Some Tips For Mothers of Young Children

Today as I was grabbing my gym bag to take to my CrossFit class, I was reminded of when I had babies and toddlers and always had a diaper bag whenever I left the house. I keep my gym bag stocked just like I always kept my diaper bag stocked, but with different items.

Here are some tips that I used when my children were much younger.

• Restock your diaper bag when you get home. Every time. Replace any diapers, wipes, outfits, snacks, etc. that you used. Do it fairly soon after you get home while the contents are fresh on your mind. Now your diaper bag is all ready for your next outing.
• Keep a change of clothes for each baby, toddler or preschooler you have somewhere in your car. You never know when a fresh outfit will come in handy.
• Also keep a diaper station in your car: changing pad, diapers, wipes, ointments, paper towels, etc. I changed many diapers in the back of my minivan. Remember to restock this changing station frequently.
• Prepare all the sippee cups you need for the day at one time and place them on a designated shelf in your refrigerator. My children each had their own style/color/size cup, so I fixed an appropriate amount for each child each day. I did this each morning, but you could do it the night before as well.
• Keep a separate bag filled with "quiet time" toys, books, and activities. Use this bag only for times when you need your children to sit quietly, like in a doctor's office waiting room or a church service. 
• Keep a trash can in your vehicle. I still do this today. With older children it has to be emptied almost every day! I have mine wedged between the front and middle seat consoles. It is a regular bathroom sized trash can. It works best if you line the trash can with plastic bags.
• If you live in a two story house, create a diaper changing area on each floor. 
• If you homeschool, place a rocking chair in the room where you do most of your instruction or reading aloud time. I rocked, rocked, and rocked babies and toddlers while doing school with my older children.

That's all I can remember for now.  Thinking about all of this makes me miss when my children were babies!

Sam's 8th Birthday

About three weeks ago, we celebrated Sam's 8th birthday. We began the day like we always do for birthdays, with a special breakfast and present opening.  Julie crocheted Sam a red hat, and Clay made him a knife.  He spent the day playing with his new toys, and enjoying his siblings doing his chores for him!  We ate his birthday lunch at Abner's, and then he had a few little boys over to play and eat birthday cake.

It was a very cold day, but Sam insisted on the boys playing outside!  So I asked all of the Mamas to make sure they brought warm clothes for their sons.  I let them play outside 40 minutes, and then I rung the dinner bell for them all to come inside for cake and snacks.  I think it was 23 degrees that day!

I think Sam had a super day!  

 Sam and Leah

 The birthday boy

Sam and Julie

 Sam and Clay

 Blowing out the candles

Julie made his delicious cake.

 The little boys, all dressed in their coveralls and ready to play in the woods.

The birthday table

No, it's not Pinterest worthy--but Sam liked it!

Does Your Den Look Like This?

On any given day either my den, or Leah's room, or Sam's room, or our upstairs hallway look just like this picture!  That tent is full of dolls and stuffed animals and all of their paraphernalia.  Leah and Sam really enjoy playing together, and they usually set up some elaborate play land--a pretend world that can last for days.  Until I have them clean it all up so I can vacuum, which is usually about once a week.

Sam has been sick for a couple of days.  He is coughing and running a fever. He really feels badly, and I have spent the last two days waiting on him, sitting with him, sleeping with him, and generally doing what I can to help him pass the time until he feels better.  About 2:00 this morning he asked me if I could take him to the doctor to get some medicine!  I explained that doctor's offices are not open in the middle of the night, but he insisted that doctors are always at work!  Yes.  But that's the ER, and this was not an emergency.  Bless his heart.

While sitting beside Sam and keeping him company and just generally trying to be sympathetic to his illness, I read Melanie Shankle's new book, The Antelope in the Living Room.  It was hilarious!  I laughed out loud in every chapter, and then Sam had me read aloud what I was laughing at….of course it was not funny to him!  I enjoyed reading it, and if Sam was not sick, I probably would not have taken the time to sit down and read it.

That's the wrap up of my weekend.

Oh, I exercised 6 days last week.  6!  I am finally getting back into the swing of working out.  Between running that marathon distance in the freezing cold and recovering from the flu, my attitude toward running and working out in general has been lackluster.  But I think I am on a roll!  I hope to run/do T25 6 days again this upcoming week too.

No Snow

Well….we didn't wake up to 2-4 inches of snow.  In fact, we woke up to no snow at all, much to my children's disappointment.  All we have is drizzly cold rain.  The temperature is in the upper 30s, so it is still cold.  Just wet and cold.

We didn't have school today because Jimmy was off, so Leah and Sam have spent all day playing inside a tent.  They had it set up in the den until recently, but now they have moved it upstairs to Sam's room.  I am so happy that can play for hours together with rarely a conflict.  They are always pretending--they create their own little world with dolls (Leah) and stuffed animals (Sam).

I have had a little bit of down time while I am waiting for my clothes to dry, so I did a little blog reading.  I came across a post about why this mother still lays down with her seven year old son each night.  I can identify.  I think Sam will want me to lie down with him at night until he goes to college.  That's ok.  I will.  I never want to look back and wish that I had held/rocked/laid down beside my kids more.  I want no regrets.

I'm ready for sunshine and warmer temperatures.

Blacksmithing and a Road Trip to Atlanta

Jimmy and Clay recently moved Clay's forge from a shed behind our house to the back of the barn.  They built a chimney.  There is electricity out there, so Clay is all set up.  I have no idea what all is in a forge/blacksmith shop, but I think that Clay has collected and bought most of what he needs.

Here are some pictures that Jimmy took of the shop area.  I really can't comment on them, because I don't know what all of those tools and things are......

I know that this is Sam, and that is a spade--made either by Clay, Sam, or both.

Thursday I took Clay and Sam to Atlanta for the Atlanta Blade Show.  Jimmy's aunt and uncle had told him all about this huge knife expo last winter, so Clay made plans for all of us to attend.  We found out last week that the dates of the Blade Show were not what we thought, so instead of our entire family attending, only Clay, Sam, and I went.  Jimmy could not get off work, and the girls were at various places.

So the three of us made the 5ish hour drive to Atlanta!  We arrived Thursday around suppertime at Ann and Buster's home.  They served us a delicious supper!  After our meal, Clay displayed the knives that he had made for Buster to see.  I had to just listen to the blacksmithing conversation, because they were using vocabulary that I was not familiar with.  However, Sam knew exactly what they were talking about!

 Clay's collection of handmade knives.

Some are made from railroad spikes, some from lawn mower blades, some from some sort of steel, horseshoes, and I am not sure what else.

The handles are made from walnut, paracord, and denim material.

 One of the knives with its hand made cover

 Then Buster showed us some of his handiwork!

Face Vases!

 Buster gave each of the boys a special hammer and some other materials for knife construction.

Friday morning we went to the Varsity for lunch, and then proceeded to the Atlanta Blade Show.

 Enjoying ice cream at the Varsity

 At the entrance to the Atlanta Blade Show

Sam took this picture.  I think it is a belt sander.  We did NOT buy one.

The boys, Clay especially, had a fantastic time at the blade show!  It was like being at a marathon expo, except that instead of running shoes, apparel, and gear, there were knives, and knife making supplies, and belt grinders and sanders, and all kinds of things that I had no idea what they were. 

After the blade show, we went back to Ann and Buster's house for the night.  The boys enjoyed swimming, and we all had a nice visit.  We left early Saturday morning to drive home.

It was a fun road trip!  And as soon as we got home, Clay went to his forge to begin making a new knife using some of his new supplies!

A Nice Surprise

This morning when I got home from running, I had such a nice surprise!

Last night I was mentally lamenting the fact that our schoolroom was a big mess!  I had planned on tidying it up this morning while I was helping Leah and Sam do their school.  Now normally I don't multi-task while we are doing school, but I really did not think I could stay focused on Leah and Sam with all of that mess in the background.

When I came inside the house this morning, I noticed the lights were on in the schoolroom, so I peeked my head in to see who was busily working on schoolwork.  No one was in there, but the room was all clean!  Everything was put in its place.  The marker board had been cleaned, and I could tell that the furniture had even been dusted.  A cleaning fairy had visited while I was running!

When I came upstairs I asked Clay (the first person that I saw) if he was my cleaning fairy.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  Then I saw Julie and I just knew that it had been her.  But no, Julie said that she had not even been down in the schoolroom yet.  So I figured it must had been Olivia.  She was still asleep, but I guessed that when she was putting up our dog last night, that she must have noticed the big distressing mess and wanted to surprise me.

I guessed wrong!  I actually had two cleaning fairies:  Leah and her friend Avery!  Avery had spent the night last night and the two girls had set their alarm for 6:00 this morning (the very time that Lynn--Avery's mother--and I began our run).  Avery told Leah that she wanted to clean something (what a girl!), and Leah suggested that they clean the schoolroom.  So those two sweet, hard-working girls snuck down to the basement and cleaned away.  They even dusted our workout room after Jimmy stopped running on the treadmill.  They were sneaky.  Jimmy never even saw them or knew that they were awake that early!

What a nice surprise!

Picky Eaters

Thankfully, my children are not picky eaters.  They are quite willing to try anything, and yesterday I started thinking about why this was so.  I wondered if anything I had done over the years had contributed to their adventuresome eating.  I think the biggest factor is that I have never made a big deal about food.  Basically, I fix the meals, they eat it.  This summer when I was revamping my recipe binder, Lynn, Heather, and I looked for cute quotes to put on our covers.  This is what I put on the back of my binder, "You will eat it, and you will like it".  I thought that was funny!

• As soon as my children were ready for solid food, I began serving them from our table--whatever we were eating (within reason--no chips and salsa for a 10 month old!).  The one exception was my first born.  I did exactly what my sweet pediatrician said in regards to feeding Olivia.  Thankfully, he was fully supportive of nursing, but if he said to feed her half a jar of baby food carrots twice a day, I did it!  With the rest of the children I rarely used jarred baby food.  They just ate appropriate foods from our table.
• I never fixed my children a separate meal.  They ate what we all ate.  And still do.
• But, if I was preparing a new recipe that I was unsure of the taste or something extremely spicy, I would always also prepare a side dish that I knew everyone liked (rice or potatoes or something).  That way I knew that the younger children would have something to eat, but it wasn't like I was fixing them a separate meal.
• I served very, very small portions.  Tiny.  Like 5 peas.  A Tablespoon of sweet potatoes.  My pediatrician that I loved so much when I had my first three children recommended that.  He said to give the children very small portions.  Large amounts of food overwhelmed them, but they liked asking for more.  I always happily refilled their plates--with more tiny portions--as long as they desired.
• I asked them to try everything on their plate--even just one bite.  Or one pea!  Then they could decide if they liked it and wanted more, or "they didn't care for it today".  That is what I would allow them to say.  I taught them that it was bad manners to say, "I don't like this."  But saying, "I don't care for this today" was much more pleasant.  Just because they didn't like steamed broccoli one day, doesn't mean that they wouldn't like it next week.
• I had them try one bite of everything on their plate every meal.  They would sometimes say, "Remember,  I don't care for this today?".  To which I would reply, "Oh, it takes 21 times of trying a food for your body to decide if it likes it or not.  So please try it again." 
• I didn't make an issue over "cleaning your plate" or "eating all of your vegetables or no dessert".  I truly only required one bite, and I basically ignored them.  I did not make a big deal over it.  I did not ignore them in the sense that I didn't interact with them at the table, I just did not focus on whether they were eating or not.  They knew the try one bite rule, and we just ate our meals and enjoyed each other's company.
• I did not use dessert as a reward (we don't have dessert after every meal anyway), but if I have a child who is clearly not eating enough of his meal, he certainly doesn't need ice cream.  Sometimes Sam will ask me, "Have I eaten enough salad to get dessert?"  And I just say something like, "Eat your salad until you are full of salad....and I am sure you will still have room for dessert later!" Then I ignore his eating.  
• I allow my children to have a bedtime snack.  We normally eat supper around 6:00, and usually the children are not asleep until 10:00.  So, before "bedtime" around 9:00, I allow them to eat something.  This keeps them from going to bed on an empty tummy if I have served them a supper meal that was not their favorite....and therefore they may not have eaten as much as normal. 
• I do not make my children continue to try one bite of foods that they clearly have no taste for---Olivia will probably never like fresh tomatoes.  I do not like pickles.  Clay doesn't like rice.  I am fine with that.  They eat such a variety of foods, and they are such good sports about all of the new recipes that I try, that once we are well aware of a particular food they they don't like, the one bite rule is dropped.  
• The last thing is I serve a wide variety of foods.  I like to cook, and I have tried many recipes over the years.  Some have been total flops---and we have all had to make a sandwich for supper, but through the years my children have been exposed to and have tried many different kinds of foods prepared in many different ways.  We also encourage them to try new and different things at restaurants.