Filling Up Long Days at Home with Kids

Photo: L. Navarrete

On my occasional weekday off, I have a long day to fill up with hopefully productive activities with my kids. I made my To-Do list last night, including 2 things I could do at home and 4-5 errands I needed to run. Looking back now, I did not run any errands. So what did I do to fill up 11 hours alone with my sweet babies? Here are some of the many activities we enjoyed together.

1. Ate "surreyal" (as my 2-year-old calls it) together.
2. Pushed my 2-year-old on the swing for at least 30 straight minutes. Meanwhile, we talked a lot. She learned the colors brown and tan. And she learned the words tree trunk.
3. Sat outside and watched my kids jump on the trampoline. It is one of the best outdoor play activities for kids, so well worth the investment for your next Christmas gift!
4. Went for a walk, AKA bike ride the older kids and stroller ride for the others.
5. Talked to the neighbor. We were both in the back yard at the same time, so we chatted through the fence, though we could barely see each other.
6. Exercised/watched TV. I exercised, and the kids watched TV in another room. It was 40 minutes of sweaty sweetness! Thanks to my husband, Megadeth makes for great workout music!
7. Ate lunch together. Soup and crackers for the kids. Chicken stir-fry for me. Pineapple for dessert.
8. Played air hockey with my son on the kitchen table.
9. Had the kids clean up...several times. I cleaned up the kitchen...several times.
10. Listened to my son's favorite songs on my phone.
11. Ate Icy Pops...several times.
12. Sat on the front porch, blogging! Sat on the back patio. The weather was nice and cool! Gave the kids space to play on their own and be creative. At one point, the girls made their own lipstick. ??!!
13. Threw the football with my son. Can you tell he and I both are hyperactive?!!
14. Read my Bible. I am in Joshua right now, which is far behind where I was supposed to be when I started to "Read the Bible Through in One Year" back in January.
15. Bathtime before dinner (thanks to my daughter's Caillou book for the idea)!
16. Put on a movie for the kids so I could fix dinner.
17. Cooked ravioli and garden salad for supper.

Moms with young kids have a big job! So I pray you can fill your days with fun and enjoyable experiences for you to bond with them. It does not take money or driving anywhere to have a great day with your kiddos!

A Not-So-Stressful Afternoon With My Kids

Photo: Mary Decrescenzio. 

School started this week, so it has been an adjustment for all: earlier bedtimes, not early enough bedtimes, chaotic mornings, new schedules, tired kids, frantic grownups, cranky kids, and especially irritable moms (to put it lightly). Having experienced a few days of after-school drama, I brainstormed how to make Friday less stressful for all involved. Thankfully, I had plenty of ideas from my husband, who is naturally good with kids and from a friend who is a psychologist!

My husband's suggestion:
Let them watch TV.  Me?--let MY kids watch TV? Does he know who he is talking to? Liz Buerkert--the child who left her entire family watching TV together to go to her bedroom and read? I was the college student who never owned a TV. I am the wife who nags my husband to stop watching TV so we can talk every night! I am the mom who never turns on the TV, and the mom who turns off the TV every time I see the kids watching it. I am the woman who blogs in silence when I have free time and who rides the stationary bike without the TV on. I am honestly just weird like that. I don't know what I have against the big black screen sitting in front of me except that it simply gets on my nerves. Maybe I am too hyperactive to sit and watch it. Or maybe I prefer to focus on relationships or tasks or hobbies or cleaning. But on Friday I listened to my husband's suggestions because he seems to have this parenting thing figured out. By the way, I have a whole blog post coming that I have written about my anti-television opinions...

Psychologist's suggestion:
Spend time doing something active with your son first. Do I have time to spend alone with my son after school? I have five kids! But I do have a few minutes before my mom leaves that I could do something outside.

So on the way home from school, I asked Caleb if he wants to go for a bike ride with me. I waited in the garage for him because if I walk in the house, my sweet 4-year-old would never let me back out without her. I also had called my mom earlier to tell her my plan of riding bikes with Caleb before coming into the house or doing anything else. I was still wearing my work clothes and loafers, but I figured how hard could a bike ride be? Caleb ran inside to get his helmet, and immediately we were off...up the hill. There are a lot of hills in our neighborhood, but I had no idea that Caleb likes to go up and down all of them! They are so steep that you cannot ride straight up the streets but you have to zigzag back and forth from the right side of the street to the left. I kept up with him the best I could with my not-so-comfy shoes and my sore hands from holding the handlebars so tight! It was a great way to connect with my son after a rough few days and had the added benefit of a workout!

Once we got home and greeted everyone, what did we do next? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually turned on the television. My mom saw me, so she can attest to it: I sat down and put my arm around Emma and watched some kids' show that I can't even remember. We were squished into the recliner chair together, but she did not mind. We sat there until I had to wake up my 2-year-old and feed my 5-month-old. And when I went to do those things, I left the TV on. My kids must have been wondering what is wrong with mommy that she is letting us (no--telling us to) watch TV?!! After I fed the baby, I stayed and played with him while the others were still tuned into Descendants, I'm sure, or Hannah Montana. They were perfectly quiet, so I was actually able to call a friend and chat for twenty minutes without being interrupted. Normally I only call friends on my way home from work.

As I was sitting on the floor playing Reversi, a new neighbor friend of my son's came over to play. I did not tell them to "go play outside" like usual. Instead, they just did whatever they wanted, which was Legos for a few, then pulling the sofa bed out of the sofa, then downstairs and upstairs again. Before anyone knew it, my husband was home from work. For once, he came home to a relaxed and unstressed wife...and a 2-year-old putting chapstick all over her body.

Moms, Give Yourselves Grace

If you are like me, you may look back on one of your not-so-perfect mommy days and be tempted to feel discouraged. You may think about the times you yelled at your kids or the patience you failed to show or the time you spent cleaning instead of playing with them, etc. But instead of being discouraged, which the enemy wants, be encouraged in your spirit by the Holy Spirit of God! Don't focus only on what you did wrong. God forgives you, so forgive yourself! God constantly shows you grace, so who are you to withhold grace from yourself as a mom? No mom is perfect--no matter what her social media displays.

Tomorrow is a new day, and God's mercy is new every morning! So look back on today and see what you can learn from your mistakes. Pray over those things and ask God to help you to improve tomorrow. God loves to answer prayers according to His will, and it is His will for you to be an awesome mother to the children He has entrusted to you. He did not give you this family so that you would just keep messing up the same way every day. He is using this time and season in your life to make you more like Jesus. Jesus was always perfectly patient. He always welcomed the little children. 

You may be trying to do too much, even within your household. For example, don't ask me why, but I decided to make pizza from scratch today. It was fast-rising yeast, so it was not supposed to take long... but several hours later, the pizza looked and smelled divine. It tasted good, but did my kids care that it was homemade? NOPE! Would they have been just as happy with Little Caesar's? YEP! Would they have preferred me to spend the afternoon playing hide-and-seek with them instead of cooking and cleaning and hollering? NO BRAINER!

Give yourself grace! You had good intentions. Everything you do (or 99% of what you do) is for your family. They are why you try to look good, cook well, maintain order in your home, stay organized, etc.  Because of your good intentions and your perfectionism, you try to be Martha Stewart and Jillian Michaels and Rachel Ray all at the same time. Your family may not tell you that they appreciate your dinners and how you ensure they never run out of clean socks and how you drive them all over town for soccer/ballet/piano/Boy Scouts/birthday parties and how you save enough money to take them on vacation and how you lose sleep to keep your home running smoothly. But you still do it every day, hoping for but not expecting a "thank you." Look at everything you do for everyone in your life except yourself, and give yourself a pat on the back and a big dose of GRACE when you mess up. God sees all that you do, and if you are doing it for Him, He will bless and reward you.

Social Media and Discontentment

Why does God want us to be content with what we have and with where we are? "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:12-13). God wants us to be content because it honors Him. We easily forget that our lives are not about us! How egocentric are we?!! We act like 2-year-olds by screaming and crying and pouting and whining every time we do not get our way. Why can't I get that job? Why can't I make that amount of money? Why can't I go on a trip to...? Why can't I do what my friends are doing? Why does she have...? I wish we had... It's not fair that everyone has... We can spend whole days, years and even a lifetime wishing for what we don't have. But then we are never truly enjoying what God has given us.

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you' " (Hebrews 13:5). All of these contentment verses talk about the most important part of our lives being the presence of God. God gives us strength. God is always with us. In this world of social media, it is easy to look at what everyone else has, where everyone else goes, what everyone else is doing and be terribly discontent with what we have, where we are, and what we are doing. Maybe tonight instead of scrolling your acquaintances' posts and photos, look back on your own camera roll to see all the great things you did recently. Or write them down. Be thankful to God for each of His gifts and blessings, no matter how small or inexpensive they were. Don't wish for what you don't have; be grateful for what you do have! Isn't this something we learned as kids?!!

"But godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Timothy 6:6). Contentment is a byproduct of godliness and it leads to great gain. That does not mean we gain more material things or more vacations, etc. It means we gain more character and more fullness of the Spirit of God. We gain more heart knowledge of the God who gave us life!

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:3-4). First, we should trust God. As we do so, we will do good because He will show us what He wants us to do. Being discontent is not showing trust in God. It is questioning God and grumbling against Him. But trusting Him gives us peace because we trust that He loves us, that He is with us, that He is good, that He has great plans for us, that He has a good reason for whatever we are facing. As we trust Him and do good, that leads us to dwelling in a good land with plenty of what we need. God does not promise that He will give us all that we want, especially if what we want is simply material or superficial things. He does promise that if we delight in Him, He will give us the desires of our heart. Remember this comes after trusting in Him, doing good, dwelling close to Him, and delighting in Him. Only after all these acts of faithfulness on our part does God give us the desires of our heart. By the time we have done all the prerequisites, God will have changed the desires of our hearts. So we will no longer be desiring a car or a trip or a spouse, etc. Instead we will be desiring what God desires such as opportunities to share the love of Jesus.

God will change our perspective if we will get in tune with Him. If we have an eternal perspective, the momentary cares of our world will fade as the important, spiritual cares become our focus. Instead of wishing for..., pray about what God wants you to do or who He wants you to become. Out of my own experience, I can tell you that wishing for what you don't have is a miserable place to remain for long. Join me in leaving that unfruitful place of discontentment!

Time-Saving Tips for Moms

Photo: Ruben A. Navarrete

1. Keep your diaper bag in the car.
2. In the store parking lot, park next to the shopping carts.
3. Do a load of laundry every day. Don't be tempted to do more than one because it has to be folded and put away...
4. Give each child his/her own laundry basket and wash them separately.
5. Keep cleaning spray, toilet bowl cleaner, sponge and washcloths in every bathroom.
6. Keep spray bottles with water and washcloths in every closet, bathroom, and pantry for convenient cleaning/dusting.
7. Use baby wet wipes for dusting or wiping surfaces such as baseboards.
8. Use your crockpot for suppers.
9. If you have lots of kids, buy at least 2 gallons of milk at a time (and 2 loaves of bread).
10. Don't run out of margarine or butter; they bake differently. For rice crispy treats, use margarine.
11. When toasting bread for a crowd, use the oven instead of the toaster.
12. Have a place to store everything: cubbies, baskets, bins, etc.
13. Teach kids to be progressively more self-sufficient (set their own alarm, serve their own breakfast, etc.)
14. Put your older kids to work helping the younger ones!
15. Don't carry a purse and a diaper bag because your hands are too full. I recommend a diaper backpack.
16. Do grocery shopping once per week and take as few of your kids as possible.
17. Keep a running grocery list on your frig.
18. Use an old-fashioned wall calendar and check it daily or several times daily so you won't miss appointments and events.
19. Fill out school forms as soon as you see them and don't remove them from your child's folder.