Life Skills Checklist

What do I hope to teach my boys before they leave the house?

My babies are growing quickly before my eyes. As an OT, I have always encouraged and fostered their independence. That is easy when they are young; they are always around and it is innate for them to want to try things that you are doing. I can tell that as they grow and we are not together as often and we are focusing on school, sports, activities, friendships, travel, etc., I will need to make a conscious effort to teach them these life skills. Some are serious and some are just things I wish I learned sooner!

These are specific life skills I hope to teach them. They are not the broad aspects that I hope for them, such as: being a good person, being kind, finding their own way in the world, being happy, asking for consent etc etc etc.

Would love to hear if you have any to add!!

Life skills checklist:

• How to cut a pineapple

• How to cut an avocado

• How to cut an onion

• How to cut a whole chicken

• How to roast a chicken

• How to cook eggs (scrambled, over easy, frittata)

• How to sort, wash, fold laundry

• How to change a tire

• How to check the oil

• How to start a fire

• How to write a good thank you note

• How to write a professional email

• How to write a check

• How to balance a budget

• How to pump gas

• How to start a lawn mower / snow blower and perform those tasks

• How to properly set the table

• Register to vote

• How to jumpstart a car

• How to unclog a toilet

• How to use a fire extinguisher

• How to change windshield wiper fluid

• Proper etiquette rules when dining

• Basic First Aid / CPR skills

• How to set up a tent

• Knowledge of female anatomy / cycles

• How to use a drill

"Are You Happy Mommy?"

“Are you happy mommy?” he said as he looked for boogers in my nose while I was roaring laughing. “Yes V, I’m very happy” I said to my sweet 2 year old as he kept looking to get more laughter out of me.

The look on his face when he saw me laughing was jolting. In that one second glance I realized he doesn’t see me joyful often. More truthfully, he doesn’t see me joyful much at all lately, which is unsettling as my children make me happier than anything on earth.

Being a (mostly) stay-at-home mom is a big hit financially for our family. It’s a job that I take very seriously.

I make sure holidays and birthdays are magical, offer a variety of foods, keep everyone on schedule, make sure their lives are enriched but not overscheduled, make sure they use their manners. I try to foster a respectful brotherly bond, go to book club, bring them to the park, work out, upload to one second a day, enter in my 5 year daily journal. I make sure the family yearbook is done, help my kindergartener learn to read, push them to their highest potential, work, cuddle them, keep them alive, facilitate independence, be a semi-decent wife. I go to therapy, make sure they see their grandparents enough, try to keep the house clean, make sure everyone has a winter coat, think about holiday cards in the fall, keep up with the laundry, create bucket list items for each season and work hard to fill them etc, etc etc etc etc. The list goes on and on and on and I know it’s familiar to everyone. I’m great at checking the boxes of obligation. I (try) not to yell much. I schedule in “fun” time like movie nights and family dates. The problem is, parenting isn’t a job. It’s hard and it’s all-consuming, but it isn’t a job.

I am happy and content at the end of a long day; my husband and I talk about our kids all night and smile about how they are the best kids on the whole planet and resist the urge to wake them up and cuddle them. But during the day, I am a task master. The day runs as smooth as butter. The kids know what is expected of them. We check the boxes: check, check, and check. We do the activities. We do the reading. We do the healthy homemade meals. We do the baths. We do the early bedtime. Even game night is about taking turns and waiting and counting and matching and being a respectful winner and being okay with losing; there’s not much fun to be had. The joy is gone.

Don’t get me wrong; I smile throughout the day and we make jokes. They are not walking on eggshells like I did with my mother. But I don’t want my kids to remember me as a task master. I want them to inherently KNOW that they bring me joy — without me having to tell them. I don’t want them to put their heads down and work hard all day— I want them to enjoy life and find ways to be silly and joyful throughout the day.

So now what?

That part, I’m not sure. I am the type of person that beats myself up and constantly tells myself to “be better” but that never actually works. I am learning to make smaller, more concrete goals. For now, I am going start by letting my kids see me genuinely laugh and be silly with them at least once a day. This is where I need your help — in what ways do you like to be silly with your kids? I’d love some ideas!

xo

FEARMONGERING

Someone on Instagram messaged me the other day about the ingredients in an RX bar since I had shared a photo of my child’s lunch with an RX bar. She was very kind and simply shared that she saw someone else’s post about the company falsifying the ingredient list and wanted to let me know in case I wanted to look into it further. I checked out the account and saw the post she was referring to. There was a lot of red and bolding and underlining and a whole lot of fearmongering. I was honestly horrified and was just about to leap out of bed and go downstairs to remove it from my son’s lunchbox and try to find a last minute protein.

I stopped myself there and said WAIT JUST A MINUTE. I have my own brain here. I have a masters degree and can use my mind to think critically. So I started to look into this myself (you can read one of the articles I saw HERE if you’re interested, but that’s not what this post is about).

My point here has nothing to do with the RX bars. I found myself quickly going down a rabbit hole researching this and that and protein requirements and wxyz. We are BOMBARDED with information and have the world at our fingertips. To someone like me, this can be practically debilitating. I am not a nutritionist or a doctor and I don’t have time to stay up to date on all of the current research; I am an anxious mother trying to navigate through this information-rich world trying to do what’s best for my children. The last thing I need is a fearmongering post about what I feed to my children. This is a tricky subject and fine line because I DO care about the ingredients my kids eat.

I also care about my kids’ relationship with food.

My kids (for the most part) are not picky eaters. I could honestly probably get them to eat a “perfectly clean” paleo-type diet. They enjoy meats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts and eat them in abundance. We don’t live in this paleolithic world, though. We live in a world with obesity, eating disorders, depression, decreased self-esteem, birthday cakes, and pizza parties. I want my children to grow up and become adults that can go to another country and enjoy all of the foods that country has to offer. I don’t want them to worry about the gluten in the pasta in Italy, the dairy in the cheese in France, or how the desserts are sweetened in Spain. I want them to eat vegetables because they ENJOY them not because they HAVE TO.

As parents we are so judged based on the foods we feed our children and the foods we don’t feed our children. Food is a very sensitive subject for people, especially parents. I’ve been judged by people who think I feed my kids too many “healthy” foods and I’ve been judged for ordering them pizza when we go out to eat.

I never cared about the nutritional value of the foods I ate until I became pregnant with my first child. I had gestational diabetes and changed my diet significantly. I came across a fearmongering food blogger and I got SO wrapped up on every single ingredient I ate. It got to the point that I was avoiding drinking WATER (we had a well and I was nervous to drink that water and we were buying bottled water until I found this blogger. I switched to only drinking water out of glass jugs that I had to refill at Whole Foods 40 minutes away. When I was low on those I would consider not drinking water until I refilled my glass jugs).

THE. FEAR. MONGERING. NEEDS. TO. STOP.

Parents (especially new parents) have so much information thrown at them. Self-doubt is basically built into becoming a parent. We need to create a positive environment around food. ALL FOOD. We need to stop judging ourselves. We need to stop judging each other. We need to stop with the unnecessary fearmongering.

The thing is, no one knows FOR SURE about any of these ingredients. Our mental health is so much more important than the ingredient lists we feed our children.

Let’s focus on offering mostly whole foods and lots of vegetables, modeling a nonjudgmental attitude around food and eating choices (ours and others), celebrating life’s milestones with delicious food as people have been doing for centuries, and worry less about the rest. Let’s fight back from the fearmongering and use those brains of ours. Who’s with me!?

xoxo