I know this is shocking to most (sarcasm), I often find myself at the very end of a seemingly short fuse when dealing with day-to-day demands/stress of running a house and raising children. The bowl of cereal gets knocked over, the playroom destroyed, another potty accident, laundry that never ceases, a smashed finger, a piece of furniture scratched, fighting and more fighting. I know I'm not alone.
And although I fully realize that they didn't mean to spill the cereal but their elbow was clumsy and they tried to get to the bathroom on time but didn't and they didn't realize someone was right behind them when they slammed the door and caught their finger, it always adds up and the fuse gets shorter. I hate that I'm short with my children, especially between 4-6pm. I hate that I'm annoyed when clearly it was an accident. I'm working on it. However, I've been working on it for a while, yet I still find it a challenge every single day.
I came across this list, from Zenhabits "The Way of the Peaceful Parent" by Lou Babauta and it really resonated with me. For the last week, I've taken 3 or 4 of these ideas and implemented them through out my day. I even caught myself a couple times as I started to get snappy and I remembered the habit I was working on. I thought the list was worth sharing.
Greet your child each morning with a smile, a hug, a loving Good Morning! This is how we would all like to be greeted each day.
Teach your child to make her own breakfast. This starts for most children at around the age of 3 or 4. Teach them progressively to brush their teeth, bathe themselves, clean up their rooms, put away clothes, wash their dishes, make lunch, wash their own clothes, sweep and clean, etc.
Teaching these skills takes patience. Kids suck at them at first, so you have to show them about a hundred times, but let them try it, correct them, and let them make mistakes. They will gradually learn independence as you will gradually have less work to do caring for them.
Know that when you screw up as a parent, everything will be fine. Forgive yourself. Apologize. Learn from that screw up. In other words, model the behavior you’d like your child to learn whenever he screws up.
Older children can help younger children — it’s good for them to learn responsibility, it helps the younger children learn from the older ones, and it takes some of the stress off you.
Read to them often. It’s a wonderful way to bond, to educate, to explore imaginary worlds.
Build forts with them. Play hide and seek. Shoot each other with Nerf dart guns. Have tea together. Squeeze lemons and make lemonade. Play, often, as play is the essence of childhood. Don’t try to force them to stop playing.
When your child asks for your attention, grant it.
Parents need alone time, though. Set certain traditions so that you’ll have time to work on your own, or have mommy and daddy time in the evening, when your child can do things on her own.
When your child is upset, put yourself in his shoes. Don’t just judge the behavior (yes, crying and screaming isn’t ideal), but the needs behind the behavior. Does he need a hug, or attention, or maybe he’s just tired?
Model the behavior you want your child to learn. Don’t yell at the child because he was screaming. Don’t get angry at a child for losing his temper. Don’t get mad at a kid who wants to play video games all the time if you’re always on your laptop. Be calm, smile, be kind, go outdoors and be active.
When a stressful time arises (and it will), learn to deal with it with a smile. Make a joke, turn it into a game, laugh … you’ll teach your child not to take things so seriously, and that life is to be enjoyed. Breathe, walk away if you’ve lost your temper, and come back when you can smile.
Remember that your child is a gift. She won’t be a child for long, and so your time with her is fleeting. Every moment you can spend with her is a miracle, and you should savor it. Enjoy it to the fullest, and be grateful for that moment.
Let your child share your interests. Bake cookies together. Sew together. Exercise together. Read together. Work on a website together. Write a blog together.
Patiently teach your child the boundaries of behavior. There should be boundaries — what’s acceptable and what’s not. It’s not OK to do things that might harm yourself or others. We should treat each other with kindness and respect. Those aren’t things the child learns immediately, so have patience, but set the boundaries. Within those boundaries, allow lots of freedom.
Give your child some space. Parents too often overschedule their child’s life, with classes and sports and play dates and music and clubs and the like, but it’s a constant source of stress for both child and parent to keep this schedule going. Let the child go outside and play. Free time is necessary. You don’t always have to be by her side either — she needs alone time just as much as you do. Exercise to cope with stress. A run in solitude is a lovely thing. Get a massage now and then.
It helps tremendously to be a parenting team — one parent can take over when the other gets stressed. When one parent starts to lose his temper, the other should be a calming force.
Mom and dad need a date night every week or so. Get a babysitter, or better yet, teach the older kids to babysit.
Sing and dance together.
Take every opportunity to teach kindness and love. It’s the best lesson. Kiss your child goodnight. And give thanks for another amazing day with your beautiful, unique, crazy child.
Parenting is not easy. I often think to myself, "Am I potentially screwing up my child long term by doing this? Are they going to send me the therapy bills??" The only thing that gives me peace is I'm trying my hardest. I counsel with God on a daily basis and I'm doing the best I know how and I'm always trying to work on my shortcomings. I hope my children realize that.
The best take-away from the list that Lou shares: To start and end the day by sharing your love with your children.
Saturday morning was the Pothier Invitational Tennis Tournament. Amazingly enough - most everyone in the family plays tennis, spouses included. We played a round robin style tournament and for two hours and we Steve and I enjoyed every minute. Part of it is not having children to chase after while playing, but there are some competitive spirits in the family (in fact the family is full of them) which always makes for a good time.
We followed up with lunch and some pool time at Steve's brother's house.
I didn't grow up in Arizona and I didn't spend my summers swimming in a pool so I'm not fully comfortable with all the "pool games" that take place. But all of Steve's brothers and sisters were right there in the middle of all the action. Watching them was entertaining as they all reverted to a childhood version of themselves. They were giggling and splashing water on each other and pushing one another in.
Pool time was followed by more conversation and lawn games and a quick run for frozen yogurt.
The formal birthday party (grandchildren included) took place Saturday night where we mingled with friends and family and presented the 
Best part of the morning - Steve's brothers initiating a wallet intervention for him. (his wallet wasn't a George Costanza, but it was a little thick.) We got a kick out of all the commentary that he got for every card that he pulled out of his wallet. He braved a storm, and he made it. He successfully reduced the size of his wallet and created some fantastic entertainment!
This guy was happy to have us back after being with the babysitter for two days.
We sat on the couch Sunday night in awe of the amazing weekend we had. Family means so much to us and to share a weekend together is valuable time in our book. We had the chance to spend a little extra time with Steve's brother and sister-in-law from Wisconsin. Our relationship was defined so distinctly while living by them and it gets better with each visit. We have such different relationships with every sibling and they're all fantastic in their own way. We had a very rewarding couple of days, I'm glad Steve's dad had a birthday!
Fortunately the three teeth he's been working on are well on their way.
The wait was non-existant and within 10 minutes we were in the back room prepping for stitches. He was doing so well. Was. Then the numbing agent was applied with a needle and the hysteria started to set in. The doctor was doing his best on a kid that wouldn't hold still but he was having a hard time getting the needle in the right place. Just seconds after he was finished with that he pulled out the equipment for stitches. Hunter was not having any of it. There was a nurse holding his head. Steve was holding his shoulders, I held both his arms/hands and another nurse sat on his legs. Seriously. And it was a chore. My heart ached. I sat with my head down on the bed holding his hands so I didn't have to see what was going on. The nurse thought I was going to pass out, but I just couldn't stand to see him struggle. The doctor made quick (although it seemed like forever) work and as soon as he was done, the crying stopped. We were all worn out. I can't stand to see my kids in pain and I could see it in his eyes, he hurt.
I have a feeling that cheek is only going to be bigger when he wakes up in the morning!
It was a three day party that will officially take me the rest of the week to recover from.
And although a very time consuming project, I love it. I have this passion for collecting and preserving memories and projects like this combine that with my love for design. Happy Birthday Bob!
And there you have it. Instant art. Basically fool-proof...that is unless you misspell your word - which after looking at a word for long enough, it always looks like it's wrong!
I'm looking for the perfect moss wreath to hang on it for a nice spring time decoration but they are harder to find than I imagined. I was hoping to not have to make it!
If that was our only problem, this project would've been a two Saturday job. But of course once we got it dug out, we found broken pipes and pieces and we started wondering what in the world we just got ourselves into! With two more Saturdays we were able to secure all the new heads and position them for proper watering and fill in all the holes. It was a glorious day to see those piles of dirt removed from the lawn.
We only have five more weeks of Tuesday photoshoots - we're coming up on a year! I'm running out of unique blankets/fabric/rugs!!
She was in heaven.
The kids don't fully appreciate the blossoms, but they appreciate the oranges. Yesterday they spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon outside picking oranges and making juice. It's quite the process for such small hands!
After picking the oranges, they would peel them. (It would've been much easier to cut them but that would require a knife and adult supervision. This was a kids only activity.)
And then the squeezing began. They squeezed for hours for a good size cup of juice for each of them.
The one time I went to check on them, Hallie was hard at work with a nearly full cup of juice. As she squeezed her hands as hard as she could I could see the juice running down - flavored with the dirt from her hands. I was sad for her as a good cup of juice was ruined. I helped her wash her hands and suggest she start with a fresh cup but she refused to let go of the cup she had already filled. She drank it, dirt and all!
He's cutting a new top tooth and he makes sure we know about it!
I used my handy dandy Kreg Jig and drilled holes in the back piece (to connect to the bottom) and the bottom piece (to connect to the front).
I ended up with this ledge.
I used spray paint to finish off the whole thing, and used a couple screws to screw it into the wall. It's the exact length I needed. The exact depth I needed. And the color I needed.
I'm now envisioning two really long ledges in the office. 8 feet. Maybe 10 feet. Decisions, decisions...
I immediately marched up to Hallie's room for some lessons on being fancy. It was the cutest class. She had made some handouts and displayed different examples of fancy and non-fancy items. She taught me how to incorporate fanciness into our everyday living. Which we then applied to dinner time.
So she went to work creating fanciness. Once dinner had been cooked and distributed to everyone's plates she then inserted toothpicks with flowers on them. It was by far the fanciest dinner we've had in a while.
