Breaking the Parenting Rules

MotherDaughterLoveAs the car pulled in, I could see that her light was on.  My small girl has this glorious window seat on the second floor of the house that looks out to the world.  When we built the house, I could imagine her curled up there and reading, peeking out from behind curtains for friends to arrive or a date to come.  But tonight, it was just after 10pm, so I was picturing her snuggled in bed, a book having slipped from her fingers as she fell asleep.

But as I walked in the house, that sweet little Punky was waiting on the stairs, “I waited up for you, Mommy.”  It was so late….her bedtime on a school night is 8:30, so she was almost 2 hours late.  I wanted to be horrified.  (she can be a demon when she doesn’t get the sleep she needs!)  But, I have to confess I was giddy.

I am in love with that little girl. And the fact that she was so excited to see me, she kept her little eyes open until she heard the car? Well, it means the world to me. And in a time when I struggle with the internal ‘guilt’ of traveling and being away – even for a job I adore – this reminds me I’m doing something right. I may travel, but we are connected.  She knows she is loved.  And she loves me. She trusts me enough to know I won’t be mad at her for breaking the bedtime rules.

Getting a little sweet time with her is worth it.  We sat on the steps.  We snuggled. She whispered to me all about her day. She asked about mine and finished with, “Mommy, I know you always do a good job.” And I melted into a big pool of weepy motherhood. She asked me to tuck her in, “I want to hold your hand”, and walked me up the stairs.

It doesn’t seem like much, this breaking of the rules, but in my world, it is special. She is special. I know there will be a day when my comings and goings will pass by unnoticed. She’ll sleep through my arrival, forget to ask how my day went and hesitate when I ask about hers.

Until then, I’m a rule breaker. And I believe that is a good thing.

Moms: Stop Judging, Start Supporting – Strong Moms Empowerment

“Danielle, I don’t know anyone who could possibly get away with traveling as much as you do….”

She continued, “You realize, when we commit to staying home with our children, we are supposed to stick with it, right?”

And this was the beginning of the end of what had, at one time, been a very close friendship.

Friends don’t judge each other.  At least not in my world. Let me take that a step further. Moms shouldn’t be judging other moms.  Women shouldn’t be judging other women.  And yet it happens every day. But it needs to stop.  We are damaging each other – chipping away at our hearts, our self esteem and our strength as moms. I promise you, I know what is right in my home.  I didn’t sign my name in blood when my children were born, so deciding to be at home full time was a decision I made at that time because it felt right. Just like working from home, and having my own business and sometimes traveling feels right.  I have the full support of my husband and children.  Those are the people I check in with.  But I can’t tell you the words and judgement didn’t hurt.  And I can’t tell you it doesn’t still hurt when it happens.

Do you choose to stay home with your children? Good for you.

Do you choose to work from home or out of your home? Good for you.

Do you let your kids stay up until 10pm on a school night? More power to you.

Strong Moms EmpowerAre your kids in bed by 7pm? Excellent.

Is your home chock full of organic food, including baby food you labor over yourself? Wonderful.

Do you eat out every night, including fast food? Good for you.

Do you homeschool, send your kids to school outside the home at age 2, have a child-free Summer because your kids are away at camp for 10 weeks, breastfeed, bottle-feed, babywear, fly with your kids when they are 6 months old or refuse, talk about your kids online or keep their identities anonymous, say ‘use your words’ or ‘shut up’, opt for natural childbirth or an epidural, involve your kids in 6 activities or stress imaginative play, are you a free-range parent or an over-protective one?

Wherever you fall, it is perfectly extraordinary.  Let me say it again: what you are doing as a mother is extraordinary.

Let me stress this…. I love how you love your children.  I love how you labor over what decisions are right in your home.  I love how you decide what works for you, your significant other and your small people…. because you know who knows what works best for YOU?  YOU DO.

Just you.

I believe this so deeply, so firmly, so STRONGLY, I have joined the Strong Moms Advisory Board.  We live in a world that increasingly wants us to make the ‘perfect’ parenting decisions or face criticism and judgement from others.  The Strong Moms Empowerment Program, brought to you by Similacis a call-to-action…empowering moms to feel confident about the decisions they make for their families and in turn, support other moms as they do the same.  You can sign a simple pledge making the commitment to do just that right here. 

Every day, moms experience some level of judgement for the choices they make.  And I’m not immune.  Just yesterday, I sat on a flight in front of a little boy who repeatedly said, ‘but I can’t see… I just can’t see’.  I suspect he was about three or four.  His window view was blocked by the plane engine.  Clearly something that couldn’t be helped.  His mom wasn’t interested in listening to him… she vacillated between saying, ‘just SHUT UP!” and “don’t you know you are embarrassing yourself? People are staring at you!”  I consciously chose not to judge her harsh tone – recognizing that I have no idea what her day has been like…. has her child pushed every possible button today? is she coming home from a funeral?  We don’t KNOW what is happening in someone else’s home, and therefore shouldn’t judge. It isn’t always easy.  I was sad for the little boy.

Recognize that YOU may choose to make different decisions, or at least you assume you would, but our job is to support each other, not to tear each other down.

Tomorrow, I will be taking part in the Strong Moms Empowerment Summit in New York City along side my fellow board members, media personalities – the Moms Melissa Gerstein and Denise Albert, parenting expert, Michelle Borba Ed.D and pediatrician Sue Hubbard MD, as well as Tonia Sanders from The Chatty Momma.

We’re hopeful this is just the beginning of the conversation.

We have so much to offer each other….  Support can be so powerful and judgement so damaging.  We need more of one and much, much less of the other.

Join me?

Disclosure: As previously mentioned, I am a member of the Strong Moms Advisory Board.  I chose to join the board because this is an issue that matters to me.  The thoughts and opinions shared in this post are mine and mine alone.

DIY Flower Arrangements for Mother’s Day – Keeping Style in Your Life

DIYFlowersforMothersDayMother’s Day is supposed to be this glorious celebration of the women who love us, guide us and nurture us in the most beautiful ways.  It is a day to say, ‘I love you’, ‘I’m thinking about you’ and ‘You matter to me’. Naturally, like many days of this kind, Mother’s Day has become very commercialized and quite expensive.  Your mom isn’t looking for you to spend a fortune on her.

She just wants to know she matters to you.

And what better way to show her you care than by creating something for her.

I love to give flowers, but know they can be a pricey endeavor. Instead of heading to the florist and spending a lot… why not create your own, adding your own special touch?

For this weeks, Keeping Style in Your Life Video, here are two ways to inexpensively create DIY Flower Arrangements for Mother’s Day (or any special occasion for that matter!)

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5 Cheap and Easy Ways to Redecorate a Room in Your Home

5 Cheap and Easy Ways to Redecorate a Room in Your HomeI have moved more than 20 times in my life.  I was not one of those kids who lived in the same home most of their life.  I didn’t even live in the same city or go to the same school. But as I’ve gotten older, things have slowed down a bit.  We have spent the past  6 years in one home.  While I naturally think the stability is good for my small people, I get a little antsy.  I yearn to shake things up a bit.  I seek change.  It makes me happy.

That leaves me with the task of ‘styling’ my home.  And probably more frequently than my husband would like. This means when I ‘shake things up’ and make some changes around here, I better find a way to do it inexpensively. Easy is good too since there are only so many hours in my day. (But the change is SO worth it!)

While the occasional ’big change’ is fantastic – redecorating in one day is both fun and rejuvenating. Here’s how I tackle it:

5 Cheap and Easy Ways to Redecorate a Room in Your Home

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Mommy, Do I Need To Go On A Diet?

Delaney First CommunionThe question felt a bit out of left field.  But as the mother of a child, of a little girl, I suppose I shouldn’t ever really be surprised, right?

She is eight-going-on-twenty-eight, after all. And this growing up business is happening right in front of my eyes. This IS the child who, at 48 inches and not quite 50 pounds told me last year that she wouldn’t wear a First Communion dress with a crinoline under it because, in her words, ‘it would make me look fat’.

Fat. It is a word she has never once heard me say about myself or anyone else. Not even as a joke.

Not, “I’m having a fat day.”

Not, “I feel fat in this.”

Not, “Does my butt look fat in these jeans?”

I don’t even insinuate it.

Not, “Another one of these brownies and I won’t be able to button my clothes.”

Healthy, active living.  That’s what I have always wanted to promote to my small people.  I know they are surrounded by words, by images, of what people – especially women *should* look like and ever since they’ve been little, I have worked to shield them from any notion of *should*.

The only thing they *should* do is PLAY and eat a variety of foods.  Yes, cookies are fine.  But there are plenty of fruits and vegetables in their world.  There is Gatorade and water and lots of Milk. There is cheese and bread and pasta and fish and chicken.

So, the other day, when my small girl turned those big brown eyes on me, lifted her shirt, patted her stomach and said, “Mommy, do I need to go on a diet?”, my heart hurt. I felt sick.

But I knew it was time for a talk.  ”Aren’t you on a diet, Mommy?”

Amazing how they watch everything you do, even when you don’t say a word, yes?  I wasn’t on a diet, but I was making some changes to how I was eating. For a few days, I had focused almost entirely on fresh fruits, vegetables and vitamins in an effort to ‘reset’ my system after a few months of poor eating, little exercise and staying up too late while working on my latest book. I wanted to purge my body of the ‘unnatural’ and focus strictly on fresh, healthy foods.

But, my small girl saw ‘diet’. I realized I needed to explain how I typically make food choices for myself and for our family. And why I had been making a few healthier changes to take care of myself.

The key for us is three-fold: fresh foods, the items with the largest number of ‘healthy’ ingredients and anything else in moderation.

Fresh foods are easy to explain: fruits, vegetables, and proteins like chicken and fish

Delaney Raisin BranFor food staples, I walked to the pantry and pulled out two boxes of food: one candy and Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. I wanted to share an option that had ingredients we recognized and could pronounce: Raisin Bran lists in order: Whole grain wheat, raisins, wheat bran, sugar, brown sugar syrup, 2% or less of salt and malt flavor. We aren’t purists, so it wasn’t difficult to find an option that included unhealthy ingredients. It was a box of candy and the ingredient list included partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, sodium bicarbonate, resinous glaze and artificial flavor (among other options).

The point of this exercise with my daughter (and at this point, both  my son and husband as well) was to explain that 1) the first ingredients listed are the most dominant – so if sugar or salt come first, we might want to look elsewhere for a different option and 2) our goal is to put food into our bodies that includes ingredients we can actually recognize and pronounce – in other words – real food.

So….whole grain wheat and raisins? Good. Resinous glaze? Not so good.

This isn’t to say, as I mentioned before, that our home or food choices are perfect.  We do eat some cookies and cakes.  Sugar isn’t banned and I know you could find items that have some unpronounceable items in their ingredient list.  But we are a work in progress.  And I’d say 70% of what we eat is fresh and healthy, so I’m ok with the knowledge that we aren’t perfect.

I’m also ok knowing I can and do have these conversations with my small people.  And they know I don’t tolerate ‘fat’ – not hearing they believe it of themselves or of other people.  And this is a lifestyle we have to live, not one we can simply talk about and hope sinks in.

How do you promote a healthy lifestyle in your home?

Disclosure: I do have a regular working relationship with Kellogg’s though all thoughts and opinions I share in this post and throughout this site are mine and mine alone.  I chose to use Raisin Bran as an example because it is a regular healthy breakfast staple in our home.

 

 

Mary Poppins, I am NOT

Delaney cough spoonful honeyMy small girl has a cough. Again.

And it is brutal.  She has no other symptoms. But the cough is non-stop.  As I sit at my desk now on Monday morning, I fear she is struggling in her classroom, potentially disrupting her class.  (That embarrasses her to no end, by the way) But she couldn’t stay home. There is no fever. There is no sore throat. There are no aches and pains.

Just this wretched, horrid cough.  Experts will tell me it has nothing to do with the weather, but as the often-victim of this exact same cough, AND the mother of a sweet one who suffers from the same thing, I’m here to tell you this yo-yo business Mother Nature has going on?  This ‘hey 81 degrees on a Monday and 32 by Wednesday stuff’ makes our immune systems a little crazy.

So last night, I had her try something new.  And you better believe her performance was Oscar Worthy.

A spoonful of honey.  That’s all I wanted her to take.  Just ONE LITTLE spoonful of honey.  Not Castor Oil.  Not poison.  It wasn’t even honey-flavored-medicine, but actual honey. And you would have thought it was spiked with nails.

For 15 minutes she talked to herself.

“Delaney, you can do it. No, you can’t. Stupid little bear. NO! Stupid COUGH!  Ohhhh COME ON…. I can DO THIS. It is JUST honey.  Ok, let’s GO!  Nooooo!!!”

I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry.

She did eventually choke it down.  Poor thing did gag.  But even with the honey and additional medicine, she was still up coughing much of the night.

It feels as though we have tried everything…. medicines, Vicks on her feet, steam showers, humidifiers, lozenges…

If you have an alternative?  I’m open.

 

Parents: Make it a ‘Yes Day’ With Your Kids: Keeping Style In Your Life

Yes-DayI have two small people. I think you know this, yes?

When they were itty-bitty, there were a few things that I knew I wanted to be as a mother: someone who comforted them, someone who taught them right from wrong, someone who guided them to be good-hearted and someone who brought them boundless joy.

At some point along the way, I realized that most of those ‘someones’ seemed to be happening quite naturally.  I WAS guiding them.  I WAS teaching them.  I WAS comforting them and loving them.  It was in my mom DNA.  But the JOY… oh the pure JOY required effort.  Their needs seemed endless… the changing, the hunger, the playing. There were few things that brought a smile to my face like seeing their smiles, their laughter, their joy.  So, I decided to create over-the-top reasons that would allow me to see that sparkle in their eyes.

I created the ‘Yes-Day’.  It didn’t happen when they were 6 months old, but rather when they were close to two…. when they could appreciate the difference between a ‘no’ (furrowed brow in response) and a ‘yes’ (JOY!!!)

Allow me to explain…. with the help of my small people.  Yet another way that I STILL keep the style in my life… with play and joy!

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