Parenting

This is one of those week’s when sentiment has crept in and taken over. The first week in April is the anniversary of the passing of two of my grandparents so I always find myself thinking more about them and family at this time of the year. And it just so happens that I’ve been …

Do you know what my most favorite part of summer is — no routines!  I really love that we don’t have to stick to a schedule and can just operate day-by-day.

But once school begins, our house really needs that regular daily schedule to keep away the chaos.

If you have kids in school, I’m sure you know school fundraisers are a big deal! The goal, of course, is to find a quick & easy fundraising activity that doesn’t take a lot of time for families to do and in my opinion, should allow the kids to get involved in fundraising efforts without …

Do your kids have their countdown clock for the last day of school started?  Have them help you do one more thing before they ditch their school supplies for bathing suits!  Sort through all their end of year school supplies to see what they can reuse or recycle for next year!

This is one of those posts that, as a parent, I hope you never have to use.  I hope you can file it away on a Pinterest board or in a favorites menu and never have to use it.  In all honesty, I wish I didn’t have to write it. 

My son has another broken bone this summer.  It’s his 5th fracture in 2 years. (Oh, and my daughter was also in a cast last summer).

Yes, we’ve had him tested – for calcium deficiency, for Vitamin D deficiency, for brittle bone disease — you name it and they ran a test, checked the scans and referred to multiple physicians.  But the only answer we have is that “he’s growing quickly and the bones haven’t filled in yet”.  Not much comfort to any of us right now.

My main reason for writing this post is to let other parents know what we’ve learn about living with casts.

I learned a long time ago that the memories our kids have of the holidays are not those picture perfect ideals that you see in magazines and movies. 

In fact, some of their fondest memories of Christmases past are ones that I may not want them to remember – but for them, it’s what made the holiday special or different or just plain enjoyable. 

Have you ever done something brilliant (I mean absolutely amazing!) but you just didn’t realize it until years later?

I recently had one of those moments last month but it didn’t start as happy as it ended.

Anyone who’s met me, or my kids, will tell you that I’m a fairly
protective parent.  Or as my kids lovingly refer to me, ‘The Fun
Police’.  I didn’t plan to be this type of parent – one who monitors
what they eat, where they are and how much sleep they get.  But plan or no plan, it’s happened.

We’d like to thank Walmart for sponsoring this post and supplying parents with a great new option for back to school shopping.  As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Last year, back to school shopping for us was insane!  We usually head out a few weeks before school begins to get our supplies but since we decided to take a late vacation (to Rocky Mountain National Park – it was AMAZING!) we were pressed for time.

Once we returned, there was less than a week to get all the school supplies we needed.  Here’s a quick summary of how that worked out:

So, what was it for you? Which moment caused you to stop and say “Where did the time go?” or “I can’t believe that they’ve grown so quickly!”

Sometimes it’s those big moments – their first steps, the first day of Kindergarten or Middle School, when they learn to ride a bike, or the day you hand over the car keys.