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Ever feel guilty for telling your kids "no"? My interview with David Walsh, Ph.D., the founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family and the author of No: Why Kids Of All Ages Need To Hear It And Ways Parents Can Say It, might just soothe your conscience. It was published in this month's issue of Scholastic Parent & Child, and is on the magazine's website. Read the interview, then come back and tell me what you think!
I always love reading the Works For Me Wednesday posts over at Rocks In My Dyer, but I rarely remember to participate myself. Well, this week I've got a doozy:
Macaroni and cheese is easier to sweep up off the floor if you let it sit overnight first.
I imagine this would work with any sort of wet pasta product. Dry, it sweeps right up. Damp, it smooshes all over the floor and becomes embedded in the bristles of my broom.
I realize I've just admitted to the entire world that I have purposely allowed food to sit on my floor overnight just so it's easier to sweep up, and I hope all the less-slobby people out there can forgive me :)
Got a great tip to share? Head over to Rocks in my Dryer and join in! Or just go read the other participants' posts. I guarantee, most of them are better than this one was.
In my newest column I talk about the "slacker mom" and "bad mom" phenomenon, and how though it may appear I am a slacker at times, I couldn't be cool if I tried.
As a rule, I am pretty laid-back. But there are also plenty of times when I try really hard, but fall short of the mark. Instead of standing back, arms folded and unruffled, with an "I'm too cool for all THAT" expression on my face, I'm the mom sweating and flustered, trying to pull something together at the last minute. Something that's doomed to fail. read the rest of the column here.
*I must disclose that I have not actually read "Confessions of a Slacker Mom" by Muffy Mead-Ferro, (keep meaning to, but what can I say, I'm kind of a slacker like that) so I'm not dissing her book, but rather the way the moniker has been interpreted and used it in certain segments of the mothering world.
I have articles in the latest issues of Parents and Yoga Journal (the articles aren't available online yet). Also, Disney has a fantastic new website, family.com, and I have a couple of articles in the launch--one about mom-baby yoga, and another on ending the 'mommy wars'. Read the articles and be the first to leave a comment over at their very purty new digs!
In moving news, we've found a place in Chicago and are starting the move, slowly but surely. Our new place is fantastic and I'm very excited to live there...eventually. Meanwhile, the kids and I are hanging as tight as possible while Jon works in another state. I'm no stranger to parenting on my own for short and longer periods of time, but somehow, doing it with four kids, one of whom has become a VERY busy toddler, while trying to work from home (including finishing up a book) AND going through years' worth of stuff deciding what to move, what to give away (and to whom) and what to toss....well, you might say I'm not being the best parent these days. I usually start off great and optimistic in the morning, buzz on through the caffeinated early hours, and begin to shut down by eight PM. By the time 9:00 rolls around, I'm pretty much done, but unfortunately, my smallest kids still have life in them until about 10--bad parenting on my part, I suppose, for not being stricter about bedtimes, but it was never a big deal when Jon was in the house! The hour between 9 and 10 can be ugly around here. It's like the boys can smell exhaustion and defeat on me and they exploit it for evil and mischief and just general putting off of the whole bedtime thing. Ah well, only....how much time do we have left of this? ohgod, ten more weeks. Big deep breath...
I went to my friend Liz's house tonight and we let the kids play while I ate a yummy dinner she made and had a glass of wine. Ahh...to NOT be the one to have to worry about getting dinner on the table, or dealing with the dishes afterward! Heaven.
Oh, and last but not least, we're talking about kids, sickness, and health over at largerfamilies this week. I just posted tonight--check it out!
You might have noticed that my blog has a new title. I've been trying to come up with one for a long time that sums up the whole of what I blog about--motherhood, kids, my career, writing, wellness, family, etc--but the word "balance" is used so often in regards to being a mother and a woman. "Equilibrium" means balance, but it's also much longer and harder to spell, so I'm hoping it isn't used as much!
Okay, admit it--there must be at least one or two of you out there who've signed on as a consultant to some home-party company or other, even though you had major doubts about your desire or ability to sell the product, because a recruiter was laying it on thick. Well, me too--not just once, but FOUR times...
Despite putting money I couldn't really spare into inventory, I wasn't able to move it off my shelves. Flop.
Over the next few years, I signed on with two different direct-sales companies. Flop. Flop.
What went wrong? Was it my refusal to attend sales meetings? The few times I went, the director made us all hold hands and sing, and I almost died of mortification. Or maybe I wasn't pushy enough about getting friends and family to purchase the product, let alone sign on as consultants themselves.
After all, the recruiting materials had made it clear: if you work hard enough and just believe in yourself, you can't help but succeed. Right?
Read the rest of the column here. And then, if you dare, come back and tell me what happened. Did you stick with it and move up the ladder? Give up? Lose money? Make money? Did you go on to recruit other doubtfuls? And--this I must know--did you hold hands and sing songs at the meetings?
How many times can a toddler pull every hat, mitten, glove, and scarf out of the hat-mitten-glove-and-scarf bin before growing tired of this apparenty thrilling, yet very messy, activity?
10? 50? 100? 1000?
I'd say the closest guess would earn a prize, but I'm afraid I may have to put a lock on the thing long before I could find out for sure.
Some acheive greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Or something like that.
I just got back from the boys' school, where I am assistant directing the children's production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Only we aren't using the original text. We're using a version that I wrote. Entirely in rhyming couplets. And when I say "entirely" I mean every last line. And when I say "rhyming" I mean I took very few liberties with said rhymes.
It took for-EV-er. And it was one of the most difficult pieces of writing I've done.
Difficult because these are third and fourth and fifth grade kids we're talking about, so the lines have to be simple enough for them to grasp without insulting their intelligence or totally mauling the story. And because they're third and fourth and fifth graders the romance has to be handled just right or every kissing scene will dissolve in a sea of self-conscious giggles and protests. And because I wanted to make the text a little bit fun and a little bit hip but I still wanted to remain true to the Shakespeare flavor (otherwise, what's the point? If you strip a Shakespeare play down to just the plot, you've basically got an episode of Three's Company with some nobles and royalty thrown in).
And difficult because it's just darn hard to rhyme words like "Augecheek" and "sword".
But it's done, and we're in rehearsals now, and it's FUN. It's so exciting to see the words I've written being performed on stage, even if right now the actors are mostly horsing around, I can barely hear most of them, they stand over and over and over again with their rear ends facing the audience and we have to keep turning them around, and so far our "stage" is just a line of masking tape on the floor.
It was a lot of work, but I think I'll be up for it again next year if my kids' new school needs my services.
I don't think I'm ready for King Lear, however.
Everybody was talking about the book "The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter", by Katherine Ellison, last year, so I realize I'm a bit behind the curve on this one. But in my latest column I discuss the idea that motherhood makes us smarter:
Truth is, every mom has a running list like this in her head, directing her every movement and anticipating problems before they're even on the horizon. But most of the time, we don't pay attention to the constant buzz in our brains. It's not until we have reason to try to spell out for somebody else, on paper, exactly what it is we think about and do all day that we can see the extensive amount of planning, forethought, organization, logic and creativity that goes into the job we know simply as "motherhood."
Read the full column here, and then come back and let me know: do you think being a mom has made you smarter?
A few posts ago, I alluded to a big change on the horizon for my family. Well, I've finally notified my co-workers and family, found a place, signed the lease and put down the deposit, chosen a school for the kids, let their current school know we wouldn't be back next fall (sob!), and today, I started packing my first box. I guess it's time to make it official by letting the rest of the world know, too:
We're moving to Chicago.
It's not a cross-country move or anything. We're currently only about 4 hours from Chicago. But we're going from a town of about 3,000 people to the third most populated city in the United States.
I'm excited. Long ago, when I first graduated high school it was always my dream to live in Chicago (or some other big city, though Chicago was always top of my list) one day. But life happened, and Chicago never did. Too expensive, we thought. We can't do it now. Maybe one day, when the kids are grown. But then we began to realize that, though housing is pricey in Chicago, it's even MORE expensive not to be making money! Jon needed a job, and the market here in mid-Michigan is slow, so we thought we'd give it a shot and....less than a week later, he had an offer and we were making plans.
Of course, as excited as I am, it's an intimidating change. For instance, our current town? One public elementary school and maybe three religious ones. Chicago? Several hundred elementary schools. I'd missed all the deadlines for lotteries into this or that "open enrollment" school, and apparently, competition can be fierce. Good private schools, but a lot more expensive than what we're accustomed to. I visited five schools, researched countless others, and finally chose one today.
And of course, there are wonderful people that I will miss dearly. People I met through my column, the moms and the midwives I've gotten to know...etc. That will be sad.
But Chicago. Wow! This is going to be quite an adventure. And if there's one thing I'm always up for, it's an adventure. Stick around to see what happens when this small-town girl hits the big city with four kids in tow!
