Guerrilla Snuggling

My baby boy isn't a baby any more. Earlier this month, he turned 8. 8! I'm not sure when that happened, but the truth is undeniable: the boy before me is definitely not the sweet little guy I remember toddling around in diapers.

Obviously, as he's gotten older, our challenges have changed. Some of them (walking, feeding himself, tying his own shoes, etc.), he's mastered. Others, like bedtime battles, come and go: we have months of no problems what-so-ever, and then a sudden spate of backsliding and delaying.

One of those come-and-go challenges has been the ever evolving bed war. Not bedtime battles: bed wars. As in, Mommy's bed is better than his bed, so therefore, he wants to sleep in there. He wants to go to sleep in there. He wants to wake up in the middle of the night and climb into Mom's bed and continue sleeping there. 

This battle began round about the time he moved into a big-boy bed. At that time, he was a jungle sleeper: tossing and turning, somersaulting and ninja-kicking his way through the night. It was pretty easy for me to summon the energy to carry him back to his room, because I LIKE my kidneys, and a few months of getting kicked in them while pregnant was enough to last me several lifetimes.

As he's gotten older, he's less likely to climb into my bed in the middle of the night, but his tactics for bed-takeover have gotten sneakier. He's resorted to guerrilla snuggling. This is snuggling with the intention of getting the entire bed to himself. It starts off sweet: he snuggles up to me in the middle of the bed. This gets uncomfortable, so I shift to the side. He snuggles closer. I shift again. Closer. Shift. Closer. Shift. Until I am less than half awake and clinging to a tiny sliver of bed, with a vast ocean of available real estate on the other side of the sweetly snuggling boy.

I know our snuggling days are numbered. So it's hard to complain (much) about being snuggled right out of sleep. Although that's easier to remember when the guerrilla snuggling episodes are a few weeks behind us.

Don't Be Sad

As part of the parenting arrangement my ex and I have, our son spends two weeks with each parent in the summer. Two weeks of boy-lessness took some getting used to, but I've gotten to a point where I can look forward to both of those occasions.

My son does, too, although sometimes I feel like it's getting harder on him the older he gets. I think what it really is, however, is he's better able to articulate how much he misses the other parent.

I typically get a call about halfway through his dad's time from a boy sadly telling me how much he misses me. I was hoping that this year would be different because, despite the leading-up-to-the-day assertions of how much he'd miss me, the actual drop-off was a very "see-you-later-alligator" affair. Good start, right?

But earlier this week, I got The Call. The sad little boy, telling me how much he misses me. And in trying to cheer him up and make him feel better, I told him something I now regret: "Don't be sad."

No, I don't want him to be sad. But I do want him to know it's OK to *be* sad: that sad (or mad or happy or silly) are all emotions it's OK to feel and telling someone he trusts about those feelings is good and right. I don't want him to ever think he has to hide his emotions from me. 

So now I just have to try to figure out how to work that into a conversation once he comes home!

Mom, Buy Me ...

Most of my "parenting strategies" arise out sheer frustration and a desire to not actually abandon my child on the side of the road somewhere. (Not that I ever would, but I admit to being sorely tempted ... Usually in the checkout aisle at Target.)

My latest attempt is his allowance. Because I am So. Freaking. Tired. Of "Mom, mom, mom! Buy me xxx!!! Can you buy me xxxx???" Every time we go to a store. My answer, up to now, has often been determined by my level of fatigue and irritation. The more irritated I am, the more likely I am to say no. The more tired I am, the more likely I am to say yes.

Starting now, though, my answer is going to be "No, but you may (if it's appropriate) buy it for yourself." (Yay for spending money!)

N's allowance is going to be broken into two parts: a set amount he gets paid every week, and a set amount he can earn each week for a specific set of chores. Right now, since he's 7, I'm setting his allowance at $7 a week: $3 base, with $4 that can be earned by doing chores.

I struggled with the idea of paying him for chores. In my mind, chores are simply something you do to help around the house; you shouldn't get PAID for them. In the end, though, I compromised (yes, you can compromise with yourself).

N has chores that he is expected to do (no payment involved): make his bed, put away his clean clothes, put his breakfast dishes in the sink when he's done, etc. The chores he is rewarded for are the new ones I introduce as he gets older. As he gets adept at these "premium" chores and old enough to tackle different, harder chores, the old "premium" chores will become part of the non-reward chores, and I'll introduce new chores and new rates.

I'm not entirely sure how this allowance plan is going to work out. I realize that it's going to require a lot of monitoring on my part, especially in the beginning. Making sure that the new chores are done to my satisfaction, monitoring how much money he's actually earning a week, and reinforcing what he can do with that money (yes, he can buy things, but I also want to use his allowance to teach him to save, tithe, etc.) ... This new "strategy" is going to be challenging on both of us, but I strongly believe the rewards will be worth it.

Now it's just remembering the map! :)

Three Great Reasons to Never Cook Again

Now don't get me wrong, I don't usually mind cooking. I even sometimes enjoy cooking. I'm not, however, all that great at it. (Just ask my ex: he apparently shares my culinary mishaps with our 7 year old. Yee-haw.)  Especially at 6 p.m. on weeknights, when the Boy is whiney-hungry, and I'm work-tired. Even so-called "20-minute or less" meals are too much: for one thing, they ALWAYS take me more than 20 minutes to prep and cook. For another, after I'm done spending 30 minutes (or more) cooking, I get to be the one cleaning up my mess afterward. (Yay! Not.) So I'm still spending at least an hour in the kitchen.

That's time I'd rather spend doing something else — anything else — but one of my many personal hang-ups is the paranoia that if I'm not feeding the Boy homemade, healthy food, I'm being a Bad Mom. (One of the reasons I'm hung up on this is because we have gone through long stretches of drive-through dinners ... which usually coincides with me reading about how terrible fast food meals are for growing boys. My timing needs work. But that's a post for a different day.)

So how do I balance my desire for healthy, homemade dinners with evenings that aren't consumed by the preparation and consumption of consumables? I've come up with a couple:

• Grocery Store Dinners: I don't take advantage of these often enough, but a rotisserie chicken and a store-prepared side meets my home-cooked criteria and is as easy as popping it in the microwave. The hardest part of dinner is getting it on the plate!
• Someone Else Cooks for Me: Now that I have a little more play in my budget, I've started using Evolve Paleo, a local Paleo "catering" business. I'm not a strict adherent to the Paleo diet; they had me at the "we cook it, you pick it up (or hey, we deliver!) and eat it." One or two of those meals per week, and I can fill in around the edges. They're tasty, use real ingredients and, again, meet my "healthy" (if not homemade) criteria. 
• Crock-Pot Cooking: Crock-Pot cooking is still technically cooking, but it's as close to cooking as I usually get these days. Right after my divorce, eating in was a budget requirement, and that's when I learned to love my Crock-Pot. Crock-Pot cooking is really a misnomer: it should be Crock-Pot prepping, because that's basically all you have to do. Oftentimes, that prep work is fairly minimal (a double bonus, as far as I'm concerned!). I can toss a meal in, clean up the kitchen, and still be out the door in time for work. And dinner is ready to put on the table when I get home. My parents even got me this awesome cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens Ultimate Slow Cooker Book), which features a lot of serial recipes: you make this one night, and next night turn it into this (or that, or this over here).

The thing is, these options WORK for me. I can cook when I want to and not cook when I don't. And the Boy always gets a healthy meal put in front of him, which makes a happy mom. That, in turn, makes me not mind the occasional trip through the McDonald's drive-through, which makes for a happy Boy. Wins for all!

Why I Don't Want to Be a Perfect Mom

I came across yet another link on Pinterest the other day titled "# Ways to Be a Better Mom!" I have seen and clicked on these links countless times before, both to validate what I'm doing and see what I can do to improve. They oftentimes contain great ideas and tips. But for some reason, that day, this link struck a nerve. (Maybe it was the mascara wand in the eye that morning that just spoiled everything for me, who knows?)

I AM a good mom. Do I get it right every time? Heck, no! And you know what? I've decided that makes me an AWESOME mom. 

I'm not perfect, and neither is my son. I don't expect him to be perfect (although I do expect him to listen the first time so I don't repeat myself endlessly!). How is he going to learn how to handle the mistakes, the failures and all the negative, angry, unpleasant unfairness that happens in life (no matter how better or perfect or good he is), if I don't show him how?

Do I get angry? Yes. Does he see me get angry? Yes. Does he see how I handle that anger? Yes! 

Do I make mistakes? Oh, man, do I make mistakes! Does he see me make mistakes? Yes. Does he see me try to correct those mistakes? Yes!

Life is a learning process. I'm staring down the barrel at 40, and I'm still learning how to navigate my life. What worked yesterday won't necessarily work today, and I have to figure it out all over again. And that's OK! Even when it's frustrating and I don't have the time, patience or energy to figure it out all over again, that's OK too.

I want to give my son the tools to do that figuring out on his own, to not be afraid to make mistakes, and to always have the courage to try again. He won't learn that from a perfect mom. He will, however, learn that from me.

A List for Balance

I have always been a list maker. I have lists of things I want to do, things I need to do, things I plan to cook, things I need to buy to actually cook what I've planned, places I need to be, people I need to call, messages I need to send ... my life is ordered by my lists.

My love of lists springs partly from a need to stay on top of what's going on. If I didn't have a list, I would be a hot mess: constantly late, always forgetting things and generally letting people — myself included — down. But the real joy in lists, for me, is how they make me feel, as if I am actually accomplishing something.

I do a lot of stuff every day. And yet, at the end of the day, I sometimes look around at the messy kitchen, the stack of mail cluttering up the sofa table, the toys that are strewn across the living room floor like casualties of bombing raid, and wonder "What the hell have I done today?" Lists are a physical way to remind myself: oh yeah, I did a LOT today, it just didn't happen to be anything involving housework. (And yes, I have been known to add an already accomplished task to my list just so I can gain the satisfaction of crossing it off.)

The challenge for me has been organizing my lists. They end up in the margins of planner pages, on the back of receipts or even scrawled over the back of my hand. I started carrying a blank notebook around in the hopes of trying to keep my various and sundry lists straight. And yes, I even considered the idea of making a list of my lists (and that would be my OCD, thank you very much!).

This weekend, while enjoying some Mommy-time on Pintrest, I came across a bullet journal pin. And, oh happiness, I have found list-maker nirvana. For the uninitiated, the bullet journal is basically a way of managing your lists. Many of the pins I found involve an awful lot of what looks like scrap-booking techniques to make things pretty, which appeal to my crafty nature, but the essence of the bullet journal is MANAGING THE LIST. I'm not sure I can adequately convey the depths of my nerdy excitement. I IMMEDIATELY bought a new blank notebook (I don't really need an excuse to do that, but I'll take one if it's handed to me) and have begun my new adventure. I'll keep you posted on how the journey progresses!

The Theory of Being Organized

I like the theory of being organized. Heck, I even enjoy the practice of being organized. It's the actual "staying organized" bit that I struggle with.

I've learned through the years that any organization system is only as good as your follow-through. If you don't take the time to sort that mail into its appropriate home each month, your organization system is still a pile on the counter, not that pretty filing box with pre-labeled folders. (Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.)

My challenge is finding easy, simple organization systems that are FAST. As a single working mom, I am way more likely to be interrupted in the middle of a task before I get the chance to finish. I also have a limited amount of time that I'm willing to invest in any given task. At the end of the day, I'd rather spend my free time with my boy than organizing my mail. But I've also realized that I'm much less stressed and generally happier (which means the boy is also less stressed and much happier) if I have a neat home.

So here's my strategy for working toward an organized home in 2016 (because it's good to have goals!):

* Practice child labor. Seriously, I am going to put the Boy to work. I realize that this effort is going to be harder on me than actually doing it myself. Right now. But when  he's 17, I am not continuing to pick up after him, and chances are highly likely that I'm also not going to be doing his cooking or his laundry. This effort has multiple purposes: I will (eventually) end up with a neater home; the Boy will grow up to be a self-sufficient man; and I will stop screaming profanity when I step on Legos.

* Find shortcuts for important things, like this one from my seriously clever big sister: instead of throwing my recyclables into plastic recycling bins that I reuse, I'm going to start using the sturdy, grocery store paper bags. The whole dang thing can go in the recycling, and that's a bin that I never have to clean again.

* Do something every day. Even if that something is throwing one piece of mail in my new recycling bag. One thing. Every day.

There Is a Post Coming

I am not flaking out again. I'm drafting and mulling and thinking I'm too tired to hit publish on anything reasonable, but I'm NOT FLAKING OUT on writing again. So, there. There is a post coming. It's just not this one.

Getting Started

This year will mark my fifth anniversary of being a single parent. I've learned a lot of things over these past few years, and I like to think that, despite being tired pretty much all the time, I'm still managing to raise a healthy, competent boy who will grow into a caring, careful man. 

The most challenging thing I have confronted in this journey as a single mom hasn't been dealing with my ex (although that does have its days), financial worries or work-life balance (because that, I have realized, is a never-attainable goal).

My biggest challenge has been getting started. At just about anything. Because I always, always have so many freaking things that I need to get done. I need to get ready for work. I need to get the boy up and moving to get to school. I need to make breakfast, unload the dishwasher, remember my stuff, remind the boy to remember his stuff, get out the door (sometimes on time), crap ... did I remember my phone?, get to work, WORK, run errands (and usually scarf something down) at lunch, WORK some more, pick up the boy, get home, make dinner, clean up dinner, fold a load of laundry, read with the boy, straighten up a little bit, try to get a few things going for tomorrow, get the boy to bed and boom. It's 9 o'clock. I'm tired, but there are still things to get done (run another load of laundry, straighten up the endless amount of toys and paper and general stuff that 7-year-old boys seem to shed like white cat shed fur on black slacks, look over house-buying stuff, deal with last week's mail, etc.). What happens way (way) too often is the things I need to do never get started, while I sit down and do something I want to do (like read a book).

So this year I have two goals that I'm working on. The first one is remembering that my son is now 7. Just because I have done things for him in the past, that is no reason to continue to do so if he's capable of doing it himself. I simply don't have the time, energy or inclination to continue to treat him as if he's 2. So if he doesn't pick up his toys in the evening, well, maybe I'll hide them when I pick them up. I suspect this one will be a challenge to simply remember before I'm getting him a glass of water, snack or whatever other request that he is actually capable of doing.

My second goal is to just GET STARTED. On whatever. Because not getting something all the way done is more progress than not doing it at all.

School Vacations Are Designed to Make Parents Value Education

I love my son. I love getting to stay home with him on some of his school breaks.

But I also love, love, looooooove the day school starts back. Oh my goodness gracious, yes. We have some SERIOUS cabin fever going on around here. 

Some of it is a product of circumstances: we live in an apartment, so he doesn't have an awful lot of space for the ridiculous amount of bounce-off-the-wall energy a 7-year-old boy apparently generates by breathing. (Child-sized hamster balls that generate electricity could be the clean energy source of the future if you just put a bunch of 7-year-old boys in them ... maybe with a few toy guns and tell them they have to ESCAPE FROM ENEMY STORM TROOPERS.)

Some of it is my own dang fault for treating previous vacations as "Let's Go Do Something Fun" (and expensive). I was too busy teaching my son that he needed to be entertained and not realizing the disaster that would subsequently unfold when said child is required to entertain himself. Without a screen. (That would be my aversion to using the TV or iPad as a babysitter  — curse my wayward eyes for reading every freaking news site and mommy blog that preaches the perils of too much screen time.) 

This vacation has taught me that limits are a good thing and, therefore, are going to become a lot more prevalent. It's taught me that lessons in quiet time are mandatory. And it's taught me to reeeeeaaally value the time he spends in school!