Parenthood

Capable of Greatness

/ Patricia M / 2 Comments

Today is the first day of school here in town. My oldest is now a 1st grader while my youngest is now in Kindergarten. It’s unbelievable how fast time flies. I have to be honest, my husband and I are raising some AWESOME kids. I don’t say that to be arrogant. I know they are not perfect but that is how we see them.  I want everyone who comes in contact with them to see them the same way we do. But most importantly I want them to feel that way about themselves. I want them to know they are amazing and that their potential for greatness is limitless as long they always try their best and put their faith in God.

If you really want to get me in “Mama Bear” mode then put a limit on them. Express doubt in their capabilities. Tell them that something is “too difficult”. That is just not acceptable to me. How can you know what is too difficult for someone else? Even if you think it, don’t say it to them. If you say it to them then that is what they will believe.  Children believe what you tell them. 20170713_095113_edited

I recently saw this shirt in the girl’s department at Target when I was with my daughter. I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a parent, and as a former kid.  I would never buy this for my daughter, nieces or anyone for that matter. The word “future” on this shirt expresses a limit. What this shirt is really saying is “I am NOT capable of being a role model at my current age”.

I should write to C9 Champion and ask at what point in the future can one become a role model and see what they tell me. My daughter is a role model NOW. Her spirit, her tenacity, her strength are all things I admire and strive to attain. She is a role model to younger children as well as those her age. When she was 3 years old she broke her leg during gymnastics class and was in a full cast for a month. The moment her cast came off she wanted to go back, but I kept her out of gymnastics for about 5 months to make sure all was well. The day she went back she was jumping on the same trampoline she got hurt on.  I admired that. Not everyone would be able to do that.

My son is a role model too. I was focusing on my daughter because often I have noticed that messages on shirts differ between the boy’s departments and the girl’s but that is a totally different post. Okay, back to my son. He is awesome. He is driven, he is kind, he is a role model.

Early on I taught my children the importance of giving themselves affirmations. This is very important to me. I make them come up with their own and so what they may say differs daily.  Some of the constant ones are “I am smart”, “I am a good listener”, “I am a good friend”, “I am a good gymnast”, “I am a good basketball player”, etc.  I have them do this because they need to be able to say good things about themselves. It is important for them to believe in themselves. They need to know they are capable of greatness. My children and your children have the capability of being great at whatever they strive for. You and I have the capability of being great at whatever we strive for. However, with this is important to know that you must always put in a full effort.

Earlier this year the kids and I came up with the idea of making daily videos of them saying “I am capable of greatness”. They love it. My son really gets into it sometimes as you will see…lol. I have even caught them putting the phone in selfie mode and recording themselves saying it. I put together a compilation of some of them. During the summer we got a bit relaxed but picked it up again this morning to start off the new school year. Enjoy!

To conclude this post I simply want to say. Children are amazing and should feel that way about themselves. They are not our future but our NOW!!

~Tricia

Check Please!

/ Patricia M / 1 Comment

I knew we should have just stayed in and ate leftovers and ordered the kids matzo ball soup from the diner.

As I am starting this post we are on our way home from Ruby Tuesdays. My husband is driving and I just heard him asked,

“Why is it that both of you have no shoes and socks on? ”

It’s been that kind of a night.  Now my 4 year old son feels he needs a blanket.  My only thought at this moment is that I so deserved that $6.00 strawberry margarita I just had.

Let’s rewind shall we.

(Note: My son refused to take a nap today. Not good.)

So we decided to go to Ruby Tuesdays. I knew the night was headed for a rough start when the waitress brought us our drink and said (very nonchalantly) that they ran out of lids for the kids cups. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old, do you think this is going to end well? That’s what I get for no longer taking their juice cups everywhere we go.

So my son had the mini burgers and I ordered soup for my daughter to break up some congestion I was hearing. And yes, I took her to the Dr. earlier in the day. Anyway my son makes the decision to eat his mini burgers by the halves, continuously choking from putting to much in his mouth. My daughter (who is fully capable of eating soup by herself even though she is just 2) refuses to feed herself and only wants Daddy to feed her, only to complain that it is too hot when it might be lukewarm if that. However, she will dip some fries in her soup and eat them. These kids are in rare form tonight. At one point my husband even has to remove our son from the table to have little chat.

I know you all are wondering about the juices. The apple juices are sitting in the middle of the table out of reach because remember there are no lids and they are filled to the rim.  When the kids want a sip either my husband or myself have to hold it so they don’t spill it.  Things are actually going well with their drinks. Surprisingly.wpid-20141008_194027.jpg

Then as we are finishing up my husband is holding the cup so my daughter can drink out if it, I guess she decides she wants to hold the juice her self and
squeezes it causing this to happen (look to the right). She punctures the cup and juice spills out everywhere. Then this girl has the nerve to be a little upset because her arm is now wet from the juice.

My son is now like this (look left) wpid-20141008_195101.jpgwhich is how he chooses to spend the remaining time at the table. Mind you he is wide awake, looking at other patrons.

I see our waitress and all I can say is, “Check please!”

~Tricia

Will You Parent With Me?

/ Patricia M / Leave a comment

I was watching the newwpid-PhotoGrid_1391443385537.jpgs the other day and there was a segment that caught me by surprise. It made me realize that I live in a bubble and I am totally unaware of things that going on around me. I don’t think I am alone in being ignorant to issues outside of “traditional” ways of living. I put traditional in quotes because I am not hung up on traditions but I do understand that what is considered a “traditional” family in our society is a heterosexual couple with children.

So this brings me to that news segment that caught my attention. It was a segment on co-parenting matching websites. On these site you are not looking for the end question not to be “Will you marry me?” but “Will you parent with me?”

I knew there are relationship matching websites, but did not know that there are parenting matching websites. If you are single for whatever reason and desiring to have a child but do not want to raise a child alone you can go online and find someone to co-parent with. I like this idea in the fact of having two involved parents in a child’s life.  Even if it is not a romantic relationship I admire that people want to co-parent. Parenting is hard work. When I see a single parent whether male or female I always wonder how they do it.

I do not know exactly how this works but in my mind it goes a little like this:

You sign up and make a profile describing yourself. You list your sex, race, religion (or lack of), sexual orientation, height, weight, etc. Then you describe what you are looking for in a co-parent based on the above categories. You also do a more personal description about you as a person which includes your hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes. When you come across a potential match you message them and begin the process of getting to know one another. Once you feel you have made the perfect co-parent match you set up you plan the process for sperm retrieval and fertilization. I am imagining that you will also need to plan what your living arrangements might be.

Does this work? I don’t know. In no way am I here to judge this lifestyle. I will say that I think it is better then having casual sex with someone you that leads to the birth of a child where one (or both) parent(s) have no desire in having a relationship with them.  We have a lot of children out there being raised by one parent simply because the other parent chooses not be be involved. There are also far too many children being raised caught in the middle fighting parents.

What is your take on co-parenting matching sites? Here are a few of them:

~Tricia

Empty Bed Syndrome (For Parents)

/ Patricia M / Leave a comment

Since my son Aaron was 17 months old he has somehow found his way into our bed every night. He will go to sleep independently but when he wakes up during the night he comes into our room and climbs into our bed. Sometimes he may wake up at 11:30 PM or sometimes it may be 4:30 AM, it varies.

Aaron will be 2 years old this Friday and our bed feels a little crowded at times. I must admit I have been looking forward to the days when my husband and I have our bed all to ourselves. At least I thought I was looking forward to it. Three times in the past week and a half Aaron has slept the full night in his own bed and each time I found myself missing him when I woke during the night. This morning I woke up and went into his room. He was lying there so soundly. I wanted to pick him up him and take him to our room, but I refrained. I let him sleep, went to the kitchen and poured orange juice into his sippy cup then placed it by his bed for when he woke up. I then went back to my room and waited. About a half hour later he walked in my room smiling as he sipped his juice. He looked like such a big boy. As I held back the tears I said “good morning” and he walked over to give me a hug.

Time has gone by so fast. Especially this past year. I feel like we were just celebrating his 1st birthday and I blinked and now we are about to celebrate another. I guess I feel this way because we had 2 major life changes this year, one is moving and the second being birth of our daughter both which occurred in August. We looked forward to our children growing up and gaining confidence while becoming more independent but at the same time you want them to still be your little baby. So I guess I am suffering from “empty bed syndrome”, I hate to see what I will be like when they leave the nest.:-)

~ Tricia

What are we speaking into our children? Success or Failure.

/ Patricia M / Leave a comment

*OLD POST* From our FAMILY blog

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Earlier this year my husband and I were out running errands.  While we were out I mentioned that I needed to go to the library.  As I was looking for what I wanted to check out my husband took our then 15-month old son into the children’s library to play at the activity table they have there.

I was frustrated to learn that what I wanted to check out was currently unavailable so I  went in the children’s library to let my husband know I was finished.  I walked in to find my son interacting and sharing puzzle pieces with another little boy around his age.  My husband was sitting at the table with them and smiling as he watched their interaction.   It is always so cute to see our son playing with other toddlers since currently he is the only child.  As I was standing there watching I…

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