Momma Tips

So I follow a mothers group on FB and I see so many questions.  How to get my child to brush their teeth, what to do about a rash, breast feeding and so many more things.   The answers throw me off sometimes and some of the questions make me wonder if they should even have children. Who am I to judge though?! 

I’m far from a perfect mom. I also have questions and worries. I want my kiddos to grow up happy and healthy. I want them to have good strong foundations to stand on and hold them into their futures.  No one has all of the answers because every child is different. 

So really what I do with my kiddos could be something that would never work with yours. That works both ways. Momming Is hard. It usually leaves me with more questions some days than I have answers. Not only are all three of my kids are very different from one another… Once I think I’m figuring out what that child needs, how they take direction or how their emotion  play into things…BAM! They switch it up.

Some days you just feel as a parent that you just can’t seem to keep up. That life is moving faster than you are.  It is OK! I’m still learning that even if I seem to struggle, they still love me. I still did all that I could do THAT day. I need to remember that even when I struggle I’m still going. Tomorrow is a new day. The next moment is a new moment.

As a blended family we are challenged with the knowledge that not everything at our house is like everything at the other parents. We cannot control what happens there. Thankfully we have pretty good communication with the other parents but it really comes down to “this is our home and that is theirs”.

So on to some of the things I have found that work in our home:

No matter the fact that our routine is exactly the same morning and night…they seem to “forget” parts religiously! Never fails!

Brushing their teeth: When my daughter was little and still learning to brush I would use her gummy vitamins as a “reward” for brushing her teeth. Now its a whole new battle with brushing but I got them a little timer, help them, remind them “top, bottoms, front, back and always your tongue”.

When they seem tired or moody:  Quiet time is helpful.  Reading, a nap, individual play time or something they can do away from their siblings.

Cleaning up after themselves: For the longest time when they were asked to get their messes cleaned up I always found there was a LOT left out. I found that reminding them that anything they got out they would have to put away.  If they were all playing together and made a huge mess I would help clean up (I mostly did this when they were little).  I had to make a rule for the toys that got left out…If you come tell mom that your room is all clean and I go check…Anything left out was a gift to mom.  Once I started getting a hand full of leogs or favorite cars they became more efficient! Toy jail is rather effective as well.  They now dump the entire bucket of legos out on a blanket to make for easier clean up.   

Part of the cleaning thing is that if they are playing one thing then move onto another; they need to clean up the first “game”.  I may seem a little extreme but we don’t have a play room. Our house is not huge. The girls share a room and our son has his own (he shares with our Great Dane).  It goes for playing outside as well as in. If you have toys out all over the yard then before you come in you  have to get them cleaned up.

The kids don’t really have a lot of chores. (I’m to OCD to let them do most things) They do help take care of the chickens when they are home, clean up dog poop, help unload the dishwasher, sweep, clean the table, dust, put away their own laundry…

Now a days kids get more screen time than they did…at our house the kids don’t have tablets, they don’t play video games and they don’t have unlimited access to tv.   We do have movie nights or let them watch an episode or two but that’s pretty much it.  They are on computers a ton at school and do more of that outside our home, so we just choose to let them be creative and use imagination.

Im sure there are other things I do that I can later add to this but for now this is all my brain will allow.

Have an amazing day!

Love,

 The Momma

Update On My Issues

There are so many many issues…But the one I speak of now is my sleep and fibro combo.  My doctor has given me a list of things to start doing.  For starters: keeping a sleep journal, no technology (blue light) past 9PM, no chores of any kind past 9PM either, reading or writing is good,  in bed and head on pillow at 10PM, She wants me to have at least 8.5 hours of sleep, awake at 7AM, coffee first thing in the morning, a walk or some sort of activity in the morning as well, make a To Do list…Also I cant read in bed which is my normal! She said “bed is for sleep and sex and that’s it!”

              The most recent big thing is seeing a physical therapist.   We are going to be working on my pain management and strengthening my shoulders. ( I have had weakness in them since my fibro started)  He said my balance and strength look really good. Currently I do what I should be as far as heating and stretching but I’m just not consistent with it. I also don’t pace myself well. I will just keep going once I get started and work myself until I have to stop. Either physically, to take care of kids, it gets dark…

              So for the next who knows how long, I will be seeing Joe twice a week for an hour. I need to be doing a stretch routine at least twice a day, using my heating pad/hot baths daily, continue taking ibuprofen and not over doing it…I’m a slow learner when it comes to having to pace.

The days I feel pretty good and have energy are the days I over do it. I tend to push to get things done even knowing I’m already in pain and because of that, I know I will be down for at least the next day.  If I can just push through now, I can feel better about being down the next day because I got what I had started done.

He sort of mentioned that I need to learn to pace…I sort of listened. That day I may have paced a little but still made sure I got stuff done. I didn’t start another project so that’s good. I didn’t push to get that whole area of the yard done. I just cleaned up the part I had already started and called it good. Also…I knew it was going to rain today so I knew I would be “forced” to not do more yard work 😊

My list of things I want and need to do continues to get longer…But I’m going enlist some help instead of doing it all myself. Hard for me to do but… I need to get and stay feeling good so I can keep doing the things I love. I have found myself being a bit of a recluse. That is not who I am.

I am fun and talkative. I am social and adventurous.  I am lots of things that I have been missing. I’m on a mission to find the me I want to be!

Love,

The Momma

FML

I just typed out a good 8 paragraphs… then my husband popped in and asked me for help with something. I helped, checked the chickens and then made a sandwich. Forgot about my blog momentarily then realized the screen was just white…no draft, no edit screen just white. The website wasn’t even loaded. Why?! What?!

The blog I had started went something like this…

Be nice. It’s not hard or over complicated. It doesn’t require a degree or a certain level of knowledge/education. For shit sakes kids do it, babies do it! we aren’t born jerks we acquire that over the years of bull that taint our perception of life.

Thinking negative thoughts? Push that thought out and think of at least three positive ones. See a good deed that could be done? Do it. Give a compliment. These things aren’t hard we have just trained our brains. We have trained them to look past things, see negativity, think “someone else will do that” and criticism over compliment.

I am not perfect. (Don’t tell my husband or children…they Know otherwise 😉)I get frustrated, annoyed, negative and pissy sometimes. I have been in a funk all weekend. I’m tired, I’m bored, I feel sad and lazy… But (isn’t there always a but?) I am trying. I filled bird feeders, cleaned up the house, took care of my chickens, bathed the dog, brushed the cat, played with my Cricut Maker… I have been really trying to find the happy.

It can be a struggle to do. To find the positive in the negative. Example: I felt good about giving my stinky dog a bath. Then…I dried him off, let him out of the bathroom, cleaned up all the hair (so so much hair) and then exited the bathroom…

For the LOVE! He had shook as dogs do. He split open the cut he had on his ear that I’d forgotten all about. Blood. Everywhere. Large drips all over the carpet, slung and sprayed all over the walls and he had decided to roll on the carpet…he was covered in blood, my house was covered in blood and folks this is no small dog. I have a Great Dane. A 150lb man sized dog.

So I bandaged his ear, crawled around and cleaned the floors and the walls. I was struggling! I wanted to cry. But I made it, I lived and I somehow didn’t scream, yell, battle, beat or even cry. Dog was alive, I wasn’t in a heap crying on the floor and the sun was still shining.

The main idea going into this blog was happy. Find it, share it and encourage it. Hold the door for someone, smile with your eyes (we can’t see actual smiles with masks), compliment someone, pay for a strangers coffee, give a family member an extra hug…

The things that can completely change a persons day aren’t always large acts but the small. In times when life sucks be the thing that turns the shitty day dial down a notch. If you have an extra ounce of encouragement give it. Some days we are the ones that need that. Look for it!

Make eye contact, see the silver lining, be happy that someone else has found something to smile about. Breath in fresh air. Spring is coming! Give yourself that extra 60 seconds to turn your face to the sun. soak it in and smile because you can.

Be nice. We don’t have to run around being rays of sunshine and bubbling over with rainbow happiness. We make the choice to bring people down. Just as we can make the choice to lift people up. Smiles and silence can do wonders!

Not happy? Pissed at the world? That’s ok. We are human and allowed to feel all the feelings. Don’t want to feel that way? That’s your choice. Don’t know how to shake the funk? Me neither somedays. I don’t have to spread my crappy day. I choose to smile with my eyes. I choose to call out “Bless You” to someone a few isles away that sneezed. I choose to let someone ‘cut’ me in line. I choose to let someone into my lane. I choose to think happy.

I don’t have all the answers or even most of them. I am learning everyday how to choose me. How to utilize ‘mind over matter’. Learning how to take time for me. How to be happy with things when I’m mad at others. My children don’t deserve a mother who got upset with something and now is upset with the world.

Our world is all sorts of topsy turvy right now. I am so tired of all that is in the news. So I’m choosing to turn it off. Not because I want to be uninformed but because I have chose Happy. I have chose to look out my windows and see the garden I plan to plant, the birds making their way to the feeders I filled. I am choosing happy for me and for my family.

This blog turned into a muddle of a few things but I hope it can bring someone back from a dark spot. I know I feel a little better having wrote it.

As always…

Thank you,

The Momma of those black hearts