My Son Loves to Clean!

You probably decided to read this hoping I would offer tips about how to get your children to clean up after themselves.  And I truly wish I had tips for you, because heaven knows I could use them with our daughter.  But no, this is blog post about our 2.5 year old's latest passion - cleaning.

He is an adorable and quirky little kid.  So far he has had several different passions in his short life - construction vehicles, trains, and guitars.  But now he has moved on to cleaning.  Yes, you read that right...cleaning.  I can keep him occupied for at least 10 minutes by giving him a wipe and asking him to wipe the table or floor.  One of his favorite toys is his broom.  He desperately wants to control our vacuum cleaner and at the very least, watch it closely.  He's very, very sad when it's time to put it away.  He goes to Montessori pre-school, where they have "work" time for 1.5 hours a day.  During that time, they choose the activity or activities they want to work on.  My son almost exclusively spends the entire time cleaning the tables and floors.  They must love him!  They can get rid of their cleaning crew.

He loves cleaning so much that I found a cleaning trolley toy on Amazon.  I showed it to him and explained all of the gadgets it has (vacuum, broom, mop, spray bottle, bucket, etc.).  He lit up.  Then, I explained I would buy it for him if he learned to use the potty (which he has ironically been adamantly against...clearly, his cleanliness doesn't extend to poop).  The very next day he willingly agreed to sit on the potty at school!!!  I mean we don't have potty training success yet, but it definitely affirms his love of cleaning.

So it leads me to my point - I have discovered the latest and greatest toy for young children.  It motivates him to get dressed for school in the morning.  It motivates him to eat his dinner.  It motivates him to be nice to his sister.  What is this magnificent toy you ask?  A Swiffer.  He especially loves the Swiffer Sweeper Vac, followed by the Swiffer Wet Jet (we just take the cartridge out to prevent him from soaking the floor).  The motorized sounds offer definite appeal.

My son and his Swiffers

Now this could be cause for concern, but after a little research, I feel confident these aren't early signs of OCD.  Unfortunately, he will probably grow out of this interest, too.  And around the age of 16, I will be reminding him of this video hoping for some inspiration.  But in the meantime, I'll take it.

And may I suggest that even if your young child doesn't have a cleaning fascination, try busting out the Swiffer to offer some new entertainment.  It has been way better than sliced bread (which my son does not like) at our house!

Do You Love What You Do?

This question applies to however you spend your day - whether it's working or parenting or volunteering or living a life of leisure (if that applies to you, give us all tips to getting there).  Generation X and the generations younger than us have been told to "Do what you Love and Love what you Do."  That has gotten many people into ridiculous debt pursuing journalism at a cost of $100K in student loans.  It can also make us feel as if we've failed if we don't always LOVE what we are doing.   So it has made me ponder: 1) Am I doing what I really love?  and 2) Can people be happy and content if they aren't doing what they really love?

On my journey, I have taken many different turns.  I got my undergraduate degree in finance, but realized before graduating that I really didn't enjoy finance that much.  Following the stock market on a daily or hourly basis didn't exactly feel like my life long dream. So I went into technology consulting hoping to find my passion.  All I really found was that I didn't have a passion for technology.  So then, I went back to graduate school and got my MBA.  I concentrated in marketing and there I found something that fit.  I liked being a marketer.  I loved the psychology, the strategy, the and marketing campaigns.  I liked working in a team, and I liked that there was always something new.  But I didn't like the hours and the pressure and the lack of time and energy I had for anything else.

So then what?  I took a less stressful brand management job, but it wasn't challenging or very fulfilling.  I had children, which I loved, but I knew that I wasn't cut out for being a stay-at-home mom.  So I found myself working for another Fortune 100 company (but from home) leading incentive programs.  I had no experience in this, but I saw an opportunity and I decided to build it into my own business.  I also started Piece of Cake Parties, which of course, gave me an opportunity to own my own business.

And what I learned was I am quite happy and content with "what I do."  Now do I have a passion for incentive programs?  No.  Do I have a passion for dealing with paperwork and taxes?  No.  If I truly did what I love, I would sit around all day eating dark chocolate and drinking wine.  But nobody wants to pay me to do that (if you do want to pay me to do that, please let me know).  But overall, I'm very fulfilled and satisfied with what I do.  I like getting up each day, and I feel good going to bed each night.  I get to think strategically and creatively everyday.  I own my work.  I have autonomy, and I can see the results of my labor.  I truly identify with what I do.  It feels like it's a part of what makes me me.  And it fits with the rest of my life - I can still be a mom and wife and not feel inadequate in those areas (at least I don't feel that way on a regular basis).

I guess what I learned was I don't think you have to LOVE what you do (be it work or parenting) to be happy and make money.  It doesn't have to be your passion.  In fact, sometimes passions should be left as hobbies.  There's no quicker way to dislike something than to make it a job.  But I do think you have to feel fulfilled and satisfied with what you do.  It needs to interest you, motivate you and give you a sense of accomplishment.  And it needs to feel like it fits you.  And it needs to fit with the rest of your life.

Maybe instead of worrying about finding our passions, we just need to find the thing that interests us and that we can truly own.  Then, be the best at it that job that we can be.  That creates satisfaction and accomplishment, which I would argue is what most of us really want.

Easy, Fun Halloween Party Ideas for Kids

Despite the fact I own a party business, I rarely blog about party planning.  Probably because most people come to me, because they DON'T want to plan the party.

But as Halloween is approaching (and I am desperate for it to feel cooler outside), I have begun my Halloween party planning.  After all the key to good party planning is to plan early.  Makes it much less stressful and usually more economical, too.

If you are planning a Halloween party for kids this year, I have 10 great, EASY, Halloween kid activities to get your party started:

1.  Classic Mummy Wrap -  Divide the kids in groups of 2-4.  The kids wrap one child up as a mummy.  You can even judge the mummies and give prizes - fasted mummy, prettiest mummy, scariest mummy, etc.

2.  Decorate a pumpkin - Buy a bunch of mini pumpkins.  Add some paint, sticker, glitter, and any other craft item you like.  Then, let the kids create!  Again, you can judge the pumpkins at the end if you want - scariest, silliest, greenest, etc.  Or you could ask the kids to create the pumpkins in a theme.  For example, decorate all of the pumpkins to be a zoo animal and at the end, put the pumpkins together to make a pumpkin zoo!

3.  Pinata - This is super easy.  There are a ton of Halloween pinata options out there.  This is a creative way to distribute the much-loved and expected candy at every good Halloween party.

4.  Popcorn hand craft - All you need is a bag of candy corn, popcorn, and some clear latex gloves.  Insert one candy corn at the tip of each finger.  Then, fill the glove with popcorn.  Tie the glove off with some yard or string.  It makes for a great snack after the party!

5.  Cake Walk - An oldie but goodie.  Make a circle of numbers.  Then, play music while the kids walk in the circle.  When the music stops, you draw a number.  The child on that number wins a cupcake.  You can keep playing the game until everyone wins a cupcake (particularly if you are playing this with young kids).

6.  Witch Hat ring toss - Buy a half dozen inexpensive witch hats and some plastic, foam, or rubber rings.  Voila!  You have a Halloween ring toss.

7. Pumpkin bowling - Okay, this one could be a bit risky if you have boys.  You might want to do it outside or at least in a safe hallway.  But still, it's fun and easy!  You just need 10 cheap rolls of paper towels or toilet paper.  Use a Sharpie or cut out black paper circles to add a ghost face.  Set them up like pins, and let your guests use a small (key word here) pumpkin to knock down the ghost pins.

8.  Bean bag toss - You can make a bean bag toss out of a large cardboard box.  You can make one out of a large cleaned out pumpkin.  You can even use a cheap plastic trick or treat pumpkins.  Personally, I'm planning to use our existing bean bag toss (or corn hole as they call it in the Midwest).  I'm going to wrap it in paper and decorate it with Jack-o-lanterns and bats.

9.  Witch Hat Cookies - Let everyone make their own witch hat cookie.  All you need are some Oreos, Hershey Kisses, and a little orange icing.  Dip an unwrapped kiss in the orange icing and push it down on the Oreo.  If you want to get fancy, stick an M&M on the front for a buckle.

10.  Last but not least, a Costume Contest! - Every kid loves to wear their costume as many times as possible.  Make them feel special by having them model their costumes.  You can create many categories, so that everyone can win something.  Prettiest costume, scariest costume, loudest costume...just be fun and silly!

See these ideas aren't too hard to implement?  Plan early, eliminate the stress and have fun with it!

10 Things that are Different after 10 Years of Marriage

My husband and I are about to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  10 whole years.  If you count the years before that, it's 12 years together.  That's more than a quarter of my life.  That's pretty amazing considering I wasn't sure if I would get married in the first place.

10 years ago, we lived in Ohio.  We had a town house on the river in Cincinnati.  We had two cats and no children, and we truly lived the Will Farrell's Old School quote -"Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time."  We said that quote every Saturday after our weekly outing (honestly, it was usually Lowe's but pretty much the same).  We took vacations regularly.  We took fun weekend trips.  We tried every new restaurant (even though there weren't that many in Cincinnati).  We were still fairly hip.

So to honor our 10 years together, I reflected on what is different about us and our lives together now vs. who we were and what we did 10 years ago.

1.  Earlier Bedtime
Then - A weekday date night consisted of watching 3 episodes of 24 and going to bed at 11:30.
Now - A weekday date night consists of watching 1 episode of the Daily Show and going to bed at 9:30.

2.  Lots More Honesty
Then - If I needed to talk to my husband about something serious, I thought about it for days and worried about the exact right time to bring it up.  Then, I would try to couch the issue in the nicest way possible and make sure he felt okay afterwards.

Now - Much more honesty and straight forwardness (is that a word?) now.  No time for hedging and cushioning.  Seriously, I'm lucky if I have 5 free minutes to talk, so when there's a gap in the conversation, the opportunity is seized.  We have 2.5 minutes to discuss the issue and 2.5 minutes to solve the problem.  It's all about getting it done.

3.  No More Home Projects
Then - As I said, we spent our weekends at Lowe's and Bed, Bath & Beyond.  I made my poor husband do a kitchen back splash that took him 20 hours, because I had a master vision.  We spent our entire Thanksgiving one year painting diamonds on a wall.  I often painted rooms 2 or 3 times, because I changed my mind on the color.  I had seen every episode or every show on HGTV at least twice.  I was in heaven!

Now - We haven't made any changes (even furniture changes) in our house since our son was born.  And seriously, the thought of doing a home project seems so unappealing now.  It took me 6 months to finally clean out the pantry and hallway closet.  And btw, those accomplishments felt just as good as the back splash accomplishment.

4.  It's Some Times Hard to Find Things to Talk About
Then - Everyday we had interesting conversations about our days at work.  We also knew everything going on in the world.  We knew the latest things happening in the city we lived in, and we had a lot more energy to discuss everything.

Now - I used to ask my parents if they ever just ran out of things to talk about.  I couldn't imagine it.  But I'm reaching a point, where I can see how that happens.  We try not to just talk about our kids, but our kids and job pretty much consume 95% of our time, so we don't know nearly as much about the rest of the world to help us engage in interesting conversation.  I realized this is why couples start double dating a lot - you need new people to share your old stories with.

5.  We are Truly a Family Now
Then - In theory, once you get married, you are a family unit.  But it still kind of felt like we were playing house.  I mean I was committed and didn't want to get divorced, but if my husband suddenly went off the deep end...I might have been inclined to chalk that one up to "my mistake" and move on.

Now - Now we are committed.  After 10 years of moving, buying and selling homes, changing jobs, struggling with familial relationships, having two children, going through the pain of infertility, going through lay offs, starting businesses, and really building a life together - we are in it for the long haul now.  I remember a friend once saying, "If you make it through 10 years, you know you are compatible.  After that, if you divorce, it's because someone really screwed up."  That's how I feel now.  One of us or both of us would really have to screw up to change things now.

6.  Dinner Time Is Less Appealing
Then - I used to love dinner time.  I sat at the bar drinking a glass of wine while my husband cooked.  Then, we had a leisurely dinner and talked.  The only bad part was the clean up.

Now - I just need to get through dinner time.  If I can contain the kids while my husband cooks and everyone eats at least 25% of the food on the plate and no one goes to time out during dinner, that is an awesome dinner!  And the clean up is literally my favorite part.

7.  We Appreciate Our Date Time
Then - I used to wonder why my MIL asked me if we had a date night.  I was thinking, "What are you talking about?"  There is no one else in the house.  Every night is date night.

Now - I truly understand why you need date nights once you have kids.  The first 20 minutes are some times even awkward.  It's like we're thinking, "Who are you?  What do we do when we aren't chasing children?"  Oh, you like other things besides trying to keep our children in line?  Huh, who knew?  By the end of the evening, I remember." Oh yeah.  I really like you.  I forgot that's why I dated you in the first place...not just because I knew you would be great at unloading the dishwasher and driving the kids to school."

8.  We See Three Movies a Year
Then - We went to the movie at least twice a month.  We watched 2-3 movies at home a week.  I always wondered how people didn't know what movies were out.  How did they not know Brad Pitt was in that new movie coming out Friday?  They must have their heads in the sand.

Now - Seriously, we see no more than three movies a year at the theater.  And you know what?  I don't care.  I usually don't even know what movies are out (hence, I don't miss them), and my life still manages to go on.  I am looking forward to being able to add this activity back to our family life at some point, but it turns out, it's not as critical as I once believed.

9.  We Are Both Better Communicators and Better Forgivers
Then - As I stated above, when there was a serious topic at hand, I thought about how to communicate it for days.  Then, usually, it still didn't go as planned.  And both of us were frustrated or angry.

Now - We have both learned how to leave emotional words out of these conversations.  We have both learned to listen to the other one, and we have both learned to compromise and find a solution.  We worry about who is right less (okay, this one is still hard).  In fact, we've both learned the art of apologizing.  Man, it makes everyone happier a lot faster!  As Dr. Phil says, "Sometimes the relationship just needs a hero."  We certainly aren't perfect, but we are much better.  Probably why we are still married

10.  We Know Where We Are Headed
Then - When we got married, we were fresh out of business school.  We were both starting new careers.  We had no idea where we wanted to live or if we wanted to have kids.  We didn't know if we wanted to join a church or join a country club.  And we didn't know what the other person wanted either.  Granted, we probably should have attended some pre-marital counseling to discuss these things...but nevertheless, it worked out.  But we had a lot of uncertainty and a lot of things to figure out.

Now - We found our home in Austin.  We have both found our careers and professional futures (mostly).  We figured out we did want to have kids - two, in fact.  We know what kind of family, work life balance we want.  Turns out we did want to join a church (but perhaps a country club is in our future too...guess we'll see).  We even have a financial advisor and retirement plan in place.  We've survived ups and downs and neither person walked out.  It feels like we have our foundation and now we know where we are headed.  That is awesome!

Life may be more stressful now and less leisurely, but it's full and it's meaningful and we are grateful everyday for it.  After 10 years, I can say we have definitely set the foundation for building a life for our family that we will be proud of and that we will enjoy.  And I'm so proud of us for doing it together.  It's a great accomplishment, and there are many more great accomplishments to come.

To my husband, I say thank you!  Thank you for loving me and wanting to marry me.  I love you more now than I did 10 years ago.  And I look forward to the next 40 (or 50) years together!

I'm Ready for My Kids to Grow Up!

I know a lot of moms might read that and say I'm crazy, but seriously, I was probably more excited than my daughter was for her to start kindergarten this past week.  I was giddy walking down the school hallway.  I marveled at all of the "big kid" things in the school.  I had no qualms about her taking the bus on the first day.  In fact, she didn't want to take the bus.  And I just said, "Trust me.  It will be awesome.  You are doing it."  I bought her backpack and lunch box in June, because I was so excited for her.  I just really love everything about it.  Am I crazy?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not ready for her to go to college tomorrow.  And I did shed a tear driving to kindergarten the first day.  But once I dropped her off, I thought, "Wow.  We made it.  This is going to rock."

Truth be told, when I envisioned having kids, I always envisioned these years - the elementary years.  It wasn't a conscious thing, but obviously, my subconscious thought, "This is parenting.  This is the fun stuff."

I've noticed since my daughter was born that my joy (not passion but joy) of parenting has gone through cycles.  At the newborn stage, the joy was low...very low.  I was totally sleep deprived, overwhelmed, lonely, and bored out of my mind.  Then, she started sleeping through the night, and she developed the ability to interact and not just be a sack of potatoes (I mean a very cute sack, of course), and I started to see the joy.  The joy grew and lasted until she hit two and the terrible (very terrible) twos kicked in.  My joy faded.  Then, our son was born and the joy that I thought I would feel seeing my two beautiful children together was...well, minimal.  The stress of toddler rages and a newborn took its toll.  The newborn became the next great exploring toddler - always grabbing, opening, throwing, chewing, etc.  And the joy waned even more.  In fact, looking back, I might have even reached a small state of depression.  We powered through, of course, because what else can you do?  But there wasn't a lot of joy.  There was a lot of just survival.

Then, my son turned two and my daughter turned 4.5 and the joy began to return.  My daughter's rages had mostly subsided.  I could relax and not feel constantly anxious with her.  And my son developed enough awareness that I didn't constantly fear for his life and our house.  And slowly, the joy has continued to increase.  I don't notice it everyday.  But when I stop and reflect, I can easily see how we are more joyful now than we were a year ago.  My husband and I argue less and laugh more.  Frankly, I just like him more.  And I'm not always in mean mommy state.  I probably wasn't before, but it sure felt like it.  I guess I can say I like me more, too.

But the thing is, now we're in a stage where it just keeps getting better.  And so I can't really help myself.  Now that I see my daughter in kindergarten - her independence growing, her knowledge growing, her interest in the world around her growing.  I find myself wanting more of it.  I can't wait for her little brother to get there, too.  Although, right now, I would just be happy with him learning to use the potty...but I digress...

Everyone who has older kids says to enjoy these moments because they will go by fast.  And I'm sure once my kids have left home, I will long for just one more day of when they were two and five and gave mommy snuggles and said silly, silly things.  I'm absolutely sure I will feel that.  But then, I will spend a day with someone else's two and five year old and remember - oh yeah, I had to work really hard for those snuggles and silly moments.  Umm..yeah, forgot about that.

What I've realized is that parents aren't always cut out to be great at every stage of parenting.  Depending on your personality, you might love the younger years.  Or you might love the teenage years.  I think I'm best suited for the elementary years (and maybe the college years).  It doesn't mean I love my kids any differently in each stage, but I love the act of parenting differently.

So right now, I have to say - I'm so looking forward to the years to come!  I'm trying to pace myself.  But, really I'm thinking, "Bring it on!  This is what I've been waiting for."

Do you agree?  Are you better at some parenting stages than others?