children

All posts tagged children

Questioning Life Changes, Does it Never End?

Published September 21, 2014 by Angela

I always seem to have a difficult time making very important decisions; never being able to stop asking myself, “but what if I did …”. The past year has been full of life changes for me. All for the positive, but never without stress and worry. I will be the first to admit that I overthink everything. Every single thing. At 42 years old, with a great career, family life, and good health, I still stress over making decisions.

Sometimes I wish I could be a kid again, when someone else would make the decisions for me. Then I wouldn’t be the one responsible when it didn’t work out. I have made some bad decisions; some real whoppers! But I do always own up to them, hopefully apologizing when necessary, and definitely learning from my bad choices.

I watch my girls go through the very same thing. Struggling to make decisions. I can see the look on their face when they are hoping I can and will give them the answer. But I can’t. There are some decisions that they have to make for themselves, to learn and grow from. Even when I know that there will be crying later. Broken hearts. Anger. I have to let them own that. They have to take that road that they choose and decide for themselves if they made the right decision.

My outlook as of late has been to take a positive from a negative, and focus on that. Now if I could just teach that to my girls 🙂

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Published September 14, 2014 by Angela

Having 3 children each 3 years apart will probably be a blessing in the years to come, but they are certainly spaced out at the ages right now (16, 13, 10) to ensure that they will not ever get along, on any given day.

I have been listening to arguing for the past 3 days over rubber bands. Bracelet loom rubber bands. You know the ones I mean,  right? I have rubber-band bracelets laying around in every room of my house. The girls have 3 large containers (large!) full of these tiny little rubber bands. Not to mention the ones I am picking up all over my floors.

Said 10 year old got a new loom for her birthday on Friday (yes, I knew better than to buy another one, but I did anyhow). Somehow, the rubber bands that they have all been sharing now have separate owners, and one will not share with the other.

I know, I know! Just take them away. I seem to be buying rubber bands on a bi-weekly basis, and I do not recall ever buying these and handing them to one child and saying “Here. These are your rubber bands. You don’t need to share them.” I am pretty sure that I have always encouraged my girls to share, yet I seem to have daily battles over the most ridiculous things. I am trying to not get to the point where I point out the true fact that “All of those rubber bands, and looms, belong to me. I bought them. I went to work to earn the money to pay for them.” Because then I would be acting just like they are 🙂

So today I choose to pick my battles, and this is not going to be one of them. They can fight this one out themselves.

Back To Reality – Well, By About 50% So Far!

Published January 2, 2014 by Angela

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What a wonderful, relaxing Christmas break I have had. Normally I do not look forward to time off from work (it does nothing more than mess with my sleep schedule and turn me into “not-so-nice-Mommy-anymore!”)

And being the 1st of January, and technically the 2nd for me being a shift worker, I get to go back to work tonight. I am feeling pretty good about this, and not dreading it like most people do.

 

Why is this only back to reality by 50%? Because I am still 2 children short until this upcoming weekend, and it has been like this since the day after Christmas. I have to be completely honest here, my 2 children that are with their father are the same 2 children who have been fighting with each other, and everyone else, non-stop for the past month. My 15 year old didn’t want to go, so while she has been home and not hanging out with her friends, we have had some bonding time, and complete peace and quiet in our house.

Don’t get me wrong, I do miss my girls. But I am liking the peace and quiet right now more than I am missing them. Yes, I know that makes me a bad Mom and I should be crying over the fact that my girls have been gone for a week now. What you need to understand to put this in perspective, or at least in my point of view, is that I never have peace and quiet here. My children never leave to go with their Dad. The last time before now that he has seen them? April. Spring break when I physically dropped them off and picked them back up. Or he wouldn’t have seen them at that time either.

No, I’m not bashing my ex. It is what it is and honestly, I am glad that I do not have to communicate with him on a regular basis, it makes life a lot easier for me and my girls (they agree on this point, hence, one of them not even wanting to go).

So I think I have 3 or 4 more days of this quiet, argument-free environment before they come back home. And I will hug them, and kiss them, and tell them how much I love them and missed them (Yes, I really do miss them!). And then I am going to try to put into place something; anything that will help everyone get along better without the bickering over completely mute issues.

I am looking forward to making this 2014 year a wonderful one for me and my family, even without resolutions being made.

Have you made any resolutions?

Yummy Marshmallow Pillows

Published October 28, 2013 by Angela

This cold weather has put me in a mood for baking, which is normally so unlike me, this early into the “holiday” season. With the oh-so-many varieties of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows out this time of year, I couldn’t resist buying up a few bags 🙂 Fruit-flavored (and shaped), stackable plain or chocolate brownie flavor, the classic toasted coconut, and even gingerbread and pumpkin spice! These also make a great healthy, low-fat snack right out of the bag (always use caution with young children and marshmallows of any shape or size, a very dangerous and very real choking hazard!)

Yummy low-fat snacking

Yummy low-fat snacking


 

I bought some canned biscuit dough, rolled it out, tucked in a couple chocolate brownie marshmallows, and sealed them shut. After they were baked, according to package directions on the biscuits, I put a touch of butter and sprinkled some sugar on them. This is not necessary though as these are a yummy, pillow-filled sweetness all by themselves.

 

Seal them up good!

Seal them up good!

You know what marshmallows do in the microwave, right? Well, they do that in the oven as well. So make sure your edges are sealed, sealed, sealed. I probably should have taken pictures of my first batch that expanded and leaked all over the place 🙂 Put down a piece of parchment paper on your baking sheet for easy clean-up if they leak. My kids loved the leakers as much as the ones that held their pillow shape.

Hollowed, marshmallow sweetness!

Hollowed, marshmallow sweetness!

When did setting up a computer become so hard?

Published September 15, 2013 by Angela

So I broke down and got a laptop for my girls to use for homework, mainly for my 7th grade homeschooler. Titanium security was recommended for me and I was told I could lock out all websites and get reports. Not so, but it was only $17.00 for the 1st year and it does do what Norton Security does. Accessing my 12 year olds newly created account, it took me right to Facebook when I typed it in. So back to the Microsoft Family Safety site (which I was told not to use with Titanium). Sorry, but I am. I can get updates anytime I want on all activities of each of my children, and set allowed and blocked sites. We will see how it goes tomorrow morning when I finally her have the laptop.

Now if I could just get it to do what I want it to. The laptop that is, not my children 🙂 (I pretty much gave up on that years ago LOL) The toolbars are at the bottom, and I cannot seem to switch it. I think it is the new version of Windows and not the laptop itself. I guess I won’t let it bother me too much since I don’t necessarily need to use it. And when it comes to computers my kids are smarter than me anyhow 🙂

Downloading the software for two classes to their laptop, I am hoping I can lock out the kids from the teacher’s information while allowing my homeschooler to use the learning games and other tools that will help her.

Working full time and doing homeschooling has me feeling like I am working on my Bachelor’s Degree, again. I was going to start on my Master’s Degree this September, I am sooo glad I didn’t go down that road.