Morning Stories

The topic for today's Wordfull Wednesday is "Caring for your Family - How do you let them know you care about them? What do you do as parents to show your children they are loved?"  Visit Chocolate on my Cranium for more Wordfull Wednesday entries or to participate yourself. 

Back at Christmas time Miss Banana went through a kind of rough time.  Her very best friend moved away.  She really, REALLY, missed the structure and the keeping busy of school while we were on Christmas break.  And it was winter.  The sun didn't come up until 7:30am and then had set again by 4:00pm.  She was miserable.  The whole family was feeling the effects and I knew that we had to do something to help her, but I just couldn't figure out what that something might be.

I noticed that if her day started out good, things were always a little better.  By starting out good I mean what happened in the first 10 seconds of her being awake.  If she could have a good thought in those first moments, her day was happier.  But if in that short time any negativity was able to creep in, the day was lost. 

This sounds pretty dire, and really it was.  Mr. Wonderful and I prayed and prayed for Miss Banana and what we could possibly do to help her.  One night when I was at book club, I got one of a few answers we received.  A friend there mentioned, without knowing about our situation with Miss Banana, that when her girls were younger she would wake them up by reading to them.  A light bulb turned on in my head.  No, not just a single light bulb.  I was practically seeing fireworks!  I knew I had to give this a try!  I chose a book that night.  I had always wanted to read A Little Princess to my girls and I thought that this was the time to do it. 

So the next morning I went into the girls' room (they all three share a room) about 5 minutes before the normal wake up time.  I stood in the doorway so that I could use the hallway light to read by.  I gave a simple, "Good morning, Girls." and started reading. 

That was a beautiful morning!  Miss Banana was much happier, and so was everyone else.  Reading in the mornings did not take care of the whole problem, and we still had some rough mornings at times, but it did help.  

After getting a couple of chapters into it, I was suddenly afraid that when we got to the sadder parts of the book, all our happiness in reading in the mornings would be gone.  But that has not happened.  All three of the girls really enjoy the story and our morning reading time.  

Of course, it didn't take long for Kiddo to hear about what was going on in the girls' room.  He wanted to have a little morning reading time too!  Since I was keeping the time to 5 minutes or less, it wasn't hard to add another 5 minutes in the boys' room.  For them I chose How To Eat Fried Worms, by Thomas Rockwell.  When we were about a third of the way through the book, Kiddo stayed up one night and finished the whole book.  I had been trying to get him to read that book for a few months, so I was not too disappointed.  The next book I chose was Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan. 

I can't say that I read every single morning.  But it is becoming a very nice tradition that I hope we will stick with for years to come. 

Overcoming The Invisible Mom

Kiddo is in the 4th grade and is in the process of deciding what is "cool" and what is not.  So far it's been quite the process, and I know we are just at the beginning.  I've always wanted to be a "cool" mom.  The kind of mom my kids won't be embarrassed by.  The kind of mom they will feel comfortable talking to.  And listening to.  I want to be that kind of mom. 

At the beginning of the year I signed up to help at the school every Wednesday.  At first this was just fine, but as the weeks went by, I could sense that my level of "coolness" was dropping.  At first Kiddo would come over and talk to me, then he would just wave, then by Christmas time he just quit looking at me altogether.  Like if he didn't see me I wasn't really there.  I was trying to be the "cool" mom, so I left him alone.  I didn't push it. 

But I was bothered.  I wasn't hurt by Kiddo's actions, I was worried about the kind of relationship we had and would have in the future.  I was afraid that maybe he didn't really know just how much I loved him.  I realized that I hardly ever hugged him, even at home.  I used to when he was little but had gotten out of the habit as he got older.  I used to give him great big hugs we called "shield hugs".  The normal bumps and rough spots of life weren't so bad when he was protected by my sheild of love.  How could I have forgotten?

So I've changed my mind about being cool.  Now, when I see him at school, I go to him and give him a big hug.  No matter who is watching.  I hug him and tell him that I love him.  At first I was afraid that he would be mad at me.  But he wasn't.  He hugged me right back!  Sometimes he will see me before I see him and he will sneak up behind me and surprise me with a hug!  It is so great! 

For more Wordfull Wednesday entries, or to participate yourself, visit Chocolate on My Cranium.