More "Play", fewer "Dates"

After 2 weeks of having my children at home over the Winter Break, in which I spent countless hours and I-don’t-even-want-to-count-how-much money keeping my kids entertained, enriched, and enlightened, I received a panicky phone call from school asking me to pick all the kids up NOW due to a water main break.

And so they’re back. Home. With me.

Except this time, they are not alone- I brought 5 elementary school refugees home with me, too. That’s 8 kids for those of us counting, which I have to do every few minutes now. There- I’m back- all accounted for.

8 kids, no car big enough to take them anywhere, 1 parent, and no plan.

And kids having the time of their lives-and it’s only costing me a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of cookies.

This emergency-induced kid party has served as an instant reminder for all of us: Plans cost money and energy, but just being available for friends can be better- and free.

So many of us (myself included) schedule our entire weeks according to “up” and “down” time: “up time” being scheduled events, including social events a Play Dates, and “down time”, which is usually solitary recovery from all of the “up time.”

And because planned social events are PLANNED and EVENTS, there’s pressure to BE something. And that drains us, no matter how much we like the people we are with.

But spontaneously opening our doors to a friend? That’s worth clearing our calendars for. Let’s all plan to have fewer plans this year. Don’t worry- someone will knock on our door, and we’ll have something to do, though have less to prove.

-TWM

Coupons Your Kids Will Actually Love

A few years ago, our entire family went to Ireland for Christmas to visit my husband’s family. The trip was fantastic, but did present itself with one problem: how on earth were we going to do presents? This was about the time airlines were getting very strict…and expensive…about luggage, so we needed to get very creative about gift-giving for the kids.

That’s when I stumbled on a fabulous article in Richmond Parents magazine in which the mom-author described her now-almost-grown-kids’ favorite annual gift: the coupon book.

Started as a money-saving technique and continued due to popularity, this mother gives her kids a hand-made set of coupons, most of which have little or no money value, as their main gift. You read right.

In this fabulous book, the coupons are not made up of “$10 shopping at Target"; "a new bike you pick out…” or the like, but rather an entirely different set of “gifts” the kids adore.

The first type of “coupon” allows the children to break rules. “One night of unlimited TV”, or “One week of not making up the bed” are the most memorable. By giving her children a chance NOT to do what they normally have to, she both reinforces the necessity of the rules the other times of year (“Oh, you didn’t make up your bed? Well, I guess you just used your coupon!”) and allows for some slack.

The second set of coupons involve attention. “One lunch date alone with Mommy”, “One hour of Daddy playing the board game of your choice.” This makes the kids feel important, prioritizes quality time together, and is priceless yet free.

The final set involves things one might allow the kids to do anyway at times, but sets clear limits. “One box of any cereal you want”, “One sleepover with 3 friends invited”. These coupons allow a parent to say “yes”, but then be able to stop saying “yes” even though she said “yes” once before….you know where I’m going with this.

The sky’s the limit with these books, but for us, they have moved beyond a financial or weight-limit “emergency gift” and become the backbone of our holiday gift planning. Making up these coupon books for our kids allows my husband and I to sit back and think about fun things we want to do in the upcoming year (“camping trip to the Outer Banks”), encourage budding interests in our children (“one afternoon playing tennis with Daddy”), and give attention to those needing it the most (“one week of tuck-ins alone, just with Mom”).

And yes, it saves tons of money too.

Truly MAGIC Beans for Santa

So just how exactly DOES Santa keep track of how good or bad your kids have been?

I stumbled on a “little known fact about Santa” a few years ago that has given my kids a tangible measure of their behavior during the holiday season – one that serves as a fantastic discipline tool and a way to make the countdown to Christmas a bit more bearable!

I heard through the grapevine that Santa collects dry beans on Christmas Eve to bring back to Mrs. Claus to make soup for all the elves Christmas morning…and in exchange for these beans left out for him, he will swap them out for jelly beans! But what makes these dry beans so special is that each bean left for Santa Claus represents one good deed done by a child that holiday season!

Unwrapping a book a night may be my children’s favorite holiday tradition; this one is mine. The first week of December, I buy a few bags of dried pinto or lima beans, then set them in a shallow bowl next to a glass canister within arms reach of my children (you’ll be surprised how pretty this looks, too). Every time anyone says or does something nice, a bean is dropped in the jar. Yes, I also take one out when they misbehave.

Over the weeks, the beans add up, as does the Christmas spirit and the good habit of doing nice things for one another. Sure, the kids are ridiculously obvious and manipulative at times about it: “Here, Sis, let me help you walk down the hall to the bathroom…Mom, is that a bean?” but I couldn’t care less. For around $5 I get improved behavior, a reason for the kids to want Christmas morning to wait a few more days, and another gift for the kids to be excited about Christmas morning.

I heard the Easter Bunny does this too, by the way….

A Month of Gifts from your Bookshelves

We’ve already established that kids love to open presents (hey, so do I), so what better way to jump-start a new, leaned-down gift-buying season than give the kids MORE gifts to open…and to open now, before Christmas!

Sneak into your kids’ rooms and take off the shelves any book remotely related to the Holidays- think outside the box, as anything with “snow” or “winter” will work, too. Surprised at how many you have? Hopefully you have enough to read one a day all the way until Christmas morning. If not, you may want to hit the library and check a few out.

Now, wrap each book as if it’s a gift (maybe make a discreet mark to identify the library books in case you need to renew them mid-season!) and place them in a basket by your couch. (Green tip: I wrap with newspaper then draw a stick-figure Christmas tree on them). Every night, allow your kids to pick one “gift” to unwrap, and read the book together.

I have done this with my children for a few years now, and it is possibly our favorite holiday tradition. We start December 1st, and read the last one Christmas morning. All year, I look out for holiday-themed books at garage sales, thrift stores, and library rummage sales, so am able to sneak in a few new ones amongst the old favorites.

This fun new tradition does a few things: it forces our family to sit down together every night to take a moment to celebrate the season; it allows my kids to get their “gift fix” right when they think they’re going to DIE if they can’t open that gift under the tree yet; and it even serves as a discipline tool….the child with the best manners at dinner gets to open the book that night.

This is something you can start tonight, even if you don’t have all the books yet, and is a great first step in our attempt to stretch out the season!

NEXT POST: An Advent game to improve your children’s manners all season long!

-TWM

Advent over Excess...a guide to stretching out the season and stretching your dollars

Upon opening the last gift on the Christmas morning when my uncle was 7 years old, he stood up, walked over to the family tree, turned off the lights, and declared, "Christmas is over."

It was probably before 8 A.M.

While he has been teased endlessly about this blunt statement (obviously- I'm writing about it 50 years later), how many of us are guilty of at least empathizing with this mentality? Christmas is irrevocably linked with presents, and the entire holiday season seems to build up to that climax- with a hard crash to follow.

If this is how many of us secretly feel, it is no wonder that we overspend and overstress with the presents- we want the "moment of Christmas" to last, and if there are only a few presents under the tree for our loved ones (especially our kids), then Christmas just doesn't last long enough and isn't a big enough deal.

So how do we cut back this year without cutting short the fun?

By stretching out the other stuff... and therefore conciously turning Christmas into a full season that brings joy, peace, and cheer to all...including yourself.

So, in the relaunch of my blog, we will explore easy and inexpensive ways to make this Holiday season exactly that...a full season...enabling us to end the guilt, the credit card debt, and the landfill waste by making Christmas bigger than the gifts under the tree.

Read tomorrow about how to give your children something to unwrap every day between now and Christmas morning...without spending a dime.

-TWM

A Time to Write and a Time to Play

I've been playing this summer.

After the first week at home, with no camps, sitters, or exotic trips immediately on the horizon, I decided to put writing on hold for a bit and concentrate on making this summer as wonderful as possible for the kids. And it has been wonderful.

Because we live in Virginia, my kids still have quite a few weeks to go before starting school - therefore, my "finish line" is not quite here.

I've mentioned before that I believe in, and crave, "seasons", and feel that the key to full efficiency and appreciation of life is to fully live in one you are given before moving onto the next. This has been my season to play, relax, plan, and think....and embrace, rather than resent, the constant need for my attention still craved by my all-too-quickly-growing-up-kids.

In a few weeks, they will all be in elementary school...all of them! That is my season to write.

And I have so much to write about- my husband's new job (hooray!), his constant travel (not so hooray, but not without some meaningful and interesting perks to our lives and marriage), my own successes and failures in occupying the kids on the cheap for 12 solid weeks, and the catch-22 of suddenly being able to spend a little money after having saved for so long.

I have a lot to write about.

So thank you for sticking with me, and I promise I'll be around more from now on. I may have some exciting changes coming down the way, and I'll take you with me.

And I hope that you have also had a summer where you have allowed yourself a holiday from at least one "should" and embraced one "can" that's only around for this season.

If not, you still have time. Especially if you live in Virginia.

-TWM

A Holiday from Guilt and Routine Can be Enough

We were supposed to go camping over Memorial Day weekend, but it didn’t work out. Therefore, to make up for the lost opportunity, we spent the first 2 days of the long weekend living life to the fullest. We had 2 incredible cookouts with friends, a full Saturday of baseball games, outdoor exercise, socializing, and even 7 ½ hours of amusement park rides. We more than made up for any lost camping weekend.

Then when the REAL holiday came around Monday morning…we were completely and utterly exhausted. We all woke up at the regular time, but it just seemed to be taking us forever to motivate to do anything. “What a waste!” I immediately thought to myself. “We could have done THIS and THIS or THIS….” What kind of “holiday” were we having at all?

But then I realized that we were having a “holiday” in the original context of the word. We were having a holiday from something, rather than to somewhere.

We had a holiday from school. A holiday from work. A holiday from cleaning the house (that one was mine, by the way). A holiday from our alarm clock.

A holiday from guilt and obligation.

And that alone was enough to make it a wonderful vacation.

A vacation should give us a discernable break from our daily routine, lifting the pressure off of us long enough to allow us to catch our breath, live life a little differently, and then fully return to our work with renewed energy and purpose. If we are not getting this feeling of “ahh” both during and after the vacation, it’s probably because we are doing one of the two things: a) putting pressure (and therefore, guilt) on ourselves to do too much in the effort to live an entire year’s worth of FUN in that one holiday, or b) not breaking out of our usual habits enough to make it feel any different from what we do every day. My friend Sarah called this type of vacation, “My life, just in a different place.”

A vacation doesn’t have to be expensive, long, or even far away to do the job- it just needs to be different and guilt-free. So, from now on, as long as those parameters are being met, I am going to try to kick back, relax, and refill….and teach my family to do the same.

-TWM

A Weekend with no job, money, or plan

Yesterday afternoon was different from most Sunday afternoons in my household.

Unlike most weekends, we had NOWHERE to go. Nothing we had to do. The morning rain had cancelled the t-ball game. I had no freelance singing work. The house was actually reasonably clean, and the kids had clean underwear in their drawers for tomorrow. My husband had no urgent project to complete.

Nothing we had to do.

This should sound like Utopia, right?

But it wasn't. I was grouchy, and for once, I knew why. I knew that after about half an hour of "nothing to do", the petitions would start coming. From the kids, it was the inevitable "can we watch something/eat something/buy something" mantra that I dread. From the husband, it was the inevitable, "Let's come up with a PLAN."

Now, my husband uses the word "let's" when talking about planning something fun the same way I use the word "let's" when talking about fixing something. We both mean "you."

I hate planning "fun" all the time. Sometimes I don't feel "fun." Sometimes I don't WANT to be "fun." Sometimes I want to just be.

The problem is, when I don't plan something fun, the natural, lazy tendencies of my kids (as with most kids, I would venture) will steer toward the remote control or candy cabinet. My husband will find a project to do, and we will end up spending the afternoon in a distracted, disconnected stupor of media babysitting, individual projects, and unsupervised snacking. At the end of the day, my husband and I may feel so guilty over the wasted day that we'll go BUY SOMETHING to make up for it.

Perfect.

So, it's now back on me to PLAN something in order to save us all from this inevitable doom, right?

Well, yesterday, I learned that wasn't so. Yesterday, I learned that there is another option, and I didn't plan, watch, eat, or spend a thing: I asked my husband what HE thought would be fun, and we immediately and unquestionably went along with it.

Now, I don't want to indicate that I've never given my husband a chance to plan a family activity. It's just that when I do ask his opinion, I always think about whether it's a good one or not. Then I'll agree or disagree, and eventually we'll try to come up with a compromise. Yesterday, I was too tired to argue, and even though his plan sounded boring and problematic from the start- load up all kids and all bikes in unpleasantly cool, cloudy weather and go for a hike/ride around our city's downtown river island - I just shut up and agreed.

It was the best afternoon any of us can remember.

Throughout the afternoon, not only did we go along with every idea of my husband's, but we went along with the kids' ideas of "fun", too. Why not? I had nothing better to offer, for "once." Every side trail they wanted to explore, every rock that needed to be picked up, every fascinating bump in the path that needed to be ridden over...over and over again...was allowed, repeated by all, and celebrated. And it was fun. I had no idea that skipping rocks for a complete hour could hold my attention. I saw parts of the island I had never before been to. I never hurried up, cut off, redirected, or suppressed any idea that was offered, and we all benefitted.

I allowed my family to plan, and they were actually good at it. What they wanted to do was fun- for all of us. When given the paramaters of sugar-free, money-free, and tv-free, they proved that they could drive the cruise ship for a while, and do a better job of it than me.

As the long summer ahead looms without a lot of camps, money, or even solid plans, I am cautiously optomistic that we may be in for the a fantastic couple of months...as long as I remember to hand over the reigns and enthusiatically grab my riding hat!

-TWM

A Free Education and Year of Entertainment in One Hour

I am a different kind of person when I’m reading a good book. No line at the grocery store, hour in a waiting room, or evening spent watching my husband channel surf is wasted, or begrudged- I have my book, and need nothing else.

The problem is, I don’t always have that good book, and so live in a state of mild discontent and wasted time until someone comes along with a good recommendation, or suddenly reach a breaking point where I grab my keys and my wallet and drive to Barnes and Noble, sanctimoniously turning down their offer to become a “member” for $25 extra for the third time this month because I “never come here.”

There is a better way, and it takes less than an hour and can cost nothing.

We just need a plan.

There is a free, fabulous education out there that will turn us into the best-read person we know and fill every minute of down-time in our lives with life-changing wisdom and entertainment. And all we need to do to get it is spend the next hour doing the following steps:

1. Gather up all the used paperbacks in our house, and put them in a box or paper grocery bag.

2. Locate a used book store in our city

3. Create a LIST of all the books we’d like to read, and print it out. The older the book, the more likely we’ll find it.

Here are some lists I’ve found:

For all those books we should have read in school but didn’t:

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/23628.html

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

Or just to catch up on Oprah’s book club:

http://bestsellers.about.com/od/oprahsbookclub/a/oprah_book_list.htm

If we’d like to get our children in on the action:

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

http://www.teachersfirst.com/100books.cfm


4. Now take our trade-ins to the used bookstore, open an account, and while they’re sorting through our books, hit the aisles with that list! Don’t be surprised when they give some books back- just find a place to donate them later.


Now…we should have an amazing stack of hours and hours of reading sitting by our beds, ready to be grabbed. When we get through it, we’ll go back to the bookstore, trade them in, and start all over.

Of course, the library is always there, too.

Now what else do we need to get us through the next year? Just a good cup of coffee or glass of wine, depending on the time of day, and we’re golden.
-TWM

Always choose Outdoors over Indoors

Spring is taking its own sweet time in arriving in Virginia this year, but we are getting just enough pretty days to make us start craving the outdoors again.

The few beautiful, warm days we have had have driven home a strong point to me- that the great outdoors is the greatest economic equalizer in our society. No matter how much money we have, or don’t have, all of us living in the same city feel the same temperature and see the same amount of sunlight as everyone else. Same with the beautiful trees, flowers, birds…they are there for all of us.

The great outdoors also has another gift for us- saving money. I’m realizing that by making one simple choice at every opportunity- choosing outdoors rather than indoors – almost anything can be made more affordable, meaningful, and enjoyable:

Entertaining: Now’s the time of year for us all to come out of our winter cocoons and get together, but it doesn’t have to be in your home! You can always host a casual get-together in your backyard, but even simpler is to organize a gathering in a park or public garden. Taking it outside relieves the stress on you to be the “hostess” responsible for providing the beauty of the surroundings (Mother Nature will now take care of that), and helps make the event be about the simple act of getting together, not showing off your house.

Entertainment: I’m always amazed at the price of an indoor concert ticket compared to the quality of the bands you can get at free outdoor concerts. Another fabulous quality of an outdoor venue is that you can walk away with a screaming baby. If you keep a basket filled with hats, sunscreen, balls, bubbles, a few snacks, and a blanket near your front door or in your car, you’ll instantly be ready to head for a quick escape outside OR stretch out an otherwise just-fun-for-adults outdoor event…rather than heading for the nearest ice cream shop, Target store, or remote control when boredom hits.

Transportation: Before you grab your car keys, take an instant to ask yourself if you could possibly get there on bike or foot. This has probably been my most life-changing habit in terms of my wallet, body, and carbon imprint. Traveling this way makes it almost impossible to overbuy (you have to carry it home) or impulse buy (you’d have to walk there); it burns calories, saves gas money, and cuts down on “down time”- your transportation is your workout.

But choosing the outdoors over the indoors is more than just trying to live cheaply. We are actually doing something pretty profound- we are choosing the world’s beauty over our own. Living indoors requires us to fully decorate and control our environment- with our vision, our taste, our possessions, and our energy. Everything just reflects ourselves. To live outdoors is to be about something bigger, and to relinquish control over every sound, temperature, view, and living creature allowed access to our lives.

So let’s get out there, and take a break from trying to create the perfect world within our imperfect possessions. To do otherwise is such a waste of this beautiful gift of Spring!

-TWM

When kids need to HAVE something when they DO something

I never feel deprived when I can’t have something, but I feel ridiculously sorry for myself, or my kids, when we can’t do something.

Back when we were dating, my husband and I agreed that we would always choose doing over having, when it came to our spending priorities. So, we do lots of cool things, in my opinion, without having to feel like we have to also buy things to have in the process.

For example, we ski all the time, but with pretty old gear. We travel the world, but camp, stay with friends, or choose “quaint” over “fabulous.” We go to concerts, events, day trips, even theme parks, without having to get the t-shirt, the poster, the expensive lunch, or the souvenir.

Then along came our kids. Of course we want them to see and do, and so they have.

But….kids seem to need to have when they do. And there is a multi-billion dollar industry that knows this. Everywhere we go, we have to walk through a gift store to reach the exit sign. At every outdoor event, there is someone selling a $12 balloon or $15 spinny light thing that will break in the car on the way home, and every other kid has got it. And in addition to the spinny thing, they need the sugary thing.

What starts off as a quality, affordable family outing can turn into a depressing pile of plastic, sugar, and credit card debt, just so the kids can “get something.” It’s enough to make you not want to go anywhere at all.

Then one day, a friend of mine brought along a bag of lollipops to keep in the car after a day at a theme park. Low and Behold, the promise of that one lollipop at the end of the day allowed my kids to turn a blind eye to every “make your own sand sculpture out of colored edible sugar” stand we passed.

Could it be this easy? Are kids that cheaply bought off? The answer is YES, and the younger they are, the cheaper. They just need Something, and if you bring that Something along with you instead of buying it there, you will spend almost nothing.

Here are the Somethings that have worked for my kids, and I encourage you to stock up now for your next special outing. Just DON’T give these things to your kids all the time, or the magic will be ruined:

bag of lollipops
bubbles
glow sticks
stickers
popsicles (for when they get home)
a turn taking pictures with your digital camera
a turn holding the flashlight
a wrapped toy from the dollar store (lifesaver at Disney World!!)
their own notebook and crayons to keep a journal

Yes, it would be great if kids didn’t need these things every time they got to do something, but they’re just kids, and I myself am tired to trying to completely fight that concept.

When they get older, I am going to give them a set amount of money to blow at the beginning of every season, and when it’s gone it’s gone. They’ll learn quickly.

But right now, I love being able to spoil them with a 20-cent glow stick when we’re out late at night. They couldn’t be happier.

-TWM