You Don't Have To Be A Pinterest Mom

 

It's been a while. Life has gotten away from me these last couple of weeks.
I've been busy weaning my nine month old daughter the last several days. There has been crankiness and tears.... from both of us. (wink)
I praise God for the nine months that I got to nourish my daughter and the special bond it created between us.

Something that has become a mild obsession of mine is Pinterest. I LOVE the information that I can find so easily with just typing in a few words. As a mom, that is key. Time is money (as the saying goes) but for me, time is sanity. The less amount of time that something takes me to do, the better.

With having three kids ages 3 and under, I am ALWAYS on the lookout for something fun to do with them. Something that will keep their attention span for more than 5 minutes and maybe even keep them busy on their own for a while. Those dirty dishes, clothes, toilets etc won't clean themselves!!

I was 8 months pregnant with Miss Boo and desperate for a new activity when I stumbled upon cloud dough.

It seemed like a God send at the time. It only took 2 ingredients, and I was thrilled to see that I had them on hand. I mixed it up with Bear and Bunkin at my heals, excited to see Mommy stirring a concoction of messiness in our laundry basket.

I put everything in our bathtub and watched as they had a BLAST!! I was feeling very pleased with myself. I was this laid back, relaxed mom who cared more about her boys having fun then the HUGE mess it was creating.

By the time I convinced them that they were done, I was totally exhausted. I gave them baths in our other bathtub and left the "little" mess for Daddy to clean up when he came home. I figured what more could he expect from his 8 months pregnant wife who also had a prolapsed uterus??? To be honest, the boys were lucky that they even got baths at all. :)

When Daddy did come home, he was a little surprised by the mess, but fully understanding why I didn't feel up to cleaning it myself. Well, he was until he tried to tackle it.
Since it had set for a while, the cloud dough had hardened into this horribly ridiculous goop that was all over our bathtub, laundry basket, toilet, bath toys, and floor. It took way more than a little elbow grease to clean it all up.

My husband is no dummy. You don't mess with an extremely miserable pregnant woman. This was his third baby after all. He kindly but firmly got his point across to me that in the future cloud dough would be an outside activity only. I agreed, although I haven't made it since.

In a way, this was my first Pinterest Fail. Yes my kids loved it, but I still haven't lived it down with the hubby ;)


My next Pinterest Fail happened more recently. I came across this wonderful crafty woman's blog and immediately saw something that I HAD to make for my boys.

A DIY Toy Car Wash made out of a diaper box. I definitely had plenty of those on hand and I just new how much fun they would have with it.
I stayed up til well past midnight the night before making this thing. It looked NOTHING like the one on the blog looked, but I figured, they're kids, they'll like it no matter what.

And they did like it.... for a half an hour. The flimsy thing broke on me. The thing I slaved over for an hour an a half had the gull to fall apart on me.

I'm really not a terrible mom who just takes pictures of her children crying. I was taking it in disbelief to send to my husband and poor Bunkin started crying. :( 

I came to a conclusion.
I am not a crafty mom. Oh I'd love to be, but I'm not.
I'd also love to have a perfectly clean house all the time.
I'd love to have little birdies and woodland creatures come and help me clean it.
I'd love to be upbeat and put together all the time.
I'd love to NEVER raise my voice to my kids.
I'd love to have a perfect marriage.
I'd love to take a shower every day (wink)
I'd love a lot of things.

But the truth of the matter is, I'm me. And that's all I can be.

I love simple, silly, imaginative play. It comes natural to me.
Here are some things that we have been up to lately in that category.

Fishing with tent poles for their toys. Bear had watched a Curious George where they had went fishing and he had become very interested in fishing. I was able to talk to him about the logistics and came up with this silly game for them to play.

Three little pigs role play. The story that was read when we went to the library (you can read more about that in "Library Story Time = Death") was "The Three Little Pigs". I found a box and had Bear and Bunkin use their tools to pretend build their houses. I was the big bad wolf and would knock their houses down, obviously until the very end. When Daddy came home, he wanted in on the fun. :)

Using a box as our TV.  I My kids watch Rugrats. It was one of my favorites growing up, and they really like it too! Do you remember the episode where they make a box into their pretend TV? Well we've seen it, and so out same a box again. Bear and Bunkin enjoyed hours or pretending to put on their own shows for everyone.

Using boxes as pretend towns. If you haven't noticed, I have a thing for boxes. You can dream up for it to be literally anything and everything. My sons love to dress up and one of their favorites is the Melissa and Doug cowboy costume. I can't say enough about how much I love their dress up products. They are VERY durable which is a must in this household. You can find this particular outfit here ----> http://www.melissaanddoug.com/cowboy-role-play-costume-set
Bear loves to dress up in this and catch Mommy and Bunkin. the "bad guys", by chasing us around and around the town.
By the way, if your in need of a box for play, I'll gladly sell you one ;)

A beans sensory tub. This is a hit for all three of my kids (I watch Miss Boo with hawk eyes) It's amazing how long this will keep them occupied. Just give them some dump trucks, bowls and measuring cups and they will stay busy with this for a good hour.


I think us as Mom's can start to feel very pressured by Pinterest. Yes there are millions of great ideas on there, but you have to remember to be yourself.
Figure out what comes naturally to you, and use that to your advantage when it comes to things you do with your kids. Trust me, your kids won't be disappointed if you play with them with a box or a tub of beans for an hour. They'll just be thrilled that their Mamma, the most amazing woman in the world to them, is playing with THEM!!!



What do you enjoy doing with your kids??