What Makes A Great Parent?

I found this article while I was purging some of my older magazines that I have been hanging onto... It's out of a Family Circle, the June 14, 2005 issue. How bad is that?? It wasn't even just this page I had...It was the whole magazine!!! Yikes!!

So anyway, I just wanted to share this. It's rather long.

What Makes a Great Parent?

By: Marc Parent

I was at our local mall with my two-year-old, separating chicken nuggets into small, chokeproof bites, when an older woman approached to tell me that I had a lucky little boy. "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're a great parent," she said. I thanked her for the compliment and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what she had seen me do that was so great. Pulling chicken nuggets apart, after all, does not a great parent make. Or does it?

One of my favorite childhood memories of my father is of an ordinary weekday when he came home from work with a bag of candy for me and my sisters. He explained that during his drive home he had heard the James Taylor song "Shower the People (You Love with Love)," and decided to do his best, on such short notice, to shower us. When I think back to my father's greatest moments, it's not the lavish birthdays or big vacations that first come to mind, but that late Wednesday afternoon and a single bag of orange candy.

The good news for any mother or father is that when it comes to time with your children, it's the small moments that make or break you. Locking in a legacy of parenting greatness may be an elusive goal; it's far easier to accomplish greatness on a more immediate scale and trust that your many small moments will have a cumulative effect. So with an eye on that prize, I submit this partial list of my own informal hodgepodge of brick-by-brick, 100 percent tested, small parenting greats. I highly recommend you test-drive any one of these today.

• Look your children in the eyes and tell them you are their fix-it-up person. Tell them that no matter what breaks, you'll fix it--and if it can't be fixed, you'll never stop trying to make it better.
• When they're in their pajamas, drive them to get ice cream. Do it on a school night.
• Learn the names of all their teachers.
• Tuck them in every night until sending them off to college, just call it something different once they've hit middle school. When you tuck them in, tell them something specific about how they impressed you that day. Make it up if you have to.
• Love them unconditionally, but make sure they understand that the rest of the world won't.
• You don't have to teach them how to throw a perfect spiral if you don't know how, but you do have to play chess with them and you do have to let them win.
• Tell them made-up stories. Use their names for the characters, and make them the clowns and the heroes.
• In every single situation, give them an avenue to succeed.
• Jump with them into the snow, the leaf pile, the mud, the ocean -- last one in is a rotten egg.
• After dinner tonight, giver your spouse a hug. Don't let go right away; let your children see you. Turn on the radio and let them watch you dance. Young children will try to get between you. Always let them get between you.

The nicest thing about small moments like these is that you can create them without the help of James Taylor songs. They aren't dependent on any specific occasion, place or time of year, and they cost next to nothing. You'll still have to see your children through high school unscathed and then into the right college (and find a way to pay for it). But as you navigate those waters, don't forget to keep the radio playing and never underestimate the significance of an unexpected bag of candy on an otherwise normal Wednesday afternoon.

I am far from being a perfect parent. That is not my goal anymore. I just want to be a 'Great' parent and I think this is going to help me slow down and enjoy my kids!

Strawberry Shortcake Sundaes

I had a really good day today, which is very odd for a Monday, but none the less it was good. So as a treat I wanted to do something fun for the girl's afternoon snack! We had some strawberries, of course ice cream and birthday cake that I didn't use, left over from the party.

I have been a real big bear for a while now and I just wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary for my favorite girls!

Here are my ingredients: Vanilla Ice Cream, Strawberries, a little sugar for my strawberries, birthday cake and some Reddi Whip!

I cut the cake into cubes and put it in these nice little sundae bowls that I NEVER USE!!

Today was there day!!!

Next I put a scoop of Ice cream on each one. Arranged some strawberries. Drizzled a little of the sweet strawberry sauce and put on the Whipped Cream!!

Here is the finale!!! Spoon in it all ready to eat!!!!

And we can't forget this picture!!! My little sweets getting ready to dig in!!!

Possom's Birthday!

On Friday the 10th my 2nd daughter whom I dearly love, but butt heads with constitently turned 6 years old. She has been waiting a long time for this!! I reflected on the day and what I was doing 6 years ago. Talk about being young and dumb!! I drove around with my 15 month old for 4 hours while I was having some pretty good contractions!! When we finally realized we better go to the hospital, we were only there 2 1/2 hours before she made her screaming entrance into the world.

I know this sounds horrible and I'm sure you wonder how anyone can feel this way. But I didn't really like her when she was first born. I know that is a horrible thing. That's probably not the way I really meant it. More of it was that I didn't bond with her right away. It took me almost 2 years to get over that. Looking back I do know I had postpartum depression. I was never diagnosed with that, because I was in denial and anytime the Dr. would ask me a question I would say I was fine.

I love her so much now!! Correction: I have always LOVED her. Now we are close and I am so glad she is my daughter.

She wanted to have a birthday party and invite ALL her little friends from kinder. ALL 21 OF THEM!! Now, I was not going to tell her should could not invite anyone. That would be rude! Even though I was wondering how I was going to pay for all the little goodies that have to go into those goody bags! So I decided to shave off some cost by making her birthday cake for her!! I always have these GRAND ideas that end up screwing me over somehow. But I was determined!! Of all things she wanted a Guitar cake! Because of course it had to be a Hannah Montana party!! Luckily I had seen an episode of Amazing Cakes or something, so I figured I could do this!

My BF gave me the idea to use Fondant. I have never used Fondant, had never planned on using Fondant. But I used Fondant!!! I am now a Lover of Fondant!!!!!! I have a box of it in my cabinet right now, just waiting for me!!!!

Surprisingly enough the cake only took me about 3 hours to decorate, now that didn't include baking time, but why add that. That would only depress me!!!

Here's the cake at her party!!

Will IT End??

I have been diligently working on getting rid of my clutter. I have been living in 'CHAOS' (can't have anyone over syndrome) for 26 years now!! In order to correctly follow the meaning it's only been 8 years, but believe me....it's been my WHOLE life!!! This is a mountain I am able to tackle because of Flylady. I had started to fall off the wagon, but since attending the 'flyfest' on Saturday and seeing that I am not alone has really kept me going! Plus, Taylor's Birthday party is on Saturday and I KNOW that I have to have the house in order for that! I work much better when I have a deadline!

Yesterday, I busted my butt and the kitchen is decluttered. Did you know that there is a top to the fridge??? I didn't know they always had one? I thought they arrived with a top and then it went away. None of my other fridges had tops? Only two times each. Once when we moved and and the second time was when we moved out! How crazy is that??
My counters are cleaned off, my ledge is cleaned off. Only the necessities are out!! Yay!!

I cleaned the Hutch off in my dining room and there is NOTHING on my table.

Wow! I was starting to feel like I wasn't getting anything done. But I feel alot better after rereading this!!

I've had my 15 minute break, now off to do more before I go get the girls from school!!

Fall Is My Favorite!

I've felt for a long time that Fall is my favorite season. I just hadn't realized how true that was until after I had painted most of the rooms in my house. When fall 'arrived' on the calendar, I was sitting in the dining room telling my poor hubby, probably for the 500th time, that fall was my 'favorite'.

Me: Did you know fall is my favorite season?

Him: Yes!

Me: I just love the colors!

Him: I know.

Me: How do you know? Have I told you before?

Him: Yes, but another way I know is that practically every room in our house is a fallish color.

(Actually, he didn't say 'fallish', I added that, he would kill me if he knew! 'Fallish is not 'his' word!!) LOL

Me: Oh, I guess I have!!

So that really got me wanting to go all out and decorate this fall. I'm still unpacking. I know, that is just horrible. We have been here for 4 months now and we are still living out of ALOT of boxes. I have a disease. I am a 'clutterbug'! We have moved so much stuff with us. I admit, a lot of it is trash. I am slowly getting rid of it and that is why I have procrastinated my unpacking. I am making some head way. So to reward myself I have done a little 'fall decorating'!

Here are a couple of pics I would like to share!

I have both of these setting on my mantel.

Sean picked out the spider. I thought it was crazy at first, but ol' spidey has grown on me!!

This is the light fixture in our Dining Room!

Like I said, it's just a little, but I hope it's enough to keep me decluttering, so I can put up more!!

The EASY job!!

I made sure ALL the girls got their baths the other night! (Believe me, this is a rare feat!!) Hayleigh was very tired and almost didn't make it to her bath! So I quickly bathed her and handed her to Sean. I finished Dakoda's bath rather quickly, or so I thought. I went back in to get Hayleigh. I was really wanting to nurse her before she went down for the night. However, that was not the plan! This is what I found when I walked into the kitchen!!




How come Daddy's always get the easy job?? Sweet little thing! She is definately her Daddy's girl! When I walked in to get her......She was sleeping to 'Gun's & Roses' !! Sean has been able to put ALL four of the girls to sleep at one time or another listening to G&R!!!

A New Carpet Cleaner!!

There are many days since getting our new puppy, that I look at him and wonder, "What the Hell was I thinking?" Seriously? I have four children and a husband. What was I thinking getting a puppy? There are days he does excellent! Goes pee and poop on his little potty mat. Sits nicely next to me while I'm nursing the baby. Plays fetch like it's going out of style!!
Then there are the OTHER days. If he's already peed twice and pooped once on his mat and I haven't changed it......he will go pee in the entry way or right in the MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR!!!!.. where I'm not expecting it so I step in it!!! EEWW GROSS!!!!!! I swear that dog does that just to spite me. I pet him and talk nice to him and feed him and play with him. Then I go take care of one of my 'REAL' children and he HATES me!!! Does anything he can because he knows it's going to piss me off!!!!

Not this morning however!!! This morning was when I had one of those moments that I remembered..... I still like this dog!! I took him upstairs with me to wake the girls this morning. On the floor there was a spot of pop tart insides! I will admit...it has been there awhile. I keep forgetting about it. I figure it wasn't too serious. It's not poop, right? Anyway, that dog spent a good 10 minutes licking around on that spot!!! It was the size of a half dollar. He just kept licking around on it. Even tried to bite it! Thankfully we have berber or I probably wouldn't, no I wouldn't have let him do that! We needed to go downstairs for breakfast so I couldn't leave him to finsih it. I'm sure if I would have it would be gone! You can barely see it. I'm just as happy about that!!! No more pop tart guts!!!!