High Maintenance Mom

It's that special time again when those of us living in our type A communities rush around to schedule a summer's worth of activities for our kids. At $500 a week we feel nostalgic for the good old days when camp was more than a week long and kids played outside all day. N's preschool class from last year has organized a play date where we will all come with our camp research and plan our summers. Afterwards, I will send our schedule to several of B's friends to see what we can do. One of the parents I spoke with today told me of a camp where the kids are bused to a park where they can canoe. She referred to it as "Old School." In addition to preparing for camps, many of us are also scheduling school tours and going through the application process...

Happy Holidays! We hope everyone gets to do something fun during the break. I've been searching for ways to help my kids feel empathy and compassion for the holidays. We usually collect old toys and bring them to a shelter. Last New Years Eve we spent some time thinking about the previous year and what we wanted for the new year. We all wrote or drew the two separate lists (see New Years Eve with the kids. I put the drawings and lists in our holiday cards envelope and then quickly forgot about them. It was a fun surprise for me this year when I started this year's holiday cards...

I opened my door this morning to a fun surprise! The Halloween Phantom visited my family! A trick or treat bag filled with fun games and cookies sat on my step with a note. My kids were thrilled. Read on to start this tradition in your area......

One of our favorite shows, WordWorld, is celebrating its birthday and offering downloadable birthday items including invitations, name tags, and thank you notes. We think LeapFrog videos (Letter Factory / Talking Words Factory / Talking Words Factory II / Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory /Math Circus) helped B learn to read and WordWorld is helping N learn to read. See our earlier post, WordWorld for more information about the show.

While it is still fresh in my mind (well 9 months old anyway) I wanted to write about the things that helped me through the labor & delivery of my two children. I also have 3 friends and HMM readers who are about to deliver. A plan: first and foremost. I didn’t write ours down but rather discussed it with my husband...

I'm working a night shift on the big island of Hawaii watching the Halema`uma`u vent and data feeds. My 16 days of working 8pm to 4am are almost over and while I love being here, I miss my family. I have to admit that not being able to talk to the kids because of my hours has been really hard. I've been sending pictures by email and writing postcards but it's not the same. If ever do it again, I will spend more time setting up video calls with our computers for the weekends.

Knowing the night shift was going to be hard, I brought several comfort items from home.

Summer Reading Programs are an excellent way to introduce kids to the joys of libraries and reading. Many libraries now have Listening and Parent programs too so everyone can participate. Reading to your kids is one of the best ways to prepare them for school and help them develop lifelong reading skills (Reading is Fundamental). Last year was B's first year in the Reading program instead of the Listening program and it was very exciting. We still read to him but we also had him read a little bit almost every night. Reading the same books over an over really helped as did finding a very simple series that he found interesting. Each child learns to read at a different rate and making the process enjoyable is very important. N and I snuggle with books in the evening. I let him finish the words at the end of rhyming sentences he knows and I occasionally point out words so he starts to learn more about how I read. Check out Read*Write*Now! for more information on reading to kids from birth until the 6th grade.

One of B's favorite days at school was 100's day (on the 100th day of school). B loved counting the school days in his classroom and was very excited for the celebration. In addition to counting out 100 snacks, decorating a crown with 100 stickers, and stringing 100 pieces of cereal into a necklace, the kids also got to search for 100 Hershey kisses. Each of the kisses had a sticker on the bottom with a number written on it. The kids had to match the numbers on the candy to numbers on a large paper Hershey kiss. It was fun to watch the smiling kids try to match the numbers and I wanted to see if N would enjoy a similar activity at home...

We've been having trouble accomplishing our basic morning chores - get up, come to the table, eat breakfast, clear your plate, get dressed, etc. It's not really new trouble, just the realization that most mornings are a struggle. After reading Positive Discipline and particularly Positive Discipline A-Z: 1001 Solutions to Everyday Parenting Problems , which I highly recommend because it condenses the first book into 30 pages and then gives specific advice for numerous issues through the teenage years, I decided to try a family meeting. This was not our first family meeting. I've tried them several times while reading the books but I tend to want to try everything at once so it wasn't surprising they didn't work the first time. Somehow, this meeting was a success. Maybe the kids needed to adjust to the idea or maybe we were all in the perfect mood but somehow it worked...

I hope you are having a great Mother's Day. My special alone time this morning included an exercise class at the gym where I heard the following comments from friends. "This class is the highlight of my day. The rest of the day will include the usual errands, cleaning, and cooking." "My child made me a flower pot in Kinder but on Friday all I received was a note from her friend apologizing for breaking it." "My children like to tell me I can clean tomorrow instead." I hope you have the opportunity to do something you really enjoy today!