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 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?

Continue reading]]> If you haven’t been keeping up with my monthly goals, this month I have been working on giving my kids more hugs.  This is my second week with this goal, but generally I choose a different parenting goal each month and do baby steps to achieve it.  That’s just how I work best.

It hasn’t been a perfect week.  I guess it never is a perfect week.  It has been a great week until this morning when I woke up to my kids arguing and crying in the kitchen over a bag of granola.  It started off the day on the wrong foot and now I’m feeling worn out and in a bad mood.  I have to remind myself that sometimes there will be bad days, but I still need to keep trying.

I have still been working on giving my kids lots of hugs and it has been well received.  Even today when we were all a little upset with each other, I didn’t let the girls go off to school without a hug.  I came to sit down at my desk and saw this note at my monitor.  It softened my heart, and it’s a good thing it did that!

On to next week.  More hugs!

Continue reading]]> A friend of mine posted this article on facebook last week and it was something I wanted to try in my parenting plan series (well, the hugging part of it anyway).  I’m all about the baby steps.  It’s hard to take on monuments projects all at once, so I’m trying to be a better Mom one step at a time.  This month I will work on giving my kids more hugs.  I give my youngest lots of hugs every day, but I’ve noticed the older my kids get, the more they kind of shy away from getting hugs.  My 8 year old still likes them, but my 11 year old doesn’t really want anything to do with physical contact with me.

I decided this week, I would just observe a little about my kids patterns and decide what would be the best way to go forward.  I think physical affection can seem artificial if it is not done in the right way (or if it is forced or too much at once), so I just want to make sure I do a good job.  I started being aware that I wasn’t giving my 11 year old enough hugs and so I just started giving her 1 or 2 more per day than I usually do.  Already, she has come to me and given me hugs on her own, which she hasn’t done in years.  I was so happy that this change was taking place and that my friend posted this and brought it to my attention.

This week I plan to be more conscious of giving all my kids more hugs.  It will be good for everyone involved I think!

Disclaimer: **All parenting advice and information on Positively Mommy is provided for informational purposes only. Unless otherwise noted, the site content is not written by doctors, psychologists, or other health care professionals. The staff at Positively Mommy do not have psychiatric degrees or any other therapeutic training. The majority of our advice is drawn from personal experience and thus represents personal opinion. It is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any reliance on the information Positively Mommy provides is solely at the risk of the user. Positively Mommy does not assume any responsibility for damage or injury to persons or property that may arise from the use of the advice and information Positively Mommy provides.

Continue reading]]> Welcome to the half way point on my quest for becoming a better Mom this month. This is week 2.

This is my personal parenting plan and I’m still working on spending 15 minutes of 1:1 time with my kids each day to focus on having fun with them and getting my priorities in line (they should be my first priority, but sometimes I let other distractions get in the way).

This week I’ve kind of let distractions get in the way!  As much as I’ve tried not to, I’ve had 2 sick kids.  You can see my son was too tired to throw up again and just fell asleep on the couch holding his throw up bowl.  eew!  Not only were the kids sick, one kid was sick twice in one week!  My adorable husband was also out of town at a conference in Las Vegas. I am not a big fan of single parenthood and I missed him terribly.  While it was only 2 days, it felt like forever!

I was a little bit caught off guard by how little I was able to do this week with those 2 variables thrown into the mix. However, we were able to use our waterballoon pump to have a fun time in the backyard.  My daughter and I filled the balloons and then all the kids went out back and we had a mondo fight.  It was lots of fun and we like getting wet when it’s 95 degrees outside.  I would have been ok if someone would have sprayed me with the hose, but I settled for a little water balloon fun.  We took turns throwing the balloons off the deck to see if we could get them in the box.  We caught one, but it was a large child.

We also did things like reading one on one with each other, talking in bed, going out to eat with a friend, playing checkers, and sending silly emails to each other.  Wow has it really been a week?

Until next week, wish me luck.  How are you doing on your parenting plan?  Please leave a comment and let us know!

**All parenting advice and information on Positively Mommy is provided for informational purposes only. Unless otherwise noted, the site content is not written by doctors, psychologists, or other health care professionals. The staff at Positively Mommy do not have psychiatric degrees or any other therapeutic training. The majority of our advice is drawn from personal experience and thus represents personal opinion. It is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any reliance on the information Positively Mommy provides is solely at the risk of the user. Positively Mommy does not assume any responsibility for damage or injury to persons or property that may arise from the use of the advice and information Positively Mommy provides.

Continue reading]]>

Well, it’s been a week since I’ve been steadily working on my parenting plan to help me get closer with my kids and feel a little more confident to be less distracted and to prioritize more.

I have tried really hard this week to keep to the 15 minutes per day of dedicated time to each child and I haven’t done perfect, but have tried really hard.

We spent a whole night playing Table Talk after dinner and I got to know my kids a lot better and it was lots of fun.  I love that game so much!

One thing I did notice is my kids are playing by themselves a lot more and I’m less stressed out.  This means I have more time to get things done and they are enjoying each other’s company. Another bonus, is they have started cuddling and talking with me in bed at night before bedtime.  This is starting to be their favorite time of the day.  I’m thinking that’s a good thing!  Here’s a few of the things we did together this week.

1. We took a bike ride to a local store

2. We made hot pads

3. We did arts and crafts

4. We did some gardening (mostly picking raspberries)

5. We read books

6. We spent more time talking

7. We did cooking together

The thing that was most striking to me is that really none of the things we did together were “planned”, they were very spontaneous and in the moment type things.  I love each and every one of my kids and I want them each to know that by how I spend my time.

Another great thing that happened this week, is I have felt a sense of well-being that everything is right in my world.  I don’t know where it came from, but I welcome it with arms wide open.  I had a rough week the week before and I like feeling happy.  I think what I gained this week was priceless.  I probably got more out of it than my kids did honestly.

Wouldn’t it be great to do something like this with your spouse, that could really make a marriage great.  Well, one thing at a time for me.  I dub this a successful week and I’m feeling fine!

If you are following along please share your successes with us!

**All parenting advice and information on Positively Mommy is provided for informational purposes only. Unless otherwise noted, the site content is not written by doctors, psychologists, or other health care professionals. The staff at Positively Mommy do not have psychiatric degrees or any other therapeutic training. The majority of our advice is drawn from personal experience and thus represents personal opinion. It is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any reliance on the information Positively Mommy provides is solely at the risk of the user. Positively Mommy does not assume any responsibility for damage or injury to persons or property that may arise from the use of the advice and information Positively Mommy provides.