Being a Better Mom

I've worked really hard this past week to try harder to be a better mom after I had a bit of an emotional breakdown and couldn't believe how ridiculous I was being as a parent.

We've been making all of these changes in our lives lately to cut out the fat, the extra expenses, the bad/addictive/terrible food products (bye bye corn and wheat!) and have been working hard on focusing on the stuff that really matters. 

like Brocolli. brocolli matters!

One of those things is spending more quality time with my boys and embracing the fact that I now get to be a stay at home / work from home Mom. The way I looked at it before, I wasn't getting to be one, I was stuck being one and it was a hard pill to swallow. As much as I love my boys, the idea of being stuck  in the house with them every day sounds more painful than qualitative.

So, if you can't change your situation you have to change your mindset about it. And I have!

This is what we did this week (big shout out to Pinterest for helping me with a bunch of ideas!)

- I switched around some stuff in the boys rooms and turned Cash's room into a big play room and Carter's room into a sleeping room. This way they kind of have two rooms, but play time and sleep time aren't getting mixed up. Still working on getting them to sleep at the same time, but hey, it's progress!

- I moved the play kitchen & most of their toys upstairs to the new play room and now when we have free time & pretend time it's spent in there!

- I created a schedule for our whole day so that at any given time if we're not sure what we should be doing I have a go-to option!

- I went to the Dollar Store and grabbed a WHOLE BUNCH of activity stuff we can do! Including Popsicle sticks, Coloring Books, Watercolor Paints & More!

- We made Popsicle Stick Builder Thingys! This helped us with learning shapes (only flat side shapes, though! downside!) like hexagons, squares, rectangles and triangles! Cash thought the hexagon made an excellent hat!

- We played Restaurant in the play kitchen and Mommy made Cash a yummy "Cookie Burger" while Cash made Mommy a delicious "ABC Block" salad!

- I actually had time to clean (gasp!) and make dinner (shock!) and at the end of the day when Daddy came home my hair was still in place, I was smiling and I wasn't two steps away from locking my kids in a room!


All in all I'd say that it's been a better week! I'm not perfect, I certainly would never claim to be, but I knew I could be better and every day I'm trying to be. They deserve that much.