The Mom Crowd

I was at the park with my kids last week, when I stopped for a moment, I took a look at each of my children. My two-year old was climbing the rock wall, and my five-year old was playing quietly in the sand. It was at that moment, that I realized how different, yet, alike my children are.

My first born is now five. She was a very quite baby, I could hold her and rock her all night long. She loved to cuddle, she was always so happy and content. She ate extremely well. Even at a very young age she always liked her vegetables.

I remember people asking us, “Are you getting much sleep at night?” Joking of course, because usually parents don’t get a lot of sleep with a newborn. Ironically, we would say, “Yes we are…a full eight hours” She slept like a baby through the night.

As first time parents, we were in heaven. We thought that if this is what having kids was like, we got this in the bag. Fast forward five years, and she is now in Kindergarten, extremely independent, very competitive, excels in all her courses with school, and yet she still loves her quite time to read, play with her ponies, and even puts herself down for a nap.

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If you’re anything like me, you are probably selfless to your own downfall.  Whether it’s with friends, family, and especially with a significant other, this can create complications.

With my most recent breakup, I’ve found that these complications usually don’t arise as a major issue with the other person (that’s a separate subject entirely), it morphs into an ugly resentment monster, usually pent up deep within our own selves.

The resentment monster then begins to slowly manifest itself in the form of snippy comments, aloofness, or if you’re lucky enough to have to navigate my map of emotions, complete silence and disengagement.

I turn into an unresponsive, and probably a passive aggressive stone statue, “Everything’s fine, no worries, yea cool, whatever”.  Looking back, those are a few of the delightful gems that my ex-boyfriend had to endure.

Selflessness aside, I have myself to blame for choosing to try to be a super woman girlfriend, and expecting a superman boyfriend in return.  My former boyfriend is a musician (a tremendously successful musician, who I still cannot get over).  We’ve been involved for three years, and bond regularly over contemporary art and reggae music.

Based on my personality, I know that I will stop everything at the sound of a needle dropping for someone I love.  But, I also need to feel the love back.  I believe the littlest gestures, and small amounts of individual attention, make a world of difference.  I dropped engagements, plans with friends, and huge dreams of drama school to be completely devoted to a person who I still think is insanely brilliant, without giving myself enough credit to think similarly of myself.

While I am still reeling over the separation, blaming myself for not being supportive “enough”, awkwardly trying to figure out if we can be friends, and secretly hoping things might be different if we have a second chance, I do realize that there is a balance, and I clearly haven’t achieved that balance.

I recall disagreeing during a one year anniversary (on and off anniversary) because I wanted to go dancing, and he didn’t.  I ended up picking up the tab for “our” dinner and hearing a convincing argument as to why we should do something at a later date (which we never did).  Almost immediately, I began telling myself that I was “too needy” and how “selfish” I am to want to go dancing with my significant other.  But, in retrospect, it was my selflessness that choked a lot of the love, and maybe even permanently caused the flames of love to fizzle.  I lost sight of my passions and goals and desires, and I became a femmebot machine, nodding at every whim, and graciously exhausting myself at every command.

I know I’m not alone in this epidemic.  So what can WE as women do about it?

First, I think we need to check in with ourselves every so often.  Or, as a wise friend says, “Check yoself before you wreck yoself”.  If you are or anticipate being in a relationship at any point in the future, make sure you’re achieving your goals, and pursuing your dreams regardless of who is in the picture.

Second, if you have any gut feelings that you’re being mistreated, manipulated, disrespected (in any way), speak up!  If it’s repetitively harmful (physical or emotional), get out. You’re not crazy, and you’re not needy.  You’re intelligent, and wildly talented, you’re just maintaining your self worth.

Finally, if you feel like you’re battling to keep a spark alive, or a relationship that has an expiration date, and nothing is changing, make the change yourself.  If you’re exhausting every inch of your soul, energy, finances, and conversations to convince someone to be with you, to help you out, to spend one night a week at home with you, let them go!

The fact is, I am perfectly imperfect, but I let my expectations cloud the physical inactions (and actions) that I received.  I created a prince in shining armor, and became a resentful monster; all I had to do was make a change, and focus on myself.

When you work as a family to save money, you not only teach your children the value of saving, you also teach them that a family should work together and have good communication.  Teaching the value of money will benefit them long into adulthood.

Most children are not in a position to earn income from an outside source to help with the family’s financial plans; their involvement will largely be in the saving money through making good choices and helping to find deals when shopping. This is still a great way to add value to their skills buy teaching them there are many ways to save money everyday.  The last time my family got together to brainstorm ideas on how to save money, we came up with several relatively painless ways to reduce our expenditures.

Buy and sell consignment items

Some towns and cities have consignment stores where people can take their used (but still in good condition) items to a storefront where they are priced by the store manager and offered for sale at the store. Sometimes consignment stores have special niches. Prices on the items in the consignment store typically are lower than the retail price but if it is a lightly used item, you can still get a good amount of cash back.

Play It Again Sports consignment stores are often the first stop for parents to go when they need to buy sports equipment for their school age children. It is a great way to save money on what kids need and also sell items that they have outgrown.  You can find just about any type of sports equipment lightly used.  This will save you tons of money.

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Feel like your child is growing tired of the toys he sees every day? Looking for ways to change up his play routine but don’t want to spend a bunch of money on toys that he will tire of too quickly?  I have the solution for you! One adult’s trash can be a a toddler’s treasure with a little re-purposing of household items.  The following is a compilation of some of my most successful recycled-item activities.  These things are easy to make and are guaranteed to provide a fun-filled play day with your tot.

• Water bottles and pop cans make wonderful musical instruments! For this activity, I like to use a variety of recycled bottles and cans of different shape and sizes.  Then I add whatever dry food I have on hand, like beans, rice, pasta, peas etc.  With a little duct tape ingenuity you can easily cover the holes in a can or secure a lid on a bottle.  Now you have an array of musical shakers for some music and movement time with your toddler.  Show your child how they work and then have fun, the sillier you are the better!
• We all have a few clothes hanging around that we can’t wear and can’t donate.  These make perfect fabric choices for homemade bean bags! Yes this will require some sewing, but it is worth it when you see your child having a good time tossing them around.  Simply cut a few squares out of the old clothes.  Fold the patch in half, print side in and sew two edges.  Flip the fabric right side out and fill bag with beans.  Sew up the third side and now you have a bean bag! Games with this can be as simple as throwing them in the air and trying to catch them.  You can also cut out shapes from construction paper or newspaper and put them on the floor, then ask you child to help you throw the bag to the different shapes, now we are learning shapes too! You can make as many games as you or your child can imagine.
• This is a super simple way to keep your child entertained and all you need is an old magazine.  Start by clearing your play space of all other toys. Then rip about 20-30 pages and crumple them into balls.  Now you have a ton of house-safe balls to throw all around the room.  Put a box in the center of the room and try to make throw them inside. Throw them all around the room and see how fast your little one can get them all back in the box.  After your child is tired of all that running, they will be happy to sit and shred the paper balls.  They will be happy to crumple, tear, and taste until it is clean up time!

I hope your family finds these activities are as fun as we have!

Have some recycled-fun ideas of your own? Post them here for us to try!

Ever since 9/11, I’ve been reminded how life can be taken from us in the blink of an eye. Too many times we hear the “I should have done this” or “I wish I’d done that”, but we just never got around to it. Time is short; no doubt about it.

The Bucket List was an adorable movie in 2007, where two men diagnosed with terminal cancer, embark on a mission to cross off items on their “to-do” list. Although I’ve been blessed with great health thus far, I created one a few years ago and cannot express the extreme satisfaction of completing an item and visually crossing it off my list! What’s even more interesting, is the fact that my two, young children created their own lists of “to-do’s” with adorable hopes and dreams that I didn’t even realize were lingering in the backs of their minds.

My 10-year-old daughter mentioned foods she hoped to try, places she wished to visit, and of course a handful of Disney and Nickelodeon stars she desired to meet. This had me determined to once again be the #BME! (Twitter hash tag for BEST MOM EVER!). During our most recent cruise, she was able to try escargot (yes, snails) and learned that she actually liked them. Quite a bit even. She and I both haven’t been to New York before and it’s a commonality on our lists, so I’m in the midst of planning a family vacation there within the next 3 years. Finally, I was able to locate fan mail addresses for her top celebrities and send away for signed headshots. I even follow a calendar of events that shares Disney red carpet movie premieres and she’s since collected a handful of photographs and autographs from those stars close to her heart!

We aren’t promised tomorrow, so we should live each day with no regrets. Better yet, start doing the things you never dreamt you could. Stop procrastinating! Make a list individually or as a family, and get moving! It even makes for great scrapbook memories to write down, check off when they happen, and note with a date, time, souvenir, and photograph.