I am on my third day of hanging out with the kids alone since Devang has work. I’m not saying that saving lives and helping sick people is easy, but sometimes I wonder if brain surgery is less complicated! ;) Today, I thought I’d share my top six silly but somehow magical things, that help me in transforming my attitude when I am the only adult in-charge!
- Dressing Well – I have realized that for my sanity if I stay in yoga pants, pajamas, or any kind of sloppy outfit, I feel equally sloppy and out-of-sorts all day long. I make it a point to dress well even if we aren’t going anywhere special, because it really does perk up my mood. When all the kids are loosing their marbles and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, at least what I see looks put together and nice. It instantly makes me believe I can handle it, or at least pretend to handle it, you know!
- Eye-Liner – An extension of #1, even though I don’t wear a lot of make-up to begin with, I will always make sure that I have eye-liner on because it wakes up my eyes and somehow makes the dark circles less pronounced.
- Adult Outing (with kids) – Sometimes I’ll have company, other times I won’t, but I try to make sure I visit at least one place in a day that isn’t kid-centric; easily described as the opposite of say, Marbles Museums or Pullen Park. A coffee shop, a bakery, neighbor’s house, and believe it or not, Costco!
- San Pellegrino Sparkling Water– Why not coffee? Well because I probably shouldn’t drink 10 cups of coffee a day you know. It’s something about that tall green glass bottle and the bubbles that make the simple act of drinking water feel like I am sipping something more interesting (and I am always happy to share with them if they ask). I also use the pretty crystal glass to drink it when things get really desperate. Why not wine? Well, I hear getting liquored up around your kids is frowned upon and possibly illegal.
- Alexa – The little Amazon robot is great in defusing arguments because I can easily distract them with a song or a story. We often play the “ask Alexa” game where they get to ask the robot questions about curious things. It ranges from “what is the weather outside?”, to “where is the sun?” to “can you tell us the Frozen story?”. Then they get really creative and think of ways to make Alexa say “sorry I don’t know that one” Apparently that is really fun. It’s also nice to have someone play soothing music or a favorite podcast without typing or looking for CDs. When all else fail, I ask Alexa to play a song I love and then I start dancing and singing. This really throws them off their crazy, to see their mom being even crazier than them.
- Perfume – I have never been very good with cluttered spaces. But since having kids I have realized that the only thing worse than the clutter, is the crazy attempts at keeping thing straight. I also don’t wear strong perfumes anymore given that I am always holding a baby close to me. BUT, I have this really yummy and light perfume from Anthropologie called “Travel Room”. It was something I bought on sale a few months ago and just spritzing that on me or around me changes the feel of everything so easily. The sense of smell can sometimes successfully trump the chaos that the eyes sees.
I’d love to hear if any of you have fun, silly, and interesting ways to handle long days with (or without) kids. I can always add more things to my arsenal, you know!
I better go check on ’em kids … Happy Sunday to all of you! And here is a picture of my posse from the other day when I thought it would be a good idea to take them with me to a lecture about authors and marketing (it wasn’t a good idea in case you are wondering). Live and learn. I still wouldn’t trade them for all the sanity in the whole wide world! = )
