoid the maternity section in clothing stores. And I still get a glimmer of hope when my period is a day or two late, because maybe, just maybe…even though I know my period will come. It always does. Its consistency is oddly reassuring.

 

For me, a diagnosis of infertility was soul-crushing. In varying degrees, its doom infected every aspect of my life: my job, my hobbies, my social life, my future plans, my relationships with family, friends, and with God, and, of course, with my spouse. There were several years when sex was difficult. Not the mechanics, mind you, but the desire. Just have fun! Have as much sex as you want! It’s the best part of trying to get pregnant! people would tell us. But after a while, sex wasn’t fun; sex was stressful. Our intimacy was suffocated by the pressure of trying to conceive, and sometimes, yes, even the mechanics were nearly impossible. You try being aroused when all your hopes and dreams of becoming parents depends on the perfect timing, position, physical environment, and kismet of a single passionate shot to the uterus. Add in dozens of infertility tests, treatments, painful procedures, surgeries, oral and injectable drugs, vaginal suppositories, vaginal ultrasounds…vaginal EVERYTHING, weight gain, mood swings, hot flashes, and countless tears, to an already tense situation, and then tell me how sexy you feel. While all of this is occurring, try not to be angry at your spouse if he has the reproductive malfunction preventing your vision of motherhood; or harder still, try to not drown in guilt and sorrow over your own broken body that can’t seem to create or sustain life, even with extensive medical assistance. Not to mention the thousands of dollars – sometimes tens of thousands – you’ve shelled out to take this ill-fated ride.   This is infertility. It’s a trip.  A long, expensive, and brutal trip. Especially if every procedure has failed.

 

For those who are blessed to reach their goal of conception and bring forth biological offspring, I can only imagine the elation they must feel. In many ways, they have the hardest go of this whole parenting thing. First, all the difficulties of infertility followed by all the difficulties of birth and parenting. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I suppose. But after so long a road, being thrown into the parenting-fire must feel very welcomed – maybe even magical –and not nearly as painful as the infertility frying pan was. For those who never bear children, the pain of losing the infertility game is eased only by the optimism that by some alternate miracle, children are still possible through adoption.

 

Brace yourself, Reader, for what I will say next might sound downright cruel, but I promise you it isn’t, it is simply the truth: Adoption is rarely anyone’s first choice. There. I said it. When we shifted our focus to adoption it was as a last and final attempt at parenthood, as it is for many couples. While it was not our first choice, it was absolutely the right choice. When people flippantly say ‘maybe we’ll adopt’ after little to no difficulty conceiving and having children – or choosing not to have biological children – an anger bubbles up inside of me that wants to burst: ADOPTION ISN’T EASY! IT’S ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS YOU AND YOUR CHILD’S BIRTH PARENTS WILL EVER DO! To treat it otherwise is ignorant and disrespectful to all involved. What makes adoption so challenging, compared to infertility, is that you are now at the mercy of someone else’s choice. You have zero control. With infertility, you are in charge: you research, weigh options, make decisions, work with doctors, plan procedures, timing, choose to take medications, and even inject them yourself; you own this journey. Even if you never have a successful pregnancy, every detail and procedure was your choice, but adoption is hoping and praying that another mother will choose you. To hope for a successful adoption is to fully surrender the micromanagement of your experience that, up to this point, has helped you maintain precious sanity through immense disappointment and heartache. It is hoping that another mother will have the courage to break her own heart to heal yours. This is a deeply humbling realization. And the process is rigorous.

 

If infertility means having five doctors and nurses simultaneously poke and prod your body, stare up your vagina, and inflict physical and emotional pain while trying to “fix” you (true story, friends), then the adoption application process is the personal, bureaucratic equivalent. (But at least you get to keep your clothes on.)  Interview after interview, together and separately, background checks, home inspections, health inspections, financial inspections, parenting classes, endorsements, caseworkers; every aspect of your life is investigated, questioned, and then questioned again. I’m not saying this process shouldn’t happen – children have the right to be placed in safe, loving homes – but it is extremely draining, and takes the better part of a year to complete. Once your home study (official title for said scrutiny) is finally approved, the waiting begins. Not passive waiting, however, an intensive profile-building, blogging, marketing, matching, spreading the word, anxiety, sleepless nights, fervent prayers, birth-parent contact, “yeses” then “no’s”, “maybe’s” then “no’s”, forced smiles, and hidden tears kind of waiting. During those agonizing months and years, our intimacy was driven by a deep need to find temporary refuge from the inward grief we both felt but couldn’t outwardly show, because, who wants to give their precious baby to a clearly miserable couple? No one, that’s who. Heaven-forbid we express any feelings about our new endeavor other than positivity and excitement. And so, love-making became our secret, fervent attempt to experience something other than the constant emotional pain and broken hearts of childlessness.

The author and her daughter

If you are matched with birth parents and begin a relationship, born of varying levels of desperation in both parties, there is still no guarantee that you will bring home a baby. And even if you do, until the adoption is finalized (i.e. legally binding, varying by state, but generally 6-12 months after placement), there is no guarantee you will get to keep that baby. Complications with birth parents, legal concerns, dishonesty, bonding issues, negotiation, manipulation, and fear regularly prevent successful adoptions. Failed placements (the phrase used when you’ve been selected to adopt, and the birth parents change their minds) are both common and devastating for adoptive couples. Even more devastating is the experience of the birth mom who goes through with her decision to give her child to someone else. It’s a cruel reality that an adoptive couple’s most joyful moment comes at the expense of a birth parent’s most agonizing one. I will never fully comprehend how our daughter’s birth mother (and father) did it, but I am eternally grateful that they did.

 

I don’t know how it feels to give birth, but I do know how it feels to have a mother hand me her child so that I can assume that sacred title. It felt like my broken heart burst into a million pieces and then reassembled itself into a new organ, capable of love and sacrifice in a way it hadn’t been before. It felt like going from white-knuckling a steering wheel through a never-ending blizzard to have the landscape instantly replaced by sunny skies and dry roads; my whole body exhaled. I felt relieved, renewed, and energized, and at the same time so overwhelmed with joy and gratitude that I was weak to the point of near-collapse. It felt like I was a Phoenix, suddenly consumed by the flames of a decade of exhaustive trying, only to rise victoriously from the ashes of the childless woman I used to be. It felt like a miracle. Too many metaphors? Perhaps. Sound dramatic? It was. Stunningly, tenderly dramatic. This is adoption. 

 

Our daughter is now 6 years old and is breathtakingly beautiful and out-of-this-worldamazing. While I don’t have the physical battle scars of motherhood (my boobs still resemble perky, full water balloons, thank you very much), the fight to become a mother dealt brutal blows to my soul, unseen by others, which I now bear with deep appreciation. She was hard won. She was wanted and loved before she existed. She was prayed for, begged for, sacrificed for, searched for, and then one day, she was found; or rather, she found us, through selfless and brave birth parents. And she was absolutely worth the wait.

 

Becoming parents to our precious child brought love, laughter, light, and peace back into our lives. The depth of despair we once felt has been overcome by the joy we now experience as parents. Also, our sex is amazing.  As two survivors of a reproductive war – waged by biology and saved by our champion, Adoption – we are well on the road to healing, and our love-making carries with it a new passion intertwined with shared wounds and triumphs.  While parenting is undoubtedly challenging, for me it has not been as arduous as the journey to become a parent. Some say I’ll be singing a different tune when she is a teenager, and perhaps they’re right, but for now the slow burn of this parenting-fire feels pretty darn wonderful compared with the childless hell I’ve already endured.

The Barren Woman

By Camille Parker

 

You do not know what it is to be barren.

To have an empty womb that cries;

That longs to grow a precious child

And to carry, to hear, and to feel

The thump-thump rhythm of life inside.

 

You do not know what it is to be barren.

To be unexpanded physically; spiritually;

By a connection that will never be.

No flesh of my flesh, no bone of my bone;

No piece of me giving life to someone new.

 

You do not know what it is to be barren.

The grief of never growing,

never knowing, never bearing

A soul that is separate but part of me,

Created by love, by hope, by

prayers unfulfilled.

 

You do not know what it is to be barren.

Not you, with the glow and

the beautiful protrusion.

Not you, who’s hand absently strokes

your child as she rests within you.

Not you, who’s pain will bring forth joy

and new life.

 

No, you do not know what it is to

be barren, but I do.

My womb is empty.

No eruption of cells; only space.

No tiny beat-beat; only silence.

No flutter of new life; only stillness.

No miracle; only sadness.

5 Memes to Help You Cope with Mealtime Madness

5 Memes to Help You Cope with Mealtime Madness

By Samantha Allred

Getting your kids to eat a healthy meal is no easy task. You will only survive if you can learn to laugh about it. Check out these 5 relatable memes to help you cope with the mealtime madness. 

memes-about-feeding-kids
One of the hidden benefits of pregnancy
There are no sick days for mothers, unfortunately
This hits way too close to home. Wouldn't it be easier if our kids ate everything we gave them_
We are in the midst of the toddler stage and this is 100 accurate.
First Things First!

First Things First!

By Leigha Westover

When a child is learning to recognize shapes, they may attempt to put a round block in the square hole, or the square block in the triangle hole.  They may become frustrated and believe it won’t work, therefore giving up.  We love our children and we want to help them understand that placing the circle block in the circle hole will fit.  We take a moment to exhibit how this is done and we explain the process as we perform the action. Our child observes us putting the right block in the right hole and that it does work and so they desire to model after us.  They try and try until they begin to recognize and understand the shape matches the hole it fits into. Rarely will it be the first time. It takes practice and learning the skill of matching the block to the correct hole.  

Even as adults, we sometimes believe things won’t work — until our perspective becomes clearer as we learn from watching others succeed. Budgeting is like fitting the right piece in the right place. It CAN work for us, too!

Photo by HiveBoxx on Unsplash

 “ I cannot afford it”  “There is not enough money”  

A common phrase we all may have thought when thinking about giving money to tithing or a donation to a nonprofit.

As you do your best to make ends meet, sometimes there really doesn’t seem to be enough. It feels like a square peg going into a round hole. Many people go year to year living paycheck to paycheck.  When writing your budget, many times the total ends with a negative balance.  You are not alone and this is a very common lifestyle for many.

It has taken me many years to change my understanding of how to manage the “outgo” of our family finances.

We are actually correct in thinking that when we spend our money on the bills and frills first that nothing is left for God. We need shelter, food and clothes so those are at the top of our list.  No one wants to go hungry, naked or be out in the cold. So it is natural to rationalize why those would be our first expenses. However, God has asked us to be generous and make contributions to a church or other organization that cares for the needy.

Our Creator made all things possible through all He created on this earth: we rely on the earth for the food at our table; clothes and our homes are made from the very substance of the earth.

I would like to use the example in the Personal Finances Self Reliance Manual, page 41 (published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)

Picture that we have a glass jar which represents our income (a resource of limited size). a big rock representing our debt to the Lord, pebbles representing our savings for our future selves, and sand, representing our current needs and wants..

Take the empty jar and fill it with the sand first, then place the pebbles in, and finally put in the big rock.  By following these instructions, there is no room for the big rock. It will not all fit in the jar. This is the most common way we arrange our budget, like the square peg in the round hole.

But what if we put the big rock in first, add the pebbles, then pour in the sand? You will find that it is possible for everything to fit in the jar. 

“I have enough and more”  – this can be your new phrase! Abundance mentality.

Our family has chosen to put God first by paying our tithing and a fast offering.  We have discovered that our money has always been sufficient for our needs and beyond. And it is fun to find the miracles that make it happen.

Ask other people you know and trust about how they arrange their budget and what works for them. Search different ideas on budgeting. You don’t have to pay anyone to tell you how – there are plenty of free resources.  But take the time to find what works for you.

Put the circle block in the circle hole as you recognize that giving back to your Creator is your biggest rock and all the pebbles and sand will have room by taking this step first in your budget. 

Hushing the Mayhem with Music

Hushing the Mayhem with Music

By Annette T. Durfee

Snuggled up in my arms, my little grandson stares up at me with his big beautiful innocent eyes.  Together we rock back and forth in the overstuffed chair singing song after song and I’m convinced that I love him more every second!  As I sing, my mind wanders back to yesteryear when my babies were tiny and I sang song after song to them – hoping to relax them and hush their sleepytime fears. Hoping to instill in them the things I knew were true. Hoping to fill their hearts with the love that I had for them. 

It’s amazing how magical music can be!  Music has a way of touching our hearts and filling our memories with the best things of life.

Music was at the heart of the home I grew up in, so naturally, as an adult, I shared it with my children.  We sang lilting lullabies and fun children’s sing-along recordings. We also offered xylophones, harmonicas, recorders, and rhythm instruments for the little ones to explore creating their own sounds.  

As a classical musician, I knew the benefits of classical music: an increased learning capacity, creativity, and self-esteem, to name only a few.  Knowing that our children weren’t going to grow up on a farm (like my parents did), we still wanted to teach them hard work, patience, and discipline. We decided to instill these values through formal music lessons! Thus, we became the beneficiaries of practice sessions, morning-noon-and-night! We eagerly attended recitals and concerts galore! Music sweetly and simply lent a soothing atmosphere to our home and even our car, as we traveled to and fro. 

Music became a parenting friend that would quiet the mayhem of the moment.  When life became a little hairy and scary and the decibel level was a little too high, I would nonchalantly pop in a CD of classical music or church hymns (my secret weapons!) and – voila! – an essence of calm and peace would descend! Soon, things would settle down. 

With a house full of rambunctious kiddos, we found that with a little creativity, there seemed to be a song for every situation that could gently persuade, teach, or motivate.  Songs to make diaper changes more pleasant, songs to make hair washing less scary, songs to help children cooperate when it was time to brush their teeth.  Sometimes songs distracted us from the mundane and helped to pass the time while we did the dishes or other chores.  At bedtime, songs even helped us march up to bed in a happy way! We became a train connecting arms at the shoulders and chugging up the stairs singing, “Choo choo choo, what’s coming down the track?” The person in the lead would “pull the whistle” and up we went. 

Music was an unseen friend that added joy and spontaneity to our lives at just the right time! Sometimes the music was a toe – tapping “Turkey in the Straw” for a Thanksgiving program! Or the girls would make up choreography to a whimsical children’s song, their fancy dresses swirling in a wide circle. Sometimes a child surprised us with an unsolicited solo of a kindergarten-melody as they stood atop a make-shift stage (aka a chair in the dining room). And impromptu Family Talent Shows gave us rousing marches, emphasized by mini flags in the front room!  

With littles on the loose, life is more pleasant with a song in your heart.  In your home or on the go, music has the power to create a sort of a haven that smooths the creases of chaos and lifts the spirit.  So, whether your family chooses to learn an instrument or two, sing at top volume in the shower, or pop in a favorite CD, music is the power to make any moment a happy one!

Photo by Colin Maynard on Unsplash