The Mom Crowd

Now that summer is here, all three boys are home all day, and the weather is nice I have felt the urge to beat the summer doldrums. I don’t want every day to feel the same, day in and day out. I notice that the kids get a look on their faces when they are bored and are looking for something to do. It is easy for me to get caught up in doing the morning chores around the house while they play and not think proactively about fun activities they can do. So, I had an idea to come up with a list of activities so that we can do at least one fun activity every day. I tend to be a planner but I don’t always practice it. I know that I usually feel less stressed when I do have some activities planned and it’s kind of fun to tell the boys in the morning what our fun “thing” is that day.

I thought I’d share my list and I hope that if we all put our brains together that we can help each other out with fun ideas to keep boredom at arms length over the summer. My kids aren’t very crafty so I tried to think of a variety of activities to do. We also live in a very seasonal climate so I want to take advantage of the sunny, warm weather while it lasts!

1. Every Monday- Pack lunches while baby Graham is taking his morning nap and head to the supercool park after he wakes up. Eat lunch at the park and play until it is time to head home for afternoon naps.

2. Go to the YMCA during family swim time and splash around.

3. Bake something fun together. Bread, cupcakes, cookies….

4. Go to a “pick your own” fruit/vegetable farm.

5. On Friday it is daddy come home early day and we go to Raccoon Creek. (A local state park 20 minutes away with a “beach” swim area)

6. Make homemade play dough.

7. Make homemade popsicles (vanilla yogurt+frozen berries blended and frozen=yummy frozen desserts! you can even add things like ground flax seeds for a healthy nutrition boost).

8. Go for a nature walk and collect different specimens of bugs, samples of leaves, sticks, and rocks.

9. Make a family tree with pictures of family members and hang it on a wall.

10. Go to the science museum.

11. Go to the dinosaur museum.

12. Go to the zoo.

13. Make paper boats.

14. Go to story time at the library.

15. Go to the indoor park at the mall and let the kids run around in the air conditioning.

16. Play date, play date, play date!

17. Hit the (age appropriate) summer reading list for your kids and read together.

18. Plan a treasure hunt.

19. Make a mobile to hang in the kids bedrooms. (We recently made a bug mobile by cutting out pictures of bugs from magazines and then tying them to straws with thread. We had to balance it by sliding the bugs across the straws but the boys love it and it is fun to watch it move from the breeze of the ceiling fan.)

20. Build a fort inside the house and play games inside the fort.

21. Find and empty parking lot and do some fun sidewalk chalk drawing.

22. Go to an indoor bounce house.

So, kick the summer doldrums in the pants and go have some fun!

This a guest post from my friend Myra who is the genius designer behind Moon and Back Studios. You can also find her blogging at WeMakeThree.com.

Some women work outside the home to keep their sanity. For others, it’s not a choice. Working outside the home is a financial necessity.

Whatever the reason you may be working, there is one thing I have learned: You can’t have it all. That’s right. It’s a myth. A well intentioned one perhaps, but it’s simply not possible to have it all. And I believe many women are nearly killing themselves trying.

In order for me to give my best to the two people I care about most, and balance that with having a demanding job as an executive, I’ve had to make concessions. Here are some things that I am learning to do:

1. Learn to say no. That’s right. You can do it. It was hard for me at first, but it’s a muscle I’ve learned to exercise. Sometimes it makes people unhappy. But my family is better for it.

2. Be happy where you are. Sometimes success and acquiring stuff can be a mirage. There’s always more to get. I’ve tried to learn to appreciate what I do have instead of comparing myself to others. Being thankful really takes the pressure off.

3. Separate your time. I have drawn a clear line between my work and family time. When I leave work, I call my husband for our ritual debriefing during my drive home. Then I try not to talk about it anymore.

4. Do one thing for yourself each day. When I get home, I usually take a half hour to run or walk so I can detox myself from the day. Then I’m ready to focus on family. I’m better for it.

5. Avoid the trappings of “mommy guilt”. Just do your best and focus on your kids when you’re with them. That’s what they’re going to remember.

Do you have tips for balancing career and family?

I prepared for childbirth like most moms. My husband and I attended a series of child birthing classes and created a birthing plan. I had incredibly fast labors with both of my children. During my first delivery, my epidural made my whole bottom half incredibly numb (just like it’s supposed to) which made it hard to push. My nurse asked me if I wanted to use the mirror so I could see the muscles contracting and I could know how to push effectively. Well, I wasn’t planning on keeping the mirror there for very long, but Darah came very quickly and there wasn’t time to tell the nurse to get the mirror out of the way. I watched her delivery and it was incredible! I was so glad the mirror was there! It was so amazing to see her little body enter the world for the first time. I will never forget that moment. It was perfection!

Fast forward two years and three months later. I found myself again in the delivery room, dilated to 10cm, and ready to PUSH! I specifically asked the nurse for the mirror this time because I wanted to have that magical moment of watching my second child’s delivery. Well, this one didn’t just slide right out like my first. I know this isn’t record breaking, but compared to the time it took to push my daughter out (less than 10 minutes), 45 minutes felt like an eternity! I was getting nervous because he wasn’t coming out very quickly and was very irritable. The mirror was getting on my nerves. I didn’t remember that it was a magnified mirror before and my butt was huge! This was not nearly as romantic as using the mirror with my daughter’s delivery, but I felt committed. Second children always get the short end of the stick, and I didn’t want to start short-changing things for my second child in the delivery room!

So, the mirror stayed and I (and everyone else in the room) stared at my butt in a 10x magnified miror for 45 minutes. The saddest part is my eyes were closed during his delivery and I missed it anyway. We later found out why he had such a hard time arriving…he was 10 pounds! The second he was born, I completely forgot the mirror was there and gazed at my perfect little boy. I then looked back down and saw the crazy long umbilical cord (I had no idea how long that thing was!) and saw the doctor going to town with a needle and a thread on my poor body…all magnified in that blasted mirror! I told the nurse to move the mirror and went back to heaven in my arms.

If we have another baby, I will most definitely use the mirror again. The only thing I’ll change is it will not be pointed to my butt until the baby is crowning!

I’m not even going to ask a question to start some conversation…I am hoping some fun discussions sprout on their own from this brave honesty of mine!

Daniel and I always thought that we would be parents that would get a babysitter and go out all the time. We weren’t going to let having a baby change our lifestyle. Thirteen months after having our little one arrived reality has set in. Good, trustworthy babysitters are hard to find and they are expensive. Sure, our family could babysit and I do ask when it is needed but I don’t want to ask all the time. So we have become creative with our date nights at home after our daughter goes to bed.

I believe date nights are incredibly important for healthy marriages. They build trust and encourage a break from the routine to just stop, relax, and enjoy one another. On the date you should not talk about the kids, work, or bills. Save those conversations for another time. Also, don’t think about the household chores that need to be done. If you are the type that can’t relax if there is a dish in the sink, then do all the dishes before your date and get take out that you can throw away. The point is to relax.

You need to schedule your date and guard that time. We generally have a date (at home) on a weekend night. Yes things come up, but we don’t go long without a date. Sometimes I tell Daniel “I need a date” and he knows what I mean. I crave that time together and I miss it when we haven’t had one in a while. Don’t be afraid to ask or put in on the family calendar.

Here are 30 date night ideas that you can do at home after the little ones are tucked into bed and SOUND ASLEEP.

1. Have dinner in the backyard, patio, or your front lawn.

2. Re-watch the first movie you watched together.

3. Don’t cook and get your favorite take out.

4. Have a theme night. You must dress, eat dinner, and watch a movie with the same theme. Think ‘Western’ and dress like a cowgirl, eat bar-b-que, and watch Tombstone. Think ‘French’ and put on a black and white top, make French onion soup, and watch Amelie. It could be anything!

5. Put a blanket down and picnic in front of the TV.

6. Make a special dessert to indulge in. Bake chocolate chip cookies and right when you get them out of the oven put vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce on top. Even making brownies from a box can warm up any night.

7. Take a shower and get dressed up to go out, but stay in. One night I even put on my dress from my prom. I would never wear it out now, but I still love it and wore it on a night in.

8. Snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. I (heart) my Netflix queue!

9. Try to beat your all time record. (This was my husband’s suggestion for the list.)

10. Wear your old bikini that you would never wear in public again, because your stretch marks glisten too brightly in the sunlight! Ha. Your husband won’t care and will love you in it.

11. Break out the board games. Play it so that the loser has to do the dishes or even a fun strip version.

12. Wear your favorite lingerie under your normal clothes. Better yet wear none underneath.

13. Sit outside and read together.

14. Have a candlelit dinner in the dining room you rarely use.

15. Make a mix CD or playlist to enjoy throughout the evening.

16. Dance! Make room for our own private dance floor and have fun. Don’t worry, no one is watching you dance like Elaine Benes.

17. Write out an invitation card to your date requesting their presence at the VIP Lounge of your private nightclub.

18. Splurge on delicious cheeses and add fruit, crackers, and wine.

19. Make out during the DVD menu music.

20. Give each other a back rub.

21. Share your favorite dating memory with each other over dinner.

22. Set out candles around the room. (I know this is an old idea, but it is really nice to do once in a while.)

23. Dress as a character from a movie and you pick the character for each other (think Tom Cruise in Risky Business).

24. Work out together. Set up a circuit in the garage or in the back yard with a jump rope, dumbbells, push-up, and sit-up stations.

25. Cook together and try a new recipe for dinner or for a cocktail.

26. Go to bed early together.

27. Play video games together.

28. Watch a sports game and eat stadium food like nachos and hot dogs.

29. Set up a pair of chairs and stick your feet in the kiddie pool.

30. Make breakfast in bed for dinner and watch TV.

Do you have date nights at home? What do you do? Does it get harder to have a date night at home when the kids get older?

One of the stories from our family’s lore is that I loved commercials as a baby.  Apparently I’d yell and talk through any television program, but when the commercials came on, I’d shut up and pay attention.   Hmm, interesting.  Especially because now, if you spent any time watching t.v. with me, you’d immediately notice that I mute the commercials.  Every. Single. Time.  I get so irritated when I have to sit through a single one with the volume on.  Aside from the power button, “mute” gets the most play on our remote control.  When I can’t mute the commercials, I get very, very grouchy.  It’s not pretty.

Anyway, not sure how it happened (since I just described myself as being pretty militant about commercials), but I saw one recently that completely melted me.  It is a Chevy Malibu commercial showing the stages of life that a girl goes through, from babyhood with toy keys to toddlerhood to little girl, then to tween-angst, prom & graduation, and finally, becoming a professional.  As she drives away, mom & dad are there to see her off.  A couple of years ago I would have related to the final stage, but now that I’m a mom, I’m imagining my Lucy growing up and doing all of those things.  Yikes.  Can’t she stay my little Lucy Goose forever?  I’m not ready to see her strap on a bike helmet (much less drive a car!) yet. (Note: I had the video of this commercial up, but it is no longer available on youtube.  I tend to have that effect on the internet.  No worries, it’s playing all the time on t.v. right now.)

Speaking of commercials, we were told this morning by random strangers that our son Eli looks like the baby in this (catch it while you can!):

Ha ha.  That’s funny!  Maybe I should un-mute the commercials more often.

Yeah right.