I am Calm. I am Wise. I am the MOM I WANT TO BE.

I told AJ that I wanted to take him out to drive. He's 12 1/2 and he's darn responsible. It felt like it's a right of passage that you get to go out early with your parent and learn the basics. Then when it is time to get on the road it doesn't feel so foreign. 

AJ is a guy that gets excited about video games. I struggle to hold my own with the things he gets excited about, so when I find something that he's interested in...it hits that one spot in my heart that basically fills me with glitter/puppies/and warm hot chocolate. So when I mentioned taking him out in the car....he got excited AND I got the glittery heart.

I had a pep talk with myself about what kind of mom I wanted to be before we took him out to start his driving journey. This involved being CALM. Being wise. Being simple. We went driving for about 20 minutes today in a high school parking lot. There was still snow, but most of it was gone. AJ did so well! He learned about mirrors, turning radius, reverse, turn signals, how much pressure that is required, the pressure you feel when you drive by a parked car because you don't want to hit it,  and what ice/snow feels like when you go over it. 

We brought Kevin and we decided a success metric is the amount of times that Kevin is thrust from the middle seat into the front seat due to break force used by AJ. This time....it was 2 times. NOT BAD!!!!!!!!

We both left happy, talking to each other, and AJ even said, "Thank you Mom for taking me driving."That might be my favorite success metric:) Until next time!

Love,

Mom

How about this year....

We get out on more hikes? AJ suggested this one and we made it so this morning!






What if we could visit more farms and hold more animals? This would be everything!







What if I keep learning new crafts that I could display around the house, EVEN better give as gifts, and SOMEDAY....maybe have my own Etsy shop?:)

How about I start using lip color MORE, why? BECAUSE it's fun. AND different. OH and go dance. WHY? Because it's so DARN fun to DANCE and SING as loud as you can <3

Let's do those things. 

We are 5 days in and so far they are all happening! 

-Mom

Kaizen Jar

Have you heard of the term 'kaizen'? Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning change for the better or continuous improvement.

We have talked about doing this jar for a long time, and have yet to do it. BUT two days ago we finally made it happen. As a family we discussed what things we each need to work on. We even took it a step further and asked for input from the family! It actually went smoothly, when it could have been bad. 

We decided that we will each work on 1 thing for now, we could add more later. If we do the thing that we are working on, we owe the Kaizen jar. $1 for kids, $20 for adults (Russell felt like the adults needed enough money to make it hurt). 

Here's what we are working on!  Wish us luck!

-Mom

AJ

Finishing others sentences.

Ryker

Complaining about unfair situations.

Dempsey

Slapping.

Mom

Excessively nagging people.

Dad

Excessive crankiness/grumpiness.

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