When my grandchildren were younger, I turned my home into a summer camp for them. Now most are grown and too busy with their own, big kid activities. It’s kind of sad, but it’s all part of life. It just happens, but I’ve got photos to remind me of the fun we had.

One year, my son’s two children came down from Seattle. Brooklyn was eleven and Jackie was eight. When they arrived, Brooklyn was especially clingy. She wanted to be hugged a lot and often a hug would last a minute or two. I knew the reason; she’d been away at a soccer camp the week before and her mom was with her just one night and then they came here for the week. Jack didn’t go to camp, so he had been with his mom and dad and wasn’t in the least clingy.

When my grandchildren were younger, I turned my home into a summer camp for them. Now most are grown and too busy with their own, big kid activities. It’s kind of sad, but it’s all part of life. It just happens, but I’ve got photos to remind me of the fun we had.

One year, my son’s two children came down from Seattle. Brooklyn was eleven and Jackie was eight. When they arrived, Brooklyn was especially clingy. She wanted to be hugged a lot and often a hug would last a minute or two. I knew the reason; she’d been away at a soccer camp the week before and her mom was with her just one night and then they came here for the week. Jack didn’t go to camp, so he had been with his mom and dad and wasn’t in the least clingy.

So many of us rely and depend on the lessons Marla provides us with. Marla and I sat and talked at one point and this was one of the most important things to come out of that chat.

 

In this video clip, my sister Peggy and I share some great Halloween tips and important advice.

In this video clip, my sister Peggy and I demonstrate the crazy ways we came up with last-minute creations for our kids to wear on Halloween and how fun they were to throw together. As usual, our television talk show hosts were somewhat speechless (that happened a lot!) when we’d shove coat hangers into tights and smear our faces with Karo syrup and coffee grounds.

The important lesson here is when we become more organized we set the stage to create. We become creatives! Clutter gets in the way of our creativity. Decluttering and ending your "stuff management" days will pave the way to fun, creativity, new adventures and excitement on Halloween as well as all the days of the year!

After Party Meltdown

APM is very common among young children. It can happen after a party, a special holiday or any overindulgence. I’ve seen it played out in all three of my kids and all 12 of our grandchildren. Child psychologists call it over stimulation.

I remember being in the back seat of our Ford family car and coming home from a glorious day at the circus. My sister and I were decked out in new matching dresses and new shoes we’d got just for the special outing and we started fighting over whose circus program was whose (even though they were identical).

The battle triggered a rash of admonishments from both of our parents in the front seat. Dad was first, “Girls, knock off the bickering or I’m gonna stop the car and take the programs away!” Mom chimed in, “I can’t believe you girls are fighting after all we’ve done for you today. Here we take you to the circus, you got brand new matching dresses and new shoes and we let you have hot dogs and Cokes and souvenirs and you’ve been fighting ever since we got in the car!” I recall feeling ashamed.

APM tends to go into remission as children mature, but the potential for its reoccurrence remains even into adulthood and it sneaks out in adults in subtle ways but it’s no more attractive than the episodes children display.

APM can start with just an, “is-that-all-there-is” feeling. It can emerge as a vacation winds down, as we drive in the driveway with a cranky knowing of what was put off in order to have the fun. It can appear in the form of the “full” feeling after a feast, or the frustration of receiving credit card statements in January reflecting the joy of holiday purchases. Acquisition is fun! Maintenance sucks and so do the bills that follow it.

Aug 23, 2013

Quiz Time!

House Fairy here! I suggest you have a pad of paper and pen available so you can write down your kids’ responses, because you may learn something about them that you didn’t know. You could also be ready to ask them some questions of your own, after the House Fairy asks hers. By the way, did you know your kids will love to be “interviewed,” and they’ll feel so important when you take notes? 

Have you heard people say, “The kids today have short attention spans. Because of quick-paced television, they’re used to watching three to four-second bites and become restless when the action is diminished.”? HOG WASH! As I sit in an Amtrak station waiting for a train that’s now 38 minutes late, I’ve been watching a grandmother read Curious George to her five-year-old grandson.

From my vantage point, she appeared to be a rather listless reader, void of expression, sound effects and lifted eyebrows accompanying some of Hans and Margaret’s incredible thoughts, yet the child was glued to his grandma’s side listening to the story.

When the book was finished, he pulled another from his backpack and she proceeded to read it. The train turned out to be an hour late and the child remained interested in books the entire time. So much for the short attention span.

So here are what I believe are 6 benefits of reading bedtime stories to your children.

1. Cultivates Imagination

Now that visual stimulation is served up via television, IPads, IPhones, Xbox etc., children rarely get to tap into their imaginations unless we read to them, or until they can read. As a child, I loved radio (it was before we had television) because my imagination provided the visuals. Because we don’t have kid radio, unless we read to our kids, their ability to use their precious imaginations and be able to visualize will weaken.

I remember one Christmas, my daughter Peggy bought a bunch of children’s books at a neighborhood garage sale and recorded reading them on a cassette tape recorder for her non-reading cousins as gifts for Christmas. As adults, those cousins still speak of how they loved her gifts of being read to.

My husband Terry and I recorded books on CDs, the same way Peggy did with a cassette recorder. This way our grandchildren could listen to us read the books we gave
them as gifts.

If you missed 5 Tips for Relieving Stress (Part One), be sure to read it.

The 5 tips in Part One were: 1. Exercise. 2. Be Organized. 3. Just say “NO.” 4. Keep Your Perspective. 5. Be Selfish. The tips in Part Two) are:

Moms may seem to have an easy job, but in reality, although it's a wonderful profession, it includes quite a lot of stress. Many people (including women before they have kids) may think of the life of a mom as days on end of freedom from time clocks, bosses, commutes and difficult co-workers and or customers. I remember when I was a child, I loved playing house, dressing my dolls and pretending they were real babies. I honestly thought it was going to be just like that when I brought my first baby home. I had worked in a bank before I had kids and when I found out I was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to quit and really play house.

When I said, “I do,” I had no idea how much had to be done! As a young mom, I was shocked at the scope of my responsibilities. I was also stunned at how little sleep I got. I’d never known sleep deprivation like I experienced as a young mom. In fact I coined a word for how I felt. “Panicky tired.” In that state of fatigue, I lacked any plan. I slept when I nursed the baby and when he was awake; I stared at him a lot and relished the miracle of this human being that came out of me! The house suffered, the daddy suffered and I ultimately suffered from the stress that goes along with running a household and having a family.

One of my daughters, said to me once while we were watching her two-year-old manage a small step up onto the patio, “It’s really like taking care of a small drunk.”

So now that you’re in the middle of caring for small drunks, I have learned some ways to relieve stress that just might help you.