Had to share this -- Back to school today vs. the 70's

No wonder our kids end up entitled!  Does it have to be so complicated?

http://widelawns.blogspot.com/2014/08/back-to-school-70s-vs-today-lot-has.html

Finding More Tickle Monster Moments

Over the past few months, I have had a few friends or acquaintances diagnosed with cancer - all who have young children.  It's definitely given me some food for thought.  What if I didn't get to have as much time with my kids as I had planned - would I do things differently?

So my goal here is not to write the sentimental blog post that makes you cry and want to go home and hug your kids.  I mean if that happens, that's not bad, but that isn't my goal. My goal is to let you know my conclusion is actually something that might make the groundhog, monotonous (sometimes anxiety-filled) days with young children more enjoyable - especially for those of us Type A parents who need to accomplish goals every day!

I mean every day isn't going to be filled with trips to Disney World and sprinkle donuts.  But there are a lot of tickle monster moments and "Look at this silly face" moments I don't take advantage of, because I'm focused on the task or goal at hand.  And with little kids, is it really that important that we always get to church on time?  Is it really that important that all of the toys are put away before we leave the house?  If those things happen most or even some of the time, it's okay.  In fact, I would probably have an easier time getting those things accomplished if we had a few more tickle monster and silly face moments.

So my mission for myself is to look for the little opportunities each day to make a moment fun rather than to focus on getting everything done.  It won't be easy every day - but hopefully, I'll get better at it!

Too Much Junk Food!

Have you ever read the Berenstain Bear's book, Too Much Junk Food?  Well, last week I had my mama bear "Too Much Junk Food" moment.  I actually witnessed my husband bribing our daughter with a cupcake to eat a cookie.  I knew we had gone off the deep end.

A quick bit of background - The past 5 months have been a little rocky with our 4 year old daughter and in an effort to get the simplest tasks accomplished, we began using sugar as a bribe.  I knew it wasn't good, but it was necessary for survival.  But now things are better and clearly our daughter has learned how to maximize the sugar consumption, and I'm just so tired of saying, "No" all of the time.

So I pondered.  How do we solve this dilemma without creating total family meltdown?  Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration but it's always the fear when you take away your easy parenting tool, right?

Here's my solution - I decided to implement a sugar chart.  It's pretty easy.  Each of the normally consumed sugar items (sugar cereal, cookies, ice cream, etc) has a point total.  For example, pancakes are 3 points.  Yogurt is 1 point. Each child gets 4 points a day of sugar during the week and 6 points a day on Saturday and Sunday.  Oh, and you can earn 1 point if you eat a serving of veggies!

So how's it going?  So far so good.  This morning she asked for goldfish (which is 1 point) but then also wanted a piece of the Juicy Fruit gum (she earned a piece of gum for something else) her grandmother gave her (also 1 point).  I explained that if she chose the Juicy Fruit instead of the sugar-free gum, she wouldn't have 3 points left to get frozen yogurt after dinner tonight (this is also a good math tool).  Amazingly, she peacefully chose the sugar-free gum and all was well.  I didn't have to say no.  She made the choice.  And far less sugar is being consumed!  Granted, our daughter usually responds well to new things like this, because it seems kind of fun.  So the real test is how is it going in two weeks.  I'll report back!

Celebrating Successes!

So I had a huge success this week.  I officially launched my website - Piece of Cake Parties!  I've been working on this (with lots of help from my husband) for the past year.  It has definitely been a labor of love - a lot of work and stress that hopefully will eventually benefit our family, but for the past year has added a lot of additional stress on the family.
I have the tendency to just focus on the goal.  And as soon as I accomplish the goal, I set a new goal and go back to work.  I never give myself permission to relax and celebrate accomplishments.  I want to but it I have a hard time relaxing when I know there is work to do.  This is definitely a weakness personally and in my parenting.  Even with my kids, I say "Awesome!  Great job!" but then we are on to the next thing.  Okay, you stayed in your bed all week.  Now let's see if you can stop whining for a week.  Ha, just kidding.
So with the launch of Piece of Cake Parties, I'm giving myself a few days off to celebrate and enjoy our accomplishment.  There is a lot more to do, but I know I need to appreciate this win.  And hopefully, I'll discover a great celebratory feeling that reminds me to do this more in the future - my family and kids will appreciate it!

Managing the Chaos

I remember friends describing having a second child as "chaos."  I thought naively they must be exaggerating.  After all, clearly I had mastered having one child - we had kept her alive until age two.  How much harder could it be to have another one?   Well, once child number two learned how to walk, I learned what "chaos" meant.  For the past seven months, we have felt like we are in a constant state of chaos.  Even if things are technically under control, you always feel like you are just 10 seconds away from everything spiraling downward.   

This past week, we visited some friends who have children who are ages eight and six.  (AHHHH.  What a sense of calm.)  Well, our friends offered some perspective.  From their perspective, it didn't look as chaotic as we felt it was.  So that said to me at least 25% of the chaos (maybe even 50%) is just our anticipation of chaos. To be fair, it is human nature to learn from past behavior.  But nevertheless, I decided our assignment for the next week is to loosen up - and not worry about the chaos until it occurs.  And hey - what's the worse that could happen?  As long as everyone is alive and the house hasn't burned down, we'll make it through.  And maybe our children will make it to ages eight and six and we, too, will experience the wonderful sense of calm and peace that appears to occur then.