I admit, I have been avoiding this as much as I try to avoid handwashing a sink full of grease-stained and moldy, macaroni and cheese-crusted dishes, and this time, I am not talking about having to change my two year old’s poop-stained diapers.  Believe it or not, I get frustrated with making New Year’s Resolutions.  I envy those blog writers who naturally know how to narrow their thoughts to a few attainable goals, and I especially commend anyone who can stick to their goals until the end of the year.  Unlike these great goal-setters, making realistic, honest resolutions that I know I can stick to and not break before the end of January has always been difficult for me.  However, after much pondering (and chewing through the end of my pencil to the point of no recognition), I have finally come up with just a few goals that I would like to share.  By writing them down and sharing them this year, I am also hoping that I won’t give up on my goals as easily as I give up on a pair of too-tight, pre-pregnancy jeans.

1)  Spend more time with and show more appreciation for my family.  I love my family and do all that I can to support my husband and each of my kids.  I am there for them, praise and help them, and do all that I can for them; however, this year, I want to take more time to do special things for each of them to show them that I appreciate them.  Through the busy and hurried confines of everyday life, I think my feelings of gratitude sometimes aren’t conveyed very well.

2)  Grow and manage our finances better so that we can save.  We aren’t people that like to splurge, and rarely do we find ourselves dining in fine restaurants reserved for only the wealthy.  However, if we could cut the costs of unnecessary things (like spending high dollars on extra cell phone internet) or substitute non-name brand items for more expensive items, we could save a little here and there.  We probably won’t become millionaires, but every little bit still counts in this economy.  Finding more creative ways to market and grow our tire and car business to bring in more income will probably also help us in being able to put money away.

3)  Make healthy choices.  I am not talking about stuffing myself with only tofu-made concoctions and salads everyday.  I am not a going to be the food Nazi here.  However, if I moderate what I eat and when I eat it, change some cooking methods (e.g. broiled versus fried), and balance exercise with moderated eating habits, I can still achieve the same results.

After thinking long and hard about these goals, I also realize that these and other goals that I set for myself are not set in stone and that I may need to change them to meet the demands of our busy, ever-changing life and world.  Too many times have I clutched ignorantly to New Year’s resolutions made at the beginning of the year.  Too often have I felt defeat when I don’t meet those goals because things in my life have changed one way or another and I have been too rigid with myself in trying to meet my goals.  This year, I vow to keep my goals attainable by changing how I can accomplish each goal when I need to, or by changing them altogether if they no longer apply to my life. With that said, I hope that you have resolved your own resolution frustrations, if any, and again, have a blessed New Year!

“Keep pushing, keep pushing!  It’s almost out.  Stop screaming now and calm down…one more big breath and breathe out through your nose…push it out!  You can do this!”

I am not going through labor again (thank goodness).  I just spent the last thirty minutes trying to help my son push a pomegranate seed out of his nose.  I know my four-year-old knows what I mean now when I say, “Don’t stick that in your nose!”  Yet it still was a hard lesson to learn, just like all the other things Mama told them not to do.

Mama Said, “Don’t show your privates in public!”

Now my kids know it’s not appropriate to show their privates in public.  Mama’s told them many times.  Yet, there was that one time that my now-ten-year old (then five-year-old) thought the mole on his private would get bigger and bigger and migrate to his face and eventually look like the mole on his dad’s face.  With that horror in mind, he nervously went to school where he showed his mole (on his private, let me remind you again) to his friends, hoping that they could help him get rid of the mole.  Of course, Mama got the call from the principal.

Mama said, “Don’t wait until we’re on the road to use the bathroom.  Go now!”

This is my worst pet peeve.  My daughter was the Roadside Bathroom Queen.  She never had to use the bathroom when we were at home, at a gas station, or at a rest area, but about ten minutes later, she would rock back and forth in her seat, beg to use the bathroom, and chant, “control, control, control,” to prevent herself from going in her pants.  We would always have to pull alongside the road so that she could do her business first.

Mama said, “Snakes are not pets!”

My boys love critters (as all boys do), they want to keep every insect, bug, or furry little animal that they can catch as a pet.  Some things, I’ll allow them to keep like crickets or tadpoles, but I know they know better when it comes to bigger, wilder animals.  Nevertheless, they tried to sneak a baby snake as a pet once, thinking it was the coolest thing they had ever caught.  The trouble was, they knew I would find it in the house, so they decided to keep it outside, in a big, old jar, but in the middle of a field.  By the time I found the jar, the poor snake had been baked to a crisp by the sun.  Of course, none of them admitted to putting the snake in the jar.

Mama said, “Don’t forget to flush the toilet!”

It seems that all my top pet peeves have to do with the bathroom or toilet, as this ranks number one among things that annoy me.  My kids love using the toilet and putting the toilet lid down (completely) after going.  We of course assume (since we’ve taught them many times over) that they have flushed the toilet.  Sometimes, we can’t even smell what’s in there until we lift up the lid and see the surprise inside.

Mama said, “Don’t hit, push, or play rough!  It hurts!”

My boys are really not very physical with other kids, only with each other.  They also don’t intentionally hit each other, but they do love to play rough.  And no matter how many times we tell them over and over again that they’ll get hurt, they still do it.  They have recently picked up on a game where the biggest will crawl on the ground, another boy will climb on him, and another boy will climb on top of that one.  All is fun as the biggest boy tries to carry the other ones, but when they all fall off, they start blaming each other and crying.

Sometimes, I feel like tearing my hair out.  Other times, I feel sorry for them, and sometimes, I just have to laugh.  It’s all part of parenting.

My husband came home the other day, tired and fatigued. Of course, he’s usually tired and fatigued after working on cars for hours anyways. However, he was more fatigued than usual, and after sitting on the sofa for not more than a few minutes, he went to lay down on the bed, saying that he felt nauseous. I didn’t think much of it until I received a call from my son’s school nurse saying that he had just thrown up at school. Yes, it was a case of the stomach bug.

In a big family such as ours, it’s often hard to get rid of the stomach bug and any other virus that passes through. It always takes a long time for everyone in the household to catch the virus, and by the time the last person gets the bug, it seems to have mutated enough that it now is something new and passes through the family again. Often times then, if we’re not careful, we’ll play hot potatoes with a virus a second round before finally getting rid of it.

It’s important then for us to really sanitize everything really well. My favorite product to keep on hand are those sanitizing wipes. Anyone can easily take a sheet out and wipe off counters, tables, and other surfaces without having to fuss much. Sometimes, if I don’t have a sanitizing wipe available, I’ll even use a baby wipe or wet wipe. They seem to work well, just without the added disinfectant. Before the sanitizing wipes, I used to keep watered down rubbing alcohol in a bottle to spray on surfaces, not sure if that was very effective, but it did seem to do the job. I also keep lots of travel-sized hand sanitizers in my purse. A parent of one of the students that I used to teach told me once that when she picked up her kids afterschool, she even made all her kids use hand-sanitizer before getting in the car.

Of course though, all these these precautions still don’t guarantee that you’ll be bug free; however, being cautious is always better. How about your family, what are some preventive measures that you take? We would love to hear from you! Comment back to this post.

Five minutes after putting his diaper on him. My almost two year old, Arthur, pulled off his diaper and strutted around our living room with his bare-naked bottom. I picked up his diaper and tried to coax him into letting me put the diaper back on him.

“No paiper!” he insisted. After having potty-trained four other kids, I realized that Arthur was ready for toilet training. However, for many first time parents, understanding when a child is ready for potty training and knowing how to toilet train a child can be a challenge.

As a new parent, I remember fretting when my oldest child wasn’t out of diapers yet by the time she was 2 1/2. My doctor had told me that different children would show readiness signs at different ages and that it would take longer for certain children to potty train than others. He also instructed that I not rush the potty training as starting it too early for some kids would cause problems (e.g. bed wetting) later. However, no one told me that potty training would take lots of time and persistence. In addition, I failed to recognize the clues my daughter was giving me to tell me that she was ready to be toilet trained.

With my other children, I began to understand that when a child starts to take his/her diaper off after wetting or soiling the diaper, he/she is probably ready for toilet training. There are still other signs though. For example, each time their older siblings went to the bathroom, my middle two boys, Wayne and Rayner, also insisted that I take off their diapers so that they too could use the toilet.

Knowing when to start potty training is just half the battle though. Knowing how to do it and being persistent, consistent, and patient with it is the bigger part of the potty wars. I realized after my second or third child that potty training becomes easier for a child if the child begins to recognize that “tinkling” or “I-have-to-go” sensation. The hard part is getting the child to recognize it and to control it enough to go in the toilet instead of in his/her diaper (or on the floor during times when a diaper just isn’t handy).

What I would often do is to try to also make potty training fun and encouraging. I would pick a day that I knew I would be free and plan a “Potty Party.” Treats for the day would of course be anything that would cause the child to pee a lot (e.g. popsicles, kool-aid, even clear soda). Every hour or so, I would take the child to sit on the toilet, and each time the child successfully goes in the toilet, I would praise him/her. Each successful toilet session also resulted in a potty treat (mine mostly got popsicles).

Experience has also taught me that to train a child to go without a diaper, you must take away the diaper altogether. What do I mean? Well somehow with all of my kids, it seemed that they had a harder time picking up that “tinkling” sensation if I left their diapers on or if I just gave them a Pull-up. What I would do during Potty Training 101 then, was to give them a cloth or plastic underwear to wear. I don’t know whether my kids were just used to the feel of a wet or dirty diaper (even though I really don’t let them sit in them), but each time they went in the cloth or plastic diaper, it seemed as if they could more easily understand that their underwear was dirty and demanded to use the toilet before they had to go or have their underwear taken off if they had already gone in it. After a day or so of scheduled potty sit-ons and being in an underwear, most of my kids began to pick up on when they had to go, and of course, the rest is history