306 : Up, Up and Away!

Before I had kids, I had high aspirations of the kind of parent I would be.  I always wanted to be the perfect mom, just like my mom had been for me.  Selfless. Talented.  Creative.  Generous.  And I on my best days, I was all of these things.  It was hard to be that perfect all the time, though.  Especially when the realities of life settled in.  I was raising two kids alone for the most part.  I couldn't be just the fun, creative mom every weekend, because we had things we had to get done.  And no, this was not just me being obsessive compulsive, this was just life.  We needed to grocery shop every weekend.  Laundry needed to get done.  The house needed to be cleaned.  There were always just things- necessary things- that needed attention.  This on top of being the selfless, talented, creative, generous, super cool mom that I wanted to be.  So, I decided to take some action and what better way to do this than Pinterest?  I created a board with craft ideas for my kids.  I could use this to plan activities.  It was good for all of us.  They enjoyed it.  I felt invested and rewarded for it.  Win Win.  Last weekend, we made tiny helicopters out of egg cartons. The activity in total lasted maybe 20 minutes.  But it was worth it.  I had my son's undivided attention from the word scissors.  We got to create something together.  Win Win.