Heading Off Holiday Meltdowns (ours and our kids)

Handing out consequences for poor behavior is never fun but is a necessary part of parenting. Discipline is all about shaping behavior which includes handing out consequences but in the big picture it’s about shaping our children. That means we need to educate them. We can do this through all the positive parenting techniques we [...]

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A cold, wet, wonderful way to build a memory

Yesterday I ran my first 5k race. My daughter had signed up for Girls on Track which is a program for middle school girls (Girls on the Run is the elementary school version) that is designed to get them running while building self-esteem and hopefully begin a love of activity.

The girls have been training and doing other fun activities and it all culminated in a 5k run. We were supposed to arrive at the race by 5:00 with opening ceremonies at 6:00 and the race starting at 6:30. The only problem was that it was about 45 degrees and raining.

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Dream Catcher

One of my youngest daughter’s favorite gifts from me was a dream catcher. It’s a fun project and it makes an interesting and different gift to give someone. It’s a great idea with many variations and many different “giving uses”.

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A classic gift – the bookmark

One of the gifts my girls made for me was a fabulous multi-ribbon bookmark. They used one foot lengths of several cloth ribbons, glued them together at the top, then glued fabric flowers on either side of that glue spot as well as some tiny flowers at the ends of the ribbons.

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The great cookie debate

If you’ve ever heard me speak you probably know how much I love Cookie Day (the day that my girls and I bake our Christmas cookies). What you may not know is what cookies we bake that day. I used to be a little embarrassed to tell people about it because it didn’t seem very festive. But, since you’ve stopped by the blog I’ll confess: the truth is that we usually bake only 2 kinds of cookies;

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Why moms shouldn’t know everything

I was just reading Baby Blues in the comics. The kids are doing homework and asking Mom about the capital of Tanzania to which she replies, “I don’t know”. The kids are shocked because they thought Mom knew everything. At that moment Dad walks in with a litany of questions from “where are my car keys” to “what was I trying to remember” and, of course, Mom knows everything – or, as she says, all the important stuff.

I laughed because every mom knows just how true that is. We are the keepers of “everything” in our homes. And that means that when the holidays roll in we have all the regular stuff, all the holiday stuff, and all the overflow from everyone else’s holiday overwhelm to keep track of. Unfortunately it also means we get to be the keepers of the stress.

I’ve certainly ‘been there – done that’ and I even had to stop myself from doing it again just the other day. But did you hear that? I said I stopped myself from doing that the other day. And that’s the key – you can stop it.

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Why “Cookie Day”?

I mentioned before that during one of our early Heart Filled Holidays conversations I discovered how important Cookie Day was to my family. As we were discussing what we would and wouldn’t be doing that year, and when it would all happen, my girls became very adamant about having a lot of time to bake. I was interesting to me. While I enjoy baking, it was really just one more thing that had to get done to prepare for Christmas. And, since it was something the girls could help with from a very young age, I had always included them.

But, for the girls, this had become so much more.

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Cookie Day

Cookie day is one of our annual traditions. When I talk about enjoying my holidays or talk about what a great time I’m having getting ready, Cookie Day is always part of the excitement and great memories.

People ask me what makes this day so special. Well, we don’t do anything big or spectacularly different than our friends who bake for Christmas. We don’t have a big master plan. My girls and I just spend the day in the kitchen mixing, baking and, most importantly, talking. But there are a couple things we do that make this day incredible.

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Pavlov’s kids take to the road

Traveling with kids is always interesting. We’ve had a variety of experiences over the years but mostly we’ve dealt with driving in the car. As I talk to other parents I realize we generally have a pretty good experience with our kids in the car. As I look back I think I’d attribute a lot of that to conditioning and the “car bag”.

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