Happy Birthday to Sara!!

This month my wonderful daughter turned 12 years old.  12 years!!  Oh my gosh!  She's getting soooo grown up and we are so proud of her!!  So in her honor, I am going back into the archives and sharing an old post.  It still speaks to my heart and I expect it always will.  I hope you enjoy Just Like Me.

I Ate That Frog!!

Have you heard the story about eating a frog? You are given a task to eat a frog. It's a disgusting looking, foul smelling frog! It's HUGE!! And you just don't want to do it. So you put it off. But you keep looking at it and getting sick to your stomach. As the day wears on, it follows you around getting dirtier. It gets hot and sweaty and stinks even worse. And it's doubled in size!!!! Now, you REALLY don't want to eat that frog!! And most of the time.....you don't. You just let it keep following you around getting bigger and dirtier and more disgusting as ever.

Now you realize that if you had started your day with a quick frog gulp, it would be over. Would have been unpleasant? Probably. But would it have been better than eating that nasty, dirty, disgusting frog it's grown into.

So today, I decided to eat my frog. I needed to talk to the school about Scott's placement for 3rd grade. I was putting it off because he'd had a rough year last year and I just really didn't want to face the administration. But the school called yesterday with questions about Sara's placement. I tried to eat the frog then. But they didn't have the time to discuss Scott then and asked me to call back in the afternoon. I had time in the afternoon.....but I didn't call. That frog just looked way to gross to eat!! But this morning, I realized that it had to be done and it was in his best interest and I just needed to get over it and do it.

So I did. And it wasn't near as bad as I expected. They appreciated my input and agreed with me on the environment he needed. So I feel good about his upcoming school year. And I'm so glad I made that call. It's over, done, finished!!!

One frog down!! Next frog please!!!

Battlefields

Dear Teacher,

Yes, I am aware it was 45 degrees this morning. Yes, I am also aware that my son came to school this morning in shorts and short sleeves. Out of all the daily battles I am presented, THIS is one I choose not to fight.

Thank you for all you do,
Mom

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Just Like Me?

I was talking with my Mom the other day after our recent visit “home”. While there, the children had written their names on Mom’s memo board. She loves it and has promised anyone who erases it a painful death!! But she said she had to look twice at my daughter’s name to decide who had actually written it. Sara, my 7 year old daughter’s handwriting looked just like mine. I hadn’t really realized it but Mom was right. It was almost exactly the way I write—the same curve to the letters, the same spacing and size. This little thing got me thinking about what else my daughter and I have in common and how else have I influenced her.

At times I look at Sara and feel I’m looking into a mirror. It’s a good feeling. She loves music and singing, just like me. Sara is good at math, just like me. She has fair skin and freckles across her nose, just like me. She has stick straight hair, just like me. At other times I see the darker side of me. Sara is impatient and volatile, just like me. She is quick to anger, just like me.

But in many ways Sara is not like me at all. She is shy but still more outgoing than I was as a child. She is reserved at first but makes friends easily. Sara hesitates to try new things but with encouragement, she will participate and in the end excel. I was always a loner but she is a joiner and needs others around her. She loves roller coasters while I’m terrified of them. I see behaviors in her that “I” would like to have. In many ways, she is like me…..but better.

As mothers, it’s our responsibility to model behavior for our daughters, and sons for that matter. I’m pleased to see my positive influence on my daughter. However, it is very difficult to see my negative influences in her. Our goals, then, must be to recognize our opportunities to improve ourselves and to model only positive attributes for our children. In the end, I hope and pray Sara is just like me.

This post was submitted to the Mothers and Daughters Blog Carnival being hosted by Real Life.

Who Needs Sleep?

My 5 year old does!!!! Poor Scott is operating on a sleep deficit the size of the national debt! It's all the Grands' and cousins' fault. We visited family for the holiday and they stayed up WAY too late. I generally try to get them in bed about 8:30 but this summer with the time change, it's been more like 9:30. But.......while on vacation, they were up until nearly midnight every night!! It's just so hard to give it up and go to sleep when you have cousins to play with. And of course, just because they go to bed late, doesn't mean they sleep late either. They get up at normal time and are just crabby patties all day long!!

Scott's main thing is to fight bedtime with a purple passion!! He wails and cries and kicks and flails lamenting that he's NOT tired, he wants water, he wants to watch TV, he wants to play video games......all the while desperately fighting to keep his eyes from closing. Even Sara is being affected. She was hitting her friends and telling her teachers "no" yesterday and this morning she was quite the little devil!!!!

God grant me strength. (And a nice rainy day so I can convince them it's later than it really is and get them in bed at a decent hour!!)

And Today's Bad Mommy Award Goes To.........

Sara woke up this morning saying her neck and throat were sore. I told her she probably just slept with her neck crooked and her mouth open and she'd be ok. She only ate a bite of her waffle but otherwise seemed ok. She never said she didn't feel like going to summer camp, she didn't have a fever and I really needed to go to work so off we went. I figured she would feel better once she got there and started playing with her friends.

So the phone rang at about 11:45 and it's the day care. "Sara is throwing up." Wonderful. Must be a tummy bug. I'd had second thoughts all morning about sending her and now I felt just terrible. I got her home and covered her up on the couch to watch some tv and rest. She didn't vomit any more but her throat was still sore. I checked and saw it was red with little yellow bumps. Great. So then, we headed to the doctor. The nurse came in with the item that strikes fear in most school aged children--the throat swab. After much whining, crying and lamenting, the swab was done. Diagnosis?? Strep Throat. Of course.

I guess Sara and I get to have a Mommy/Daughter day. Hopefully she'll feel better soon because she not the easiest kid to be around when she doesn't feel well.

The "H" Word

It’s a humbling and somewhat scary feeling when you realize that you cannot control all of the influences for your children. They go to school and they learn from their teachers and their friends. Some of these learnings match our beliefs and morals but unfortunately some of them don’t. It’s a difficult task to help them understand and withhold our beliefs and values when their peers don’t share them.

The “H” word has reared it’s head in our house twice this month. I was totally taken aback the first time I heard it. Sara and Scott were playing when Scott got a bit too rough and started pestering Sara. She told him to stop a couple of times, then drama queen went overboard and screamed, “I HATE you!!!!” at Scott. I knew she had to have heard it at school or at daycare or the neighborhood kids because we just don’t talk to each other that way. Well, we had a long talk about how words hurt and that she didn’t really mean it. She apologized and I thought that was the end of it. Yes, I know, naïve Mommy.

This weekend, they were playing in the sprinkler and having a grand time. Daddy started spraying the kids with the hose and Sara didn’t like it. In her defense, she told him to stop numerous times, but you know how Dad’s like to keep on going. And there it was again. She screamed “I HATE YOU!!!” at her Daddy. I was just floored, again. Another talk ensued and another apology.

I discussed this with a friend. Her teenager had gotten angry with her recently and wrote her a note saying that he hated her. She said he’d never said it and it really hurt her. I understand. It’s one thing to hear a 6yo say it in the heat of the moment who really doesn’t understand it, but for a child to think about it and then write on paper is huge. When they talked about it, he told her he really didn’t mean it. I thought her response was awesome. In a nutshell, she told him that he can’t say things if he doesn’t mean them because they can’t trust him. Does he really mean it then, when he tells her he loves her? That is a very powerful approach and really teaches them to think before they talk and to be honest with themselves. I don’t think 6yrs is too early to start teaching them this. And maybe there’s a lesson here for grownups too.

Strike One!

So like I’ve said, Sara’s attitude just stinks these days. She turns every little thing into the Titanic! Lately, she’s been sassy, ugly, back –talking, whining, loud, you name it. So I decided to try a different approach since the overused “go to your room” obviously wasn’t working.

Scott is going to a b-day party this weekend at a pottery place. Sara really wants to go too so I plan to take her and let her do her own project while Scott does the party thing. So I thought this would be a good way to teach her something. So I told her that Scott was going to the party but if she wanted to come along, she’d have to earn it by behaving—no whining, no back-talking, no defiance and treat me with respect. It started as an ultimatum. One infraction and she’s done. That didn’t seem quite fair for a child this young so I changed it to three strikes.

She was doing fairly well until yesterday when she stared fussing with Scott over a spot to sit on the couch (oh, to have such “weighty” issues!). She hit him, yelled at him and actually told him she HATED him. I was totally shocked! Such talk is taboo in our house and I’d NEVER heard her say it about another person. I wanted to pull her privileges then and there (and I probably should have), but I wanted to stay consistent with the program she and I had agreed to. So she got her first strike—a big red “X” on her section of the calendar yesterday. A good visual for her so she can’t forget. She also got a good lecture on how words can hurt more than hits and then she apologized to Scott. Two more strikes and no party. It seems to be working.

Now, for the future, I wanted a different approach. This may work for those special events but what about the times in between? So, I have one of those magnetic responsibility/rewards charts that we’ve not been using because I’ve not taken the time to hang it on the wall. (I know, poor excuse!) I’m going to use that for the future. The children will each have some responsibilities specific to them and also some that they share. The shared responsibilities must be achieved by BOTH children to earn the magnet and will include: no whining, play nice, etc. I’ll give them a goal for a certain number of magnets to earn. When the goal is reached they can draw a paperslips from the “Family Fun Bucket” which will have things like bowling, mini golf, museum, dollar store, and so on and so forth.

Hopefully this will help them earn a sense of responsibility and achievement and learn that good behavior leads to good things!

That Still Small Voice

I should have listened to that still small voice in the back of my brain. I knew that we’ve eaten out way to much lately and that I should just take them home and make hotdogs or mac-n-cheese or something. But the “norm”, unfortunately, has become that when Daddy is not going to be home for dinner, we go out.

I heard that voice in the back of my head nagging at me all the way to the daycare but when we got in the car, I sighed, “do you want to go to Mickey D’s?” One little voice said, “YEAH!”. One little voice whined, “No!”. That nagging voice in my head, said, “Go home!”. But on we went and after much deliberation on the children’s parts, we decided to go to Burger King. They have Spiderman toys. Sara wants chicken fries. I ate there for lunch so I didn’t care, chicken fries sounded as good as anything to me.

I park, coax, no wait, plead the children out of the van. They are all excited about Spiderman toys and chicken fries. I walk up to the register and there is it…….the sign…….”Cash only”. What??? What is this “cash”? I don’t know what it looks like. What do you use it for? I live in a plastic world. I use my debit card for everything. I never carry cash! I jumped great leaps of joy when the fast food industry joined us in the ranks of the 21st century and started accepting plastic! I was at a loss. I drug two children whining about Spiderman toys and chicken fries back out to the van while trying to explain that I didn’t have this “cash” and we would have to go elsewhere. Envision lots of whining and lamenting in the back seat.

So next idea was to go to Wendy’s. That still small voice in my head is getting louder now, “This Wendy’s food is awful and the service is terrible, go home!”. But the children drowned it out so off we went. We walk in, no signs, so far so good. Only one person in front of us. Cool. Children have miraculously decided on what they wanted to eat. Could I be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? Ah, but wait. The man’s order isn’t right, the cashier can’t find the right buttons on the register. The drinks are wrong……that should be a kid’s meal………where are my fries? (The light is getting closer now!) Finally, the man in front of me is done—I guesstimate about 10 mins has elapsed. I place my order. I kid you not, it took no less than 5 minutes for this guy to ring in 2 kid’s meals and a combo and another 10 minutes to get the food (What's that noise?). And the coup de grace was they forgot Scott’s yogurt which sent him into a whining fit so bad that I braved the trip back to the register to get it (The engine is thundering inside my head and the voice is screaming........"I told you so!").

So next time that voice starts to whisper in my head, maybe I should stop and listen to it. And always keep a supply of mac-n-cheese in the cupboard.

So The Drama!

“No waffles for breakfast??” “I don’t want to wear ANY of those clothes!!!” “My socks are too high!!!!!”

That’s my Sara. Such the little Drama Queen!!! Just a typical morning at our house. It’s always good to get the new week off to a banner start don’t ya think??!!! I just don’t remember it being so difficult to be 6 years old! Although MY mother may remember it differently. LOL!!!!

All I have to say today is….. “if this is 6………… you can KEEP 16!!!!!!”