Just sharing……

He’s gonna kill me for sharing this one. heehee

Play-doh on his lunch break!

On the town, both up to no good!

I’ve been feeling a little down lately due to all the traveling I’ve done in July and being away from my family so when I got an email from Mr. Kendrick, I felt uplifted.  I asked him if I could share this with you because it’s something I think we all need to do……… Live a Little

Banana Splits for Breakfast

by Carleton Kendrick Ed.M., LCSW
Family Therapist and Author, Take Out Your Nosering, Honey, We’re Going to Grandma’s

Twenty-three years ago, at 1:30 A.M., I woke my 10 and 8 year-old kids to see a lunar eclipse.

“That’s great,” Alisa, the elder, whined. “Tell me about it in the morning.”

“OK, Dad, I’m coming,” Jason groaned, pulling the sheets over his head.
Despite their lack of enthusiasm, I knew they’d want to see it.
Led trancelike to our backyard, they managed to recover their senses just in time to witness the moon’s gradual disappearance.

They were mesmerized.

On another occasion, a sudden, torrential downpour was driving swimmers and sunbathers from the beach. I wanted my children to feel the rain on their faces as they floated on the water.

So we ran against the fleeing crowd, into the sea.

We floated, drank the rain, and laughed.

My children still fondly recall these and all their other spontaneous family adventures.

Waltzing the Kitchen

I first learned the joy of acting spontaneously from my Uncle Peter.

When I was eight, he made one of his many unannounced visits to our home. On this particular Saturday afternoon, my mother and I were making spaghetti sauce and homemade pasta-she was Italian – in the kitchen.

He greeted her and me warmly, as always, remarked that popular, Italian crooner Perry Como was singing on our radio, and held out his arms, “Let’s dance Thelma.” She feigned embarrassment, giggling “Peter, I still have my apron on.”

He replied softly, entreatingly, “But Thelma, it’s Perry Como.” She smiled broadly and walked into his arms and the grace of their dance spoke tenderly of love and enchantment.

I felt happy and their magic filled our kitchen. At eight, I couldn’t articulate what I was witnessing, but my heart told me this was something important, something special, something to remember.

A sense of wonder

Kids come hard-wired with a natural sense of wonder.

They ask us continuously to join them in their endeavors. “Come have tea with me and my imaginary friends.” “Let’s make banana splits for breakfast!” “We need to catch some fireflies to light up our tent.”

They fascinate us with their sudden whims.

As a therapist, I’ve seen so many children become increasingly less and less free-spirited, as parents hurry them through their childhood. Even toddlers and preschoolers are expected to participate in highly structured, success portfolio oriented activities and lives.

Academic achievement-oriented daycare.
Educational play groups.

Adult-supervised sports.

There’s hardly time for a free moment…or a childhood.

We have become less tolerant of our growing children’s spontaneous, “childlike” expressions of curiosity, humor, and celebration, and label these as frivolous, inappropriate, and immature.

In our efforts to raise brilliant, multitalented “top college” students, we lose touch with our kids’ penchant for fun.
They lose touch with their flair for the spontaneous, the impromptu.

Your toll has been paid

It’s easy to be spontaneous.

Take your daughter for a surprise picnic lunch and bring along her favorite junk foods.

Pick your son up at school and take him to an early afternoon matinee of a movie he’s been dying to see.

The next time you’re at a toll booth, tell your kid to pay for the two cars behind you.

How about banana splits for breakfast?

Loosen up.

Surprise your kids.

Make some memories.

My Uncle Peter taught me to dance in the kitchen, to swim in the rain, to live in the moment.

He listened to his heart and invited others to celebrate what he heard.

You are never too old to dance in the moonlight.

Your children need to know that.

P.S.  Taking five, for me, means days so if I seem to be in and out, please understand that I’m focusing on my family right now.

Tyler, my oldest, has sorta always felt like my brother in a way.  I mean, I did have him at 17 after all so we kinda grew up together in a sense I suppose.  He always gave me a hard time from the early newborn days until about 14.  I remember waking up at 2am trying to soothe him with no luck at all and my husband walking over, patting him on the back and him falling right to sleep.  He’s always been a daddy’s boy.  He was also the one carving on saddles, writing his name with a marker under out dinner table, acting up in class, and hiding all sorts of snacks in his room.  He’s now almost all grown up it seems.  He’ll be 16 in September and he’s a good young man.  He’s so very polite and respectful.  He has this unbelievable work ethic, something many teens lack these days.  He’s been breakin’ horses since he was 7 or so and he’s still doing it, only now he’s earning a man’s wages.

He’s just waiting for the day he can leave home to go daywork on other ranches.  I can’t imagine him leaving home though.  He’s just like me whether he wants to admit it or not.  He’s silly and is always cracking me up.  He’s my best friend now.  I know I still have a few years left with him but God how I’ll miss him when he’s gone to live out his cowboy days.

I’ll never forget the first time Tyler got his first cell phone and we got the first bill.  Oh.my.gosh. I about died.  $800.  I’m pretty for sure I cried and my husband couldn’t even speak.

If you don’t want to feel this same pain, you MUST check out T-Mobile’s Family Allowance feature. Why didn’t this get thought of before!!  Basically, it lets you set up limits for minutes, texts, downloads and more so that you or your kids don’t go over.  Once you learn how many minutes, texts, etc that you are allowed, you’ll learn to budget accordingly for the coming months.  It’s a great way to save money and NOT spend all day on the cell phone.  Once you have reached your allowance, the service is temporarily disabled.  The Always AllowedSMNumbers will still work though.

MOM to MOM QUIZ (FUN!)

Take the Mom to Mom quiz with me!  It’s a few short questions about your personality and decision making that will determine your parenting style.  Once you’re done taking the quiz, a badge with your parenting style will be generated with a few other text tidbits.  Should you choose to do so, you’ll be able to upload your own images to create a more personalized badge that you’ll also have the chance to share via social networks and email.

I took the quiz and laughed at almost every question. Some of the choices cracked me up and are SOOO me! After taking the quiz, I have been determined to be a Quick Wit! A Quick Wit parenting style is:

Raising kids, especially teens require a sense of humor. You respond to you teens antics with intelligent wit and banter while letting them know you love em’, but they’ll have to get up a lot earlier in the morning to sneak something past you.

and clearly I need to clean his fingernails……and cut them.

Three kids later, we are having more fun now than we did in our younger marriage years.  We are going places, doing fun things with the kids, enjoying the toddler years way more than when I was 18 and really proud of how we’ve raised our boys so far.  Do you ever wonder what your child is going to be like when they are older based on crazy things they did as a little fella?  My kids are great and while I don’t know what the future holds, I’m confident that we have left the communication lines open wide so that they can come to us with anything. I know they we are doing our job as parents, and good one I’d like to think.

I get tons of requests for a picture of me and my man so this Valentine’s Day, I had Toby take a picture of us.  Considering we only have around 5 or so pictures together, I’d say this was a very special Valentine’s treat.

A Cowboy (37) and his Wife (32)

So, it was suggested by some friends of mine that I give “The Case for Christ” a read. A book about a journalist who absolutely didn’t believe in Jesus, etc and set out to investigate and prove that he didn’t/doesn’t exist.

It was a 21mth long investigation and while I don’t know the outcome, I can assume. You see, I’m a lot like the person that wrote this book. I’m one of those that doesn’t believe for the most part. I truly do want to believe but having experienced several major bad things in my life, my mom’s life, in other’s lives…it’s hard for me. I’m one of those that says, “If there’s a God, then why does all this bad happen?”, “Why did he take such a good person?”. Yep, that’s me.

So anyways, I’m on page 30 of the book and I love it. It’s the student version and easy to understand and it’s “real”. Meaning, it’s not preaching to me or telling me what I SHOULD believe, it’s giving me both sides of the story and allowing me to make my own assumptions and conclusions.

It is true that the older you get, the more you start looking for  faith?   I would love to hear from you…….except, no preaching please. It makes me uncomfortable to be honest.

P.S. The last book I read was “The Purpose Driven Life“.  Enjoyed it a great deal.

P.P.S.  Get your free sample of Fruit Roll Ups because you never know when you’re toddler will have a tantrum and this will save the day.

UPDATE: I was just informed by Lindsay of the 7 part documentary!  I’ll be watching.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

So this latest one….we have a couple of 4-wheelers here.  One with guards, one without.  My boys had just ridden so they were both hot.  Little man went outside immediately after his nap because he saw his brothers and dad out there.  Within a few seconds, he was climbing the 4-wheeler with no guards, while bare foot, burning his foot.

As fast as I could, I put his foot under cool water.  Not cold, because I heard it’s not good to numb the burned area.  After about 20 minutes of “playing” in the cool water, we applied solar caine on it.  My husband had to run to town to get some aloe vera and stuff.  It helped a bunch.  So now we have this HUGE bubble blister and was told by the doctor AND LOTS of twitter friends NOT to pop the blister because it can cause infection.  Unfortunately little man can’t walk because of how big it is but he’s being as good as a fxin’ to be 2yr old can.

Now I feel so bad.  First his head because he was bouncing on the bed, and now this because A) I wasn’t out there to watch him.  I mean, he climbs on the 4-wheeler all the time to play but it was hot this time and I should have been watching. and B) He should have had shoes on.  I’ve been putting shoes on him lately because of how much he runs to the barn, etc.  I was being lazy.

Obviously kids are going to have accidents but geez, –2 big ones in a couple of weeks just makes me feel like a terrible parent.

What do you think?

which means I’m strong because I totally don’t get any sleep! It takes a lot to  do what I do, write for who I write for, and blog for you. I got this book, Sleep is for the Weak, at the Blogher conference. I started reading it on the flight home and was instantly hooked. It was extremely comical, serious, inspirational, and times that brought tears. These women are real and I’ve had the pleasure to meet many of them, and they’re are quite a few authors.

Here is the list:

• Amalah
• Binkytown
• Birdie's New Mexico Time Machine
• CityMama
• Finslippy
• Friday Playdate
• Fussy
• IzzyMom
• Laid-Off Dad
• Mom-101
• Mommy Needs Coffee Which is where I got this list from!  Thanks JEN..I heart you:)
• Mommytrack'd
• Motherhood Uncensored
• Not Calm (dot com)
• Paper Napkin
• Rancid Raves
• State of Grace
• Surfette
• Surrender, Dorothy
• Sweetney
• The Modernity Ward
• The Naked Ovary
• Three Kid Circus
• Woulda Coulda Shoulda
• and lets not forget the editor Rita Arens, who blogs at Surrender, Dorothy.

WHEW!  This book is broken up into small sections (each author) which is great for us women who don’t have time to sit down and read an entire chapter.  I mean, we’ve got laundry to wash, kids to chase, horses to tend to and father-in-laws to entertain;)  I absolutely love the book and I want you to get it and read it too.

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