100 Rockin Summer Activities For Kids

I have a new tab on my page that I've been working on for some time. Go ahead. . .take a peek up top! I'm quite proud of all the research that went into this little project! With the Summer almost upon us, I wanted to come up with a solid list of things for me and the little monsters to do this season. (Lord knows, I must keep them entertained or suffer through major "noise pollution"!)  Well, I came up with. . . . .drumroll, please. . . . .

100 Rockin Summer Activities for Kids! 

 Thanks to Pinterest, Google, and my fellow blogging/crafting mommas and poppas out there, I've found enough ideas to keep us busy all summer long! I'll be highlighting them on Wednesdays for the next few months, so tune back in, but in the meantime you can find the WHOLE LIST HERE. 

Feel free to share this post with all your friends! I know from experience just how hard it is to keep kiddos busy and occupied!  We parents can use all the help we can get! :)  Happy Summer Season!

100 Rockin Summer Activities For Kids!!

Ever Notice How Patient Children Are. . .

Have you ever noticed how patient children are?  How when waiting for something exciting to happen, they clasp their little hands, don't make a sound, don't ask questions, sit calmly and quietly, and exonerate an insurmountable measure of patience and self-restraint. . . . .yea, me either! We must not be referring to MY little monsters! As much as I can tell from my own experience, this "waiting period" for anything from a childhood's perspective is never a time of self-control.  The usual scenario goes a little something like this:

"Mr. Grouch, wait a minute.  I will give you (said snack) as soon as Mommy gets off the phone."

Chaos ensues. First comes the wringing of the hands in violent frustration and the glaring glances. Then comes the over-achieving sighs of annoyance. The dancing in place begins, proceeded directly by groans of "Huuuuurry up, mommyyyyyy!" to which I politely (yea, right) reiterate that I am on the phone and he will need to wait.

Jumping up and down, grabbing my arms and swinging around, sitting at my feet, continuing sighs of dissatisfaction and impatience follow. This goes on until he decides, I should get her attention another way. This is my favorite part. . .

Mr. Grouch starts running circles in the house, leaping off train tables and knocking items off the table. Before I can grab him he's dive-bombing off the couch onto a mountain of pillows in the floor. And he does all of this in absolute silence. . .NOT. (Yes, I just brought that phrase back.)  The squeals and laughs and shouts for attention overwhelm the obviously important phone call that I'm in the middle of. I try to shush him down, but he is persistent on getting me off that phone and onto snack time.  By this time, I am beyond over giving a disrespectful child anything sugar-related.

I can just see the wheels in his little monster brain turning as I walk out of earshot so as to hear the person on the other line. This tactic is not working. . .desperate times call for desperate measures! I'll just have to get this snack myself! He proceeds to the kitchen, pushing a dining room chair across the floor and up next to the cabinet. Climbing onto the chair, he then lifts a knee and crawls successfully onto the kitchen cabinet. I just stand there and watch in general frustration.  Let's just see how this goes down.  Opening the cabinet, he finds a cereal box and pries the top open and sticks his little grubby hand in. Grabbing a handful, he pulls it out and stuffs it in his mouth as I hang up the phone and come into the room, my hands on my hips. Realizing that he's been caught, he stumbles back onto the chair, it tipping to the side, spilling the rest of the cereal box onto the floor where the dog generously devours each and every little piece.

Mr. Grouch looks up at my disapproving glare with a mouthful of Fruit Loops and eyes of shame. And just as I'm about to tear into him for being impatient and over-anxious and disobedient, it hits me like a ton of bricks just how much like his mother he truly is. He's a child. Waiting for something that seems so far away, yet just out of his grasp.

This is me lately. Guilty eyes with a mouthful of Fruit Loops, apologizing repeatedly for taking matters (of God's) into my own hands because I'm just too anxious to wait any longer for Him to come through.

Waiting is brutal.  Whether you are a child or just a child in the eyes of God who has repeatedly told you to Wait patiently. All things will come together at the proper time. Don't we always assume that NOW is the proper time and that God is just dragging His all-knowing feet. Lately, we have been asking God for many signs and plans to come together that will dictate the future of our family. Open doors, supply resources, orchestrate divine intervention in our lives. . .shine Your light on the next step of our journey! I'm ready for my dang SNACK already!

I'm starting to get it, as I pick Mr. Grouch up off the floor and let him know that he should have waited on me to get his snack.  Explaining to someone who doesn't see the future, doesn't understand the risks of doing it himself instead of waiting on my experience. He doesn't get the fact that waiting is a sign of obedience.  He does, however, now apprehend how easy it is to wreck a situation when you try to take matters into your own hands. Now for kitchen clean-up!

It's amazing how much these crazy little people in our lives can continuously teach us life lessons. It's quite aggravating, actually, I'm not gonna lie. I hate the sinking feeling that I have almost daily when I catch the little bugger doing something that I'm guilty of on a much grander scale. Really clever, God. . . .teach the teacher her own lessons by using her students. Nothing like putting me in my place and reminding me that God still sees me as a little child. But honestly, thank heavens for that! I still have a lot of things to learn, and could regularly use a healthy heap of patience as I constantly try to get God "off the phone" and onto snack time. For now, I'm going to practice clasping my hands in my lap, sit calmly and quietly, and exonerate an insurmountable measure of self-control. . . . .hopefully.

Maybe a few jumping jacks, squeals, and sighs will do the trick too.

Someone Is Missing

Have you ever had a feeling that something is missing, but you can't quite put your finger what it is? I've had that a lot lately.  But it's more of a who than a what.  I'm not even entirely sure how to put it into words, but someone is missing from my little family.  And I'm not quite sure who that someone is. It's an unsettling feeling because it's seemed for a while now that our family dynamic is perfect. What more could we need or want?

BC and I have been done with having kids since, well. . .Stinker came along.  He was quite the surprise, actually, as we were doing all we could to "prevent" said surprise from happening. God sure has a sense of humor.  And boy, is he creative! I'm even more convinced than ever that if God has a plan and a purpose for someone, he will do whatever it takes to bring that little person into being. Even against our better judgement.  And how His judgement is SO much better than ours!  So almost three years ago, on Father's Day no less, we welcomed our littlest bundle of crazy into the world.  He has been my walking, breathing, living JOY. Looking back, there is no way that I would have wanted to "prevent" him from happenning. Though we weren't sure that we wanted more than one child, I can't imagine my life without my little Stinky Pants.  There would be a huge void.  A hole.  A missing piece.

Which brings me back to my point. I had a dream a few days ago that there was another little human in my house. I say that loosely, because I couldn't tell you for a fact that this little person was a little "he" or a little "she". Just that they were here and it felt right.  Now I've been known to have some pretty far-out dreams. Just this week, I've been a music producer, a spy, at the hospital for the birth of my new niece/nephew who came out a monkey, and also started an orphanage for cats.  Anyone who's heard me talk about them knows that I have the most crazy, graphic, absurd, extraordinary dreams.  My creative mind just goes into overdrive at night!  But this dream was a tad different. We were just going about our normal life with THREE little people in our home instead of two. I woke up and thought nothing of it the rest of the day. But ever since, everytime we are playing at the park, sitting down to dinner, or I'm watching the boys and BC wrestle on the living room floor, I have this resounding thought in the back of my mind. Someone is missing.

I know plenty of my friends would tell me that this all means that we are supposed to have another baby. Fat chance, my husband would say! It's a little bit more complicated than that to me. Who knows if we are to increase our family the old-fashioned way intentionally, or if we are to just wait and pray and ask God who is missing.  We've talked about adoption, fostering, etc. before. . .could that be what this is about?  Who knows. But there is a void, and I know that where God places a void, He will also send someone to fill it.

I mainly share these thoughts with you all because I'm practicing this new thing called transparency. And maybe, just maybe some of you have had some of the same feelings. If you have, I would LOVE to hear about it!  I will continue to wait expectantly for God to reveal His plan.  I feel like He's always up to something lately!  It's exciting.  But this feeling that I have that we are missing someone in this family is something that I've not experienced before.  It's an eerie feeling. In my own selfishness, I'd love to pray that this missing person is of the female persuasion, as there is quite enough testosterone to go around the Clark household!  I just know that whomever it is, will make there way eventually.  And knowing God, it will be in the most unconventional, surprisingly perfect way.

Deep Questions

“Mom,” Mr. Grouchy Pants asks, nonchalantly, with a face full of tacos even though I’ve asked him a bazillion times not to talk with his mouth full, mostly to avoid exactly what is coming next.

“Mom, what is stereotypes?” I….um…you…lightbulbs…math…err. Where does he come up with this stuff? And who in their right mind used that word around my four-year-old?!

I try to have family dinner every night so that everyone can talk about their days with each other and we can attempt to live together, not just merely co-exist. The awesome side-effect of this is that the children feel comfortable asking just about anything, so long as it is asked over supper (amidst their fighting over who got more yogurt and who's finishing their green beans before whoever else is sitting at the table). The awkward side-effect of this is that sometimes daddy is busy or has a gig (hence the part-time musician thing) leaving me to deal with the deep questions by myself whilst trying to eat dinner peaceably.  

Now I get to watch my taco get cold while I try to figure out how to explain genderism, racism, and discrimination before dessert.  Dang BC and his need to be an "artist" at the most inopportune times!

My knee-jerk reaction to this whole scenario is of course, ignorance. Maybe if I told him that I didn't know, then that would suffice until Daddy got home. Or I could try to change the subject and we could talk about something trivial, like how the sun, the moon, and the stars work.  But then I've not only lied, I seem like a loser of a mom; to not know the simplest of things of course, means that I have failed at life and should just start collecting my cats now.

Conversely, the answer I think I have to give him opens his mind up to a world I'm not sure I ever want him to see, so I stir my guacamole around on my plate and overthink the crap out of this.  

How do I explain what a stereotype is without instilling those very stereotypes into his head? How do let him keep the notion he has that pretty much everyone is the same while I teach him that a lot of people unjustifiably assume that a lot of other people suck and/or excel at a lot of fairly ordinary things? How far back in history do I have to go to explain where these ideas we all seem to have about each other came from and once I get there, do I have enough real-world examples to serve as the anti-venom to the poisons I’m about to introduce to his psyche and why the heck didn’t anyone tell me this parenting thing would be so complicated?  

And now I wish I’d just made a light salad for dinner.  

So I start taking inventory of everyone I’ve ever known in my whole life and start lining up my counter-attack. ‘Okay, so, you’re blonde, you know, and you’ve never had so much as one puppy,’ I say to myself. Your grandpa is half-German and he's a smoker, your favorite cousin is part-Asian and she couldn’t she's currently being raised by her white grandparents. . . and I start to think that maybe, just maybe, I’m ready to answer this question.  

I’ve completely lost my appetite, worrying how the answer to this is going to affect his sensitive little heart, but I’m ready.  

At the last minute, he looks at me and says, “You know, you can always ask your phone. Sometimes it can tell you answers you don't know, Mom. It's called 'Giggle'.”

Oh, how precious is HE that he feels he has stumped me with these deep ponderings of his. . .But just in case, I “google” stereotypes. Yes. . .although this may lead to an hour-long session about the unfairness of man, I am just going to go with this. . .“Stereotypes are popular assumptions we make about groups of people, based on a lot of nothing,” to which my kid says, “Oh, okay” and finishes his taco.  

OKAY?? And you're satisfied with that?! But truthfully I am releasing a sigh of relief. If only all the answers were this easy.

7-11 Project: 5 Weeks & Counting. . .

My life is crazy. It's cluttered and chaotic and loud and on most occasions it is completely and utterly bananas!  That is why I really LOVE the above statement.  It really fits how I view things.  Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful.  I keep having to remind myself of this.  Especially when I realize how quickly time is flying by!!  I realized last night that there are only 5 weeks left in which to fulfill my 7-11 Project.  That could be seen as a lot of time, however, I'm no where near accomplishing HALF of the goals that I've set for myself.  I still have a ton to do.  I will say that having to update my blog every Monday with my success (or lack thereof!) has given me some extra incentive to cross even more things off of the list.  The month of October has really kicked my tail so far though.  There are so many functions and events and obligations that seem to pile up!  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! (I know a lot of my christian friends and family may think that that statement and idea is "sacrilegious" of sorts, but it's not the historical foundation of Halloween that gets me excited. On the contrary, at our house, we love to take something that may have been "meant for evil, and turn it to good".)  We love to dress up and find every possible excuse year-round to do so!  We are sooooo enjoying the fall weather, beginning of the changing leaves and colors, and have so much fun with all crafts "pumpkin"!  Not only is Halloween quickly approaching, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, Christmas shopping has already begun, and I am currently in the process of organizing two baby showers and one wedding shower all coming up in the next 5 weeks.  I've taken on a lot lately, but I'm so enjoying the busyness of the Fall season!  All this chaos, and then I fit in my personal goals with the 7-11 Project.  So please overlook the fact that I may not be crossing-off as many things as I would like as quickly as I would like to. . .I'm still convince, God-willing, that it will all work out in the end.  I work best in the "eleventh hour", after all! Back to the progress. . .

1. Do 11 new activities with the kids.

This weekend, we did something that I've been meaning to do for sometime, and that was take the boys to a festival.  The Myriad Botanical Gardens downtown was hosting The Festival on the Green and provided a whole list of fun activities and events for children and adults to promote their newly renovated facilities.  They put in a HUGE splash park with light shows and fog and sprinklers.  The kids got SOAKED to the bone, but it was the most fun that Mr. Grouchy Pants has had in a long time.  He has developed quite a fondness for water this summer, and didn't mind a bit that autumn is now upon us!  He jumped right in and started running amuck amidst the sprinklers with the rest of the mass amounts of toddlers!

  Along with the new splash zone that was put in, there was also a new area for the kiddos to play.  They had a maze made out of corn and bushes, man-made mini mountains for the kids to climb, a ball pit to play in, and had lots of new pavilions and stages set up with entertainment.  Live music and children's theatre were going on all Saturday.  The boys also enjoyed the miniature pumpkin patch!

We will definitely be spending some more time downtown at all the new areas to enjoy the outdoors.  I'm hoping the excellent Fall weather stays with us for some time before the blistering winter cold hits.

2. Tackle 11 projects around the house.

This week we worked really hard on organization.  It's become obnoxiously obvious to me that these little monsters have exceeded the recommended toy limit.  In order to teach them a bit of thankfulness and appreciation for their stuff, I decided to host The Great Toy Sort.  I went to Wal-Mart and invested in 4 large storage bins, labeled them, and then brought them to the boys room to begin a thorough downsizing. 

At first, they weren't sure what this was all about.  They tried claiming bins to act as race cars or hiding spots.  LOL.

We officially have taken the toy toll down to half it's original size.  We are placing two bins into the garage for storing and keeping two inside for playing.  Once they get tired of what they have inside, we will switch them out and Viola!. . .new toys!  I love their lack of memories at this age.  Misplaced toys become brand new again after about 3 months! But that was a organization project I've been meaning to tackle for some time.  Mission accomplished!

3. Write 11 new blog posts.

This is one of my goals that is finally DONE.  I have successfully written 13 blog posts that I've either posted or are up and coming in the months of November and December.  It's good to have them finished and scheduled for posting with the NaNoWriMo Challege coming up next month (This is the novel-writing contest that will be held the whole month of November.)  I fully intend to take advantage of this awesome challenge and write my first novel next month!  Can't wait to share the progress on here!  You all will be the first to get the sneak peeks! :)

4. Read 11 new books.

I just started my new book choice.  So far, I can tell that I'm going to LOVE it! I have heard amazing reviews of the book as well as the movie and wanted to be sure that I read it before I rented the movie.  The books are most often better, in my opinion.  I'll let you know for certain when I'm finished! Just a few chapters in, but I'm certain this will be one of those that I stay up all night to finish!

Well, that's about it for the updates this week.  I do understand that there are some goals that I don't mention every week, and other goals that I have yet to mention at all in my post updates.  For example: Sincerely apologize to 11 people that I've wronged/hurt; Do 11 random acts of kindness, etc.  Some of these goals are very personal to me.  Others, I don't post about for fear that I may come across as boasting, and that is definitely not my intention.  What I will be doing (in the next day or so) is opening a separate page with all of the goals and where I stand in accomplishing each. (For those crazy few of you who have wondered and are keeping track).  Stay tuned for that in the tabs at the top of the page next to "Because I Said So. . ."

Also, in reading a ton of other people's blogs and websites, I have noticed a trend: GIVEAWAYS.  I'm not sure why bloggers are so big on giveaways, but I have noticed the underlying benefit of hosting said giveaways: BRIBERY and FREE ADVERTISING.   Soooo, I figure since I'm fairly new to the blogging world and most definitely naive to the many avenues of getting my blog out there to the masses, I will try to partake in this style of marketing.  Coming up next week, I'll have the details on MissBananaPants's VERY FIRST GIVEAWAY!  In the meantime, join my facebook page if you haven't already and feel free to share my link to any of your friends! I'm planning a BIG incentive for those who can help me build up my follower-base! (And yes, it will be something more grand than just my friendship! Ha!  As if that's not already enough! LOL.

Have a fantastic week, and remember, "Your Life Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Wonderful." :)

The Great Mom Debate

I found a box yesterday full of papers and stories and embarrassing journal entries I had written from the time I was in middle school.  I stumbled across a journal entry from 8th grade that hit a strange nerve with me. In my 13 year-old wisdom, I seemed to have known that one day I, like a bajillion other women, would be entangled in one popular debate: To Work After Baby or Stay at Home?

Although I was naive in my world experiences and my writings, I was most definitely not a mom. But I had managed to pick up on a few key issues:

1. Women that choose or have to return to work post baby almost always have a bitter taste in their mouth about doing so. They translate this bitterness into little snide comments towards stay-at-home mothers regarding their lack of drive, failure to contribute financially to the home, and/or their disgusting amount of free time.

2. Stay-at-home mothers typically respond by saying, first and foremost, that they respect working mothers for the difficult decision and busy schedule they have chosen or are forced to adhere to. Then, to counter snide comments, they let flow several equally passive aggressive comments regarding how staying at home with your child is actually the hardest form of “work” and it is the very best that one can do for her child.

If a woman falls into either of these two categories, it is pretty much impossible to convince her that she is wrong or misguided. #1′s and #2′s stick to the group they are in with very little tolerance or ability to see the other group’s point of view a lot of the time.  This is just sad, and very close-minded in my opinion.  You see, I have been both women.

Now that I am a mother, I appreciate my 13-year-old point of view on the topic, the black and white harshness with which I decided, in all my infinite wisdom, that mothers will not and cannot appreciate what other mothers choose to do.  I did believe I would rather be the latter of the two women at the time.

Immediately after school however, I delved right into the grown-up work world. Forty hours a week, carefully planned weekends, timed lunches and the like becoming my normal routine. I enjoyed my career in the exciting Apartment industry.  It was fast-paced, fulfilled my constant desire to help people, and exhausted my God-given ability to chit-chat all day long. Everyone deserves a vacation though, right?  When I found out I was expecting Baby Grouchy Pants, I didn't hesitate in deciding (with BC, of course) that it was doable for me to stay home for awhile. I had been working for 8 years in the same industry and was reaching the point of "burnout".  For months ahead of time, each time I had a particularly difficult day at work, I would daydream about lounging on the couch, watching Law & Order reruns, and taking up numerous pointless hobbies to fill all of my spare time. It seemed that staying home would afford me a life of leisure with no boss and no demands of me.

It only took a matter of a few weeks home with a newborn to understand my new reality.  I was seeing pretty clearly that the whole “life of leisure” thing is a crock of dog doo. I DO indeed have a boss. He pees through his clothes and gets fussy every hour and a half. He demands me to feed him, clothe him, bounce with him, sing with him, wave loud musical toys in front of his face. It is very much the job that I thought I was leaving with the exception that I do not clock out at 6 p.m., I am not guaranteed vacation pay, and I most certainly do not wake up on Fridays to find a fat check deposited in my bank account.  My "newborn boss" and I got along as such, but I desperately craved that adult interaction again.  I wanted to talk to someone who didn't "goo-goo-gah-gah" or give me blank stares when I tried to converse about my tragic weight-loss frustrations or Dr. Phil diagnosis.  I was bored.  And by one-years-old, so was Mr. Grouch.  It was finally decided that I would enter the working world again.

A few years later, while working my little booty off showing and leasing and marketing more apartment homes, I was overjoyed (and a bit shocked) to realize we were expecting Baby #2.  Mr. Grouch took up most of my evenings and weekends and my job took up the rest of my time.  I was wondering just where exactly this new stinker was going to fit in.  I had a routine; a schedule; a plan.  And a new little monkey was going to make "working my way up the apartment industry ladder" a tad more exhausting.  But that's what I wanted, right??

It took going straight back to work after Mr. Stinky Pants came along to wake me up and make me realize that THAT was not my dream anymore.  As much as I had a need for "grown-up time", I also felt that I could personally not do my "mommy job" well when I was emotionally, physically, and mentally drained by the work day's activities.  I had nothing left.  This might very well have been my inability at time management, as many of my friends rock both jobs with style and never miss a beat.  They are rock stars! But it was not what I wanted anymore. When I became complacent in my day job, and was "released", so to speak in the middle of the summer this year, BC and I both agreed that my life needed to take a turn.  I would pursue other life-long interests and school, but more importantly, I would become a stay-at-home-mom.  It's not always been the easy choice, but it's been the right choice for our little family. 

Earlier, in my first few months of staying home, BC had often made the comment that he worked during the day, and therefore needed more sleep and general lazy time at home.  Hmmm, what exactly does he think I do all day? After enduring the weeks and weeks of people saying “Well aren’t you lucky!” when finding out that I was a new, stay-at-home mother, I felt like I could scream. YES, I am so lucky! YES, I don’t have a job with a professional title! YES, doing the same thing over and over all night and day with a toddler screaming in the background is a blessing from Jesus himself! My sensitivity was not necessarily towards BC (although it showed in spurts of sarcasm now and then), but towards the public at large. There have been quite a few days that I would pay someone a million bucks to sit behind a desk again in my comfy rolling chair, file paperwork, and take coffee breaks. Peeing without a 2-year-old in my lap would also be a perk. Although my life is great in large part to these two crazy monkeys I call sons, the privacy and control over my life pre-kids is sometimes missed.

A few weeks ago, I talked with my sister-in-law about my situation. She had children at the same time as I had and also been extremely career-driven as a physical therapist (another fellow rock star mom!). Most of our conversation revolved around her frustration of balancing work and home life in general, her kids’ various illnesses and ailments, and, finally, how I was lucky not to have to work at all. I shut up and resolved to adjust my perception of the great Mom Debate.
So here it is:

If you have kids, they must be taken care of. By the Department of Children’s Services, your partner, or you…whatever… someone has to feed them. If it's most fulfilling for YOU to do so AND it's possible, then do it.  But if it's more realistic to know that they are safe and nurtured by people you trust and that you may have a nervous breakdown if you did it full-time, please be strong enough to let someone else do it.

For all my fellow stay-at-home moms-- we DO have a “real job” but with less structure, downtime, or financial reward. If you work, good for you, you are taking care of the financial part which is all too necessary a part with little ones that need to be fed.

But mostly, being a mother is WONDERFUL, so whatever your position is on staying home or heading for the office, do so happily and willingly. Don’t judge or assume, just take care of your monsters and I’ll take care of mine. Currently, I plan to do that this way.