Archive for the ‘Adventures in Motherhood’ Category

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3 Ways To Enjoy Spring With Your Kids

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

I love spring. I love it more than I love any other season – to me, it symbolizes renewal and the promise of a new life, of new beginnings.

I especially enjoy spring now that I have children. After several months of trying to cope with the limitations that winter places on one’s life, and trying to keep the kids happy and entertained while cooped up inside the house, I am grateful to be able to venture out again.

My favorite ways to enjoy spring with my kids:

1. Go on a treasure hunt. Spring is brimming with interesting objects, including leaves, flowers, and stones. Take a Ziploc bag with you and fill it with treasures you find along the way.

2. Clean your windows. Seriously! What seems like a loathsome chore to us moms can be tons of fun for the little ones, and what better time than spring to tackle those windows. Make sure to use an eco-friendly glass cleaner, to protect the environment and your kids’ lungs.

3. Have breakfast at the park. This will feel like a serious adventure, especially if you have early risers in the house. It’s a bit of a hassle, but is fun and different enough to be worth doing once in the season. We make it simple by stopping at the local coffee shop and picking up some pastries, coffee for the grownups and hot cocoa for the kids. We then head over to the local park and have a leisurely breakfast there. Spring mornings are cold, so remember to dress everyone in warm clothes.

Photo credit: mamchenkov

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Things I Miss About My Pre-Kids Life: Long Showers!

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

I often look back at my pre-kids life and think in amazement about how much time I used to spend on beauty rituals. It’s amazing to realize that I used to spend at least an hour (probably two if I’m honest) each day on things like shower, makeup, drying my hair and getting dressed.

When you become a mom, and especially while your kids are still little, you just don’t have that luxury anymore – you can’t just disappear into the bathroom and pamper yourself for an hour. Your kids need you, and you need to be there and supervise them.

So you have to settle for quick, five-minute showers, often taking your kids with you into the shower. Your hair and makeup routine changes too – everything has to be done quickly and efficiently.

More than anything in my past life, I miss luxurious hot showers, surrounding myself with wonderful fragrances, trying new products, shampooing twice, conditioning, deep conditioning, exfoliating… getting out of the shower and actually taking the time to apply a wonderfully fragrant body lotion. These days, shower is a quick five-minute affair and I actually keep the water temperature fairly cool so that it will be easier to get out quickly!

On the flip side, my ultra-short mom showers are so much more environmentally sound than my pre-kids long showers. So in a way, my kids have helped me to become greener!

Photo credit: maessive

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Things I Love About Being A Mom: Getting To Be A Kid All Over Again

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

We’ve decided to start a series of “things I love about being a mom.” The list is endless, of course, so to keep these blog posts short and sweet, we will discuss just one aspect of motherhood that we love in each post.

To keep things balanced, we will also publish regular posts about things we miss about our pre-kids days. Let’s face it: as much as we enjoy motherhood, there ARE aspects of our pre-kids days that we really do miss!

When I try to think about what is it that I love about being a mom, the first thing that comes to mind is getting to be a kid all over again. As an adult, life becomes so busy and hectic, you just forget to enjoy the little things. You rush through your errands, rarely taking a moment to stop and look around you.

When the kids arrive, they have a way of teaching you to slow down. You don’t just rush to the post office anymore: you stop on the way to look at an interesting cloud, to smell a pretty slower, to count the number of red cars you spot on the way… I am just so grateful to my kids for teaching me to notice the little things again.

Photo credit: mrhayata

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Bedtime Fun

Monday, April 5th, 2010

I love bedtime. Sure, it’s a time of struggle in many households – most kids are quite intent on not going to bed and on trying to prolong the day for as long as they can. Most parents, on the other hand, are very tired by the end of the day, are looking forward to some quiet adult time, and so are quite intent on getting the kids off to sleep as quickly as possible!

But if you step back for a second, you can see that bedtime is a wonderful opportunity for you and for your child to bond and to spend some quiet, uninterrupted time together. That’s why I make it a point not to rush bedtime, and to plan my days – especially my afternoons – so that I have plenty of time left after dinner to spend as much time with my daughter as she needs before she drifts off to sleep.

Now that my daughter is 20 months old and is very much into exploring her surroundings, the issue around bedtime is not so much that she’s trying to get me to stay with her for as long as possible, but rather her sometimes very funny attempts at trying to get rid of me so that she can go back to playing and exploring.

So last night, I lay down with my daughter in our bed as I always do, waiting for her to fall asleep. Now, to some, this may seem like a terrible thing to do – spoiling the kid, creating lifelong sleep and separation issues – I know that not all parents are in agreement when it comes to bedtime and to sleeping arrangements, but this is our family’s choice and it works for us. So do bear with me, there’s a funny story here!

So I am lying with her as she’s crawling all around the bed and playing instead of going to sleep. I keep picking her up, placing her back at the head of the bed, and telling her it is time for sleep. She gets back up, completely awake, and resumes her crawling. This goes on for about 30 minutes. (Parenting does teach you patience, doesn’t it?)

Then suddenly something changes. I can almost see the light bulb going off in her head. She has an idea! She stops moving, lies down quietly and closes her eyes tight. She’s pretending to be fast asleep, and to assist in convincing me that she has indeed fallen asleep, she begins a hilarious fake snore, then carefully peeks at me to see if I am buying it.

Her plan? “Make mommy think I am asleep until she leaves or falls asleep herself. Then I can go about the exciting business of exploring the contents of the nightstand drawer”!

I just couldn’t stop laughing! My daughter is, hands down, the funniest person I know.

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