Tag: mother-skills

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Kids/Parenting

Guest Post: When the Temperature Drops Don’t Let the Fun Stop With This Creative Craft for Kids

I’m always looking for fun things to do with my kids when it’s waaaay too cold to go outside. So when this guest post popped up in my inbox, I knew I wanted to share it!

by Vicki Bodwell

As a mother of three boys I am well acquainted with the meaning of cabin fever. Despite our generous collection of puzzles and board games, my kids have so much energy that they always manage to get restless. One way I avoid the temptation of sending them into the TV doldrums or turning them into computer zombies, is by giving them a project (or two) to occupy them for a cold weekend.

I find that the best thing to do with younger children is an activity that takes advantage of their greatest gift: their endless imagination! All it takes for my youngest son Wesley to get excited is a little inspiration to pretend, and his creative mind takes it from there. Last weekend he had a great time writing and illustrating his own storybook. Here’s how you can do it too:

What you’ll need:

  • Old magazines
  • Duplicate or printed family photos
  • Scissors
  • Blank paper
  • Glue
  • Wrapping Paper
  • Cardboard or Heavy Paper for Cover

The first step is for your child to figure out what kind of story he or she wants to write. This can be a great way to reinforce your child’s love of reading and storytelling. I started by discussing with Wesley what makes for a good story. I asked him about his favorite stories, and what the different parts of a story are.

Next, we flipped through the magazines for inspiration. Wesley cut out images that he liked and wanted to work into his story, whether as characters, setting for a scene, or props. If you have duplicates of family photos you can use those too. If you don’t have magazines lying around the house do not despair, your child can always just illustrate it by hand!

With our images selected, I had Wesley outline story, and then I had him write the story at the bottom of each page. Depending on the age of your child, you might want to help them write it. Then Wesley set to work making wonderful collages to illustrate his story.

Once he was done, I helped him cut out the cardboard for the front and back cover. How you finish the cover is up to you. You can cover it with wrapping paper for a festive design, you could paint it, or just cover it with white paper for a simple look. No matter what option you choose your child is sure to be proud when they see their name as the author! Simply staple the entire piece together and start reading!

Vicki Bodwell is the owner and founder of the Warm Biscuit Bedding Co., a national online retail story that specializes in children’s bedding, custom kid’s furniture, toys, and vintage fabrics. When she is not busy running her business, she spends her time taking care of her three amazing boys. To learn more about Vicki and the Warm Biscuit Bedding Co. please visit www.warmbiscuit.com.

Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Learning from motherhood

Sometimes, motherhood is a treadmill. I’m running myself ragged, but never really getting anywhere. (This is why I hate treadmills.)

Of course, as a mom sometimes the exhaustion goes beyond the physical. Sometimes I feel like as soon as I get a grasp on one age or stage, everything changes. The minute I accept Hayden’s three nap schedule, he grows out of his third nap.

I feel like a passage in Second Timothy, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Or at least the children. (Don’t even get me started on the laundry!)

But for now, I feel rather competent—and I’ll enjoy it as long as I can!

Do you ever feel like you’re climbing a mountain of sand when it comes to understanding your job as a mother?

Categories
Fulfillment

What is patience?

As I’ve been working on patience a lot lately (okay, always), I’ve had occasion to think about it quite a bit as well. And I realized that I don’t always know what patience is.

I’ve been surprised to find that there was actually a lag between losing my temper and losing my patience. I think that having a lag there is a big improvement over going to straight to losing my patience!

Okay, I know that sounded a little esoteric, so here’s a more concrete explanation: I’ve realized that the more I work on patience, I have still gotten angry or frustrated (lost my temper)—but I hadn’t yet acted on that to “lose my patience.”

I’ve been disappointed with myself for losing my temper as I’m working on developing patience. But when I lose my temper, if I haven’t yet acted in anger, I don’t think I’ve lost my patience. If I recognize how I’m feeling, and stop and make an effort not to act in anger, I can calm down and keep my patience.

Does that sound like an artificial distinction? I thought it was, especially when I lost my temper and my patience happened in the same instant. But the more I think about it, and the more of a gap I can create between losing my temper and losing my patience, the more I believe that this is a sign of progress. As long as I keep choosing to calm myself down, anyway.

Of course, that’s the thing with patience—it’s something you get to work on forever, since it can be so easy to lose! And once I start getting better about being patient (you know, in ten or fifteen years) (only half joking), I can work on not getting angry, either.

Categories
Fulfillment Faith

To be a better mother

I’m not, in general, a bad mother. But I’m also not always the best mother that I can be. I’ve found that these three things, when I do them, make me a better mother:

1. Focus. By focus, I mean that I focus on Hayden. I really find that I enjoy my son and motherhood in general a lot more when I stop trying to get so much else done. Yes, I have to keep the house clean and my family fed, but when I spend most of my time just caring for and playing with Hayden, we both have a better day (even when the sink’s full of dishes).

2. Patience. I’m really, really working on this one because I’m not usually a patient person (especially not with family members, as sad as that is). The funny thing about patience is, of course, that even once you’ve become more patient, you get to “work” on it your whole life. It’s not like you just magically wave a wand and nothing ever upsets you again—even if it’s less frequent (which is what I’m striving toward now), our patience isn’t always perfect in this life.

3. Faith. This is in many ways interrelated with #2, because I’m using my faith to try to improve my patience. But my faith affects more of my parenting than that. It does give a long list of principles and lessons that I’m responsible for teaching my children, but it also provides me with sustaining power. I’ve had mornings where I can’t get out of bed because I’m exhausted and Hayden wakes up an hour and a half earlier than normal, and the only way I ever get out of bed on those days is after fervent prayer.

I’m far from perfect—and honestly, I know I won’t become perfect in this life, and certainly not by my own power—but when I do these three things, I enjoy motherhood more and I feel as though I’m a better mother!

What attributes or skills make you feel like a better mother?

This post is part of Mommy Zabs’ group writing project. The late part.

Categories
Fulfillment

What does it take to be a mom?

Saturday I got all reminiscent about how I felt about mothering before I had my son—which got me thinking. What skills or talents do you wish you had before you became a mother?

For me, that’s a pretty easy question. My first answer is always PATIENCE. I can be patient with some things, but other things, I expect to go exactly as planned or I basically freak out. This is not only bad when I lose my patience and get upset with my son, but also a bad example of how to deal with stress (and, frankly, every day life, since that’s about how often it happens!).

I also wish I’d gotten a bit more consistent with my housekeeping before he was born. It’s still a constant struggle to keep the floors clean and the dishes done around here (with much credit for the latter due to my husband).

Finally, I think I’d like to have learned more contentment. I don’t know if it’s my age or just my nature, but I frequently suffer from psychological wanderlust—I’m ready to move on to the next thing every so often. (Or perhaps four-month-long courses in college ruined me!) As fast as children grow up, it’s not ever on your time table—and when they do reach that next milestone, how often do we mothers find ourselves thinking “Man, why can’t he grow back down? It was so much easier before he could crawl/walk/drive!”

I wish that I were more naturally adept at surveying my life where it is at a given point and being able to give a satisfied smile without thinking “Okay, good so far—but now what? What should I be working on next? Let’s go, go, go!”

So what skills do you wish you’d developed before your children came along? Or what would you advise a prospective mom to learn before she had children?