Category Archives: Spending time as a family

Hallelujah!

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Are you taking time off during the holidays this year?  If so, how are you planning to relax? Really relax where you aren’t on a schedule, aren’t in charge of something or someone and are able to not have a care in the world about what happened next or when? For me, it’s been seven years since I took a vacation like this, before I had my children.

Vacation is defined as:

  1. A respite or a time of respite from something: intermission
  2. A scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended <a period of exemption from work granted to an employee>
  3. A period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation <had a restful vacation at the beach>
  4. An act or an instance of vacating

I grew up in a family where vacation meant taking a road trip. Our vacations were educational with a lot of adventure and exploration. We would drive from point A to point B, sometimes going eight + hours at a time, sightseeing the next day or two, then get back in the car and drive to the next endpoint and repeat. I learned a lot of these vacations about our country gaining an appreciation for its history, the geography and false advertising. My sisters and I once convinced our parents that we had to stay at a themed hotel that was advertised for hundreds of miles away only to be disappointed when the hotel didn’t quite live up to what we thought it would be – darn billboards!

What I didn’t learn on these vacations was how to relax. I cannot recall a single vacation where we were just laid by the pool or the beach. I cannot recall a single vacation that wasn’t meticulously mapped out or timed. I cannot recall ever feeling bored on vacation.  Basically I don’t have a lot of practice relaxing.

My parents were teachers taking every opportunity to teach us at home and on the road. I really appreciate what they did for my sisters and I, and want to make sure I make the most of every opportunity I have to teach my children through experience too. I also realize that I want to teach my children how to relax and re-energize. I want my boys to know the difference between going to a new place and relaxing (e.g., just because you do one, doesn’t mean you are necessarily doing the other). But first, I have to learn to really relax when I take a vacation myself.

I blogged earlier this year about “Where Did My Vacation Go?” and committed to not repeat that again this year. I’m taking time away from all work, including blogging, through the end of the year. I currently don’t have any to-do list I need to complete while I’m on break. Hallelujah! I want to see what that looks and feels like, and see if I can really relax and re-charge.  I need the experience. I owe it to myself, and more importantly to my kids if I plan to teach them how to do it.

If you have vacation coming up, how do you plan to relax and recharge?

I wish each of you the happiest of holidays and look forward to picking up our conversation in the New Year.

Gingerbread Dream House

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Every year I am amazed at the creativity and great lengths people go to for the holidays. Homes and yards I didn’t pay much mind to before, are now filled with lights and decorations and have my full attention. I love how it brings the streets to life giving off that warm feeling you normally only experience inside someone’s home.

While we decorate our home for the holidays, we don’t hold a candle to some of our neighbors (note: we truly appreciate our neighbors decorations, it gives us a great reason to look out our front windows).  Since meeting my husband the art of making, or more accurately decorating, gingerbread houses has become a tradition for our family.  This was a tradition in his family and we incorporated it into ours.

Decorating a gingerbread house is all about how you envision it in its final state. It’s about making (baking), constructing and adding the final touches. It’s about sugar, lots of sugar; colors, the more the better; and details, a great house has a lot of fine detail like a cat in the window or a wreath on the door.

It’s fun to work on a gingerbread house. There is no judgment or expected perfection. It’s about trial and error, being together as a family and building something together.

I’ve thought about what a real dream home might look like for my family in the future. And while I may fantasize about increased square footage, and the number of bedrooms or baths it may have, I’m reminded I need look no further than my family’s gingerbread house, it’s more like our home than I realized. Each year it never changes in size but does in appearance, and most importantly it always brings us together as a family.  I think it’s the perfect dream house.

What holiday traditions do you have that brings your family together?

Fall-ing in Love

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I love fall. The first hints of crispness in the air, a hint of colder temperatures coming and the leaves changing. It was beautiful and I’m reminded of the beauty I’m surrounded by in nature with each passing season.

I recently visited Stowe, VT with friends. The connecting time was invaluable. The surroundings made it that much more special. Gorgeous red, yellow, orange and green leafs everywhere; pumpkins, warm cider and maple products around; the first fire in the fireplace since spring; and football on TV.  It took me to a nostalgic place reminding me of my childhood where my love of fall was born. Getting relief from the warm Florida weather, going to football games with family and friends, being cold and needing a blanket and a warm drink to stave off the cooler air. It was a special time.

Someone asked me how my trip was.  I responded “Stowe was all the things I love about fall in one place.” How often do we experience that?

I sometimes wonder how my children experience fall. Do they get as much enjoyment out of going to the pumpkin patch each year as I do?  Do they look forward to pumpkins carvings, deciding on Halloween costumes, trick-o-treating, and keeping warm with layered clothes and a hot chocolate or apple cider like me?

I’m not looking forward to the leaves being gone from the trees back home, or the rain and colder temperatures that will be around for many months to come, but I have a wonderful memory I can go back to when needed and new ones getting added with my family all the time.

If that doesn’t work, a cup of hot cider should do it.

Uno!

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My childhood memories of playing games is vast: Sorry, Simon, Merlin, Dark Tower, Monopoly and Uno to name a few. I enjoyed them as a child, but my enjoyment seems to fade as I got into my teens. My Mom would suggest we do a “Family Night” or “Game Night” when I was a teenager and the thought of it made me cringe. Boring, I would think, that’s what kids do. As a parent now, I better appreciate what my Mom was looking for. To spend uninterrupted time together as a family, and to enjoy each other’s company before my sisters and I were out of the house.

My sons have accumulated many board games over the years and I often thought they would end up with layers of dust on them, never used. I envisioned myself requesting a game night when they were older and was preparing myself for objections and disappointment. My kids surprised me recently when they asked to actually play the games. We started with a board game, Snail’s Pace, and really enjoyed ourselves. While we didn’t make it an official “Family Night” or “Game Night” we have had many unofficial impromptu game dates since.

My oldest son is really into Legos and I stumbled upon Creationary, which is a Legos-based game. You roll a dice, draw a card and build a place or thing out of Legos in a given amount of time. It really is a game you can enjoy at any age.

My youngest son is really into Lightning McQueen and any car from the movie Cars. I stumbled upon Cars 2 Uno in our neighborhood Target and knew I had to get it. I loved Uno as a kid and thought perhaps my kids might one day too. In the interim, I knew my youngest would love a Cars-related item with our other games. As I guessed, my youngest was excited about the cards, but didn’t have much interest beyond looking at them. To my surprise, my older son was intrigued with the cards and wanted to learn how to play right away. My husband and I have played dozens of Uno games with my son since. He seems to enjoy the game as much as I did when I was a kid.

I had no idea how much fun playing games could be. What I enjoy most is the uninterrupted fun with my family enjoying each other’s company.

A note to my Mom: Sorry, I wasn’t more open to this as a teen!

What activities or games have created uninterrupted fun for your family?

Season to Grow

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Our yard is a bit of a mess. We moved into our home in 2005 and swore we would live here five years max.  Here we are seven years later in the same home. I love our house, but as our boys grow older we know we will eventually need to move to a home that has a bit more space. In the interim, it’s become apparent that we are in need of a change—a bit of sprucing up, perhaps.

In 2005, our yard had many good qualities: beautiful rockrose bushes in the front, large rosemary bushes in the back and an enormous plum tree, which provided wonderful shade and privacy for our yard.  The northwest winters where we live are always a bit unpredictable. Temperatures average in the 30s and 40s, but can occasionally drop into the teens. On multiple occasions over the past several years we’ve had snow on the ground for the good part of a week, something we’re not used to.

The rockrose bushes died off first. It got a plant disease and started a slow death that led to its removal in early 2008. The rosemary bushes that complimented our deck in the back, and some bushes that bordered one side of our property died next in the freeze of 2010.  The plum tree, while pruned once several years ago, has overgrown to a point that it needs an intensive pruning this winter.  Our yard has taken a beating from all the running feet playing baseball and football on it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We’ve gotten to a place where we are ready to grow. Grow new plants, revive old ones and see what we can make flourish again.

It’s not much different than us as people. Sometimes we get in a rut or a phase and we let things die off, get away from us, or we simply outgrow it. With the responsibilities that come with parenthood it’s easy for relationships to fade, taking care of ourselves can lose it’s priority, and trying to maintain, let alone enjoy what you have, can feel more exhausting than rewarding.  Yet something happens, a trigger like reconnecting with a friend or awakening where you realize what you’ve let get away from you, and it becomes time for a change, a time for new growth, renewal and success.

I’m looking forward to see what change will bring. In many ways, for my family and me, it’s our season to grow. Add new friendships to our lives, rekindle old ones we have tended to as well as we would have liked, take care of each other and ourselves so we can all flourish.

With each passing season I now ask myself, “how are we growing?” for my husband and I as partners and as a family.

How are you growing?

Living in the Present

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During one of our recent date nights, my husband and I went to see the movie Safety Not Guaranteed. It’s about a group of journalists who answer a want ad in pursuit of a story. Writing the story becomes a journey in being honest with yourself and learning to be vulnerable to experiencing something you didn’t believe possible—true joy, adventure, love and um, time travel (you’ll need to see the movie to understand this part). Despite the surreal bits, the movie is mostly about living in the present instead of getting mired in the past or waiting on the future.

As parents, living in the past can be alluring as you find yourself romanticizing about the life you had pre-child, or reflecting on the many things that you’ve had to get done since.  It’s similarly easy to lose yourself in thinking about that future—what’s needed to give your child the best shot at a top notch university, or even just planning and being prepared for all the activities that are on the calendar for the upcoming week. Each takes concentration, and can being a range of emotions from excitement to sheer terror.  Regardless of which direction you’re going–whether you’re thinking about the past or planning for the future–doing so takes your mind away from the present. But is living in the present really so dull that we need the distraction?

Our oldest son graduated from kindergarten in June and there was a picnic for the two kindergarten classes at his school to celebrate the occasion. At the picnic they had a ceremony of sorts, where each child was called by name and crossed through a decorated hula-hoop that was turned on its side.  It was very informal and the kids thought it was fun to stand up and have people clap for them.  It struck me during the picnic how glad I was to be experiencing what I was experiencing right in that moment. I wasn’t thinking about all the activities that had led up to this day in recent weeks or what would come next. I just took it all in and it was pure joy.

I understand that my children will be grown and off on their own before I know it. Time seems to go faster with each passing year so I’m trying my best to experience the present as it happens, to not focus on what happened yesterday or what’s going to happen tomorrow but what’s happening right now, today.

How do you live in the present?

It’s a Lego-Lego World

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How many parents out there have Lego fanatics in their family?  I tell you with great conviction we have two in our house in my boys.

I went on a trip that took me out of town a few months back and picked up two Lego Minifigure packs at the store for my boys. For anyone unfamiliar, the packages contain Lego Minifigures: tiny people equipped with various outfits and accessories. These are sold in packages that don’t reveal which character is inside so you don’t know if you are buying a new figure or one your child already has.  It’s children’s marketing at its best—once your child has one, they will want them ALL. As a parent, you will try to blindly feel your way to all the Lego Minifigures your child desires. Thankfully the packages are relatively inexpensive and my boys get great joy from them.

There are a number of reasons that Legos make the perfect toys for children:

  • They have changed immensely since I was a child and yet are still a classic
  • They capture my children’s attention for long periods of time
  • They reveal your child’s building capacity
  • They reveal your child’s creative capacity
  • They reveal your child’s willingness to look for a very tiny and very unique piece that is needed to complete a project

I used to believe (this stems from my own childhood I’m sure) that Legos were for boys, an activity fathers and sons.  Not true nowadays.  We stumbled upon a great Lego game called Creationary a few weeks ago and decided to invest in it. The game has you roll a die to select a category, choose a card within that category and then build whatever is on the card. My husband and oldest son are both really good at this game. I’m not as good. They often struggle to guess what I’ve built. “Mom, is that a spaceship?” my son asks. “No, it’s supposed to be a tree,” I say. You get the idea.  Win or lose, the game allows us to sit down as a family and have some fun, uninterrupted time together—which is much appreciated in our fast-paced lives.

I’m thankful that Legos are something my whole family can enjoy together; we’re better for it!

Rare and Valuable

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The most valuable baseball card is the 1909 Honus Wagner, 2B Pittsburgh Pirates which recently sold for $2,800,000. The Kohinoor is believed to be the most expensive diamond worth by some potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. These items are considered rare and valuable. But are they the most rare and valuable things in the world?

I was recently in the grocery store perusing the card section in search of Father’s Day cards. First I focused on finding cards for my boys to give to my husband and their grandfathers. Then I focused on finding one for my own Dad from me. The range of cards was striking to me. There were humorous cards, heartfelt cards, straightforward and simple cards. A majority of Father’s Day cards revolved around a dad’s love of beer, golf, watching TV, yard work and struggle to control bodily functions. What struck me about this was how old-fashioned these card themes all sounded. The cards made it sound like dads sit on the sidelines of raising their child, and play the role of provider, yardman, and guy that has many valid excuses to check-out and not need to pay attention to the kids (e.g. they worked so hard and did so much yard work, they need to watch golf, and drink to recuperate and can’t control their body functions as a result). Sounds very 1960s or 1970s to me. Haven’t most dads evolved as parents?

My dad worked a lot and played the role of provider and yardman when we were kids. It was much more accepted and expected back then. He did make a point to spend time with my sisters and I. He made sure we always knew we were important to him, more important than his work and anything else he might have to get done. As we grew, Dad found more ways to spend meaningful time with us. Dad played golf, but did so with me, because I joined the school golf team. Dad was a runner, and when one of us took an interest, we would run together. Dad loved watching college sports, but preferred to watch games with my mom, and us girls. Aside from some of the stereotypical things, Dad was unique to us. He taught us to be independent, helped us on science projects and our math, coached us off-the-field in golf, softball and other sports, he was there for all of our important events including games, performances and milestone occasions. I thought everyone had a dad like mine.

As I grew older, I realized my dad shared similarities to many dads, but was different in many ways too. I have to admit, it was hard to find a man that I felt would be as good a father to our children as my dad was to us. I did find him though. My husband is a more evolved parent. He works a lot, and does yard work, but it’s because he enjoys doing these things. He’s been very engaged from the beginning, changing diapers, feeding our boys, burping them, and is comfortable taking care of the kids without me around. He makes time for his sons and enjoys spending time with them: watching seaplanes take off and land, building Lego sets together, and helping them as they learn new things. He realizes he has limited time with them before our sons will be grown and out on their own. I realize my husband shares similarities with many dads, but is different in many ways too.

To our family, Dad and Grandpa are rare and valuable, much more so than a one-of-a-kind diamond or baseball card.

To my father, my husband, and those fathers that put their family first and continue to change the way we look at fatherhood, thank you.

Happy Father’s Day.

Ca-Click

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How do you feel when you have a special moment in your life?  A moment that you can recognize as special while it’s happening, that you want to remember for as long as you’re able?  For me, I try to be still, to take it all in and take a mental picture, attempting to remember every detail from what I can see visually, and also what I feel emotionally. Ca-click.

I have a surplus of these memories from my childhood—BBQs at a neighbors’ house, relatives or friends visiting from out of town, road trips to new places. Luckily I was able to add to my mental memory scrapbook just this past Memorial Day weekend. My husband, two boys and I headed out of town for the long weekend. My husband and I were somewhat adventurous with our plans for the family—camping one night, hiking the next day, visiting a museum, and finishing up with another hike on the final day.  We wanted the children to have a new experience, something that they will hopefully remember for a long time.

I have to admit, I was preparing myself for the trip to not be 100% enjoyable. We’d never camped with the kids and we honestly didn’t know how they would do. We’d hiked with them before but only briefly; we’d never done an hours-long hike like the one we were planning. We knew the museum would go over well because we had been there before and know it has a fantastic children’s playground. Still the fact remained that there was a considerable variety of things that could go awry. What my husband and I agreed on was to be very flexible (much more so than we normally are) and to be prepared for the worst.

Lo and behold, there was an unexpected storm–thunder and lightning included–that hit during our night of camping. Thankfully it only momentarily dampened the picture-perfect trip we hoped for; it quickly passed and the trip was all uphill from there. In the end it was a huge success. There were many times my husband and I looked at each other knowing just how special it was. We were enjoying our trip, and more importantly enjoying each other.

The children hiked 4 ½ miles the day following our night of camping.  The waterfalls along the trail were amazing; they were going at full blast. Our oldest son saw us taking pictures and asked if he could take one. He hadn’t tried out a camera before.  He snapped one picture, then another. You could see the delight on his face at his accomplishment. It was almost like he knew he would remember this trip as much by the picture as the mental memory that had just taken form. Ca-click.

 

What’s Your Recipe for Success?

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My sons love to make cookies. They’re not so into the measuring and stirring of ingredients, but they love rolling out the dough and decorating the cookies before they go into the oven. And of course the best part is eating the cookies when they’re still warm from the oven.

I recently attended a leadership conference where the theme was Recipe for Success. It created a great Iron-Chef-type atmosphere amongst the attendees as we tried to break down what it takes to be successful. One exercise encouraged us to define our key ingredients for success. This led me to ask myself what my key ingredients were for success as a parent.

Some ingredients came to mind easily:

  • Knowing my role
  • Using that role to teach
  • Making sure my children know themselves and understand their feelings
  • Practicing patience and being calm
  • Rewarding desired behaviors
  • Encouraging my children without doing everything for them

Other ingredients came after more thought:

  • Taking care of myself
  • Tending to my relationship with my husband
  • Making time for friends

One vital ingredient came to mind only after a good night’s sleep:

  • Celebrate the successes: your child’s, your own and your family’s

Putting my parenting goals in recipe format made me think of baking cookies with the kids and reminded me to celebrate the time we spend together and appreciate the result of our work.

Sometimes in life it’s easy to focus on the recipe and not enjoy the process. I’d encourage all parents to savor the process of raising children. Figure out what ingredients are working in your parenting recipe and substitute or take out any that aren’t. Add new ingredients as needed and most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy yourself along the way. Don’t forget to celebrate your successes.

What are the key ingredients in your recipe for success?