As parents, there are many things we do that we do not want to do. (Examples: make approximately 17 million peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, wrestle on a hardwood floor, say things like "please stop licking the grocery cart.") The motivations for doing those things are sometimes selfish, and sometimes selfless.
I've been taking inventory of the things I've been doing even when I don't want to, because I know in the long run, I really do. Parenting, and adulting in general, can be complicated. There is a very appropriate Bible verse that I feel correctly represents what many of us feel when we give in to what we think we want only to find out, we don't:
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Romans 7:15
Things I force myself do, because I know I should, and I want to, just not usually at the time...:
1. Wake up with my alarm. Parenting gives me a daily run for my money. The alarm clock goes off and the lure of more sleep is as tempting as the midnight (okay, 9 p.m.) snack was the night before. Unlike the snack, I don't usually give in. The main reason? I've had too much experience being forced into the day by the cries of my children, and it is the wrong head space for the start of my day. I feel exponentially better when I wake up well before my kids and have had two cups of coffee.
2. Exercise. We all know it. We've all heard it. Exercise makes you feel better, right? Totally! But it's really hard to use that as motivation when the only time you have cuts into precious sleep. Makes you feel better? Who says? Sleep makes me feel better. That is a more accurate representation of my 5 a.m. thoughts. Nonetheless, I force myself to do it because I've experienced the way it makes me feel better, and perhaps more importantly, how not doing it makes me feel worse.
3. Pray. Another habit I've acquired because I've seen my life not doing it, and frankly, prayer makes me better. Having a sense of connection to the greater scale of life on a regular basis keeps my day in perspective. Remembering that I'm not in this crazy life alone or without purpose helps me keep things balanced.
Things I'm learning to force myself to do, because I know I should, and I want to, just not usually at the time...:
1. Take my kids outside. It is October and I have already worn a fleece blanket around as a dress over my jeans and hoodie. I don't love the cold. But I've been through enough winters to know that this is not yet the cold to come, and I should take advantage of any day the sun chooses to shine in State College, PA. In fact, even without the sun shining, I'm forcing myself to get outside with my kids. They do better, I do better, and the fresh air brings a refreshing new perspective on the day.
2. Meal plan and cook. Ugh. Meal planning. I don't know if it's worse than actually cooking the meals or not, but it's a pretty close race for me. I totally don't mind cooking when I have the time to do so. But let's face it, uninterrupted time to whip together dinner is a rarity, and I usually end up sacrificing the cleanliness of every other room in my house to do so. It pays off, but it's hard! I'm still learning how to make this one feel easier.
3. Things I love. I think there is a misconception that we should always want to do the things we love to do. We are human, and sometimes motivation and energy just run low. That said, my days are exponentially better when I force myself to run, read, and/or write. Those things are different for everyone, but for me, a day that incorporates all those things, is a day well spent and leaves me feeling content and energized.
"Force" sounds like I'm abusing myself into doing things I never want to do, but that's not at all what I mean. The fact is that I nearly always want to do the things I listed above, but even knowing that, sometimes it's just really hard. I don't always want to do them. I don't always feel like it's worth it.
I do feel like I've finally discovered a gigantic piece of the adult puzzle that I'm wiggling into place. Parenting and adulthood have everything to do with your ability to think beyond the difficulty of the moment and into the reward of the future. As I learn to do it, I can continue improving my day-to-day life by incorporating things with short-term and long-term rewards.
This blog post brought to you by me forcing myself to write instead of nap.
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Friday, October 12, 2018
Fizzling Fireboxes!
This week we had an unfortunate incident involving a small kitchen fire. So as not to alarm anyone, I will clarify right off the bat that it caused no damage (except to my pride.)
The morning was unfolding as it typically does - busy with preparations of four breakfasts, a lunch to-go, and two cups of greatly watered down apple cider. All of that went off without a hitch, but we usually have two breakfast courses around our house. One that involves the kids eating whatever I give them first (usually either oatmeal or honey nut cheerios) and almond butter toast for me. Another that usually involves yogurt and berries for the kids and a nice berry breakfast bowl for me.
We're big breakfast people.
So like any normal person does, I pop my shredded coconut into the toaster oven to get nice and crisp for my berry bowl. Normally, I watch it like a hawk, because it can burn in roughly .6 seconds when unattended. This morning, however, my children were in rare (slash usual) form. They were bickering over a toy that resulted in absolutely window-breaking shrills from my son and a matched tone and firmer grip from my daughter.
Calmly, I yelled over them to stop the madness. Then I got down to their level, removed the offending toy from the situation, and explained to both of them the inappropriate nature of their behavior.
While I was busy being super mom, my coconut turned black. When I moved to grab it out, it burst into flames. Not smoldering ashes, not smoking, flames. So I'm staring at the fire contained inside my toaster oven and thinking the following:
The morning was unfolding as it typically does - busy with preparations of four breakfasts, a lunch to-go, and two cups of greatly watered down apple cider. All of that went off without a hitch, but we usually have two breakfast courses around our house. One that involves the kids eating whatever I give them first (usually either oatmeal or honey nut cheerios) and almond butter toast for me. Another that usually involves yogurt and berries for the kids and a nice berry breakfast bowl for me.
We're big breakfast people.
So like any normal person does, I pop my shredded coconut into the toaster oven to get nice and crisp for my berry bowl. Normally, I watch it like a hawk, because it can burn in roughly .6 seconds when unattended. This morning, however, my children were in rare (slash usual) form. They were bickering over a toy that resulted in absolutely window-breaking shrills from my son and a matched tone and firmer grip from my daughter.
Calmly, I yelled over them to stop the madness. Then I got down to their level, removed the offending toy from the situation, and explained to both of them the inappropriate nature of their behavior.
While I was busy being super mom, my coconut turned black. When I moved to grab it out, it burst into flames. Not smoldering ashes, not smoking, flames. So I'm staring at the fire contained inside my toaster oven and thinking the following:
- What do I do?
- What do I do?
- What do I do?
- ...Do we own a fire extinguisher?
- Should unplug something that's burning?
- Something about electrical fires.
And I'm saying, "Uh, uh, uh" and doing small tiptoe dances so that I'm ready to go when I figure out my course of action. Graciously, the kids are silent while I work through it.
Finally, I grab the tray the coconut is on (where it is proving to be excellent kindling) and I throw it into the sink, turn the water on, and watch the flames sizzle out into the small black caterpillars that remained.
Crisis averted.
My daughter had remained silent for the entire scenario. Silence for her is like... finding a four leaf clover - exciting and rare. Clearly, she was taken aback by this experience. My son also remained in stunned silence, but for him, that's pretty normal. He takes in most situations, regardless of their excitement level, just like that.
Naturally, I realize that I need a serious course in fire safety as well as to find our fire extinguisher.
This couldn't have happened in better timing as the next day we were going to my daughter's preschool for the first time ever - to learn about fire safety. And see a fire truck. Thank God, that'd be the first one my kids saw up close.
For the whole presentation I'm figuring out if there's a sly way for me to interject something like, "What should you do, just if it happened to happen that you, like, were cooking and something ignited?" But it didn't sound natural as the conversation was really about fire safety from the smoke alarm on. Talk about a missed opportunity.
Thankfully, we made it through the presentation, the crawling firemen, and the fire truck tour -complete with holding the water hose, without my daughter ratting me out. I think my son might have tried, but his version is something like: "Ma! Fi! 'Ot. Oooo" So I wasn't in much danger of someone picking up on it.
On the way home, however, my daughter peppered me with questions and comments now that she was in her comfort zone.
"Why do the firemen dress like that?"
"I don't want them to come to our house."
"That's scary, Mama. I don't like that."
"Why does the truck have to come to your house?"
"I don't like the noise that makes."
I repeated the fireman's answers (didn't you listen at all, child?) and eventually said something like, "And fires in the house are bad."
"But Mama, you started a fire."
"....yeah... " was all I came up with.
I'm thinking that this memory will be... shall we say, singed into her mind for a while.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Back to Blogging
Remember when I said I didn't want to start blogging, because I didn't want to stop blogging and feel guilty about it?
....
Kids change a lot in six months. My baby just turned two and he now says things like, "ma day goo" when you ask him how his day was. He lights up at all things train and truck. His two-year-old birthday party had a giant bulldozer center piece on the table. If you ask him what book he wants to read he replies emphatically with "mo mo tuck! mo mo tuck!" and dashes off looking for his monster truck book. He has the whitest blond hair I've ever seen come from two brunettes. He is both compliant and outspoken depending on the circumstance. (Sister tries to steal toy: outspoken with rage. Sister asks nicely for toy: compliant, sweet, and hands it over.)
The cutest trick we taught him of late was leading up to his birthday when we asked him 150x/day how old he was going to be, to which he originally replied "figh" and held up his hand. He eventually morphed "figh" to the French word for two, deux, but still held up his entire hand, and I praised him like he'd completed elementary mathematics before his second birthday.
My daughter prefers bad company to no company and loves to be at my side at. all. times. Even if I'm in a crummy mood and snapping too much, she still wants to hang out with me. (Drat.) (JK.) (Seriously, I'm kidding. I know I'll miss it.)
She stands at the bathroom door and says, "I'll be right here in case you need me, Mama."
(Excellent.)
She asks if I want to go in the basement to do finger paint. "Wouldn't that be so fun?"
(I was thinking messy.)
She phrases all questions in a way that tries to trick you into answering 'yes,' always. "Mama, that's okay I can have more apple cider?"
(...mmm, no.)
She thinks treats come after every meal, which would bother me more, but she does consistently eat her vegetables, just in case.
(But 9 times out of 10, still no.)
She recently picked out a bath-time baby doll, whom she diligently bathed and fed with a bottle full of water every morning. For two days. And then she got freaked out by it's life-like peeing and now she skips the waterworks and throws the baby, bottomless, into her stroller and packs her up for the park. Baby dolls are her jam right now.
The aforementioned bulldozer and baby doll came from an unexpected blessing. We had some family in town and a doting great aunt gave each of the children $20 to spend on a toy at the store. They never made it to the store together, so I inherited the gift of taking them out. I wasn't sure what to expect: fits over only one toy, interest in big ticket items, the most annoying toy ever finding it's way into my home, etc. Instead, it turned out to be a fantastic gift.
If you have never taken your child into the store with the intent to purchase them a toy, I officially recommend it. I have literally never taken my kids and said, "let's buy a toy!" because we have a ridiculous amount of them. It's not even close to being necessary. However, I think we may institute the process once a year just to be able to say, 'yes.'
I learned so much on that trip to Target with $40 in hand/child's owl wallet!
1. Kids don't need the priciest thing on the shelf to be happy. We went in with $20 for each of the kids. We spent $19 and change on each toy, and came home with coins for the piggy bank. Whenever they picked something that was over $20 I just said, "Sorry, Sweetie! We don't have enough money for that one, pick a different toy." And it worked because this concept of toy picking was so new and exciting. They were both thrilled with their selections, and came away with some good birthday ideas for the things that didn't make the cut.
2. It's good to teach your kids about money. We certainly understood this for the long-term, but we have yet to implement any kind of allowance or formal chores in our family. Our kids have tasks and jobs, but they are primarily assigned at random and not performed for money. Having them understand that they had money to spend, they couldn't spend more than what they had, and to physically hand the cash over to the cashier and receive the toy in exchange was great practice.
3. I need to say 'yes' more. I am a no-machine. Sometimes I've accidentally said 'no' to something as an automatic reaction when the answer was so clearly 'yes' that it made me look like a lunatic. No treats. No television. No, I can't come with you to get your socks. No, I don't want to watch you go potty. No, I prefer to brush my own hair. No, because I don't want to clean up the mess. No, because you didn't eat your dinner. No, no, no. I want to say 'yes,' more. I want to give up a little control so that I can be the one to OFFER ice cream instead of the one who begrudgingly gives permission because they ate their peas.
Don't get me wrong: #momlife, am I right? That's what we do. We control because we care! (#newhashtag) If I don't make you eat your peas, who will?! But I refuse to go through life without enjoying my kids, on some occasions, the way those without the responsibility/privilege of raising them do.
Take $5, $10, or whatever you choose to afford, and take your kids to the store and pick out a toy you would never say 'yes' to while running an errand. Let that trip be about them on purpose. ('Cause we all know most trips usually end up about them regardless.)
If you're like me and make a habit of 'no,' take your kids out and practice saying 'yes!'
....
Kids change a lot in six months. My baby just turned two and he now says things like, "ma day goo" when you ask him how his day was. He lights up at all things train and truck. His two-year-old birthday party had a giant bulldozer center piece on the table. If you ask him what book he wants to read he replies emphatically with "mo mo tuck! mo mo tuck!" and dashes off looking for his monster truck book. He has the whitest blond hair I've ever seen come from two brunettes. He is both compliant and outspoken depending on the circumstance. (Sister tries to steal toy: outspoken with rage. Sister asks nicely for toy: compliant, sweet, and hands it over.)
The cutest trick we taught him of late was leading up to his birthday when we asked him 150x/day how old he was going to be, to which he originally replied "figh" and held up his hand. He eventually morphed "figh" to the French word for two, deux, but still held up his entire hand, and I praised him like he'd completed elementary mathematics before his second birthday.
My daughter prefers bad company to no company and loves to be at my side at. all. times. Even if I'm in a crummy mood and snapping too much, she still wants to hang out with me. (Drat.) (JK.) (Seriously, I'm kidding. I know I'll miss it.)
She stands at the bathroom door and says, "I'll be right here in case you need me, Mama."
(Excellent.)
She asks if I want to go in the basement to do finger paint. "Wouldn't that be so fun?"
(I was thinking messy.)
She phrases all questions in a way that tries to trick you into answering 'yes,' always. "Mama, that's okay I can have more apple cider?"
(...mmm, no.)
She thinks treats come after every meal, which would bother me more, but she does consistently eat her vegetables, just in case.
(But 9 times out of 10, still no.)
She recently picked out a bath-time baby doll, whom she diligently bathed and fed with a bottle full of water every morning. For two days. And then she got freaked out by it's life-like peeing and now she skips the waterworks and throws the baby, bottomless, into her stroller and packs her up for the park. Baby dolls are her jam right now.
The aforementioned bulldozer and baby doll came from an unexpected blessing. We had some family in town and a doting great aunt gave each of the children $20 to spend on a toy at the store. They never made it to the store together, so I inherited the gift of taking them out. I wasn't sure what to expect: fits over only one toy, interest in big ticket items, the most annoying toy ever finding it's way into my home, etc. Instead, it turned out to be a fantastic gift.
If you have never taken your child into the store with the intent to purchase them a toy, I officially recommend it. I have literally never taken my kids and said, "let's buy a toy!" because we have a ridiculous amount of them. It's not even close to being necessary. However, I think we may institute the process once a year just to be able to say, 'yes.'
I learned so much on that trip to Target with $40 in hand/child's owl wallet!
1. Kids don't need the priciest thing on the shelf to be happy. We went in with $20 for each of the kids. We spent $19 and change on each toy, and came home with coins for the piggy bank. Whenever they picked something that was over $20 I just said, "Sorry, Sweetie! We don't have enough money for that one, pick a different toy." And it worked because this concept of toy picking was so new and exciting. They were both thrilled with their selections, and came away with some good birthday ideas for the things that didn't make the cut.
2. It's good to teach your kids about money. We certainly understood this for the long-term, but we have yet to implement any kind of allowance or formal chores in our family. Our kids have tasks and jobs, but they are primarily assigned at random and not performed for money. Having them understand that they had money to spend, they couldn't spend more than what they had, and to physically hand the cash over to the cashier and receive the toy in exchange was great practice.
3. I need to say 'yes' more. I am a no-machine. Sometimes I've accidentally said 'no' to something as an automatic reaction when the answer was so clearly 'yes' that it made me look like a lunatic. No treats. No television. No, I can't come with you to get your socks. No, I don't want to watch you go potty. No, I prefer to brush my own hair. No, because I don't want to clean up the mess. No, because you didn't eat your dinner. No, no, no. I want to say 'yes,' more. I want to give up a little control so that I can be the one to OFFER ice cream instead of the one who begrudgingly gives permission because they ate their peas.
Don't get me wrong: #momlife, am I right? That's what we do. We control because we care! (#newhashtag) If I don't make you eat your peas, who will?! But I refuse to go through life without enjoying my kids, on some occasions, the way those without the responsibility/privilege of raising them do.
Take $5, $10, or whatever you choose to afford, and take your kids to the store and pick out a toy you would never say 'yes' to while running an errand. Let that trip be about them on purpose. ('Cause we all know most trips usually end up about them regardless.)
If you're like me and make a habit of 'no,' take your kids out and practice saying 'yes!'
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