My newly turned nine year old has been bugging me to be allowed to mow the front lawn for a couple of years now.  Until this year he really wasn’t tall enough or strong enough to maneuver the lawn mower.  And definitely not old enough to make the nice, straight, criss-cross lines that please his father so.  I think he believes the neat rows give the impression that the people who live in the house care about their home, in spite of what the multitude of brightly colored plastic toys strewn across the front yard might suggest.

Our unspoken rule of thumb regarding being ready for chores is that you know your child is old enough to do the chore when they no longer want to do it.  This is why a 2 yr old wants to sweep the kitchen floor with every fiber of his being, a 5 yr old wants to wash dishes, and a 12 yr old will disappear into the bathroom for an hour after dinner hoping that some one else has done the chores before he comes out.

Last weekend we finally acquiesced and allowed him to mow the front lawn all by himself.  I watched while he was doing it to make sure that he didn’t do anything completly crazy like run over the toys and wiffle balls in the yard.  And when he was done  had to admit that he did a great job.

He ran over to me afterward with a huge grin on his face.

“So, was it everything you hoped that it would be?” I asked.

“Yes!  It was great!  I Loved it!” he yelled.

My 13 year old son, former mower of the front lawn, laughed, “I used to love it too.”

Did you read about the Girl Scout who sold what is believed to be a record breaking 17, 328 boxes of Girl Scout cookies this year? That is an awful lot of cookies.

Even more than selling that many cookies, how on earth are they going to deliver them all?

I have a little confession to make.  Back before I went gluten free, lo those fourteen months ago not that I am counting or anything, I would order Girl Scout cookies from a friend’s daughter every year and then hide them.  So that no one else would eat “my” cookies.

I loved those Samoas.  Sigh.

Last year when my friend called to get my Girl Scout cookie order I told her that I wasn’t going to buy any.

“What?  Why not?  You were always good for half a dozen boxes.”

“Well, I can’t eat them anymore!” I had explained.

“You could just let your family eat them.” she suggested.

After I stopped laughing and hanging my head in shame, I agreed that while I could do that, my family just wouldn’t appreciate them fully.

Apparently this is some kind of IQ test that is given in Japan to job applicants.  Not sure why they would need this test.  But I have tried off and on all day to figure it out and I can not.  I guess I would be left with the job of cleaning the bathrooms.

I am going to show my kids in the morning and see if any of them can.  They all love these sorts of things.  And their young minds are not cluttered yet with useless knowledge.

Can any of you figure it out? WITHOUT cheating and googling the answer.

To all the mothers out there, I hope you have a fabulous day.  Surrounded by your loved ones.  Who hopefully are doing chores for you

My morning began with my 3 and 5 yr olds snuggling in bed with me.  I use the term snuggling loosely, to include climbing on top of my head, tying my hair in knots, kneeing me in the stomach, and fighting over who is laying on what side of the bed.  Nothing like breaking up a preschoolers brawl at 6am to wake you up.

As annoying as it is to be awoken in this manner when all you want to do is sleep another hour or five, the perspective of having older children makes me realize how short this season is.  This is how they show they love me, in part by fighting over who gets to sit the closest to me.  My older children don’t come and snuggle in bed anymore, being their mother is decidedly less physical.  And so I take a deep breath and get out of bed with them.

Really isn’t that what Mother’s Day is all about?  Not the sappy sweet sentimental cards, the handprinted cards, the breakfast in bed, or whatever else the media tells us that Mother’s Day should be all about.

Happy Mother’s Day.  I wish a tantrum free day to everyone.

A new study says that a stay at home  mother is worth nearly $117,000 a year, if she were paid a real world salary.  (Working mothers are worth $68, 405)

The eighth annual survey by salary.com calculated a mom’s market value by studying pay levels for 10 job titles with duties that a typical mom performs, ranging from housekeeper and day care center teacher to van driver, psychologist and chief executive officer.   Most of the figure for the salary was from overtime since the job extends beyond the typical 40 hours per week.

What do you think?  I’ll admit that my first thought was that it was not nearly enough.  Followed closely by, I need a raise!

As I march on toward 40 this year I have taken up running again.  Let me say it right here I have never been, nor will I ever be, someone who enjoys exercising.  In past years when I decided again to exercise after a long respite it was for vanity.  I wanted to be able to have my cake and eat it too.   And not have it show in my waistline.  This time I have health reasons in mind.

I have seen friends getting older.  People I know who have slowly gained weight over the years and now are trying to lose some of it because their joints ache, or they have high blood pressure.  And I have realized that the older I get the more difficult it is to actually lose a couple pounds.  And ho boy do I sound positively geriatric right now or what?

This past week I read this article which states that workouts sculpt the heart as well as the muscles. Since the heart is a muscle, this shouldn’t be surprising news.

The findings “strongly refute” the idea that people are able to become competitive athletes due to their heart structure, and instead demonstrate that it is athletic training itself that is largely responsible for “athlete’s heart,” the investigators write.

Turns out we aren’t born with a genetic superiority, at least when it comes to the ability of our hearts to pump blood through our bodies.  I guess none of us have an excuse anymore, huh?

I have been having an interesting conversation with a friend of mine tonight.  It sort of goes hand in hand with the discussion of free range kids and what we were allowed to do as children.

My husband lived that idyllic (mythical?) childhood where he would go out in the morning and ride his bike, go to the nearby river, play with friends, go to the park, all without ever telling his parents where he was or when he would be home.  I often wonder if some of his stories are tainted with revisionist history, colored with a bit of what he wishes were true.

I was not allowed to do those things.  I had to ask explicit permission to go places and do things.  Reasonable requests were granted, but I was not allowed to go and “hang out” at the mall, ride my bike miles from home with no destination.  We lived on the water and I was allowed to go with a girlfriend and neighbor to the beach, where we would slather ourselves with baby oil and fry our skin nice and crispy.   So it isn’t like I was chained to my bedroom radiator.

Obviously we all have boundaries with our children.  Do you let them go and hang out at the mall with friends?  Do you let them ride to the baseball field and hang out with their friends?  These are examples only.

I trust my kids much more when they are NOT with their friends.  I know I have heard someone else say it before, but when you get a group of boys together it is like their brain power divides.  Instead of two boys having the brain power of 2 boys, they have 1/2 of a brain.  Four boys, 1/4 of a brain.  Something about the mass mentality makes them forget to think.

So I think this is a new area where I am struggling.  It is easy for me to assess if I think my children are old enough to say ride a subway.  But going to a movie without parental supervision, that makes me break out into a cold sweat.

Our daffodils have bloomed.  And they are being loved.  To death.

It is so hard to squash the exuberant, enthusiastic sniffing of the flowers, even though it means the flower heads end up on the ground.

I really like to clean. For the record there are plenty of other things that I don’t like to do.  Like fold laundry and put it away. Pull weeds in my garden.  Unload the dishwasher.

This past weekend I did a deep cleaning of our family room.  I wasn’t expecting it to take quite as long as it did.  Mostly because we clean in there every single day.  Vacuum every night.  Dust every couple days.  But when I pulled the couch away from the wall, I was shocked by the amount of dust that was back there.  Also small toys seems to have been back there procreating and plotting to take over our home.

What I did do was involve the kids in the cleaning this time.  I had them help go through the bookcase and take out some books that we never use and can donate.  They went through the small toy baskets and got rid of the broken matchbox cars, put toys back in their proper homes, and decided that some of the baby toys can also go to other homes.

I let them help wash the windows and dust all the bookcases.  They replaced the CDs and DVDs into their proper cases and we got rid of the scratched ones that no longer work.  They used the Magic Eraser to wash spots off the walls and baseboards.  They removed the covers from the throw pillows for washing and vacuumed out the windowsills. They used the crevice tool to vacuum in between the couch cushions.

In short they saw all that was involved to really deep clean a room, something I thought happened magically  until I had a house of my own.

And you know what?  Having them help made the job easier and more fun, for me anyway.  Over the past week I have noticed that they seem to have a vested interest in the upkeep too.

According to a recent survey, Briton’s feel that the manners in their society have gone downhill. Nearly 90% of the people responding to the survey blame parents who are not teaching their children manners and celebrities behaving badly that have glamorized it.

And 75% of them thought that manners should be taught in schools.

Don’t teachers have enough to do in school? Sure, they should require the basic polite behaviors of please, thank-you and speaking respectfully to other people. But I have to wonder, if people are so upset about the lack of manners, why aren’t they teaching them to their children themselves.

Modeling good behavior is always better than just telling children what to do. Children see everything. If you are telling them to be polite and kind to others, and yet do not act that way yourself, they will see the contradiction. Likewise if children see you act respectfully to others, they won’t even question that it is the way to behave. No matter what they see celebrities doing on the television.

Like my grandmother used to say, “Little pitchers have big ears.”  You should make sure that they are overhearing the right things.