Mothering Many

This post is in the nature of a PSA. I knew, as I am sure you know as well, that you should have family fire drills, and make sure your children know what to do in case there is a fire in your home. What I did not know until a recent trip to the fire station with my son’s boy scout den is that the recommended frequency is once per month. I’d not been doing it nearly that much.

Tomorrow is the first: Put a fire drill on your calendar. I just put it down on mine.

Be sure and mix your drills up a bit, as far as times. You want to be sure all your kids, even those in a bunk bed know what to do, and how to escape.

Technorati Tags: family fire drills, fire drill

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Erin blogs at Poetic Acceptance. She’s fairly local to me about 3 hours), in Monroe, North Carolina. Her blog is the most painfully beautiful thing I read. See, Erin is a mother of five but she doesn’t get to tuck all those babies in at night. Reading her struggles to come to grips with her losses reminds me how blessed I am when I struggle in my own mothering journey. She’ll change your attitude from stressed to blessed just-that-quick. I’ve cried reading her blog several times, and never had the courage to comment. Erin: here’s your comment forever- thank you for having the courage to share your heart. You’ve changed the way I look at things more often than you can know, and I am sure I am not the only one.

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In as much as your children can understand reason (and you feel comfortable in doing so), explain the why to them of decisions you make. Children must learn to reason for themselves, and the sooner you help them learn to make wise choices, the better off they will be. I’m not talking about whether to have chicken or beef for dinner, of course, but more involved things, like why you prefer to spend time with certain types of people, like why certain actions are wrong, like why you choose to dress a certain way if you do.

The key is passing on your values. You children and mine will pick up values from somewhere, and as much as we’d like to think it will just “rub off”, we need to understand that the ethics of the playground are going to be the deciding influence in their lives unless we are proactive in engaging their hearts.

Otherwise, it’s going to be like taking tenuate while continuing to gorge yourself on cake. You may look good on the outside, but inside, you’re just not healthy.

Technorati Tags: values, ethics

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From my email:
But how do you do that with a 2 year old?

They understand a lot more than you think. Also, time out works at this age. Just as we are out of fellowship with God when we disobey and it bothers us until we repent, being out of fellowship with us (via timeout) bothers young children. And if they won’t listen to reason, well I’ll leave that up to you.

The important thing is that the children look to you for direction. Spending time with them, laughing and loving, will make it important to them to be in communion with you. They will want to please you in order to get more of that positive contact.

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Mother of many and aspiring midwife, what’s not to love? Again with a great sense of humor (can you tell I have a penchant for funny blogs?), Frectis is all about kids, school, and the vagaries of life. Insert the occasional caught baby and I am hooked. She’s an anonymous blogger, but her about page is a great place to start. You’ll know everything but her name when you get through there.

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I’m borrowing this tip from my friend Ang. If your kids get too close to the tv, or any other thing you don’t want them near, put a line of masking tape on the floor as a reminder. You don’t have to nag, and they can’t argue that they aren’t as close as all that. This tip is a winner. Thanks, Ang!

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Here’s a tip I use when food shopping. I learned it from another mom of many years ago. Calculate the cost per ounce of foods, and don’t spend more than ten cents per ounce. In addition to saving money, you’ll find that the foods you can buy for this amount are typically healthier than the pre-processed expensive stuff. I’ll admit that I don’t always follow this advice myself, but when I do, it saves me a bundle. And even when I don’t follow it exactly, I still try to keep the cost of our food to $2 per pound or less. That means that if we splurge on steak one night, we eat a meatless meal on another night.

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Here are some cool science experiments for kids. These are from Australia’s Surfing Scientist, who encourages you to Get Into It. The experiments use household items, and while the experiments are good for most school agers, your younger students may need you to break down the explanations for them. I am putting the juggling one on tomorrow’s agenda for DS#1.

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Robin is another mother I read. She has a great sense of humor, as is obvious from the title of her blog. Do you not know what causes that? chronicles her busy life as wife, mother, daughter and grand-daughter. Not only does Robin have a houseful of children, she’s also an accomplished author. I didn’t realize all those books in the sidebar were written by her until I’d been reading for some time, and she mentioned her “latest book”.

As with most MoMs, her life fluctuate from smooth sailing seas to a zoo, and she’ll keep you giggling all the way.

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What about you? Do you ever feel like your kids are running your show? How to you regain the control?

The answer to this question is YES. I do sometimes feel like my kids are running the show around here. I try to be a “yes mom” when I can, and sometimes the children have to be reminded that I am still the adult. When that happens, I become a “no” mom, and I stay that way until they start respecting my decisions again. I try to qualify my no’s when possible, so that they understand what I am doing: no, you cannot xyz because when I asked you to abc you ignored me.

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