I love action packed spy movies! If it involves mystery, the FBI, CIA, rogue agents and several chase scenes then I'm going to watch it. I've seen plenty to know that there is always a scene where the main character holes up in a motel somewhere and neatly organizes their artillery on the bed.
So yesterday I walked into my 4-year-old's room and there on his bed he had neatly displayed a line of 6 toy guns, 6 used cellphones, 3 police badges, a toy samaria sword, a pair of sunglasses, a pair of handcuffs, a toy cordless drill, a reusable grocery bag (that's my boy) and a camoflauged teddy bear. It was so cute I really should've taken a picture but this mom's not that smart!! I could just picture him in his room nealty arranging all of the supplies he feels are necessary to be an undercover cop. That IS what he want's to be when he grows up. But he doesn't want to be just ANY undercover cop, he wants to be a NFL football playing undercover cop!!!
He has his 'cop shirts' that he wears and he hides behind furniture and acts like he is following bad guys. Oh to be a kid again and use your imagination to do fun stuff. That's the great thing about being a parent though I guess. I can sneak around the house with a toy gun and a police badge and act like I'm an undercover agent while playing with my son and no one will think that's weird. But if I was pretending to be an undercover agent home alone while my kids were at school some people might find that strange!
On a side note I'm struggling with the same child to get him to wipe his own butt. He is 4 and I have to force him to do it himself. Last night he was trying to show me what a struggle it is for him to wipe and his hand slipped off the toilet paper into the poop and all over his butt and he said, "Nice, now my poops going to smell like butt!" Too funny.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Life's Not Fair
I recently read an article in a magazine about a mother who believes that children who don't try shouldn't get the same benefits as those who do. I happen to agree with her. I am noticing more and more parents who want equal treatment of children who are not equally putting forth the effort. I've even told a coach before that if my child is not trying don't play them. They aren't learning anything from putting forth no effort yet getting the same playing time as the children who are working their butts off. When I was in sports if you half-assed it at practice or didn't do your job in a game you were benched. Our coach didn't continue to allow you to play because he or she felt that all kids deserved equal playing time. You don't go to a job and get a promotion because you showed up late to work every day, didn't practice good hygiene and sat on Face book all day just because your boss felt that all his employees deserved equal promotions. That's not the real world and we are supposed to be grooming our children for the great stuff in life as well as the disappointments.
I see parents upset at games because their kids, who have terrible attitudes and don't have respect for the other players or the coaches, benched. Again, I feel I'm entitled to my opinion because I am a parent of children who have not tried hard and who have had terrible attitudes and I've asked for them to be benched. Other parents think I'm too harsh. Too harsh? I'm doing the best thing I can as a parent and teach them that if you truly want something in life then you have to work for it. If you don't want to be out for a sport you have to finish because I don't believe in quitting something you've started, unless of course you've become a person who is now bringing the whole team down, but then you don't go out the next year. I can see the kids that hate sports but their parents force them to go out. Team sports are great for children to learn about respect, team work, hard work and dedication and I think every child should try something if they can, but if it's truly not something they enjoy or want to work at then don't be upset when they don't get to play. Talent is great but a person who has little talent but works hard can far exceed a person with a ton of talent who puts forth little effort.
We aren't just raising children we are raising adults so think about what kind of adult you want your child to be someday. I for one would like my children to be functioning members of society, I'd like for them to work hard to achieve their dreams but realize that in life there are setbacks. I want them to understand that if they fail it's okay because they can try and try again.
Our children need to understand that we will love them no matter what but we do need to challenge them to excel. In life we need to be able to handle criticism and handle setbacks and that's what we need to teach our children. People who work hard to achieve, even if they fail at first, will be rewarded more than those who don't. Practicing self-discipline, self-reliance and self-control will get them farther in life than being taught that unequal effort warrants equal reward. The real world is full of competition and only the hungry survive.
"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will." Vincent T. Lombardi
I see parents upset at games because their kids, who have terrible attitudes and don't have respect for the other players or the coaches, benched. Again, I feel I'm entitled to my opinion because I am a parent of children who have not tried hard and who have had terrible attitudes and I've asked for them to be benched. Other parents think I'm too harsh. Too harsh? I'm doing the best thing I can as a parent and teach them that if you truly want something in life then you have to work for it. If you don't want to be out for a sport you have to finish because I don't believe in quitting something you've started, unless of course you've become a person who is now bringing the whole team down, but then you don't go out the next year. I can see the kids that hate sports but their parents force them to go out. Team sports are great for children to learn about respect, team work, hard work and dedication and I think every child should try something if they can, but if it's truly not something they enjoy or want to work at then don't be upset when they don't get to play. Talent is great but a person who has little talent but works hard can far exceed a person with a ton of talent who puts forth little effort.
We aren't just raising children we are raising adults so think about what kind of adult you want your child to be someday. I for one would like my children to be functioning members of society, I'd like for them to work hard to achieve their dreams but realize that in life there are setbacks. I want them to understand that if they fail it's okay because they can try and try again.
Our children need to understand that we will love them no matter what but we do need to challenge them to excel. In life we need to be able to handle criticism and handle setbacks and that's what we need to teach our children. People who work hard to achieve, even if they fail at first, will be rewarded more than those who don't. Practicing self-discipline, self-reliance and self-control will get them farther in life than being taught that unequal effort warrants equal reward. The real world is full of competition and only the hungry survive.
"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will." Vincent T. Lombardi
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Summer Vacation
Ahh summer vacation time, it's my favorite. I will admit now that when my kids were younger vacations were not very fun for me. As a mom of toddlers it's like you are dealing with the same old crap just in a different place. It's not fun or relaxing to be away from home for a long period of time, the kids' schedules get out of whack and you end up stuck in doors with fussy kids while everyone else is having fun. Now that my children are older, 11, 9 and 4, I really enjoy our family vacations. We have so much fun that it's difficult to come back home.
I grew up going to the same cabin on the water one week each summer and I loved it. My husband grew up staying in cabins near water in the summer as well and we both wanted that for our children. We were fortunate enough to be able to go to my in-laws resort for three summers and my family's cabin on the water for several summers. Now that both the resort and the cabin are no longer in the family my husband and I decided we needed to find a place that we could take our kids for many summers to come and boy did we find a great place! We stay in a cabin on the water and the kids love to swim, fish, boat and play on the playground with other kids that stay at the same resort. We go for evening boat rides, roast marshmallows over the campfire and just have fun. The resort we stay in is about a 10 minute drive from a large town that offers many activities so we take in a ball game, race go-karts, play minigolf and check out some of the neat stores. One of my favorite things to do is to go out on our dock in the early morning when my husband and son go fishing and just sit out there in the cool breeze and read. It's my quiet time and I LOVE it!!
Family vacations don't have to be long or expensive but in my opinion they are important. Any sort of 'vacation' you take with your kids will be memorable. Family vacations don't always go as planned but usually those are the ones that produce the memories to provide laughs for years to come.
I grew up going to the same cabin on the water one week each summer and I loved it. My husband grew up staying in cabins near water in the summer as well and we both wanted that for our children. We were fortunate enough to be able to go to my in-laws resort for three summers and my family's cabin on the water for several summers. Now that both the resort and the cabin are no longer in the family my husband and I decided we needed to find a place that we could take our kids for many summers to come and boy did we find a great place! We stay in a cabin on the water and the kids love to swim, fish, boat and play on the playground with other kids that stay at the same resort. We go for evening boat rides, roast marshmallows over the campfire and just have fun. The resort we stay in is about a 10 minute drive from a large town that offers many activities so we take in a ball game, race go-karts, play minigolf and check out some of the neat stores. One of my favorite things to do is to go out on our dock in the early morning when my husband and son go fishing and just sit out there in the cool breeze and read. It's my quiet time and I LOVE it!!
Family vacations don't have to be long or expensive but in my opinion they are important. Any sort of 'vacation' you take with your kids will be memorable. Family vacations don't always go as planned but usually those are the ones that produce the memories to provide laughs for years to come.
"It isn't how much time you spend somewhere that makes it memorable: it's how you spend the time."
Author: David Brenner
Thursday, June 30, 2011
We all need Friends!
Aren't girl friends the best! They completely understand everything you are going through for the most part. They understand your need to get away from your kids and they understand that sometimes you don't feel like acting like an upstanding citizen. In fact a friend will get you out of jail but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn that was fun." My best friend gave me a plaque with that saying. In fact yesterday I was sitting in my room looking at a shelf on the wall. There were five different plaque type things with different sayings about friends on them. All five were from the same person so I got to thinking. How does she keep track of all the sayings she gets me? Does she have them written in a book somewhere? Is it just by pure luck that she's never gotten me the same one twice? Why does she have the thoughtful gene and I do not? I should probably get her a plaque sometime. But she knows how much I appreciate her right?
I love the fact that I can tell my friends exactly what I'm thinking when it comes to motherhood and they don't think I'm insane! We are all so different and have different fears and beliefs when it comes to motherhood but we all understand one another. I support my friends and their decisions when it comes to motherhood because just as we are all different people we are all different mothers. I do enjoy listening to my mom, aunts, grandma's and mother-in-law talk about times when they were raising kids. The things that happened, the situations kids get into and the close encounters with bodily harm and injury. It's amazing any of us survived childhood! Out of my three children only one seems to have a cautious bone in her body, my boys on the other hand would probably walk up to a rabid bear and try to pet it if they had the chance.
I have been very blessed with the friends in my life. I've always had someone who understood me and liked me no matter what, we'll at least they like me to my face! Some of my friends I see often, some not so much..but the ones I see not so much once we see each other we are able to pick up right where we left off. Life would be pretty lonely without friends, lonely and boring.
I love the fact that I can tell my friends exactly what I'm thinking when it comes to motherhood and they don't think I'm insane! We are all so different and have different fears and beliefs when it comes to motherhood but we all understand one another. I support my friends and their decisions when it comes to motherhood because just as we are all different people we are all different mothers. I do enjoy listening to my mom, aunts, grandma's and mother-in-law talk about times when they were raising kids. The things that happened, the situations kids get into and the close encounters with bodily harm and injury. It's amazing any of us survived childhood! Out of my three children only one seems to have a cautious bone in her body, my boys on the other hand would probably walk up to a rabid bear and try to pet it if they had the chance.
I have been very blessed with the friends in my life. I've always had someone who understood me and liked me no matter what, we'll at least they like me to my face! Some of my friends I see often, some not so much..but the ones I see not so much once we see each other we are able to pick up right where we left off. Life would be pretty lonely without friends, lonely and boring.
“Friends are like bras: close to your heart and there for support.”
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Socks with Sandals
My kids watch this show on Disney Channel called So Random. It's sort of like Saturday Night Live but for kids. They just do a bunch of skits and this one skit they've done just really made me laugh. It was like a digital short and it was these two kids rapping to a song called, "Bringin Back Socks with Sandals." I laughed my butt off to which my husband thought I was strange because I was getting a kick out of my children's tv shows. I said to him "Don't even act like you don't remember Saved By The Bell." Have you seen those reruns? Wow, and we thought that was super good acting, however I still enjoying watching an episode now and then. So these kids are wearing their baseball caps sideways, wife beaters, unzipped sweatshirts, chains, cargo shorts and socks with sandals. It's hilarious. My four year old totally wears socks with sandals. He also wears clothes that don't match, he's always tucking in his shirt, he wears sweatbands on his wrists, he wears cowboy boots with shorts and he just doesn't care. So then I thought why do we care. If socks with sandals are comfortable then why shouldn't a person wear them? Who cares as long as you are comfortable, right? I mean as adults who are we trying to impress, we should be able to be ourselves. I suppose in cities people really don't care but when you live in a small town and everyone knows you I think people tend to shy away from being themselves sometimes.
Society likes to tell us things like 'normal people don't wear mullets' or 'upstanding citizens don't get tatoos' or 'only a crazy person would get an 80's perm'. We should feel okay about expressing ourselves however we want. I saw a five year old kid at the pool yesterday wearing two fake tatoos and I thought, Oh, I really want another tatoo. Then I started thinking, am I too old for a tatoo, what will people think, will my kid's friend's parents think I'm a terrible role model? Then I thought, who cares, I'm an adult and I should be able to get a tatoo without anyone's permission if I want. I mean does a tatoo make me less of a person?
I saw a woman at the mall a few weeks ago and she had dreads pulled up into a bun, she had those big holes in her ears, tatoos up one arm, a tatoo on her neck, a nose ring and she was there with her daughter and a mother's group that was put on by her church and she was the nicest lady. Appearances can be decieving when we are bred to judge by them. It's really hard because I don't want my kids to be too trusting of strangers yet I don't want them to miss out on the opportunities to meet great people either.
"Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances." Wayne Dyer
Society likes to tell us things like 'normal people don't wear mullets' or 'upstanding citizens don't get tatoos' or 'only a crazy person would get an 80's perm'. We should feel okay about expressing ourselves however we want. I saw a five year old kid at the pool yesterday wearing two fake tatoos and I thought, Oh, I really want another tatoo. Then I started thinking, am I too old for a tatoo, what will people think, will my kid's friend's parents think I'm a terrible role model? Then I thought, who cares, I'm an adult and I should be able to get a tatoo without anyone's permission if I want. I mean does a tatoo make me less of a person?
I saw a woman at the mall a few weeks ago and she had dreads pulled up into a bun, she had those big holes in her ears, tatoos up one arm, a tatoo on her neck, a nose ring and she was there with her daughter and a mother's group that was put on by her church and she was the nicest lady. Appearances can be decieving when we are bred to judge by them. It's really hard because I don't want my kids to be too trusting of strangers yet I don't want them to miss out on the opportunities to meet great people either.
"Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances." Wayne Dyer
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Mind of a Child
Once again my four year old son's brain is working overtime. He walked into my bathroom this morning and announced he was going to start wearing 'oderant'. He put some of his dad's 'oderant' on over his t-shirt. Then while I was peeing he asked, "Mom why do you pee sitting down?" I told him that all girls pee sitting down. Then he asked, "Well does your friend Amy from Las Vegas pee sitting down?" I told him that yes in fact she does. As if we are the only two people on the planet that pee sitting down.
While on the way to town today he asked if rocket ships can fly to heaven. I told them they could not but they could fly to space which would be very interesting to see. The questions continued on and on. I've realized this summer I am already exhausted by the questions from all of my children yet I continue to try my best to answer every one of them. Then I try to hide in my bathroom or outside so I can get some quiet. Sometimes I just like to be alone with my own thoughts.
However, being alone with my own thoughts can be sort of exhausting too. I started wondering why adults can't be more like children in the sense that we should always be eager to learn. We should want to learn new things, learn about people, learn about our environment and our country. We may be more understanding and more patient if we took the time to listen and learn. That's what children do, they absorb everything we do and say and they want to continue to learn more. I remember on the last day or so of sixth grade our elementary principal came into our room to give us a speech. If I remember right the speech was about leaving elementary school and venturing off into the junior high/high school in the fall. She said that we were like little Pac-men just gobbling up information. I still think about that speech because the way she said it was funny and well, it made sense. We should always want to be gobbling up information to better ourselves as people, parents, friends, employees etc.
As adults we should start asking the hard questions and looking for the answers. I've also decided that when my kids ask me questions I do not know the answers too we'll look it up together. For instance, my oldest son wanted a pet hawk and even though I did not want to let him get a pet hawk I told him we'd research it on the Internet. Well we found out that it's actually illegal to own a pet hawk in the state of Iowa. See we are learning new things every day! :)
You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. ~Clay P. Bedford
While on the way to town today he asked if rocket ships can fly to heaven. I told them they could not but they could fly to space which would be very interesting to see. The questions continued on and on. I've realized this summer I am already exhausted by the questions from all of my children yet I continue to try my best to answer every one of them. Then I try to hide in my bathroom or outside so I can get some quiet. Sometimes I just like to be alone with my own thoughts.
However, being alone with my own thoughts can be sort of exhausting too. I started wondering why adults can't be more like children in the sense that we should always be eager to learn. We should want to learn new things, learn about people, learn about our environment and our country. We may be more understanding and more patient if we took the time to listen and learn. That's what children do, they absorb everything we do and say and they want to continue to learn more. I remember on the last day or so of sixth grade our elementary principal came into our room to give us a speech. If I remember right the speech was about leaving elementary school and venturing off into the junior high/high school in the fall. She said that we were like little Pac-men just gobbling up information. I still think about that speech because the way she said it was funny and well, it made sense. We should always want to be gobbling up information to better ourselves as people, parents, friends, employees etc.
As adults we should start asking the hard questions and looking for the answers. I've also decided that when my kids ask me questions I do not know the answers too we'll look it up together. For instance, my oldest son wanted a pet hawk and even though I did not want to let him get a pet hawk I told him we'd research it on the Internet. Well we found out that it's actually illegal to own a pet hawk in the state of Iowa. See we are learning new things every day! :)
You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. ~Clay P. Bedford
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Calgon Take Me Away
This morning my kids did NOTHING but fight. I went upstairs and my daughter was mad because her brother was teasing her. My four year old was standing in the bathroom wearing only a t-shirt and squeezing a tube of toothpaste into the sink because.."it's fun." They fought over a remote, they fought over who got to sit in a laundry basket, they fought over what they were eating for lunch. I finally got them to play a game since the weather is a little crappy today and I couldn't just shoe them outside!
Soon the middle child will be off to basketball camp for the afternoon and my youngest should take a nap. Ahh, maybe some peace and quiet. It's fun to listen to other mother's tell stories about their children. I can laugh because I know exactly what they are going through and they in turn can laugh at me. I swear my three kids are as loud and obnoxious as twelve kids! I really have a lot of admiration for people who decide to become parents in the first place and for those that just keep having them!
I think the key is organization. I try to have menus planned, activities planned, chores for them to do and even when they all go into melt-down mode at least everything else around me is somewhat in a tidy order. I've always been a 'glass is half-full' kind of person so I can usually find the good in things and when I can't well that's when I feel sorry for anyone who has to be around me!
I do think that grandparents see their grandchildren as payback to their children and I'll be honest, that's how I'll look at it when my kids have kids. Becoming a grandparent in the far, far future is all part of my evil plan to get back at my kids.
Soon the middle child will be off to basketball camp for the afternoon and my youngest should take a nap. Ahh, maybe some peace and quiet. It's fun to listen to other mother's tell stories about their children. I can laugh because I know exactly what they are going through and they in turn can laugh at me. I swear my three kids are as loud and obnoxious as twelve kids! I really have a lot of admiration for people who decide to become parents in the first place and for those that just keep having them!
I think the key is organization. I try to have menus planned, activities planned, chores for them to do and even when they all go into melt-down mode at least everything else around me is somewhat in a tidy order. I've always been a 'glass is half-full' kind of person so I can usually find the good in things and when I can't well that's when I feel sorry for anyone who has to be around me!
I do think that grandparents see their grandchildren as payback to their children and I'll be honest, that's how I'll look at it when my kids have kids. Becoming a grandparent in the far, far future is all part of my evil plan to get back at my kids.
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