One week down.

This is now where I spend my days, surrounded by photos of and drawings made by my family.

 

Well, I did it.  I made it through my first week back at work.  Here are some things I’ve learned:

·         Humans really are creatures of habit.  I mean, I’ve been gone for 9 months and started right back into the same routines I was in before I left.  I drink my coffee and catch up on emails first thing, sip tea and work through my to-do list for the rest of the day. 

·         Kids are totally adaptable if you have put the proper resources in place.  Picking the most amazing childcare provider for our family has made a huge difference in our son’s behavior this time around.  Sure, it’s only been a few days but it’s already so different from this time last year when he was sent to what we now know was the wrong daycare for us.   

·         I really like being outside.  I spend my windowless office hours thinking about my garden and when I’m going to find the time to harvest those beets already.  I miss the sun and the fresh air and the feeling of my bare feet in the grass.

·         It turns out, I like my coffee hot!  I forgot what it was like to finish a hot cuppa joe before it got cold.  There are definitely some perks to working outside the home.

All in all, my week was good.  I have found it easier to settle in than I thought I would and my family seems to have already adjusted to the change.  Maybe it won’t be such an awful summer after all.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it's off to work I go.

So, here’s the scoop: it’s time for me to go back to work.  My doctor and I decided a couple of months ago that I would be ready at the beginning of July and here we are already, just under three weeks left to go.  I’m excited, anxious, happy and sad.  I spend my days thinking of what I will miss and what I won’t miss.  Here’s a snapshot of what’s been going through my mind lately:

Things I won’t miss while I’m at work:

·         The crazy-time my daughter has every afternoon.  She has a total freak-out because the jelly is on top of the peanut butter (imagine that!), she has to wait until October for her birthday (really nothing I can do there) and/or because she doesn’t want to ride her bike (but she really wants to ride her bike!!).  She’s three, she can’t help it but I certainly won’t miss it.

·         Meal planning.  When I first stopped working, it just made sense that the housework, meal –planning, and general household management would be my responsibility while my husband worked 40+ hours a week.  He definitely ended up doing more housework than he probably bargained for but the meal planning was all me.  And I hate it.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  I’ll be glad to start sharing that responsibility again.

·         Strict budgeting.  My husband and I have definitely had to learn about making a budget (and sticking to it!) while I’ve been off work.  We plan to carry these newly acquired skills to our two-income living but adding a few frills here and there without sweating about it will definitely be a nice change.

Thing I’ll miss while I’m at work:

·         Lazy mornings.  It’s been great just having to get the kids ready and then getting myself into some clothes (any clothes), brushing my teeth and heading out the door.  No need to wash my face or brush my hair because I’m just walking to the school and back.  This will not be acceptable at the office.  It’s time to add a shower, blow-dry, hair straightening, make-up and office clothes back into our morning routine.  Ugh.

·         The one-on-one time I spend with my daughter every morning for the 2.5 hours my son is in school.  We shop together, run errands together or I just push her on the swings until my arms hurt.  I love that we have been able to share this time together.

·         Spending the day outside.  Do I really need to say more about this?  What’s worse, my office doesn’t have a window.  Boo.

·         Walking my kids to school and being a part of the school community.  I’ll be dropping them off with and picking them up from their daycare provider next year instead of the school.  I won’t have those daily interactions with their teachers or with the other parents.  Instead, I’ll be the mom depending on open house and parent-teacher nights to really get a good grasp of my kids’ education and school life.  This makes me sad.

This list could really go on forever and honestly, it goes without saying that I’m going to miss the time I spend with my kids the most.  Staying home with them every day for the last nine months has been tough but I’m already getting choked up knowing that in two weeks they’ll have to start sharing me with a full-time job again.  Hopefully, like everything else, this will be a lot harder for me than it is for them. 

My daughter just asked if we could make cookies.  Although it will likely result in a freak-out of epic proportions, I’m going to drop everything to do that with her now because in three weeks, I’ll be sitting in a windowless office, staring at photos of them and wishing we were baking cookies.  Maybe I’ll even be missing my daughter’s crazy-time and should include a photo of it on my desk as well.  Okay, maybe not.  That’s pushing the sentimentality just a little bit.

Television-Smellevision (Who needs it?)

Well, we survived our first 24 hours without the TV.  In fact, we had an amazing day!  Here are some of the things I have learned already:

1.       The kids really don’t care about the TV after all.  First thing this morning my daughter asked if she could watch a show and my son led her into the living room to show her the sheet over the television and reminded her of the challenge.  They then moved on to the playroom to get out some toys instead.

2.       Putting a sheet over the television was a genius idea, if I do say so myself.  I didn’t have to remind the kids of our no-TV challenge a zillion times – they looked at the TV, saw the sheet and knew that they weren’t going to watch it.

3.       The television doesn’t actually have to be on for the kids to be entertained by themselves.  I had a lovely long shower this morning while the kids played with Play-Doh and snacked on orange slices.  Who knew that was possible?!

4.       There are lots of quiet things to do other than watching TV in lieu of nap time.  For instance, just as our fun day was turning into a mid-afternoon of arguing, whining and crying (exactly the moment when I would normally reach for the remote control), the kids and I sat around the patio set, crunched on our apples and enjoyed a riveting game of I Spy with My Little Eye.

5.       I actually had a lot more time to myself when I was engaging with the kids all day, if that makes any sense at all.  My focus was on them, (which they loved), but I could also do this:

And in so doing, I made this:
(Thanks to this tutorial I found on Pinterest.)

All in all, a lovely day.  Tomorrow is a brand new one – here’s hoping it’s just as productively wonderful.

the day i took the tv away

CONFESSION: My children watch too much television.

It’s not like they’re a couple of little robots sitting in front of it all day or anything, but they'll usually watch a show or two first thing in the morning, a movie in the afternoon and another movie or another couple of shows before bed. 

We’ve been using the TV as a means to keep the kids quiet while we get things done around the house, a way for them to cool down in the afternoon in lieu of taking a nap and, if I’m being completely honest here, it’s also been a case of lazy parenting.  It’s just easy to put on a movie and let it keep them entertained for a little while.

A couple of movies and a show didn’t seem too terrible at first thought.  When I stopped to think about it a little more though, it dawned on me that it was 3.5-4 hours of television every day.  Over 24 hours of TV a week!  It has to stop so I’ve just introduced my family to the NO TV CHALLENGE.  That’s right, I’ve taken it away for one week.  Not too much time, but enough to hopefully make a huge impact on our family.

My husband refused to help me physically remove it from the wall (he said that was taking the challenge a little too far), so this is what I did:

This is the reaction I got from my daughter:

 
And this is the reaction I got from my son:

 
Wish me luck!  It’s going to be a long week.

Why I support my daughter's love of the Disney Princesses

Every few months or so, social media is surging with links dissing the Disney Princesses.  Articles and blogs by proud mamas that dress their daughters up as real-life heroines or send their daughters to school as superheroes on princess day fill my Facebook news feed.  Don’t get me wrong, these are important lessons to teach our daughters.  I might add though, that the majority of people sharing these articles and blogs either don’t have kids or don’t have daughters.  It’s easy to have an opinion on something when you don’t live it. 

Believe me, I said the same thing.  I was going to protect my kids (both of them – my daughter AND my son), not only from the horrendous female role-models that are the Disney Princesses, but from the Disney branding itself.  And I did, for a while, but then they went to daycare and school, and were suddenly exposed to all sorts of things that I wasn’t prepared for.  Next to the junk food and toy guns that other people let their kids have, the Princesses are the least of my worries.

And here’s why: I am a strong, independent woman.  I not only manage the household and its finances, I fix things when they’re broken, I take out the garbage, and I cut the grass.  I take care of myself, I stick up for myself, and these are the female traits I’m teaching my kids purely by example.  I am the leading female in their lives.  I am the role model that they learn from every day.

So what if they love to watch Rapunzel fighting off the bad guys with her frying pan?  It’s no different than watching the carnivores in Dinosaur Train hopping on public transit or the Mystery Inc. gang running from goblins at the amusement park.  It’s make-believe.

My kids have have amazing women in their real lives every day, and that makes me okay with some Disney Princess magic when they play.  After all, isn’t magic and make-believe what being a kid is all about?

The Incredible Years Indeed

When hubby and I decided to start a family we were pretty sure we already knew all there was to know about raising a child.  We could feed it, snuggle it, change its poopy diapers – that’s all there was to it, right?  Piece of cake!

 

Pan to a few years later when we’re practically pulling our hair out because our 4-year old is hitting, spitting, swearing, growling and being kicked out of daycare (twice!).  Our son was clearly going through something and we didn’t know how to help him.  That was seven months ago.  That was when I left work and we looked into getting some real help. 

After what seemed like constant appointments with different pediatricians and psychologists to confirm that there was actually no diagnosis to be made, we were pointed in the direction of a 12-week parenting program called The Incredible Years.  It seemed as though, despite what we were hearing from past daycare providers,  there was actually nothing wrong with our son (thankfully!) and in fact, the problem was with how we were parenting him.  We clearly needed to brush up on our skills so we breathed deeply, checked our egos and committed to the 12-weeks.

The Incredible Years is a free program offered through the City of Hamilton’s Public Health department.  I don’t think I have ever been more grateful to live in a city with such amazing resources at our fingertips.  The change we have seen in our son’s behaviour is astounding and all because we have committed to slight changes in our parenting habits.  There were six families taking part in the program and all of us have seen amazing results in our kids.  I’m sure that isn’t a coincidence.

 

I encourage you to check out the resources offered where you live and sign up for the program yourself.  If you prefer the quick and dirty version instead, fear not – I will share it here every Thursday.  Parenting is a hard gig; I think we could all use a little refresher now and then.

Finding my Namaste

I love to practice yoga.  In fact, I NEED to practice yoga.  It feels so good to stretch my body and concentrate on nothing more than my breath for ninety minutes.

 I’ve been finding it difficult to practice as much as I would like since becoming a stay-at-home mom on a budget.  Yoga classes are expensive and practicing at home has always been too full of distractions.  It was tough enough to practice when there was only a cat pouncing all over my bridge pose but practicing at home with a cat and two kids?  Impossible.

Or so I thought.

During the week, my daughter and I walk my son to school and then have two and a half hours to ourselves, which is usually spent running errands.  Lately though, I’ve added yoga into our daily schedule and she loves it.  We both do. 

I have spent the last five years struggling to find my old before-kids self and wondering where it was she had gone.  I missed her.  Every day I missed her, and as much as I hate to admit it, I started to resent my role as mom because of it.

Why did I consider kids a distraction from the things I love to do before now?  It’s not their fault that I hadn’t been practicing yoga nor doing all the other things that I used to love doing before they came into my life.  I have been choosing to not take care of me and in doing so, have not been fair to myself or to my family.

Spending time practicing yoga with my daughter has done so much.  We have that special bonding time together and I get that amazing stretch and focus on breath that I need.  The cat?  Well, he’s still a distraction but he loves when it’s time for cat pose.  Obviously.    

Good day, Sunshine!

Life is just better when it’s warm and sunny, isn’t it?  We spent hours outside today – checking out snails, digging for worms, playing hopscotch and making ourselves dizzy on the swings.  We cooked outside, we ate outside and we loved every minute of it.

 

After a long and crappy winter, I’m so ready to say hello to warm sunshiny days.

Brownies for a rainy day in April

So, I'm not sure if you noticed but last week, I missed the first of my own deadlines - Pinterest Fridays!  Oh well.  Maybe completing one Pinterest project every other week is a more realistic goal for me.  It's all about knowing your limits, right?

This week, I took an idea for protein-filled Black Bean Brownies from my friend Karen's site That Mom Blog.  I followed her super easy directions, (rinse and blend a can of black beans with just enough water to cover, add to the dry brownie mix), and just like that, they were a hit!  Kids loved them, hubby loved them and I enjoyed my fair share as well. 

WARNING: While these brownies may be a lower-fat, higher protein option, they may or may not make you and your family a little farty.  Enjoy with caution!  :)

the one about Pinterest

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because
 we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel.” —Steve Furtick

A new friend shared this quote with me one day while we were chatting about Pinterest.  I was explaining how the site makes me feel like an inadequate parent.  I’ve been home with the kids for five months now and can never find the time or energy to do any of the crafty ideas I pin, even without a day job taking up 40+ hours of my time.  How do all those other parents do it?

I’m sure there are some parents that really have it all together.  They love nothing more than being home, raising kids and making everything from scratch.  I’m also sure though, that most people are simply posting their highlight reels for the rest of the world, saving the behind-the-scenes for their eyes only.

This realization has definitely changed the way I look at other people’s posts, but still I feel that I could put a little more effort into things and take more advantage of being home while I still can.  That being said, I found a recipe for DIY Fruit Snacks on Pinterest this week and decided to try it out.

Not only did they turn out to be super easy and delicious, but I know exactly what they’re made of and can feel good about giving them to my kids.  They, by the way, love them so much that they  sneak more every time I turn my back.

I’ve decided to make a new goal for myself: find the motivation to complete ONE Pinterest project each week and post it to my blog every Friday.  Now, if you don't mind, I need to go do some research - I’m already sweating over next week’s looming deadline.  J

Dear family, friends and everyone else:

So, this might be somewhat awkward and maybe even a little unexpected but I have to tell you something.

If you know me well, you know that I love my family (clearly) but that I also love my job and getting out of the house to go to work five days a week.  Even if you don't know me well, you may have picked up on the notion from my Tales From the Hammer posts on Bunch.  Like, for instance, this one: Dear Stay-at-Home Parent.

Well, things have changed.  Due to some things beyond my immediate control (crippling anxiety and a four year-old with major behavioural issues), I've been at home full-time for the last five months and I'm completely unsure of when I will be heading back to the ol' day job.  I'm home to focus on taking care of me and to help my kid get through whatever it is he needs to get through right now.

That being said, the last five months have been full of huge ups, low downs and everything in between.  I plan to share our adventures (and misadventures) here so stay tuned.  This could get interesting.