Without a doubt, my favorite time of the day is the first 10 -15 minutes in the early afternoon after I have tucked everyone in for naps. Those naps are one of the reasons I have any shred of sanity left!
From the time my children were infants, they have napped every afternoon. I can count (almost on one hand) the number of days they have skipped nap and that includes Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthday celebrations. I have planned my mornings and days around their naps and I have not regretted that.
I have listened to other mothers speak of their 2 yr. old and say “Well, she just gave up her nap.” Some of those same people have asked me, “How do you get yours to nap?” I admit that I haven’t always known how to answer that. I am certainly no “baby whisperer” and there is no trick!
Here is what I have done to get my children to nap: I HAVE NEVER GIVEN THEM A CHOICE NOT TO! I make sure we are home before or immediately after lunch. They have a little down time after lunch (read a book or watch a short video). Then, they get comfortable and get in the bed. I close the shades and tuck them in. They don’t get to come out until they have been asleep and I check them to make sure they actually go to sleep!
My children don’t know what napping in the car means. We have had lots of play dates and lunch dates and mornings at the park but we watch the time and we don’t skip nap. There is no whining or fussing or complaining. It is just nap time because that is what it has always been after lunch. My 6 yr. old took an afternoon nap until, literally, the day before he started kindergarten last summer. He still naps on weekends and holidays. When my 3 yr. old gets sleepy, she goes to get ready for nap and calls me to tuck her in.
My husband believes a nap on his off days are part of his unalienable rights! I nap some days. Mostly, I enjoy that time when the house is light and still and quiet. I find that to be very different than when the house is quiet at night. Nap time gives me a break and it helps me gear up for the rest of the day. It is a time that I can do a little work or make a phone call or read a book or…
In a couple of years, both children will be in school and we won’t nap with the regularity that we do now. When that happens, I will miss daily nap time but I won’t be sorry that, for a time, I built my days around it!
Would you believe it if I told you that I started my blog because a man that I had known for all of 12 minutes told me that creating a blog was what I should do? Well, that is exactly what happened. I promise this is a true story!
After deciding to attempt freelance writing, I scheduled an appointment with the “friend of a friend” in the magazine publishing business. We met for coffee; I explained that I wanted to get started with freelance writing and asked his advice. With little or no hesitation he said, “Start a blog. It get’s you writing and it takes the power out of the hands of the gatekeepers.” I went home; set up my blog and starting posting.
That’s the background. Now, here is the rest…
1. I BLOG FOR PRACTICE – It is a great way to write regularly and to experiment with types of writing. Granted, it is not the place for lengthy pieces but it does lend itself to any and all styles and formats.
2. I BLOG FOR CLARIFICATION – I can use my blog as a place to test thoughts and ideas and I get legitimate feedback from other people that are doing the very thing that I am trying to do.
3. I BLOG FOR EXPOSURE – After doing a little research and actually having this blog for a few months, I understand what my friend was telling me about gatekeepers. Having a blog doesn’t mean that I won’t deal with gatekeepers along the writing road, but it gives me a sense of empowerment to know that I don’t have to WAIT for the gatekeepers. If I need to “publish” quickly, all I have to do is push a button.
4. I BLOG FOR EXPRESSION – This is an incredible outlet for me and I blog because I know there are people that need to read what I have to write.
5. I BLOG BECAUSE IT’S FUN! I admit that I was more than a little skeptical when a practical stranger told me that I must blog. Now, I thank him every chance I get because, even if I didn’t think this might be a good move for my writing career, I am sure that I would blog anyway!
Thanks to Lisa Gates at Intrinsic Life Design for tagging me. It is my first time to be tagged and I am thrilled! As for me, I am tagging Big Mama and Shanna Thompson at Write From The Beginning. I enjoy reading both of them and I hope you will too. Also, check out the Executive Traveler Magazine site. Its publisher, Lee Hurley is the man that got me started in this whole blogging adventure!
Sometime in the early 1990’s, I attended my 1st Educational Conference. One of the first sessions I chose to attend dealt with the use of technology in educational settings. Amazingly enough, that was a fairly progressive idea at that time!
As the session began, the presenter held up a small, black plastic square. Perhaps, the people sitting at just the right angle caught a glimmer of the metal that protected the inside, but most of us just saw a small, black plastic square. “This,” began the presenter, “is a disk.” At that moment, I knew I was in trouble! Certainly, I had a lot to learn about educational technology but if there were people sitting in that room that couldn’t identify a floppy disk, that idea had much further to travel than I knew.
Somewhere between the beginning of that session and today, the floppy disk is no more. I first realized this not too long ago when I copied a file to print at my child’s school and realized that NONE of the computers in the school had floppy drives any more. Then, in order to be able to use all those backup floppies that I had saved over the years, I bought an external floppy drive for my own computer and found that I only had to pay $17.99 to get it! Today, though, I knew it was official when I read the headline “Disk Joins VHS, 8-track on techno trash heap”.
Honestly, it makes me a little sad to see it go. Not because I don’t use CDs and DVDs for storage and not because hard drive storage capacity is not priced reasonably. I guess there is something in me that doesn’t like to see anything outlive it’s usefulness. Truth be told, I am probably a little afraid that, someday, I’ll outlive my own. Do me a favor though…if and when I do, find me a spot the shelf next to something a little more glamorous than a floppy!
Even with a sick child and a Sunday visit to the pediatrician, I managed to get through my pile. As the pile goes, it is more manageable than it was. What that really means is that it is not QUITE as large as it was and is a little lighter to haul around the house. That is not to say that the list that grew out of the pile is going to be any piece of cake!
As I expected, the pile produced a number of tasks for me to complete. Most of them are “work” related, meaning that they have something to do with my writing. Many of them are ideas that need to be fleshed out or materials that I need to create to advertise myself and my work. I admit that, so far, I find that to be the most challenging part of my writing business.
I am an intelligent, educated, funny woman and I happen to be able to write. I spent the early part of my career in a classroom as an educator. The next (and current) phase of my career has been (and is) that of a stay-at-home mother. Hopefully, the next phase of my career will be as a writer. At this point, I am not even very picky about what kind of writer I become. I just want someone to pay me to write something. At no time in my career have I been nor do I wish to be a salesperson!
There are tasks that jumped out of my pile and on to my list that, when completed, seem more like sales and marketing exercises. If I know myself like I think I do, I will work around those things and deal with ALL the other stuff on the list first. I’ll carefully mark each thing off with a fresh, black Sharpie Fine Point marker. I’ll be proud each time I mark through something else. And, then, just at the time that it seems that I will be forced to deal with the salesmanship and marketing of myself, I will see the next pile that I must go through!
It’s a deliciously cold, damp, wintry day in Alabama. There is a Winter Weather Advisory and I went to the grocery store this morning so that means that we won’t get anything except rain and a lot of hype. The fire is going; we have nowhere that we have to be until Monday; and this is the weekend that I am going to get through “the pile”.
No. It’s not a pile of laundry or a pile of documents that need to be sorted for our tax return. It is just that pile of papers that I move from room to room. I am always sure that the next spot I light will be the magic one that forces me to deal with all the stuff in the pile. I am not sure where I fall on the psychological spectrum with this but, if I am totally honest, I think I find comfort in my pile.
I like the touch and feel of the papers. Somewhere, there is a clean notepad so that I can make notes about the contents of the pile. Maybe I’ll even write a “to do” list or an outline for a blog post or an idea for an article. There will be things in the pile that need to be recorded on my calendar and there will be pieces of paper that I can now throw away. For those, I will create a smaller, temporary pile on the floor beneath where I am sitting. I will find it somewhat freeing to be able to just toss it to the floor. When I am finished, I will move that pile to the trash and proclaim that I have made progress.
Somehow, there is purpose and potential in my pile. So, I carry it from room to room in the hope of working through it. Or, do I carry it to remind me of the work that I should or would or must do?
Paying attention doesn’t seem like a difficult thing to do, does it? I have never thought that it was until a couple of days ago. Something in my quiet time sparked a thought in my mind about “just paying attention”.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered about how often I am NOT paying attention? Of course, there is no easy way to measure that but I decided to do the next best thing. I decided that, for an entire day, I would really pay attention. When my children talked to me, I would stop what I was doing and look at them (except when I was driving). When my husband talked to me, I would look him in the eye. When I was reading the paper, I would not listen to the TV. When I was working on a project, I would not be plugged in to my iPod.
I cannot begin to tell you what a difference this one small thing made in a single day! My son talked openly about school. My daughter and I laughed about something totally silly. The constant competition for my attention between the 2 of them seemed to vanish for the afternoon. In fact, when my husband got home from work, his exact words were, “What’s with all this harmony around here today?”
I think I’ll try it again today and see what happens. I can’t promise that paying attention will solve all problems but I challenge you to do it for a day or half a day or a few days. Let me know how your experiment goes. If we all have the same dramatic experience, we may be on to something!
