Help me Hannah!

I have a good friend who bought me this book she loves. It is called Hannah Keeley's Total Mom Makeover: The Six-week Plan to completely transform your Home, Health, Family, and Life. (quite the title) Well after staring at the book for a few weeks I finally broke into it last night. It is very well organized with daily tasks 5 out of the 7 days a week for six weeks.

The first day talks about what challenges mothers have today. These are different then the challenges our grandmothers and our mothers had when they were young mothers. We have so many options and choices about what to do, how to do that it is hard to decide. For instance, are we going to work full time, part time, at home, or not at all. Do we keep our kids home for school, send them to charter, private, or public school. The choices we make determines whether we sink or swim. So the first step to becoming a Total Mom according to Hannah is to forget about what you should be doing. There is so many things we should or could be doing that by trying to do all of these things will wear and tear us down. Quite feeling guilty. These feelings will leave us feeling powerless and hopeless.

Hannah challenges us to make a decision to change. Whatever in your live needs changing, commit to start today. Decisions have power behind them. Stop wishing for a nicer home or wishing we were 10 pounds lighter. A true decision comes with a launchpad underneath, like I will take steps to become healthier. Start now!

Each day there are journal entries to write so you can keep track of your progress and do some self reflecting.

Week One, Day One:

1. Things that bug me in my home, health, family and life (any burdens you have been carrying around).

I should have a cleaner and more organized office room: The office room is a disaster. I don't even know where to start.

I should be scrap booking for all my children these cute books that they will treasure in years to come

I should have more room to store my food storage so I can organize the food properly

I should eat less sweets and eat more fruits and veggies, but sometimes I just don't want to

I should be more patient with my children's constant nagging and needing of attention especially when I'm on the phone and driving

(these are really hard things, lets see what Hannah can help with!)

2. My firm decision about this six-week journey

I have decided I want to enjoy being mom more. I want to provide a home that my children feel loved and a place they want to bring home their friends.

Now I'm going to check out the Total Mom Makeover club.

Classes for Daddy and Kids

Thought I'd share something we just discovered. My brother in law takes his kids to Home Depot once a month to do a building workshop. We thought that is such a great idea to do something with just Dad and the kids.

Here is some more details I found out. Home Depot does it every 1st Saturday of the month. Lowes does it every other week. Lowes has a sign up online and also tell you what you will be making that week. But these classes could be a family activity as well. The great thing is these are free classes!

Infant Activities

When you have a little one, sometimes it's hard to know what you can help with their development and in bonding with you. Here are some of my favorite games to do with my newborn-two year old babies.

1. Play Pat-a-cake

2. Play Texaco Texaco all the way to Mexico with their legs while they are laying on their back.

Do the Kicks Kicks Kicks, (kick legs one at a time)

Do the Splits, Splits, Splits (open their legs)

Turn a round round round (move their legs in a circular motion)

Get out of town town town (lift both legs up in the air)

I got this from watching my sister-in-law do it to her baby and improvised on the actions.

3. Mirror Play - Talk to her about seeing herself in the mirror (It's fun when they get excited and recognize themselves

4. Peek a Boo

5. Hide a way toys, or books (wrap up a few toys and books in a towel, or bag and place them somewhere your baby will discover it. You can have part of the toy showing to entice them to explore. Great to do this before Christmas and Birthday's so they get a little practice =)

6. Baby Massage --Touch is so important and I have love using massage to help relax my babies before bedtime. Use a little Grape seed oil and massage all their little parts from top to bottom. Just be sure when they get fussy it's time to stop. You want them to enjoy it. There are many books you can get and also a lot of classes. I also found some information on the web. I was lucky to have a trained infant massage instructor teach me with Pumpkin when she was a few months old. We were part of a study that used infant massage everyday. It was really cool.

If you have a favorite activity you like to do with your infants please share.

A Thought on Priorities

Whenever I find myself not enjoying what I'm doing, being a mother, I have to look at if I'm too busy. I know when I'm too busy, I start snapping at my kids, I'm impatient, and I'm not seeing the beauty of my children. Almost without fail when I'm like this, I'm trying to do too much. How can we enjoy life if we are trying to do too many things? One of my favorite quotes in my house is, "In all of living have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed not just endured." --Gordon B. Hinckley My goal is to do this. But it's a struggle for me especially when I have put to many events and projects to accomplish. Does anyone else struggle with this? What do you do to keep your persective as a mother? What helps and reminds you to enjoy today and not wish it away?

Update on Thumbsucking

Pumpkin has been working on stopping her thumb sucking at night and at naps. I really thought we were making some good progress by using band aids. She would come out and show me that she still had her band aids on and she would get a treat. I was so excited that it was working and so simple. Well, as I went to check on her during nap I found she was sucking her thumb with the band aids on. That stinker was getting treats and getting to suck her thumb! =)

Back to a new plan. We put a pair of socks on her hands and then duck tape them. We rip the duck tape in half vertically and then it's not so big. I've used masking tape too and it was fine. This so far has been working pretty well. She has only taken them off one time. If she keeps them on she gets a little treat.

Free Online Parenting Classes

I just heard about this great resource for parents. Check it out at http://www.utahparenting.org/tips.php If haven't taken any of the classes or really checked out the site throughly but from what I can see if looks like a great site of info!