Think back to your childhood for a moment. What’s the first great memory that comes to mind? How old were you? Was the memory an experience or was it an item that you received from someone? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that for most of us, our memories of childhood are defined by what experiences we had, rather than by things we acquired.

Some of my fondest memories include tents that my Grandma made for me on her outdoor porch swing in the summer time, camping trips,”hookie days” from school with my Mom for getting good grades, family bike rides, and holiday traditions such as making gingerbread men at Christmas time. If someone were to ask me the best, most expensive or beloved “thing” I got when I was 9, I wouldn’t be able to answer them! I have NO CLUE what I got as gifts when I was 9. Sure, I remember certain things. I remember getting a bike at Christmas one year. I remember being given my pet rabbit and that when I “graduated” 6th grade my Mom bought me a necklace.

Now days, people just buy things for their kids. They buy them new clothes, new video games, Lego’s, hot wheels, and anything else that will pacify them for a while. It’s like everyone is just trying to buy their kid off.  My kids may sometimes feel they’re worse off than their friends because I don’t take them shopping for stuff every weekend (I don’t even take myself shopping), but I would much rather spend money on them in a way that creates memories instead of a piece of plastic that will be forgotten about in a day or two.

A good way to make memories is to continue traditions that you enjoyed when you were a child. The gingerbread men are an annual activity here at my house. For boys, it seems that eating them is way more fun than decorating them but come December they are asking me when it will be time to make them. I also like to start traditions of my own. Every spring and fall we take a weekend trip into the mountains and play in the hot springs. We swim, eat gelato, swim, go for a hike, eat dinner (and more gelato!), swim, pass out for the night and then repeat! We have so much fun, and since it’s a short trip within driving distance it’s easily affordable. We also go camping every summer.

I once got this kettle popcorn maker for my stove and initially I wondered what the world I was ever going to do with such a thing. It sat in a cupboard for a few years and then one night it dawned on me that we should have “movie night”. Movie night now happens every Friday night. The boys help me make the popcorn and then we snuggle together on the couch and chow down to a good flick. It’s a really nice way to start the weekend… especially in the winter. The point is that I believe when my son’s grow up, they will remember the activities and adventures we went on together long after they’ve forgotten that I once bought them a $50 game for their Gameboy.

I share the same difficulties as every parent in trying to balance work, social life, hobbies, kids, their hobbies, school, homework, etc. It’s one of the hardest things I have to tackle each day. I may not be able to create a meaningful memory each and every day, but if I plan ahead I can make time to do things with them that are more about being happy then they are about getting stuff that’s “cool”.

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Where did summer go? Its seems like my oldest son just finished the third grade yesterday, and yet tomorrow is his first day back. Crazy! I feel like I’m not ready (and so, I can’t imagine how he must feel… hopefully more ready than I!)… I’m not ready for back to school night, selling candy bars to the poor unfortunate souls at my office, and working on 4th grade homework and trying to remember how the hell we did “it” when I was in 4th grade. Mostly, I’m not ready for my son to grow another year older. While there’s a big part of me that can’t wait for my boys to grow up so that I can have a grown relationship with them, the other part of me wonders why this is all speeding by so fast (sigh). But alas, the school year is here so I better get myself together. For any other parents out there trying to get into the swing of things again, here are a few of my tips to make the adjustment a little smoother.

• Transition: If your child is anything like mine, there’s gonna be some rough roads ahead! Suddenly he’s going to have to adjust to going to bed a littler earlier, spending less time riding his bike and playing his gameboy, and of course we’ll have to do homework! To help with this, I make sure that they’re in bed a little early each night (I work them back down slowly). Also, if you haven’t imposed this already, I make a rule at home about things like the gameboy. Once homework is done, the gameboy can come out for xx minutes. Over time, he complains less about the rule, but it takes a while. My son’s school also implements 30 minutes of reading each night at home as part of his grade, so I get him back in that habit as early as I can too.
• Homework: Plan ahead and set a designated time for homework. Depending on the age of your child, you will be involved to varying degrees. At least where I am at, homework is now designed to be more of an interaction between parent and student (”Go upstairs and do your homework while I fix Dinner” won’t work for me). Give him/her some time to decompress, so pick a time that allows for downtime before and after homework. I always choose dinner time and we work on it together while I’m cooking.
• The Social Hour: So far, I don’t have to worry about this too much, but I’m sure there’s a bunch of parents out there that do. I can’t imagine what it will be like trying manage my child’s social life in addition to my own! Since I have no experience with this, I’ll tell you what I think I’ll try to do when I get there. I think it’s critical to support and respect his relationships with others, so my hope is that he and I will have a discussion about priorities and understanding that homework and chores must come first. Any parental tips out there on this?
• New Teacher: This year my son has his first male teacher. It’s kinda cool. Regardless of sex, your student is going to have a new teacher which means new rules, new writing styles and new expectations. The most important thing I’ve found here is to communicate with your child everyday about his/her interaction with the new teacher to get a sense for how he perceives things. Then, I make sure to open the lines with the teacher so that I can form my own opinion outside of my child’s. My son is about the most extroverted person I know (besides me!) so depending on the teacher, he is either well received for his energy and enthusiasm or harshly criticized for being “disruptive”. Because of this I try to get to know his teachers very well (as I think all parents should). Keeping yourself informed from both angles will help you sort out any issues that your student might have at school.
• The Cool Factor: “But Mom… All my friends have one! I have to have that, you just don’t understand.” I try to remember how much that mattered to me when I was in school and in this case compromise is key. Understanding the importance of peer approval while still promoting uniqueness and self-expression is crucial. I want my son to be well liked and happy, but I also want him to think for himself. Sometimes I just plain can’t afford what “everyone else” has, and I tell him we need to get something different. But in the event it’s a specific type of folder or backpack or something that I can afford, I ask him to think about whether he wants that one because of others, or if it truly is his favorite. If given the time to rationalize, he often chooses the one he likes. The key is that if we give in to all the things our kids tell us they have to have to fit in, we’re telling them (through our actions) that we want them to be like everyone else; that we want them to do what other people do, wear what other people wear, etc. That’s not a message I want to send to my son.
• Lunches: Yeah, ok so this seems a little trivial but lunches can be tricky! Ever opened your kid’s lunch box from the day before and found the only things missing were the “sweet stuff”? Man, that makes me crazy! I actually have my son help me with making his lunch. Sometimes if we’re doing good, he makes it entirely on his own and I check it later to see what he’s added. Typically I find that if he’s taken the time and energy to make it, he’ll eat it! Other times I just straight up ask, “If I put ____ in your lunch, will you eat it, or will it end up in the garbage? Just be honest. I won’t be angry, I just don’t want to waste food”. He’s pretty honest with me and he’ll tell me if he doesn’t want a banana in his lunch that day. I always prefer “sack lunches” to the hot lunch… not only for the sake of saving money but also for the sake of knowing what is going into my kid’s mouth! I’m pretty big on organic, and I remember what school lunches were like…. worse than bowling ally food if you ask me. If you shop carefully, you can find 100% juice boxes, organic cookies, and other things that will “seem” like goodies to your child, but are a lot better for them then Cheeto’s.
• Rise and Shine: Getting your child up for school can be a nightmare. I have given my son an alarm that is solely for him. When it goes off, he gets up and comes in my room to get me up (bad Mommy!). Now, this doesn’t always work out perfectly, but usually just the fact that it’s going off will get him out of bed faster in the event that I do have to go in his room to tell him to get dressed. Getting yourself up every day is a good thing to be responsible for and Mom can always be there as backup.

Well, that’s my advice. It’s a lot, but when you think about it, having a kid in school is a lot of work! Especially in the first month trying to get back into the groove. These tips should not only help you adjust, but should also help your student. Happy schooling y’all.

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An article appeared on my homepage today that I had to comment on. According to Fox News, Hospitals in New York City are going ban baby bottles for new Mothers in the Hospital in order to encourage breastfeeding. I don’t deny that Mother’s Milk is best, and that breastfeeding is a more natural way to go. I also don’t deny that it helps to bond Mother to baby and that it can help a new Mom to lose all that pregnancy weight. There are LOTS of benefits- I get it.

What I don’t get is why it should be anyone’s business besides the Mother and maybe the Father. While I agree about the benefits of breastfeeding, my first son never latched on and so I bottle fed him. He is and always has been a very healthy child. If formula fed babies showed significant differences in health or growth than I could understand the push to get women to breastfeed, but in this case I don’t.

Nurses are generally pretty pushy about this subject as well, but now with hospital support behind them, I pity the Mother’s who wish not to breastfeed- whatever their reasons may be.

So, if they can tell us we can’t bottle feed (or at least make it difficult), what’s next?

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Being a working Mother is hard. I don’t know what the percentage of working mothers is anymore, and I don’t know if the numbers are increasing or decreasing. I have heard more and more about working mothers making the switch back to staying at home with their kids (I think that is supercool, by the way). I am a working Mom and given that I am single, I probably always will be. But, as my kids get older (and I get wiser!) I realize how nice it would be to not have to fight to balance raising a family with my career. I constantly feel out of balance to tell you the truth. It seems like a continuous battle because if I’m focusing on one, then I automatically feel that I am not giving the other the attention it requires for true success.

My day entails nothing less than an hour of driving to deliver my kids to their appropriate destinations, work, swimming lessons and soccer, dinner, a walk at the park for the dog, the gym and then HOPEFULLY some downtime. If I stop for a moment to think about it all, I realize that my focus should always be on my children. Always. This means not working more than 40 hours a week when most of the other people at my office work 50; it means using up all my vacation time to stay home with my kids when they’re sick; it means missing important meetings sometimes because my kid’s Halloween parade at school is more important (How can a blue poster board Monster Truck NOT be better than a meeting?). In the end, this translates into missed opportunities for advancement, bonuses and other perks at work. Now, I’ve clearly made my choices and I accept them, but it is hard to be at work some days and know that I can’t necessarily always reap the same rewards that other employees do.

Then there’s the reverse. A huge project is on my plate and so I start bringing work home at night and on the weekends. I may complete the project on-time and I may feel a sense of pride and accomplishment that I contributed to my company, but there’s this underlying feeling of knowing that because of that project I have not spent as much time with my kids as I could have, or that I’ve been particularly grumpy because of too many late nights. I never feel as though I have proper balance. It seems to be one or the other. In doing some research for this post, I realized that I am not alone in this feeling. There are a lot of resources out there about this very subject. I hope in the future to provide posts about finding this balance, or at least happily accepting the unbalance! But for now, I thought I would provide some links of places that I have found helpful.

• Working Mother has a lot of contributing bloggers serving up their best information and advice.
• Job-Mom is all about the balancing act.
• DotMoms promises “Better Babies through Blogging”.
• Self-Made Mom serves up a ton of info and lots of links to other Mom-friendly places on the blogosphere.

These are just a few of my favorite places to go. The balancing act is a fact of life if you’re a working Mom. I suppose its more about attitude than achieving balance. By looking at it that way, we can just consider this “extra” challenge as a daily character-building exercise.

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