Simply Real Moms:Meet Sarah
Before I introduce you to our Real Mom of the day I need to do a little blog business. I’m looking for 3 or 4 more guest writers to finish off my Simply Real Moms Summer Series.
Are you a Real Mom who would like to share your tips, tricks and daily life with us?
These are the dates: August 8,15,22 and 29.
Contact me if you’re interested!
If you’d like to catch up on all our previous Simply Real Mom posts click on the handy dandy Simply Real Moms button above or in my sidebar.
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Meet….Sarah!!
Our Simply Real Mom this week. I’ve actually “known” Sarah for quite some time. She used to be my cousin’s roommate when they were both teaching at a Christian school, unmarried and childless.
Fast forward to several years, marriage and children later I ran into Sarah at at a weekly playgroup hosted by my friend Trish. (Our Simply Real Mom from last week!)
Small world, huh?
Even though we no longer go to that playgroup I’ve enjoyed staying in touch with Sarah via Facebook. I enjoy seeing pictures of Sarah’s cute kids and reading about the funny things they do and say.
She blogs at Food and Whine. Check her out!
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Hi! I’m Sarah from Food And Whine. I have really enjoyed these real mom posts – I haven’t commented on all since, being a real mom, something usually came up, a drink was needed, an argument escalated, or I just plain lost my train of thought since I haven’t had a complete thought in at least 7 years.
I am mother to Sam who’s 7.5 and Kate who is 4 and will be 5 at the end of August. I have been married to the love of my life for 10 years.
I can’t remember the last time we had a family picture taken; it might have been Christmas but I can’t find it. It’s usually me taking the pictures but apparently not ones of Craig and the kids. All of that to say, here’s me with my kids. Hi.
As I thought about what to write, I kept coming back to how disorganized I feel all the time . . . so why in the world did I volunteer to write a guest post about how I do what I do? somedays I just “do the next thing” – a phrase my mom shared with me (kind of like the “good-enough mom,” I guess) – where I don’t worry about what we’ll do after lunch or later tonight or next week, but just . . . the next thing. The dishwasher needs emptied? do it. Enough ‘next things’ and things are done and the day is done.
I did start out the year planning out 3 months of meals and that was a big help – because inevitably we didn’t need all the nights of meals I planned to that stretched the scheduling by a few weeks. I made a big list (a big list!) of the meals we liked and also some I’d like to try; I printed some calendars, each month on its own page, and wrote what I thought we’d eat in the boxes. I tried to mix up what we had as far as type of meat and also style (Italian, Mexican, etc.) as well as only one new one a week (we’re not too adventurous in our dinner choices). Now we’re in summer so I need to sit and do it again with fewer soup, stews, or comfort food type of dishes.
For awhile I had a cleaning schedule of what to do on what day (loosely based on
Fly Lady), but it seemed like I didn’t
want to do that chore on that day or something would come up and before I knew it the house was out of control again. I still sort of follow a plan; bathrooms are Mondays and Thursdays, I try to do at least one load of laundry a day, and I more often than not “put my house to sleep” by cleaning the kitchen and the living room/dining area before bed.
I’ve also just come to accept that I’m moody about housecleaning. Sometimes it’s Real Simple photo shoot ready and other times it’s not. My husband, who worked for a cleaning company, always tells me how not vile our house is when I get down on myself, because he’s seem some nasty places with people who didn’t seem to notice.
I do have one thing that’s worked well for us that I thought would be worth sharing:
When my son was in preschool he didn’t seem able to select clothes himself; or maybe it was that he’d argue with me when it was time to get dressed. To give him a measure of independence and remove any discussion, I taped cards with the days of the week written on them to the shelf in his armoire and then would stack the clothes, underwear, and socks for each day above the cards. I could say to him, “go put on your ‘Monday’ clothes” and he would. We kept it up through kindergarten and first grade; towards the end of the year I wasn’t as consistent (it’s a little harder when the weather is unpredictable to plan if he’s going to wear shorts or pants; I do have to remember to check the weather) but overall I’ve had success with this with Sam. I don’t have quite as convenient a spot for Kate but would like to set up something similar because she’s starting kindergarten in the fall.
We do have chore charts and the kids can earn their “allowance” for filling them in; this spring I “raised the bar” on them by adding wiping the sink (for Sam) and sweeping the floor (for Kate). We talk about how they are members of this “community” and have to contribute and not just take all the time.
The most important thing I try to tell my kids every day is that God loves them. I love them, their father loves them, but most importantly God loves them, right now, just the way they are.
Thank you, Melissa, for having real moms come by and share what makes them (us) tick.
