Rewarding Our Children in Moderation is Acceptable

Do you reward your children for certain behaviors? Are they doing what is expected of them without incentives? These are questions that I asked several people and most of the responses were "yes they get rewards" and "I am not sure if they expect incentives." Well, my point of view is that children today are being rewarded way too much for certain behaviors that should be the norm. What do you think?
Parenting is a difficult job, especially in today's world where most of the children are growing up in a household where both parents are working. As well as the parent that stays at home, it is becoming increasingly difficult to parent. The hype of the media and socialization along with extra curricular activities has taken a burden on us all. But is all this added stress causing extra rewarding in our children's behavior. Are we compensating for the lack of what we may feel is "quality" time?

Weekends are supposed to be relaxing?

How can anyone even imagine relaxing with kids around, huh? Weekends, oh yeah those are the days that we play catch up with laundry, cleaning and how about the extra curricular activities. Sports, birthday parties, play dates don’t they seem to come around on the weekends as well.
I think there should be two weekends yearly dedicated to do NOTHING! That is when we can actually spend true quality time with family and friends. Sometimes I feel like everything is so rushed that there just isn’t enough time. Monday rolls around so quickly then it’s back to a different tune. Well, I hope you enjoyed your weekend!

Valentines Day!

How cool is it when your kids are more excited about Valentines Day then you are. My kids just know it as a day they get extra chocolate versus there normal chocolate. Oh yeah it's about love, sweethearts, and romance but when the kiddies around it's about heart shaped lip gloss, Valentine's Day parties at school, and of course the make believe mailbox to get all of the Valentine's.
It is fun to watch this and it's also an excuse when you forget, well sort of forget to get your significant other something. You can always make it up with sex or something later on right?

On Being a Mom...

Being a mother has to be one of the most challenging jobs in the world. I often wonder how many women think to themselves and say “Why did I do this?” But we all know that we love and care for the little darlings and I say little because when they are our children age is not a factor. As a mother of four there are times that I just cross the days off on the calendar and say “another day closer to another birthday” and then there are those days in which we wish time would just slow down so we can spend that extra day with them.
No right or wrong answer to mommyhood, but we all just do what we can and hope that those choices are the best. I think the hardest part of being a mom is trying to make time for yourself no matter what that may be.