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By Stephanie Simmons, Momivate's Inspiration Specialist  Photo Credit: JE Shoots on Unsplash.com Taking care of the home can be pretty mundane. I really do like a clean home. I also go in a continuous cycle of being on top of my game to ignoring the mess and hoping everyone else does too. There are many valid reasons and excuses to not keep our houses clean. And there are definitely different seasons in life that might affect the attention our home gets(some examples: rough pregnancy, emotional state not being taken care of, illness, etc). For those seasons that are not the exception, how do we stay motivated through the mundane? First, we need to recognize that we are doing better than we think! Let's give ourselves credit for the things we are doing! We are often too hard on ourselves. Secondly, your home is not a museum, it is a home. This was told to me by my husband many years ago when my 3rd child was starting to get around. It seemed that as I was cleaning, she would go around and undo the work I was doing, and I seemed to care more about a clean house than spending time with my kids. I was getting frustrated and perhaps a little overwhelmed. Probably after a rant of frustration or something, he told me, “It’s ok to have some mess in the house. We don’t live in a museum; this is a home.” That has really stuck with me and helped me many times as I lose focus and start caring more about a clean home than the people in the home. Third, my thoughts influence my attitude! I can remember a time when I was reflecting on how annoying and mundane it was to have to keep doing the same housework day after day, and week after week. It was hard to find the motivation to want to do my chores. At some point in my ruminations, I thought, maybe if I change the way I view what I am doing, it won’t be so bad. I thought to view the housework as service to my family. I like to serve others. In fact, cleaning another’s home was always more enjoyable than cleaning my own. I also like to remind myself that I love how the end results make me feel when I have a clean home. And one last thing I try to focus on is that it is actually a little therapeutic getting lost in my thoughts, or listening to an audio book or talk, while I clean. Even talking on the phone to a family member or friend really helps the mundane chore get done in an enjoyable way. Fourth, recruit your family to contribute! As my kids have gotten older and have been able to contribute more, and I have had to train them and motivate them, they get a little lecture about “family contributions.” This wording comes from a parenting book by the Eyre family. It helps us see that everyone in the family contributes. We have our dad who contributes by going into work and brings in money for our home. We take care of the home to earn our part and our income, or payment, is in the form of clothes, food, home, etc. My lecture would include pointing out the things they do and need that require work to make happen (you eat, so you need clean dishes and food, and there is a mess from using them, cost to buying the food, etc). When it comes to caring for our homes (formerly called doing chores), remember, you are doing a great job! Your home is for living in, focus on the positive, and enlist your children in the family contributions. Our home can be a clean home to help us live happily in! Here's a few Quick Tips to help you kick start your cleaning:
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By Regan Barnes, who is not a rapper, but her son said this is a pretty good rap!  Photo Credit: Freestocks on Unsplash.com January is known for being grey, cold, and miserable, but it is a magical month for me for a couple reasons: my birthday falls in January AND there are after-Christmas clearance sales! I don't shop for fun, as a rule, but shopping for deals and for birthdays is something I allow myself to enjoy! A couple of years ago during a January antidepressant spree, I saw Christmas wrapping for 25 cents a roll -- and this was the high-quality, double-sided stuff! I decided to buy an excessive amount and use it as neighbor gifts the following Christmas season. I wrote up the following Christmas Wrap Rap to go along with it. And as I delivered the wrapping paper, I even performed the rap on a few occasions!
Here's some wrap for you Since you'll be wrappin' lots of gifts -- And a Christmas Rap, too... Just give a beat to this: There's a lot we wanna say about this awesome holiday. You know the dude in red who says, "Ho, Ho, Ho" He's as real as fairies, but yo, yo, yo -- The Man we really love lived 2,000 years ago... His birth was a miracle! He served his life doin' miracles! The fact that he died is a miracle too Because He died for me and He died for you. Let me use my lyrical skills To tell you another miracle still: Three days after the Cross 'Twas the miracle most empirical -- He rose from the grave! It's TRUE! Yeah, He saves us in TWO ways, yeah, TWO: He saves us from death, and he saves us from sin! He gives us peace while we're on earth, And hope for Heaven. Now we're lookin' forward to His Second Coming! We love our Lord and we know you do too. We're so happy to celebrate His birthday with you! Have a happy holiday as you give and give and give -- That's one way we honor the Giver of the best gifts. By Esperanza DeLaLuz
I always wanted to be a mother. I actually wanted to have a dozen children like in the book “Cheaper by the Dozen” by Frank Gilbreth. There were eight kids in my parents’ family and, to this day, I consider those seven siblings some of the best presents my parents ever gave me. I am blessed to have seven people who are so loyal that I can count on them for any necessity, and now I will never find myself helpless and stranded.
But I am the oldest child. At one point in my life, in my first marriage, it seemed possible that I would find myself a divorced single mother. My babies were 2 years old and six months old. I was looking at having to support myself, and basically being gone so much that someone else would be raising my babies. I could not imagine how I could bear to do that. Because I had seven younger siblings still at home, living in my parent’s home other than temporarily was not an option at that time, and I was devastated. Fortunately, it did not happen, and we worked things out, for the most part. But I still remember the gut-clenching fear I had then. Part of this was that I had not prepared myself to have any kind of decent paying job, had not finished college, and was not confident that I could even provide for myself, much less two children. I had only ever prepared myself to be a mother. I felt then, and still feel that this is the most important and most rewarding career a woman could ever have. But I also feel that in this present world, a woman who has no options in the event of a death, divorce, or abandonment, faces an incredibly stressful future. Due to this background, I encouraged my daughters to get enough schooling completed that they did not have to let fear of not being able to provide for themselves convince them to stay in a situation which was dangerous or unhealthy for them or their children. Having a solid education is excellent preparation for motherhood itself whether or not a profession becomes a necessity. Consider how children are blessed to be raised by women who have a depth and breadth of knowledge! Motherhood is the most important work of all, and worthy of our best efforts. It is easy for a working mother to fall into the trap of putting the demanding boss, the interesting job, the extra income, as such a high priority, that she delays or limits her opportunities to be a mother. Mothering will always be the highest and holiest calling a woman can pursue. Of course, it may be necessary for survival or personal sanity to have outside employment. I am not in any way demeaning the choices of those mothers who also work outside the home. There are many women who work and parent successfully. I am constantly amazed at, and frankly in awe of women who successfully do that. But I do believe that of the two jobs, mothering is the one that matters. Years from now, it is unlikely that your other job will affect the world anywhere near as much as the job you are doing at home as a mother. So keep on doing what you do and remember it is SO valuable. By Diana Duke, Momivate's Secretary As I walk in the house from picking up the kids from school, I notice piles of folded laundry just waiting for the kids to knock over. The sink is full of dirty dishes from breakfast with cereal boxes and orange juice still sitting on the island. Five bags of groceries are sitting on the counter just waiting to be put away. There are backpacks and shoes strewn throughout the living room. My thoughts pull me to a commercial with a woman in a business suit singing “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget that I’m a woman”. I don’t even remember what the commercial was pushing. I just remember thinking I want to be that woman who can do it all: work, provide, and do it looking amazing. But as I stare at the sight in front of me, I begin to minimize the things that I have accomplished today and begin to over-catastrophize all the things that have not been accomplished. This is a common thinking error referred to as Minimizing/catastrophizing and it is something that I need to correct. One thing I can do to overcome the thinking error Minimizing/catastrophizing is to realize when I am in the middle of this thinking error, I need to stop and redirect my thinking with positive self talk. When I start to practice positive self-talk incredible things begin to happen. When I see the pile of laundry sitting on the couch waiting to be tipped over, I redirect my thoughts to recognize that I am nearly finished with this load of laundry. If I ask the kids to take their pile of clothes and put them away, we will be finished with this load of laundry! I will then have time to put another load in the washer. While the latest load of laundry is in the spin cycle, I can make tuna sandwiches for dinner. Sure it won’t be a roast with rosemary and garlic potatoes, but the kids will be fed... and if I add a few strawberries and carrots from the groceries still sitting on the counter waiting to be put away, I can count two servings of the five required fruits and vegetables for the kids today. Positive self-talk can make the half-finished work of today seem like the work for tomorrow is nearly finished. Throughout my days, I often struggle with minimizing my accomplishments and over-catastrophizing the long list of things I could do better. The list gets longer as I dwell on the things I still need to do. But as I practice Positive Self-Talk I can overcome this thinking error. Positive self-talk creates a positive mindset for me and sets a tone for the people in my life to be positive about their accomplishments too. Embracing Positive Self-Talk creates a much healthier thought pattern for my life as well. As I become more positive through self-talk, I can become more successful. And success breeds more success. I can eventually have a healthier and more positive way of thinking. So tomorrow when I wake up, my work will be half finished, and I will be able to accomplish even more! By Esperanza DeLaLuz Here is a funny story: Back before you could buy fast food with a credit card, I found myself with three hungry kids and too many hours before we could go home. So, I made a quick stop at McDonalds and, with the couple of dollars cash I had, I got a burger and a large fries to split among the kids, knowing I could make it the next few hours without this snack. As I divided the burger into 3 parts and doled a third of the fries to each child, a man walked by our table and made some assumptions. He promptly went and bought four burgers and gave them to us. I assured him that we had plenty of money, just not in cash, and it would only be a few hours before we could eat at home. He would not be deterred, though, so thanks to his kindness we had a full lunch. To this day, I think he really believes that I was lying to save face. Because it is so common for mothers to make sacrifices for their children, that man assumed that I was one of those wonderful mothers who goes without food so that her kids can eat. Well, I have never been in a situation where there wasn’t enough food, except very temporarily, but I hope that if I were, I would be able to do as so many mothers in the past have done: survive on minimal rations in order that their children would have enough food. Every mother makes sacrifices for her children, and many are not visible sacrifices: sleep, peace of mind, time alone, cooking dinner with one child on the hip and another dragging at her clothing, convincing sick children to take their medicine, cleaning wounds, combing tangles, and more and more. We do these things for two reasons: because we love them enough to sacrifice our own comfort for them; and because we know that sometimes we must do things for our children that are hard, because we love them more than we desire them to be happy with us. Someone once said a similar thing about God: He’s more interested in our growth than in our comfort. And He’s willing to take the “blame” when we aren’t happy with the circumstances that are intended to result in our growth. As moms, we model this divine structure with our children in two ways: accepting God’s will for us even if it’s harder than we want it to be, and interacting with our children in ways that, in the long run, are for the best but, in the short-term, aren’t “fun.” And that is a sacrifice of its own kind. The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children. -- Jessica Lange By Sam Allred, Momivate's CouncilMom over Music, Inspiration, and Laughter These fun songs for toddlers and young kids are not only great for using up some of their extra energy, but they also teach coordination skills and help with language development. These are great songs to use on a rainy day or during the cold months of the year when kids are typically stuck indoors, but they would also be a great addition to your daily routine.
Next time your kids need to get some wiggles out, consider teaching them some of these fun songs. When kids move to music, they are getting so much more than just exercise. They are developing coordination, balance, language, and concentration.  This submission is by Jennifer Wright, a MomUnity member who earned an OkkaTots diaper bag by answering this prompt: When you decided to take on the job of raising a child (or more than one), your heart knew that you would be the giver of the love long before you'd be the receiver. And the love you give is the VERB kind of love -- every repetitive, mundane act, every phrase you hear yourself say a zillion times... Why? Ask yourself, and answer yourself. It's a valuable practice to become conscientious and provide those reasons to get you through the hard times and be able to appreciate the good times all the more. Here is Jennifer's beautiful and thoughtful answer. If you'd like to submit an answer and earn a diaper bag too, here's the form.  Photo Credit: Liana Mikah on Unsplash.com Motherhood is made up of moments. Good moments, bad moments, successful moments, learning moments, rewarding moments, and more.
Why do I spend my time being a mother? Well, honestly, there are hard moments when I ask myself that question and I can’t see that I’m making a difference. But those moments inevitably pass, and are usually followed by learning moments. The most applicable answer is: I love my children! Ultimately, I want them to be happy and I am the one most able to help that happen in the short term and the long run. My children need me. I give them my time and attention so their lives will be better. I am the one that best understands them and can infer their needs. My children are young and they can’t communicate well yet, either because they can’t talk yet or are still learning the meaning of words and how to tell me something. No one else is as equipped as I am to understand and help them because I know their bigger picture, the moments that make up their world and reality. It’s rewarding to see the progress they make as a result of choices I have made in adjusting their surroundings or schedule to best fit their current needs. I know those needs intimately because I have been there every moment and step of the way. I am positioned to best help them progress and succeed. My children reflect me. Children are little sponges who repeat the most random things! I learn about myself in how they handle emotions and react to situations. I know they learned many of those things from me. Sometimes those moments are painful to see, but I am a better person for seeing myself reflected by them. The rewards are in the moments too. Milestone moments of learning to smile or walk and random silly happy moments filled with laughter, and moments of progress when something ‘clicks’ that we’ve been working on. I love my children the most of anyone on this earth, and no one else is going to care what happens to them more than I do. I want to be the one they ask for help, even if it’s 100 times a day. I want to be the one advocating for them. I want to be the one who feeds them, sees their smiles, kisses their ‘hurts’ and tucks them in. At the end of the day, I can best celebrate their victories with them because I know the moments that make up their days and months and years. Their best chance of success is through me, and I love them, so I give them my moments. By Sam Allred, CouncilMom over Music, Inspiration, and Laughter  Self-affirmations are positive statements that can be used to encourage and motivate yourself. When you repeat them often, and believe in them, you can start to make positive changes.
Here are 5 affirmations that you can use to transform your thoughts about motherhood and inspire you to be a better mom.
If you feel like you need a mindset change, give affirmations a try. The key to affirmations is to use them frequently. Work them into a part of your morning routine, such as brushing your teeth or getting dressed. Write them down and post them on your mirror. Upload them to your phone wallpaper so you see them every time you open your phone. Some people say them outloud, some repeat them in their mind during meditation, others write them in a journal. Do whatever works for you. Your thoughts and words have the power to change your mindset and help you achieve your goals. By Sam Allred, CouncilMom over Music, Inspiration, and Laughter  Happy 4th of July!
It’s a day of barbeques, fireworks, and parades -- and you can have even more fun by teaching your little ones some patriotic songs to sing during the festivities. Thanks to childfun.com and famlii.com for the suggestions! NOTE: The concept of using a familiar tune and simply inserting fresh lyrics is one to remember and use whenever you're in need of a song to lighten up a learning moment! It's called "Piggy-backing" and is just as fun as it sounds! On the Fourth of July (Sung to the tune of London Bridge) It’s our country’s birthday, Birthday, birthday. It’s our country’s birthday, On the Fourth of July! Fireworks go Snap, Snap, Snap! (Sung to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb) Fireworks go snap, snap, snap! Crack, crack, crack! Zap, zap, zap! Fireworks make me clap, clap, clap On Independence Day! This Land is Your Land This land is your land, This land is my land, From California to the New York Island, From the Redwood Forest, To the Gulf Stream waters, This land was made for you and me. Way Up in the Sky (Sung to the tune of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Wave, wave, wave the flag, Hold it very high. Watch the colors gently wave, Way up in the sky. March, march, march around, Hold the flag up high. Wave, wave, wave the flag, Way up in the sky. By Sam Allred, CouncilMom over Music, Inspiration, and Laughter  Thanks to thousands of British families, two child psychologists, and a Grammy award-winning artist we now have a song that is scientifically proven to make your baby happy. Parents across the U.K. were asked to list which sounds make their babies laugh. Their responses included sneezing, animal sounds, and babies’ laughter, which are all included in “The Happy Song” by Imogen Heap. Not only is this song scientifically proven to make babies happy, but it is approved by my one-year-old as well. Anytime she gets fussy in the car I put on this song and it immediately distracts her and makes her happy. Give it a try with your little one during playtime, mealtime, or when you are on a drive. |
