My Description of the Perfect Mom

1.) A perfect mom knows that some days you do not get a shower, but she just applies more deodorant or perfume.

2.) A perfect mom may have a house straight out of a magazine OR maybe you caught her on a “good” day.

3.) A perfect mom knows parenting is hard, so she does not buy in to quick fixes or short-term solutions to her parenting challenges.

4.) A perfect mom wants to teach her children from her own life experiences, and sticks to it, even if today put those lessons a few steps back.

5.) A perfect mom is a woman who will not give up on her children.

6.) A perfect mom is someone who has failures and flaws, and knows she does not want her children to mimic them (if they really are that bad). She knows that her children will make their own mistakes, but she will still teach right from wrong in her house.

7.) A perfect mom is someone who is present and available when her children need her no matter the time of day or night.

8.) A perfect mom is someone who will not turn away from her responsibilities as mom no matter how difficult the day or behaviors shown…from her or her children!

9.) A perfect mom goes to bed at night exhausted from the challenges of raising her children all day, but still knows she will be ready to tackle it all the next day, or will at least do her best to act like it.

10.) A perfect mom is a woman who knows her role is about giving-giving lessons, giving love, giving constructive criticism, giving security-and she does not worry about her gain in return, yet she knows that what she will receive is the comfort and peace knowing that she gave all she had for the ones she loved…no matter what anyone else thinks about how she did it.

We Can Overcome Our Childhood

We don’t all get the perfect childhood, or perfect parents. 

Your parenting is not bound by how your parents raised you.

In a book I read recently, the author describes always wanting her father to be the kind of dad who paid attention, devoted his focus to her, heck, she hoped he would actually move in with her and her mother so they could be a “complete” family.  Her hopes for her father never came true, but God had a plan still. Her name is Alexandra Kuykendall (MOPS, International team member, MOPS mom, and author of the book The Artist’s Daughter [Revell, 2013]). Sometimes our expectations for others cloud what they have given to us.

I had parents who enjoyed parenthood, but they were realistic about it. When they were frustrated my brother and I knew it, and knew why because they would tell us. We saw them argue. We saw them greet each other with a kiss when my dad would come home from work.  My mom would literally stop what she was doing, go to the door, and kiss him every day when he came home. My parents, though, had some tough parenting education early in their lives-the conduct of their parents.

Money Lessons Through Chores

Often posts about chores for children discuss the very important way chores/jobs help children develop a sense of responsibility and purpose within the family. (Check out one of those posts here.) These are important. I think there are many reasons why children should help around the house and one of them is learning the lesson of being responsible with money. It's not a comfortable subject for many, I know that, but that is precisely why we need to teach our children the value of work, and the importance of saving, so that the topic of money is not uncomfortable for them.  It does not matter if you are a master of your home budget or not; there is time to learn so you can teach. 

Spin-Off Activities: No Plan Required

How can one activity spring off into multiple others? It happens a lot in our house! It’s exciting to follow the interests of our children to expand their learning.  

Here is what happened:

First, we had dyed egg shells like I explained in the Spring Activities2013 post. When I was cleaning up our supplies, my son asked, “What color will it be if we pour them all [the dyes] together?” I said, “We can try it and see.”