It starts early in the evening, which was a requirement of mine when I went looking for soccer for them. (Currently, my daughter is enrolled in Beavers, and Beaver night is always a late bedtime night. Not good for kid in question. Not good for kid’s parents.)

So the deal for me to get them there on time and keep them nourished and hydrated throughout their playing time is to get a healthy on-the-go dinner packed up along with some interesting (read: junk food) snacks and plenty of water. Then I have to pick my son up at daycare, pick my daughter up at school (she normally takes the school bus home) and then scoot to the south part of the city and deliver them to the soccer field.

Oh yeah, I also have to prepare a real dinner that will be cooked and waiting for us when we get home because, when soccer ends, I will have approximately 45 minutes to make the 25 minute drive home, get the kids in the door and their bags unpacked, communicate pertinent information to their father (who is hopefully home and not held up at work), scarf down some of the waiting dinner, change my clothes, kiss my kids, and head out the door to my second job. (This is where I reveal my secret identity. Yes, I am Super Woman and I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.) (I wish.)

My biggest stress in all this? The mini, on-the-go dinner that I have to pack for my kids. Tonight it consisted of German sausage, cheddar cheese, Vegetable Thins crackers and a pear. Basically, it was all I had left in the house.

Standing in front of my pantry, I closed my eyes and willed it to produce granola bars, banana chocolate chip muffins, some fruit gummies and maybe even some cookies. No.Such.Luck.

I spoke not a word of this to my two hungry kids. I handed them their sacs of food to be consumed in the car on the way to soccer and held my breath that they would not complain.

Not only did they not complain, my daughter ate just about all of her bagged dinner. And my son, though slower, did manage to consume his crackers and his pear.

Mid-way through soccer, I could see my son fading and I had nothing else to offer him. I had no snacky food; nothing packaged and ready to go. I usually pride myself on this; the fact that I don’t have a pantry full of snacks aimed directly at kids. I’m helping the environment by not buying individually packaged foods and I’m keeping my kids healthy by avoiding sodium and sugar packed snacks that provide little nutritional value.

But even the most conscientious of parents must sometimes admit defeat in the face of tight schedules, stressed-out days, and tired, hungry kids. And so I’m giving myself permission to let go and let my kids eat some store-bought snacks.

When I head to the grocery tomorrow, I’m going to stock up on granola bars, fruit gummies, fruit roll-ups, and some wholesome ingredients for some yummy whole wheat banana chocolate chip muffins (I might be able to squeeze in some baking time before next week’s soccer game).

(That’s my kid in the blue shirt; the only one not wearing his jersey.)

Normally, I might not encourage this desire of hers to bake and do it all herself, but I’ve been busy at work lately and it turns out that setting up some ingredients and letting her have at it can keep her busy for a couple of hours while I get some work done.

I’m blogging about our recent baking adventure over at This Mom Loves today. Pop on over and read all about it.

Admittedly, when it comes to being part of something, I want to get involved. The problem is I don’t have that much time. (Know anyone who does? Maybe they can lend me some?)

I just get so much more out of something if I put something into it. Like at my daughter’s school. Yes, I could just drop her off every day and go in for parent/teacher interviews and so on. But I want to be involved. I want my daughter to see me enjoying her school experience and participating in the activities that happen at her school. I want to give my time and my talents to her school to be able to help out and provide the kids with support and encouragement.

Same with church. Yes, we go every Sunday. Yes, I enjoy the services and the sermons and being with the people we see on Sundays. But I want to be involved. I want to give to my church of my time and of my talents. And I’m not shy about putting that desire out there. You could say I send out a vibe that people pick up on it.

So I get asked a lot to volunteer my time or help out in some way. I love it. It makes me feel like part of something.

But it can be overwhelming, too. I can say “yes” to too much. And then I get tired and cranky and all the good feelings I get out of volunteering start to turn into bad feelings because I’m not looking after myself first.

Right now, I’m reading a book called Nurturing the Soul of Your Family. It’s a great book about how to reconnect and find peace in daily life.

This passage from the book struck a chord with me recently:

“…total self-care also includes eliminating self-criticism, not overscheduling, releasing the need to be perfect, saying no, refusing to do things out of guilt, and giving yourself much-needed rest and downtime to refuel.”

Those words screamed at me from the page, “This is something that you are not good at! Get better at it and get better!”

The passage comes from Part 1 of the book: Heal Yourself, Heal Your Family.

After reading this, I took a good hard look at the frantic pace my life was leading, and I realized that self-care was not part of the picture. And it was time to do something about that.

So, in a first step to healing, I went to my Saturday morning Christian Meditation session, enjoyed the meditation as usual then approached one of the ladies for whom I had half promised to do something and explained that the timing was not right for me to participate in her group and perhaps she could consider engaging me next year if the opportunity presented itself.

I held my breath and waited for her disappointing look and tsk tsk. It didn’t come. She looked at me with kind eyes and said, “I understand, my dear. We’re all busy. Too many commitments that we all have to deal with. I’ll keep you in mind for next year then.”

And that was it. I said “no” and she accepted with grace.

It was a good first step. And there are more steps to come.

It got me thinking, being sick these last few days at home, I have been surrounded by my family. My parents came over to help with the kids. My husband looked after things that I couldn’t take care of. And it was nice. I had my family to support me. And that’s what Ronald McDonald Houses do for children and their families. They support them and help them through their times of need.

Later today (assuming my illness does not force me onto the sidelines again), I will be treating my family to dinner at McDonald’s where $1 from every Big Mac and Happy Meal purchased will be donated as well.

What are you doing for dinner tonight?

Why not support a great cause and take your kids to McDonald’s?

It’s that time of year again! Are you going?

We are! Wouldn’t miss it!

On Wednesday, May 8^th, McDonald’s will donate $1 from every Happy Meal, Big Mac, and hot McCafé beverage you buy to Ronald McDonald Houses and other local children’s charities across Canada.

So the dinner plans are set in my house. Wednesday, May 8th, I don’t have to cook (YAY!) and my kids can play in the restaurant (we’re going to a McDonald’s with a PlayPlace) as soon as they finish their chicken nuggets. (I don’t mind if they don’t eat all their fries. More for me.)

And while my kids are having fun, my husband and I (and possibly my parents) are going to kick back and chat over hot McCafé beverages, knowing that our purchases that evening are going to a good cause.

Check out McDonald’s History of Smiles video to learn how Ronald McDonald House Charities helps give sick children what they need most—their families.

Feel free to reblog this. Spread the word!
And come for lunch, dinner or coffee on May 8th!

But hey, there’s a reason this little space on the Internet is called Life Takes Over. It happens. It’s a fact of, well, Life.

I lost five days in the last part of the month to mundane important parenting responsibilities. (Feeding my kids healthy meals does take a lot of prep time and a certain amount of planning genius, especially when dealing with picky eaters.)

But here’s what I learned by taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge:

1. The more I write, the less time I spend writing. This is a good thing because it basically means that my ability to write improves and I spend less time staring at a screen littered with words that need wrestling into workable prose.
2. Write when you feel the inspiration. I might have two or three, sometimes even four posts, swirling around inside my brain some days. The key is to get them out of my head and onto the screen in good draft form, even polish them off completely if time allows, so that on days when there is no inspiration or my kids suck the life right out of me demand more of my time, I can still schedule a previously written but not yet released post. This brings consistency to my blog and satisfies the expectations of readers that I’m not throwing things out there in random fashion.
3. 30 days is not a long time. Because I started on day 12 and up to that point in the month I had only published one post, I felt overwhelmed at first because I had a lot of catching up to do. But like I said in #1, writing consistently helped speed up my writing. And the next thing I knew it was April 29 and I only had one day to go before the challenge was over.
4. Joining a challenge is a good way to connect with others. Of course, that’s the reason people do these things; to meet others; to create traffic on their blog; to gain a following. But more than that, I found that, because I had to come up with content every day (and let’s face it, my kids don’t always do funny or cute things that result in content for my blog), I had to find other things to write about. And in so doing, I forced myself to cover a topic that I have long been writing about but have never published because of fear. With the need for more content to cover 30 days, I held my breath, crossed my fingers (toes, legs, arms and eyes too for good measure) and hit the Publish button. What I got out of that terrifying dive was a whole bunch of new, meaningful connections with other bloggers who write about that topic.
5. There is always time for your passion. I love to write. I write even if I don’t publish. I write in my journal. I scribble on scrap paper and in little notepads that my kids get in birthday party loot bags. I write in the Notes app on my phone, on napkins in the car and sometimes on my kids’ craft paper if I can’t extricate myself from the craft table to grab my notebook from my desk. But what I forget (and what this challenge reminded me of) is that putting aside some time to dedicate to writing—not always just scribbling on the run—is important for my soul. It’s me time. I sometimes need it more than a good, hot shower (and I have even opted to write in the early hours of the morning before my kids get up instead of taking the time for a long, hot shower without children screaming for me to hurry up because one or the other of them is in desperate need of my assistance dressing their doll or running their train down their train track). And with signing onto 30 days of blogging, I had to commit to finding that time. And I did it. Sometimes it was late at night. Sometimes it was really early in the morning. But I always found time to fit it in. And now that I’ve done it for the Challenge, I have developed a pretty good habit that I think will stick.

So that’s it. Experience had. Lessons learned. Would I do it again? Probably. It certainly was helpful for my procrastinating ways to be held to a schedule by someone else. And the opportunity to find and follow other bloggers through the Ultimate Blog Challenge’s FB and Twitter pages was great.

What about you? Did you participate in the Ultimate Blog Challenge? What did you learn from participating? Would you do it again?

When he came downstairs, I said to him, “You’re all ready for bed. Great job buddy!” He was all smiles.

Then I asked, “Did you put your diaper on, too?” He sat down on the bottom step and said, “No, I have underwear on. I don’t need a diaper. I’m a big boy. Diapers are for babies. They don’t fit me now.”

I nodded in agreement and let him have his way.

We’ve been talking about night training him for a while now, but the timing just never seems right. He’s 3 and a 1/4, so age-wise he’s  ready. I think he is because he keeps talking about it without prompting from either me or his father. He wants very much to be like his big sister, and she has been in underwear for years.

There are several reasons why we have not skipped happily down the path to full diaper freedom. The first being that he and his sister sleep in the same room and if he were to wet the bed, the ensuing clean-up would wake everyone. When we were night training Big Sister, he was still a baby in a crib in our room. Only the parent whose turn it was to change the sheets and the child who was wet were disturbed. Having said that, I think we have only had to change her sheets twice since she left diapers behind. And both times were well past her training days and were largely due to illness.

The second reason is mine and mine alone. If he’s done with diapers, he’s done with being a baby. My baby boy will officially be a big boy and we won’t enjoy silly games and tickles on the change table while I clean him up and change his diaper. This makes me very sad. He’s very likely my last baby and saying goodbye to diapers, though an easy and anticipated event with Big Sister, is much harder for me to do with Little Brother.

The other reasons are all small and mundane: I need my sleep; we only have so many sets of sheets; is he really ready or is this just bravado, etc., etc.

Well, against what I deemed to be my better judgment, I let him go to bed wearing only underwear under his PJs. And I didn’t sneak in and put a diaper on him before I went to bed.

I did, however, carry him to the bathroom at 11:30 pm and got him to go pee while he was still basically asleep. (I used to do this with Big Sister, too.)

And morning came without a call from his room. My thinking as I opened my eyes to the annoying sound of my alarm was that he had either wet himself and slept through it, or he had a successfully dry night.

And a successfully dry night it was.

Way to go Little Brother! I’m proud of you little guy. I’m sad that you’re growing out of the baby phase of your life, but I’m thrilled to get to know the independent young man you are becoming.

Cutting ourselves some slack of course would probably help us rather than hinder us, but that’s hard to do when you’re responsible for a life. (I don’t know how God does it, being responsible for all of these human beings and loving them in spite of their failings. I suppose that’s why we call him “God Almighty” because he has mastered the stress that comes with parenting and molding and shaping his children.)

But I digress. (Don’t I always?)

I can’t recall one time in the lives of my children when I have looked back on a situation that stemmed from my decision-making and said, “That was the best decision I could have made.”

Sure, there were a lot of good decisions that worked well in the moment for me or for my children. But not once can I say that a decision I have made related to my life and to my children’s lives has resulted in the best decision for me and for my children.

I suppose I’m striving for perfection; for the right answer. It doesn’t exist. I know that. Yet I strive.

Help me out here. Should I relax and let go? Am I trying too hard to please everyone? Maybe I just need to have a little more faith that I’m doing OK and I’m not going to screw up these two beautiful little human beings whom I love so much.

As a writer, I spend most of time in an imaginary world. Yes, I exist in the real world and I function in “normal” fashion according to the laws and expectations of the society in which I live. But ultimately, my mind is going a mile a minute, always with a new idea, a new story, a new twist on an old idea. I never stop.

I attribute this constant spinning of my imagination wheel to my mother. She, without realizing it I imagine, nourished that spark of imaginative creativity in me at a young age. I think I could have been better equipped with the confidence that is needed to continue to live creatively, but conforming to the norms of society is required to some extent and unfortunately, my creativeness was not strong enough to escape being beaten out of me. I retain some of it, for sure. But not nearly as much as I started out with.

I read this book not long ago about the missing alphabet. It talked about how every child is born with a rich creative capacity that parents can build on by supplying the Sensory Alphabet—the building blocks for creative thinking. Unfortunately, this sensory alphabet is largely missing from the curriculum in schools today.

The Sensory Alphabet comprises line, colour, texture, sound, movement, rhythm, space, light and shape.

As was stated in the press release I read about this book:

“In a future that will require visual literacy and innovative thinking, today’s kids will be expected to think across disciplines, come up with imaginative solutions, and have the capacity to invent with many media. In order to succeed, they’ll need creative thinking skills. Yet, we’ve been trained to think that some kids are “born” creative, while others are not.

Through vivid photographs and illustrations, The Missing Alphabet helps parents and educators hone in on a child’s natural strengths, and develop that child’s particular brand of imagination. In a digital world where information is often communicated through pictures, icons, sound and video, tomorrow’s adults will need highly developed creative thinking skills that are beyond words. This guide will help build a strong foundation.”

The thought that my children are being pigeon-holed into an expected pattern where their natural creativity cannot soar frightens me. We are not effectively helping our children move into the future with the necessary skill set.

I found the topics and suggestions presented in this book to be helpful in engaging my children’s creative tendencies and helping them build confidence in themselves in the things that they do. I find that when I help my kids think in creative terms with the Sensory Alphabet they have more confidence in situations where they are expected to conform even when all they want to do is soar with their imaginations.

It’s a learning process and I will continue to go back to this book for guidance as we go along, but it was really interesting to be presented with the idea that every child is creative and that when we see a child through a sensory lens, we discern that child’s individuality.

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Title: The Missing Alphabet: A Parents’ Guide to Developing Creative Thinking in Kids
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 978-1-60832-378-4

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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of The Missing Alphabet. I was not compensated in any other way. The opinions expressed above are entirely my own.

Well, they continue to impress.

Enter the awkward spot for a hook.

The sliver of a wall between the shower and the bathroom sink.

The idea seemed simple enough. Drill a hole in the wall, insert two drywall plugs, screw a metal hook to the plugs. Voilà! A hook for my bath towel so that when I step out of the shower I’m not reaching across the bathroom and dripping water all over the floor.

The problem was, this sliver of wall contains pipes for the shower and the bathtub, so there is no stud and it’s basically hollow and metal.

The original hook worked for about a week. Then it made a big hole in the wall and the hook fell out. (I would insert pictures of the damage, but my very accommodating mother-in-law patched the hole and repainted the wall before I had a chance.)

Once the paint was dry, my husband suggested one of the 3M hooks. I dug through the box and found the perfect one. Sturdy and decorative. The brushed nickel look matches the knobs on our bathroom cabinet.

A couple minutes to install it (read: stick it to the wall) and we were back in business. Like I said, these hooks continue to impress with their stylish, useful ways.

Do you use 3M Command Brand hooks? What ways have these handy helpers come to your rescue?