Let Your Toddler Be a Part of the Home

As you watch your children grow, you are growing as a mother.  You have to learn how to be creative and patient, even when you just don't have it in you.  Being a parent becomes a learning experience that will continue until your child is grown.  

Get your child involved in the home.  This is something I have learned to be a useful tool, and makes your child feel appreciated and more a part of the family.  I started a chore chart with my son, we are only on day 3, but it seems to be working out pretty well.  Help with the dishes is always nice!

Here are the top 6 ways to keep your toddler busy AND happy:

1. Washing Food-

Have your child wash a few pieces of vegetables while you are preparing and cooking a meal.  This gives your little one a chance to 'play' with water and take some responsibility.  If it's one thing I know my kids enjoy, it's finding any excuse to play with water.

2.  Cleaning-

This one you could take advantage of with anything in the house, from sweeping with a broom, or to just simply clean around the house with a rag.

3.  Fun with food coloring-

You can simply use anything around the kitchen or the house and mix in food coloring.  I like to use

4. Mixing food in a bowl-

Let your child stir up some flour and sugar in a bowl, and mix in some water and let them play around with textures.

5. Coloring!-

Children love to color in coloring books, but have a tendency to easily get bored with it.  I thought of buying a couple papers of poster board.  Let them be creative using crayons, colored pencils, and markers.  You don't have to color within the lines this way!

6. Pouring water in different sized bowls-

You can use 3 or 4 different sized bowls, fill them with different amounts of water and let your child explore pouring the water from one to another.  This would make for a fun outdoor summer activity!

Source: http://www.momtastic.com/author/pbadmin/

Recognizing & Understanding Stress is Key

Being a parent is one of the most joyous and rewarding experiences, but there are times in your life when the demands of being a mom can leave you feeling nothing but stressed.  The tension of caring for children can leave you feeling anxious, moody, uneasy, or just simply stressed out.  This is inevitable and completely normal, but everyone needs to find their own way of coping with stress so they don't feel completely overwhelmed.


The effects of stress can be physical, mental, and emotional.  These symptoms can leave you feeling overwhelmed with your daily life.  Stress can effect you physically, feeling tired, getting an upset stomach, frequent headaches, having reoccurring colds, or trouble sleeping.  Mentally, stress can cause you to feel pressured, difficulty focusing or concentrating, and having trouble making decisions.  And lastly, emotionally you may have feelings of frustration, anger, tension, anxiousness, or be more aggressive. 


Some common signs of stress:

• May leave you worrying about everything.  
• You may find it hard to tolerate your children.  
• Not sleeping enough.
• Not feeling well (headaches and aches and pains).
• Feeling like you're not able to manage daily things, such as finances and family routines.
• Feeling like you're not spending enough time with your partner and/or children.
• Finding yourself drinking too much alcohol , smoking too much, or using other drugs.

Recognize and understand what causes stress!  This is how we learn and find ways of handling life's problems.  Below are some tips that can help relieve stress after realizing and understanding our feelings.

• Take time away for yourself.
• Maintain good health with a good diet and exercise regularly. 
• Try to avoid fatigue by going to sleep a little earlier.
• Get involved in community programs designed for parents and children.
• Talk to someone, professionally or even just a friend.
• Learn of ways to unwind to manage the tension.
• It's okay to say if you're feeling pressured, tense or drawn out at the end of a busy day.
• Practice, practice, practice-time management.

So Lets Start Blogging!

Has life ever thrown you a "curveball", and you didn't know how to handle it?  Mine was being blessed with children at an early age.  Becoming a mother at a young age forced me to be selfless and much more mature than I was prepared for.  Nothing can ever prepare you for motherhood.  Sure you can read all the baby books like the ever so popular "What to Expect When You're Expecting", but what you come to realize after the baby arrives is that being a mom, well, it's self taught more than anything.  A lot more of what I've learned as a parent didn't come from a book, it came from trial and error.  But there has been quite a bit that has come from the knowledge and experience of other people in my life, particularly moms.  Being able to relate to someone who had gone through the uncertainties and challenges that come with being a new mom meant so much more to me than reading books.

My goal for this blog is to talk about the every day struggles a mother may go through, in hopes to make that connection from one parent to another with helpful tips and tricks for parenting.  Let's be real, there's no better way to learn of your stories and experiences than blogging.  Mothers!  Feel free to share your parenting experiences, struggles, life long lessons, or just simple stories.  It's way more productive to share stories and receive feedback than it is to simply read a book!