Continue reading]]> This is me on the treadmill at the gym! For month 5 of my own personal parenting plan, I have been working on going to the gym 3 times per week so that I have more energy to be present for my kids and more energy to hang out and spend time with them. I did go to the gym 3 times this week, yahoo! I am pregnant and in my first trimester, so maybe that’s why I’m feeling so tired, but this week went pretty well. I found myself being more patient with the kids and yesterday we played games together and the day before that we made cookies together, which was really fun.  Every day is a bit of a challenge (energy wise) but I’m trying really hard to do what I can to make that better and trying not to make excuses.

Also, for now I am going to take a break from posting about my parenting plan weekly because I would like to have time to post more about my pregnancy.  Since this will be my last pregnancy, I want to document what it’s been like for me and since this will be a new experience (having a midwife and not an OB), I am excited to share with you what I am going through.  I will probably go to posting about the parenting plan monthly or so and then continue back up with it after the baby is born maybe.

Continue reading]]> Hey there!  It’s a great day here where I live.  We just had a snow storm come through and clear out the nasty nasty air we had been having for the last few weeks.  I can breathe again!

Well, as you know, each month I have been working on a new parenting goal to help me become a better Mom. I call it my parenting plan and I am working on my 5th month and my 20th week.  I post about my experiences each week.  I’ve had some successes and some failures.

I had kind of slacked off for a few years while I was going through some major health issues and then later working full time and I got into some pretty bad parenting habits.  I want to be better at what I consider the most important job on earth (and sometimes the most challenging job on earth).

This month I am working on getting healthy and getting my blood moving so I actually have energy to hang out and be present with my kids.  I am working on going to the gym 3 times a week.  I confess, I only went 2 times last week.  I don’t like making excuses, because they are pointless, but I had some good ones and some bad ones too (laziness).  I will be better this week and just got back from the gym a few minutes ago.  I feel  so much better when I make the effort to go, but it’s oh so hard to get myself dressed and out of the house so early in the morning.

I have found that going to the gym consistently for a couple months now has really changed my energy level (even though I’m in my first trimester of pregnancy – which is known for pretty severe fatigue).  I have found I don’t need naps as often, which means I can get more done around the house, which means I am less stressed, which means I can give more of myself to my kids and let go and have fun.  Win Win Win.

Continue reading]]> I can’t believe we are on month 5 of the parenting plan already and so far I feel like I have made so much progress if I look back to the first month.  Baby steps are so much easier for me and I have tried to set attainable goals for myself that I can actually accomplish without too much effort.  I’m a busy Mom of 3 (and one on the way) and I don’t have a lot of spare time, so I need something that is going to be quick, easy, and effective.

This month I am working on getting my body in shape so I will have more energy to be “present” and attentive with my kids.  Last week was pretty much an epic fail, mostly because of the pregnancy and those pregnancy hormones running amuck in my body.  I have been tired and restless, but this week I’ve been able to sleep which has been a much needed reprieve.

This week I am feeling better.  I’m glad I kept up with going to the gym and doing the treadmill for an hour 3 times a week.  I have had more energy and have been more patient and conscious when around my kids.  I didn’t even yell or get mad when my daughter dropped a glass of hot chocolate on the kitchen floor and broke my favorite mug.  Now, that’s restraint!

Anyway, I hope this kind of inspires you to keep going on your own goals.  There will be some good days and bad days.  That’s normal right?  Please post a comment if you have a goal you would like to share and how you’ve accomplished it.

Continue reading]]> Well, for my parenting plan, this month I’m working on going to the gym 3 or more times a week so I can have more energy to spend some extra quality time with my kids.  It’s a New Year’s Resolution of sorts.  Last week I went to the gym 4 times.  I haven’t found that I have had more energy though.  Maybe it will take more time and patience is not a virtue I was blessed with.

I had a rough day yesterday, I was really tired and grumpy.  I have found my kids don’t care.  They will crawl in bed with me or jump on the couch next to where I’m sitting and just want to talk, even on (my) bad days.  That’s why I love them so much because they are so forgiving.  I have such a long way to go to becoming better and I’m constantly aware of that.  I do feel better when I’m trying.  Not every week of this parenting plan has been a success for me and I’m sure there will be many in the future that bomb big time, but I’d like to keep trying despite failures and look forward to successes.  I’m going to keep up with this and I will let you know how it goes next week!

Please post a comment if you have any suggestions for me!

Continue reading]]> I took it upon myself to have a social media and blogging break while my kids were out of school for Christmas break.  It was wonderful and I feel more centered, but it’s also good to be back as I love writing about my experiences as a Mom and I love to keep trying to get better.  While we’re talking about getting better, it is the time of year where we think about resolutions and goals and how we would like to improve.

I have 2 resolutions for 2013. 

1. To exercise 3 times per week or more (at the gym where I just purchased a membership).  This provides me with an hour of undisturbed time to myself where I can zone out and watch the news on TV with no distractions.  I love it!  It’s my favorite time of the day.  The gym I go to is only $10 a month and no contract.  I can handle that!  I plan to go after I drop them off at school in the morning.

2. To spend more quality time with the kids.  I am around my kids a lot but I spend very little time doing fun things with them.  I would like to be more involved in their lives instead of just passing by each day.  We love to do things as a family and I would like to continue that.

I try to keep it simple and attainable with an action plan so that I can actually succeed at it instead of failing miserably at week one and before I’ve really started.  I have found that making a habit of my goals is what helps me to accomplish them.  I am by far no wear near perfect at it, but it does help to make a habit out of doing good things.  Don’t you agree?

I will work on the gym this month for my parenting plan, because I firmly believe that exercise will give me more energy so I can spend that quality time with the kids.  It gets my heart pumping and my blood flowing and all processes in my body (including my brain) just work better.  Have you noticed this too?  It does wonders for depression as well.

What are your resolutions?  If you would like to read a fantastic article about how to set and accomplish resolutions effectively, this one is a life changer! Click here for the article on establishing effective habits.  I hope this parenting plan is helping you a little bit.

Continue reading]]> Well this is the last week in month 4 of my parenting plan. I’ve been working on listening to my kids more and the results have been absolutely incredible. There have been a couple times I failed and I had to apologize and ask my kids to repeat themselves because I was tuning them out.  That’s not an excuse for me to tune them out, it’s just breaking a bad habit takes some time to master.  Overall, though I have been very pleased with the results and even after only a few months time, my kids seem happier and more secure.  And I’m happier and more secure as a Mom.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s really amazing to me how clearly I can see results each week and how I just have a desire to change and be better and it’s pretty easy for me to follow through with.  It must be by some pretty powerful fairy magic that good changes happen in our family.  Thanks good fairy!

Look closely, you might see the good fairy in the background :).

Continue reading]]> I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Ours was perfect filled with friends, family and great food and lots of ping pong :).

This year I have been taking baby steps and working toward being a better Mom.  I have noticed an overall sense of peace, contentment and love in our home since I have been doing small things each month to improve as a Mom.  This month I am working on really listening to my kids.  Whereas before, I just would have said “uh huh” to everything my kids were saying instead of really hearing them out, this month I’ve been trying really hard to listen well and discuss things with them.

I have been worried about my busy life and the busyness interfering with my goal this month (with the holidays coming up and all).  But really it hasn’t.  I have been a lot less stressed out than I usually am this time of year and the last couple days, although they were filled with things to do, really didn’t feel stressful to me.

I’ve found this goal to occur naturally as I have tried to be better.  I still have moments where I have to seek out a child and ask them to repeat what they said because I didn’t hear them (really meaning I wasn’t listening and was distracted by something else).  But I feel a closeness to them when I really intently listen and try to understand what they’re going through.  I hope this parenting plan helps someone out there!

Continue reading]]> This week was the first snow of the season and we had lots of fun making snow angels, shoveling the driveway together, and playing in the snow.

Well, we’re already on month 4, week 2 of the Parenting Plan.  I have been working on listening to my kids more this month.  I have found when I just try… a little, I get these amazing results that I wasn’t planning on at all.  For example, this week I decided to turn off the radio when I pick the kids up at school so I could actually hear what they were saying to me.  Guess what happened?  The kids became little chatterboxes and started telling me all about their day and what happened at school. They were excited to open up and I was excited to listen.  They spend the majority of their day at school and I want their at home (and in the car) time to be one where they are heard and loved unconditionally.

This is so exciting because it used to be the car ride home from school was a highly charged and stressful time for me to wait in line to pick them up for 15 minutes and then have them yelling over the radio so no one could hear each other only to come home and all do our separate things, like homework, practicing, and work.  This very small thing has been very powerful to me.  I also realized how easy it was for me before to tune out what the kids were saying and just throw in a “uh huh” or “yeah” every now and then.  This week I  am really trying to hear what they are saying to me and be supportive.  I can’t believe I wasn’t doing this before.  I am embarrassed that I wasn’t because it’s such a simple thing, but it is what it is and I am doing this parenting plan because I want to be honest with myself about my weaknesses so that I can be better.

Continue reading]]> I don’t think I ever wrapped up month 3 before moving on to month 4.  So, in month 3 I have been working on giving my kids more hugs and reporting on the results each week.  The results have been incredible, I can’t even begin to say how helpful this challenge has been to me as a Mom and probably the most helpful of all things things I’ve done so far.  First of all, it takes only a few seconds to give a hug.  Second of all, it’s good for everyone involved.  And third, that physical affection makes everyone feel more loved, so its a win-win-win!

I started keeping track of how many hugs I was giving my kids.  I would give the youngest 10+ hugs per day, the middle one usually initiates hugs with me so I would give her 5+ per day.  But my oldest daughter used to never initiate hugs until I did this parenting plan.  I thought she was growing out of hugs, but I think she was just waiting for me to show I loved her.  After specifically being mindful of giving her lots of hugs, she has initiated hugs with me many many times. It’s made a huge huge difference to me and made me more patient and compassionate toward her struggles (and she hasn’t had as many struggles as usual).  I just wish every Mom out there would try this, it’s so incredible!

I just feel like each month with this parenting plan, I barely even have to try and I get amazing, powerful results that help me become better.  I’m always surprised by how much I’ve been blessed with and how important my family is to me.  I want to be a better Mom and the little things do make a big difference.

One last thing I noticed this month is that my kids were giving each other hugs and holding hands.  WOW!

Continue reading]]> I woke up this morning in a funk.  I was disappointed about the results of last night’s presidential election.  I really wanted Mitt Romney to win and when he didn’t, I got in a mood.  You don’t want to mess with me when I get in a mood!

As I woke up this morning and knelt down to say my morning prayers, I had a sense of peace wash over me.  I realized that I was getting angry about something I had absolutely no control over.  There was no way I could change the election results. I can’t change our country.  I can’t make people get jobs.  The only thing I can change is me.  When I let my thoughts wander about what things I would like to change about myself, I immediately felt a sense of deep understanding that who I am is ok with God and he’s pretty darn happy that I’m trying to be better.  This means a lot to me and I will tell you why.

When I was a young woman, I daydreamed about what kind of Mom I would be someday.  I didn’t grow up in a traditional home, so I just kind of made up in my mind the kind of life I believed I would have somewhere out there in the future.  It would start off with a marriage to a man who shared equally in all responsibilities around the house including cooking, cleaning, finances, and child-rearing.  We would have a perfect and happy marriage with stellar communication. Next would come the kids, lots of kids.  I was an only child and always wanted brothers and sisters.  When the kids came, I would quit my job and be a stay at home Mom, and I would enjoy every minute.  Being a stay at home Mom would insure that my house would be clean, my meals would be healthy, and my kids would have perfect hair and clothes.  In my daydream of my future life, my kids would get along smashingly, my husband would appreciate all of my stellar efforts, and everyone would be one big happy family.

Well, fast forward to reality.  Here I am frazzled, juggling work that’s not really working, keeping the children alive, stacking up dishes in the sink so they don’t explode, cooking something remotely edible, volunteering in my not so spare time, church service, yard work, home work, budgeting, couponing, exercising, sewing, breaking up arguments between feuding children, errands, sports and music practice, and driving…. lots and lots of driving.  What happened to my little girl dreams of the perfect life?  And why am I still judging myself on those same impossible standards?

My life is never going to be perfect.  That’s a fact.  Concrete.  It will not change.  While I face many challenges and I’m literally frazzled and on edge 90% of the time (the other 10% I’m sleeping), I can improve, but I need to give myself credit for trying, even when I fail. I have learned the most from the times I have failed big time in my life.  While my life isn’t perfect, it’s pretty darn great and I really need to focus on the good things more than the bad.  I have been happily married for 13 years, which is longer than I’ve ever done anything before.  I have 3 wonderful kids that won’t die if they eat chili from a can and haven’t brushed their hair in 2 days.  I have great friends and family, a great house, transportation, and lots of opportunities ahead of me.  I want to be confident in my blessings instead of having an inferiority complex hangover.

I’ve done this parenting plan thing for 3 months now and I’ve seen huge changes in myself as a mother and huge changes in my kids.  I haven’t been perfect at it. I am trying though.  I am thinking that this month I will work on really listening to my kids.  Do you know what I mean?  Here’s me:  “uh huh,” “yeah,”, “I don’t know”.  I have no clue what my kid just said because I totally tuned them out, but I agreed with it….  I don’t like doing this and I want to be better.  I want to have conversations with my kids without worrying about the 10 loads of laundry blocking the entrance to my bedroom, or the millions of things that should probably get done in the next 5 minutes.  What’s more important, that stuff, or the kids? I want to be able to tune out that noise in my head that blares about the chores and tasks I should be doing, when my heart tells me I should be engaging with my kids more.

I will post about my experiences this month.  I’d also love to hear from you.  What things are you trying to change and improve at?