My kids have enjoyed adding their little hand print leaves to their Thanksgiving Tree we started last week.

Each day we’ve written one thing they are thankful for on a hand print and then taped it to the tree.  (To save a little time I traced their hands once and cut out about 10 hands at one time…)  They’ve enjoyed it so much they asked Mommy and Daddy add a few hand prints to the tree.

So, what are some of the things they’ve been thankful for?

Monkey, the toddler:

• Dog cookies (he’s said that twice now)
• Cars and Trucks (he actually has this up there 3 times)
• His sister

Peanut, the preschooler:

• Candy
• More “Daddy time”
• Her brother (She said this after he put her on his hand print)
• The dog
• Grandma and Grandpa

What about you?  What are you, or your kids, thankful for this week?

The post A Tree of Thanks first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

That’s when I heard my husband, “Peanut, come here and check this out!  It’s hailing…”  At exactly the same time the weather person on the t.v. announced a tornado warning in our area, and was talking about the way the storm’s tail was acting and how we should seek cover immediately.

I flicked off the t.v. and went back to the living room, “No, no, we aren’t watching the hail right now; everyone go to the basement,” was my reply.  They all looked at me like I was nuts.  I quickly told my husband what the news said, that the little village (there used to be a sign saying “population 52”) that we live near was mentioned on the news as being in a tornado warning.

“Mommy, why are we going downstairs?” asked Peanut.  I reassured her that I just thought they’d like to go play in their play area before bed, and off we all went.  I found the radio downstairs and turned it on so we could keep updated, and tried to relax by working on the spring cleaning I started down there and hadn’t finished.  (What can I say?  Sometime throwing stuff out or freecycling it is soothing to me.)   Thankfully the storm passed quickly and once the tornado warning was over we went back upstairs to get the kids into bed.  I wanted to check the weather again to see if there might be a need to carry our sleeping babies downstairs to sleep, and my husband found the Weather Channel online so I could see the line of storms coming through.

I haven’t forgotten that this is supposed to be a Thankful Thursday post, quite the opposite.  I have so much to be thankful for.  I am thankful the numerous storms we have had here so far have been mostly just thunderstorms and a little hail last night (I heard some of the hail was close to 4 inches, so maybe little is the wrong adjective there…).  I am also thankful for the many differences between mommies and daddies.  I have grown to hate storms so much more now that I am a mother, while my husband still finds a thrill in watching them pass, and wants to share that with our children.  They need that.  They need someone who isn’t freaking out inside – At 3 ½ and 2 they need to feel secure in their home and safe.  So even though I didn’t let them linger at the glass door to watch the hail, I’m thankful they have a daddy who wants to teach them about storms and not to just be afraid of them.

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Today’s post is a blast from the past for me…going back to when my now two year old son was just a baby.

My daughter was 19 months old when we brought Monkey home from the hospital.  She was really a model big sister, gently touching his head, wanting a chance to hold him, and worried about him when he cried.  The biggest problem I had back then was her climbing.

Peanut has always been an active little girl, even when I was pregnant with her – she moved constantly.  She climbed out of her bed at an early age. (I don’t remember when that was, but I remember everyone was shocked she did it.)  And when we brought home her baby brother she found out that one way to get Mommy’s attention was by climbing.  More specifically she’d climb when I was nursing the baby.

I would be sitting on the couch, baby propped on the Boppy pillow, both of us trying to learn what to do to make nursing successful for him, when she’d start climbing the television stand.  What could I do?  I didn’t want to stop feeding the baby (after all, he was new to nursing and needed to eat), but I couldn’t just let her climb and get hurt.  So I tried telling her to get down, and she’d just climb faster.  I tried giving her time outs after a few reminders when I’d see her foot just lifting up to climb; I’d literally hold her on a time out stool while trying to continue to nurse her brother… When that didn’t work, or when I was too slow to catch her, I’d have to get up, still trying to nurse her brother (thankfully he grew accustomed to nursing this way fairly quickly), and grab her with the other arm to get her down.  I was scared to death she’d fall and get hurt if I didn’t get her down.

Eventually I just gave up.  It was impossible to keep her from climbing, and I decided it wasn’t really fair to her brother, who should be allowed to bond with Mommy and nurse in peace.  You know what?  When I stopped getting her down every time I saw her climbing she actually started to do it less often.  (Oh, she’s still a climber; her newest fascination is the changing table/nightstand that is attached to her bed…)

It’s a good thing mommies are so good at multi-tasking… Do you have any stories of things you did while trying to feed a baby at the same time?

The post Why Mommies Have to Multi-Task first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

I go and get dry jammies, panties, put clean sheets on the bed (at least today is sheet day anyway…)  As I crawl into bed I think, well, now she will sleep until the time she should in the morning, since she won’t have to potty as badly in the morning…

Wrong.

Not even 7 a.m. when I hear, “Mommy…”

“Peanut, it’s too early to be awake.  Why don’t you snuggle with Mommy?”

“But Mommy, the sun’s up!”  (Can’t argue logic, but it is still too early.  Letting her stay up will only bring crankiness later…)

Just as she goes back to her room and I shut my eyes I hear Monkey.  He is bawling.  Not how he usually wakes up.  Normally he plays happily in bed a few minutes in the morning…

The dog starts whining, licking my face, as I throw the covers back off me.  “No, I”m not going to go feed you right now.  I”m going to check on Monkey…”

I expect a horridly dirty diaper, his arm stuck in the crib slats, or something similar by his cries.  I am relieved to discover that it is only  his car, which he slept with last night, and which has rolled off his bed out of reach.  By now Peanut is pushing in front of me, trying to scramble into Monkey’s crib with him and the dog is going in circles, certain she will starve to death if I don’t feed her her brown crunchy things.

Yes, Mother’s Day is over…

But then at breakfast, as I hand over my peanut butter toast to the two of them, who have already finished their bowls of cereal in record time, Peanut say, “I love you, Mommy…”  And really, that’s better than any special day anyway.

The post Mother’s Day Is Over… first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

I hope each of you has a splendid Mother’s Day.

I’d like to take a quick moment to recognize some of the outstanding mother’s I’m lucky enough to personally know:

1. My own mother (you have to put your mom first in a list like this, right?), who drove me to and from gymnastics practice all through high school, made it to all the home meets, sat through countless orchestra concerts, and pushed me to be the best I could be.

2. My sister, mother of three, who holds a daycare of wild toddlers and preschoolers in her home so she can be with her youngest child. She is another person who sends me wonderful hand-me-downs for my own son; she continually does way more than any one person should handle at once, and yet just yesterday she took the time to help me with a small personal matter in the middle of it all.

3. My mother-in-law, who raised a wonderful son, who became a wonderful father.

4. My bestest friend in the whole wide world, E., who tries her best each day to take her 3 energetic kids some place…. How do you have the energy, I’ll never know! LOL. And another friend, S., who takes her daughter to work each day; it’s hard enough to be a SAHM, I can’t imagine also trying to get work done with an energetic, creative preschooler on hand. And so many mothers I used to teach with, each of you has been an inspiration!

There are so many more I could name…. After all, what better way to become a good mother than to surround yourself with other great mothers?

What great mothers do you know?

The post To All the Great Moms – Thank You! first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.