Simply Lovely One-on-One
Being a stay-at-home, home-educating mom, I don’t often stop to think about the need to “spend time with my children.” I think I lean more towards thinking about when hubby will be home so I can have a little break! However, when I noticed that the Loveliness Fair this week was on the topic of spending one-on-one time with your children it made me stop and think. “Even though I am home all day, do I really spend enough time with my children??” I know I do spend time with them, almost ALL my time, but how much quality time do I spend? How can I improve on this area of mothering? And, how can I make each of my children feel special since they are growing up in a large family, and so much of what we do is all together?I ran across a list last week, of some of the various ways to make your children feel special, that I thought I would share:
I love how she pointed out that “It only takes twenty seconds to make someone’s day.” It is so true… I know how easy it is for someone to make my day, but how often do I make a point to do that for my children?! Reading through this list, I see a few areas that I definitely need to work on.Ten Ways To Make Your Child Feel Special
By Ann Douglas
1. Help your child to recognize what makes her unique and special. Dr. Robert Currie, professor of psychology at Judson College in Elgin, Illinois, suggests that parents make a point of acknowledging such traits as honesty, courage, insight, and creativity, heaping on praise where praise is due, noting that “It only takes twenty seconds to make someone’s day.”
2. Be generous with your praise but make sure that it is sincere. Rather than speaking in vague generalities when you are praising your child, try to be as specific as you can, suggests Linda Dunlop, chair of the psychology department at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. “When you’re looking at a drawing that your child made, tell him or her exactly what it is about the drawing that appeals to you. Say, ‘I love the colors you used’ or ‘You have a special way of looking at things.'” Children are more likely to accept praise that sounds heart-felt rather than contrived.
3. Talk to your children about things that really matter to them. Jerry Aldridge, an associate professor of early childhood education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, feels that parents can help to make their children feel valued if they take time to really listen to what their children are trying to communicate. “Be genuinely interested in whatever news they care to share with you about whatever might be happening at school or with their friends.”
4. Understand your child’s own unique rhythms and temperaments, and honor them, suggests Brian Nichols, an instructor in the Center for Community Development and Health at Sir Sandford Fleming College in Peterborough, Ontario. Instead of trying to change a night owl into an early riser or an introvert into the life of the party, accept and love your child for the person that he or she is just as you expect others to accept and love you the way you are.
5. Give your child as much one-on-one time as you can. If you have more than one child, find ways to spend time alone with each of your children. Make a habit of taking one child with you when you do the grocery shopping so that you can spend some time alone together. Or better yet, hire a babysitter to come to your house one night each week so that you and your partner can take one of your children to a movie or out to dinner by himself or herself. If you rotate kids from week to week, each child will have the chance to experience some glorious two-on-one time with his or her parents. This special time with your child may be complicated to arrange, but it’s definitely worth the effort, says Dunlop. “One-on-one or two-on-one time says you’re special.”
6. Celebrate regularly. Don’t hold out for major achievements or milestones, suggests Nichols. Celebrate all the little things that deserve to be savored on a day-to-day basis�the first goal of the hockey season, a positive comment from a teacher at school, an exceptionally clean bedroom, and so on.
7. Let your child know that you will be there for him or her in both good times and in bad, and that you will do whatever you can to help them get through the rough times. “Believe in your child when he or she is shakiest,” said Clint Kelly, author of How to Win Grins and Influence Little People. “Say, ‘Hey, not to worry. Even Winston Churchill had to repeat sixth grade. Let’s see how we can get you over the hump.'”
8. Laugh with your child. There’s nothing like shared laughter to foster a bond between parent and child, says Lisa DeHaven-Jordan, program director of Raising Today’s Teens, a non-profit parenting hotline. “Sharing an inside joke reminds your child that he or she has a very special place in your heart.”
9. Share something of yourself with your child. Tell him or her about the time you failed your math test, had a fight with your best friend, or lost your dog. Most important of all, be the first to admit it if you’ve made a mistake, particularly if that mistake affects your child, suggests parenting consultant Diane Pipher Wolf. “In our family, if we’ve blown it when dealing with a particular child, we simply shout, ‘Erase’ and start over!”
10. Above all, remember that making your child feel special is one of your most important tasks as a parent, says Anita Landau Hurtig, a pediatric psychologist in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “No one can build a child’s self-esteem the way a parent can.”
That said, I am really looking forward to reading all the posts on this topic! If your interested, hop on over to Marianne’s Blog, Learning2Love, for the links, and get ready to be inspired to spend some Simply Lovely One-on-One time with your children!
Stuff… Stuff… Stuff…
Speaking of Stuff, Colleen has a very thought provoking post on the need to declutter:
“From the day’s First Reading:”
“Tend the flock of God in your midst, overseeing not by constraint, but willingly…Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be an example to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
“It doesn’t get much clearer than that, does it? There is no question for those of us who live in families which flock of God we’re to tend. The question needing to be answered is a matter of the heart. What keeps us from tending our flock willingly? What makes us irritable, short-tempered, and overwhelmed? What makes us want to run away from it all for a few hours or day or….What prevents us from being an example to our flock? In my experience, when I find myself fussing, pointing my finger, and honing in on my family’s shortcomings, it’s usually because I’m feeling the sting of my own faults rather acutely. What brings on those episodes in your life? Lent is a time to remove the blocks in our lives that keep us from following God with our whole hearts. God’s will for us and our path to heaven are to tend the flock of our family willingly and eagerly. What is in our way? There’s still enough Lent left to get rid of it.”
“For me right now, the answer is STUFF. We’ve got to get a handle on the things in this home that are crowding our time, our space, our thoughts, and our hearts.”
Read the rest here.
It’s all TOO MUCH
A couple weeks ago, I started reading the book It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff
For months now, I have been feeling slightly overwhelmed, and I knew I needed to do something about it. It seems like no matter how much I “organize” I just can’t catch up, and I feel like I am wasting so much precious time dealing with STUFF–whether it be trying to find STUFF, or constantly moving STUFF out of the way.
As I started reading, a particular paragraph jumped out at me, and pretty much summed up how I have been feeling:
Clutter is insidious, a slow but steady tide. It enters your home little by little, usually over years. Clutter sucks life away. It leaves you DEPRESSED, OVERWHELMED, LACKING MOTIVATION, and unable to breathe. Clutter prevents you from enjoying the most precious intimate moments in life. Clutter robs you of far more than the space it occupies–it steals your life!
How true is that!?!?!? After taking the “How Clutter Free Are You?” quiz in the book (I just love quizzes!), I came up in the middle category as a “Clutter Victim,” thankfully I’m not a “Hard-Core Hoarder” but I’m definitely not “Clutter-Free.”
Now, thanks to Flylady, I don’t think that our home is overly cluttered, even though that reality might just be one craft project away! 🙂
You see, although, our house is not that small, it is seriously lacking in closet space. In the words of Marie Bellet, “I am a woman who worries about closet space and it bothers me a lot… Constantly distracted by what I haven’t got…” A couple years ago, when we added on to our home, unless we wanted to upgrade our septic system, which we didn’t, we couldn’t have closets in the new bedrooms. (In fact, since I really wanted a closet in our new master bedroom–or rather two, since, for some reason, hubby didn’t want to share my unorganized walk-in with me–we had to remove a closet from one of the old bedrooms, so, it was turned into an alcove in the living room…) Anyhow, the fact is, I have very little storage space, it consists of: two closets in the master bedroom–mine and hubby’s, one in the school room, two small hall closets–one is my pantry, and a coat closet! To help with the not-so-little problem of the children’s clothing, my parents gave the girls my twin sisters old armoire, and a couple months back hubby added closet organizers to one of the walls in the boys room (which has really helped). Now, mind you, I am willing to admit that my walk-in closet is plenty big. I simply have too much stuff! So, needless to say, any overflow of shoes, clothing, or accessories (or books, kids artwork, craft supplies, and learning aids–for that matter!) have nowhere to go. So, since we can not afford to buy a bigger house, and since I am realizing that a clean uncluttered home is key to my sanity, I am going to PARE DOWN AND SIMPLIFY!!
In the book, the author says to “imagine the life you want to live,” and then think about whether the stuff you own “contributes to the life you are hoping to achieve, or if it is getting in the way of that vision.” If I am honest with myself, so much of our “stuff” (as great as some of it seems) is getting in the way…
As I started to sort through all our stuff, I realized that so much of what I have is from the past! Old music cd’s that haven’t been listen to since I was a teen, old clothing that hasn’t fit in years (including a pair of size 4 jeans–don’t I wish!!!–and I never even wear jeans anymore!), even the RSVP cards for our wedding over 8 years ago–now why did I save those?!?
Reading this book has inspired me to try my hardest to LIVE IN THE PRESENT, and “have nothing in my house that I do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful!”
Getting rid of everything that doesn’t fall into one of those two categories (useful or beautiful) will be difficult, to say the least!! I am finding that it may take going through the “Stuff” numerous times, as I seem to be able to let go and purge a bit more each time through.
The past couple weeks I have been working on getting through Step One– the Kick Start of my “It’s All too Much” Home Makeover, and trying hard to tackle all the surface clutter.
One of my goals this Lent, has been to work hard on this very necessary PURGING, of both my over attachment to STUFF, and of the actual STUFF itself. Before I get back to my decluttering, I thought I would leave off with this particular bible verse that I have found particularly helpful in letting go of some of those little treasures I have been finding:
Personality
Everything is calming down around here… The kitchen is clean, the boys are schooling, the washing machine is staying very busy, and so far no one has thrown up! Thank you all for your prayers! I really appreciate them, and I KNOW they have been a TREMENDOUS help. Please don’t stop sending them, since this may just be the calm before the next storm!
I hope I am not boring you all with too many posts… Usually when hubby is out of town, I catch up on the movies that I’ve been wanting to watch (that he wouldn’t find interesting)… but, having given those up for lent, I am finding myself at the computer more often, trying to feel at least a little bit “connected” to the outside world… In this blogging has been such a blessing, and I just love my blogging friends! I find that bloggers are generally smart, funny, driven, optimistic, confident and opinionated. Who wouldn’t want a blogger friend?
Speaking of personalities, I took a quiz on “How Rare is Your Personality?” the other day (right after taking the punctuation quiz) and had it in my drafts folder to post when I got around to it. However, I just saw that Regina posted a similar quiz, and I was curious to see whether or not the results would turn out the same on it as well…Sure enough they did! It looks like I am an ENFP.
Here’s the first one:
| Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ENFP) |
 Your personality type is enthusiastic, giving, cautious, and loyal. Only about 8% of all people have your personality, including 9% of all women and 6% of all men |
And here’s my result on the one Regina took:
You Are An ENFP |
 The Inspirer You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends. You are also unconventional, irreverent, and unimpressed by authority and rules. Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives. You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You’re quite the storyteller! In love, you are quite the charmer. And you are definitely willing to risk your heart. You often don’t follow through with your flirting or professed feelings. And you do break a lot of hearts. At work, you are driven but not a workaholic. You just always seem to enjoy what you do. You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist. How you see yourself: compassionate, unselfish, and understanding When other people don’t get you, they see you as: gushy, emotional, and unfocused |
So there you have it… What’s your personality type??
Reminding myself…
“For one pain endured with joy,
we shall love the good God more forever.”
“Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant,
Sick and tired
She’s not in a “laughing mood” was what I heard on the other end of the phone line this morning, after being woken up (on the second attempt) with a few bookkeeping questions.
I honestly can’t remember what it was that I should have laughed at?!?
I’M SO TIRED!!!
Last night, when I should have been cleaning my kitchen up from dinner, I decided to work a bit more on decluttering our bedroom… You see, hubby is gone on training all week, so I thought it would be nice to get it done before he gets back–plus I just don’t sleep well when he’s gone.
Anyhow here is how my night went:
- Move old Computer off kids dresser in corner of my room
- Move dresser to girls room
- No room for dresser in girls room, so start cleaning
- Dresser needs to replace one of the other pieces of furniture, so decide between toy box and bookshelf
- Decide on bookshelf
- Take everything off bookshelf.
- Bookshelf won’t budge and I don’t feel like looking for tools
- Decide on toy box
- Put all books back on bookshelf
- Call mom (at 9:30 PM) for advice
- She says take the bookshelf out (and go to bed!)
- Take books back off bookshelf, and try to remove L bracket
- Unable to remove L bracket
- Rethink situation, decide to leave bookshelf
- Decide nursery/guest room dresser would work better in girls room
- Move the 1st dresser and toy box to guest room
- Chiquita arrives at guest room door crying
- She throws up
- Me seriously wishing hubby was home
- Clean up… During which I have a small problem with my gag reflex
- Bathe Chiquita
- Move toddler bed to bathroom
- Put Chiquita back in bed (now very near the toilet)
- Continue to clean carpet
- Nurse Snuggles
- Finish moving 2nd dresser to girls room
- Put books back on bookshelf
- Take a shower
- 1:00 AM – Get in bed and Nurse Snuggles
- Chiquita throws up (all over herself) again
- And so the night continued…
A Beautiful Day!
One of the benefits of being an “eclectic” home-schooler is that you can draw from so many wonderful learning styles, which I just love to do. If I had a strictly “textbook” home-school, today would have been a complete failure as I spent most of the day catching up from being sick and started to seriously declutter my home–more about that soon…
Instead the kids had a WONDERFUL DAY! The sun came out after being hidden behind rain clouds this weekend and we all went outside to soak up the rays!
The kids lost no time in finding things to do and explore:
The girls played with one of their felt tales play sets:
We did our Jesus Tree and Lenten Calendar Activities:
We listened to the rest of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
Played a few games (Tetris, Connect Four and Battleship!):
And much more!!!
Tomorrow, we will get back to a few of our textbooks… 🙂
What a surprise!!
Ever had one of those “I really wish I would listen to Flylady mornings,” when you put off showering and getting dressed, and then when you finally take a shower, the doorbell rings? That’s what happened to me this morning.
Anyhow, when I finally made it to the door, I was surprised to find a sweet old man from church with these:
Aren’t they WONDERFUL!!! They are so much prettier than the cpc one that we have!!
I JUST LOVE THEM!!!
AND SO DO THE KIDS!!
Thank you so much, Mr. Pecor!!
**He did tell hubby he was going to bring them over… I just hadn’t heard yet! 🙂
Four Seasons Craft
Our recent spotting of our first bud of spring triggered a conversation about the four seasons. Since Twinkle Toes really enjoyed making the craft on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I decided to have her make a similar one found in the Little Saints program.
First we read a few picture books, including:
Then, it was on to the craft! First she colored the truck and branches of four trees:
You’ll just have to imagine them! 🙂
It is such a fun craft, and quite easy–a definate plus!
Weekend Recap
It was a very busy weekend!
Friday morning, the boys had appointments to get their teeth cleaned, and since we were there, I let the dentist charge me quite a bit extra look in my mouth since I had something (which I thought was a piece of my tooth), fall out a couple days before… It turned out that I need a filling since an old one had fallen out. In addition to that, Captain needs four sealants. At this rate, we really need to get dental insurance!
Then it was on to the grocery store (with all five kids in tow, to get some milk, eggs, bread and other basics), then to Taco Bell for some bean burritos (being a day of abstinence), back home to put away the groceries and wrap a birthday gift, then back to town to meet up with hubby and drop the 4 oldest off for a birthday party, during which hubby and I went to a hockey game!
It happened to be Snuggles first hockey game (post-pregnancy, that is!) and he enjoyed it. I enjoyed it too, however, I think I would have had a better time if I could have focused on the puck! At that point I was starting to feel very sickish! Luckily we were able to sit in the warm fireside room, which was nice and we even ran into my dear midwife who delivered (or rather I delivered and she “caught”) all 5 of our kids! Actually she would tell you that hubby caught Rascal… She just helped… Anyhow, I hadn’t seen her since Snuggles was born!! Her husband happens to be a die hard hockey fan, too. We are hoping to get together and take the kids ice-skating sometime soon.
After the game, it was back to pick up the kids, and head home. By the time we got home I collapsed on the bed with a 103 degree temp. Hubby took care of everything else, and sometime in the night, I woke up to find ice packs all over me. Isn’t it nice, to be taken care of sometimes?
Saturday morning, since hubby had to work, he asked my parents to take the kids for the day (which is a rare treat, although it seems to be getting less rare lately!! Thank you so much MOM!!) so I could finish up a couple more months of my aunt’s bookkeeping which HAD TO BE DONE by Monday. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with only an infant in the house! I picked up the kids at 5pm and when we got home, all four collapsed on the couch:
I need to send them to Grandma’s house more often!
Today consisted of lots of rest and chicken soup. Hubby took the kids to Mass and made me stay home since I was still running a fever.
However, tonight I am starting to feel somewhat back to normal (other than a lingering cough). Thank you all for your prayers!!
Speaking of prayers, last night, as the kids were going to bed, Twinkle Toes came up to me and said, “Momma, I will pway for you, wuv you, and take care of you, o-kay!?”
How could I not get better?!?
Soooo, What did you do this weekend???
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