AA Gifts & Baskets Idea & Advice Blog

Moms tend to think about everyone but themselves, which is great for everyone around them but it can take a toll on even the most devoted mom. In order to keep your sanity it is important that moms take time out to relax and regroup.

I know it is easier said then done, there is always one more diaper to change, one more meal to cook or one more load of laundry to do. So what can you do to take time out for yourself and when are you supposed to do it? Here are a few ideas to help get your mommy time out started.

Ask your husband, a friend or a family member to watch the kids for a while. In just a few hours you could go see that movie you have been dying to see, minus screaming babies and frequent trips to the bathroom to avoid bothering other people. In just two hours you can get your hair done, a manicure and a pedicure. Imagine how relaxing just two hours of alone time would be.

Chances are you won’t be able to get someone to take the kids everyday for a few hours but it’s still important to take a mini time out everyday. By doing this you will spare the children from unwarranted outburst and yourself from slipping into depression.

• Leave the dishes, the laundry and the spill in the kitchen for just thirty minutes, maybe while the baby is napping or while the kids are watching a cartoon. Just taking thirty minutes to relax or work on a hobby will alleviate some of the days stress.
• Wake up and hour early or go to bed an hour late, the kids will be sleeping and you can spend sometime getting ready in the morning or watching TV.
• Exercise regularly can be a great way to get you going and keep you in shape for keeping up with your kids.
• Eat right, veggies and fruit will charge your immune system, the last thing you need is a sick mommy.
• Remind yourself that you can’t control everything. Don’t spend your mommy time out worrying about what is going on at the house, your husband is perfectly capable of handling the kids alone for two hours.
• Start a baby swap, a baby swap is when two or more moms agree to take each others children for a few hours to give the other some free time on a weekly or monthly basis.
• Share the load. Sit down with your family and divide the chores. By sharing the load you can make more time for everyone and by giving
• When hit overload just taking a few minutes to sit and think about the positive things in your life can make you feel better.

You don’t need to be busy every minute of the day. Stay home with your family. Don’t make a commitment unless it is important to you. Get in the habit of saying no to things you don’t want to, or don’t have time to do and don’t feel guilty about it.

While motherhood is a very rewarding experience and totally worth the sacrifice it can be stressful and with all that you do for your family it’s hard to think about yourself, but very important. By taking care of yourself, you also teach your children the importance of taking care of their own mental and physical health. Look at the time spent on yourself as an investment to make you a better, happier mom for your husband and your children.

Now that you’re parents, another human being will be dependent on you for all of his or her needs for at least the next eighteen years.

Hugs and kisses are free, but other things such as food, clothing, housing, medical care, and education cost money-lots of it.  To raise one child from birth to age eighteen will cost an average of nearly $100,000.  That figure covers just the basic necessities through high school, but many parents today want more for their children.

At age five, when most children begin school, the costs of child rearing begin to escalate.  About forty percent of the total expense of raising a child occurs between the ages of twelve and seventeen, which is good news for early planners who will benefit by beginning a savings program when their children are preschoolers.

Now is the time to arm yourself with information about how to prepare for your family’s future and to begin the steps to turn your plans into reality.

Begin by determining your financial condition.  Before you can plan intelligently for your child’s future, it’s necessary to have a firm grasp of your present financial situation.  It’s impossible to plan for the future if you don’t know what’s going on now.

Figuring out your net worth can be a very revealing exercise.  Draw a line down the center of a piece of paper.  Label assets on the left side and list them; include cash in checking and savings accounts, equity in owner-occupied real estate, bonds, stocks, cars and investment real estate.

Under liabilities on the right side, list mortgages outstanding, installment loans for cars, appliances or furniture, revolving credit card balances for department stores, and professional services such as medical and dental.  Include past due accounts and charity donations.

Then add up each column.  If you subtract your liabilities from your assets, you’ll have your net worth.  Don’t worry if your figures aren’t precise, just the fact that you’re sitting down with pen, paper, and calculator makes it all the more likely that you’ll take firm action when planning your child’s financial future.

Making a simple monthly budget to determine how you are spending your income can be another eye-opener.  By listing your income and your spending, you can highlight the areas where changes can be made.  For example, you may be surprised to find out how much you spend on long distance phone calls or how often you eat out.  Seeing those figures in black and white may spur you to reduce your expenditures, and channel the money to your savings account instead. 

 Miles and miles of land separate my mother and me. The long-distance phone calls and emails cannot compare to being able to see her whenever I please. So when it comes time to ship off a gift, I want her to feel as if I am standing in front of her, delivering it myself.

As the month of June neared, I prepared for one of my most intense gift-giving times of the year. Besides Father’s Day, the month brought both of my parent’s birthdays, as well as their anniversary. By the middle of the month, I would have satisfied 3 out of 4 big dates on the calendar, leaving my mother’s birthday to focus on. This year, I tried to think of gifts she would not only use, but also find comfort, delight and relaxation. She recently quit smoking and I wanted to keep her on track and make sure she was surrounded by welcomed distractions.

My mother always starts her day with a cup of coffee and by night, falls asleep beside another. I went to the gourmet food section of one of my favorite stores and began to browse the coffee aisle. There were many tempting flavors to choose from, including Raspberry to Chocolate Mint, as I relentlessly read all of the bags. In the back of the bunch, one particular selection rewarded me for my uncompromising focus.

If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again- sometimes the perfect gift finds me even when I least expect it. The day after Mother’s Day, my mother and I were having a conversation about her visit with my grandmother. She brought over her usual gift, accompanied by coffee and biscuits. By the end of her visit, she said she left with a delicious taste upon her lips, as they had sipped several shots of Kahlua. I know the doctor mentioned that alcohol may provide comfort for my grandmother’s arthritis, but for me, it was hard to swallow that my Nana and mother were sitting in her living room, consuming alcoholic beverages on Mother’s Day. I’ve never seen either one of them drink in my life.

So when I pulled the Kahlua-flavored coffee from behind all of the other interesting flavors, I felt I had struck gold. It was the last and only bag of its kind. I wasn’t looking for that particular flavor; didn’t even know it existed, but the warmth and happiness that overcame me at that moment was overwhelming. I couldn’t wait until she opened her gift.

On her birthday, I called early because she always waits for me before opening gifts. I could hear the tear of the box and crinkling of the wrapping paper. She was quite pleased with what she found inside. The gift brought her back to the Mother’s Day Kahlua, which then turned into a flood of teenage and college memories I had no idea existed. Although, I was miles and miles away, the coffee talk made me feel much closer, providing me with much-needed satisfaction and comfort.

I may not watch every quarterback pass or care whether or not “so-in-so” got traded to the Knicks, but I am definitely a team player when it comes to giving gifts. Last year, my husband’s sports teams were doing exceptionally well, especially his favorite NFL team. Being a team player doesn’t mean I have to glue myself to the television set whenever his team takes to the field. It’s the little things I do that lets him know I am listening and care about his interests.

As the first blanket of snow covered the ground, we were well into the football season, which wasn’t my favorite time of the year. Not only do I despise the icy cold weather and snowstorms, but I also dread when Sunday afternoon and Monday night rolls around. My husband sits uninterrupted for about 3 hours in front of the television for something he waits the entire week for. Out of all the sports he watches, I find football the most difficult to get into. With basketball, at least you can anticipate a dunk or an almost-impossible shot from a character you have seen on a Sprite commercial. With football, you wait for a touchdown or a fumble from a player you rarely get to identify with except for the number on his back. It just doesn’t do it for me.

Week after week, I listened to how his favorite football team pulled through another game, until I eventually found myself watching all of the Playoffs. I must admit the energy and excitement of following a team playing for a chance to go to the championship was something quite unexpected. I was actually getting into the game, learning specific plays and scrutinizing the drag of the yardage chain. It was like watching a sports soap opera, complete with drama: the referees started cheating the team I was rooting for.

At the end of the game, through many emotional ups and downs I didn’t know I could feel for a football game, our team was victorious. That year, the Super Bowl was being held less than 2 hours away from where we lived. Tickets were near impossible to get a hold of. As we watched the news regarding parades and events surrounding the Super Bowl, my husband would not be able to attend. I wanted him to have something that would connect him to the game when he watched it on the big screen.

I knew I would be able to find something on the Internet, so I scanned the impressive list of football items on EBay until something caught my eye. The bright gold and black colors lassoed my attention, as I promptly purchased the Myron Cope’s Official Terrible Towel, a must-have for any Pittsburgh Steelers fan. On the day of the Super Bowl, I presented him with the gift. He was ecstatic. During the game, he safety-pinned it around his head (looking ridiculous), but I guess this is what diehard fans do. As I scanned the crowd at the game, I saw much worse.

That night, the Steelers became the champions of the 2005 football season, but that didn’t compare to the winning feeling I had from giving my husband a piece of the game to remember.

An important component of planning for your child’s future is having something definite to reach for. Setting goals gives your planning form and shape. Rank your goals by priority. A college education for your child? Ballet lessons? Braces? A two week vacation every year?

How are you going to pay for what you need and want? Since saving money under the mattress probably won’t help you to achieve your goals, most people look for a way their money will grow-that means investing.

Simply put, investing means committing money with the expectation of a profit. All the planning you’ve done up till now will determine the kinds of investments you choose. Successful investors will analyze their own situations in terms of income, monthly cash requirements, and net worth over the years. They will also determine how much risk they can live with comfortably. If you want liquidity and safety, stick with money market funds, insured certificates of deposit, U.S. Treasury bills and bonds, fixed annuities, and equity in your home.

High quality stocks, high grade corporate and municipal bonds, and investment real estate traditionally provide income and/or long-term growth. High risk investments include options, futures, tax investments, and undeveloped land.

Because there are so many investment choices available, it’s important to educate yourself on which ones are best suited for your situation. Resources for self-education include seminars and classes offered through adult education programs at local high schools and junior colleges, YMCAs, and public libraries. Newspaper and magazine articles probably provide the most timely written information on investments. It’s imperative to educate yourself, because no one will look after your family’s interests as well as you will.

Unless you have a large income [over $100,000] and a complicated tax situation, you probably don’t need to hire a financial planner. If you decide you do need a financial planner, be wary of know it all types. No one person can be an expert in all aspects of investing and estate planning. Use the same caution you employed when choosing your doctor and attorney.

If you do decide to invest, commercial banks, brokerage firms, and savings and loans will be competing for your business. Since deregulation, U.S. banks and thrift institutions [noncommercial banks, savings and loans, and mutual savings banks] have expanded their lending and investment opportunities to become more competitive with brokerage firms, which traditionally have offered a wide variety of financial services.

Since saving for their children’s college education is a common goal of many parents, investment programs specifically geared to that end are springing up everywhere. Some institutions will send you a computerized education savings analysis based on information you give them. The analysis is usually free, but of course the bank is hoping you will use their service.

A typical analysis will look at your child’s age, number of years before his college education begins the percentage of college costs that you will pay, your estimated taxable income and its probable rate of growth, and other factors. This information is the basis for the institution’s analysis of how much money you will need and when you will need it.

A certificate of deposit [CD] is one investment vehicle available. A CD is a time deposit that cannot be withdrawn without penalty before a specified maturity date. The minimum deposit for seven to thirty-one day accounts is $1,000. The law requires no minimum deposit in accounts with maturities of more than thirty-one days, but individual banks may have their own minimum deposit requirements.

Other financial instruments you may encounter include:

• Bonds. A fixed income security that represents a loan to the bond issuer. The bondholder usually receives semi-annual interest payments. Corporate bonds are issued by private companies; municipal bonds are backed by specific revenues and are exempt from federal income taxes.
• Money Market Deposit Accounts. These enable banks and thrift institutions to compete with money market mutual funds. These interest-bearing accounts are insured and offer limited transaction privileges, such as check writing.
• Mutual Funds. Pooled investments that are professionally managed. A money market fund is a mutual fund that typically invests in short-term securities, such as treasury bills. Mutual funds are not insured.
• Stocks. Ownership interest in a corporation, entitling the stockholder to voting rights and a part of the corporation’s earnings [dividends].
• Treasury Securities. The U.S, Treasury issues bills, bonds, and notes. Each is sold at a discounted face amount and cashed in for a full face value at maturity. Lengths of maturity vary.
• Zero-Coupon Bonds. These corporate or government issued bonds are sold at deep discounts from face value and pay no interest until maturity [hence their name]. Zeros have become popular for college investing because the maturities can be staggered, so that some will mature during each of the years you’ll have children in college.

So its time to potty train your child, I know what your thinking! How am I ever going to do this? This is one of the great joys of parenthood; it can be a very difficult step in your child’s development. A child is ready to be potty trained anywhere between 11/2 to 3 years old and you will usually get clues as to when your child may be ready like showing an interest in the potty or wanting to wear “big kid” underwear. Everyone eventually gets the hang of it, it’s very unlikely that your child will go to high school with a diaper on so don’t worry too much, but if you need a little extra help here are some potty training tips to get you child on the road to going on his own. First let’s talk about the don’ts of potty training your child:

• Don’t force potty training on your child. Forcing your child to go will only create an atmosphere that he or she may be scared of and you will face more resistance.
• Don’t start potty training when a big life even is going on, stress, good or bad can be bad for potty training. Wait until life settles down so that your child will associate potty training with structure and routine. Don’t make accidents a big deal.
• Don’t get mad or upset, make sure they know that its natural and everyone does it and take the opportunity to show them the potty and explain to them that this is where they need to go next time. By getting angry or making it a big deal when your child ahs an accident it will actually reinforce it and may cause more accidents.
• Don’t expect your child to be trained to last through the night anytime soon. It is completely normal for bedwetting to happen up to age four.
• Don’t discount your child’s fears about potty training. Some children will be afraid of the sound of the toilet flushing, they might not understand where the toilet is going too, or they may be afraid to fall in. Explain and be patient with them no matter how silly the fear is.
• Don’t try to set a deadline, or a day that your child must be potty trained by. Each child is different and it may take some a week and others a year. Programs that promise your child will be trained in 7 days only leave the parents and children feeling as if they failed.

Ok now we can move on to what you should do:

• First you need to help your child recognize the signs of having to go to the bathroom. Usually your child will tell you after they have already done their business but this is a good sign that your child is starting to understand this bodily function. Make sure to praise your child for telling you and tell them to try and let you know next time before they go.
• Make trips to the potty a routine thing. If your child acts like he needs to go take him to the potty and let him sit but only for a few minutes at a time. If your child resists strongly do not force him to stay. Take your child at the same times everyday like first thing in the morning, after eating, after naps and before bed.
• Teach your child good hygiene and explain the purpose of bodily waste. Let your child know how to wipe properly (girls should wipe front to back to avoid bringing germs from the rectum to the vagina) and teach them to wash their hands after using the potty.
• Encourage the use of training pants and underwear.

It may seem impossible in the beginning but if you take it slow and pay attention to your child’s needs you should have no problem. Trust me this probably won’t be the biggest challenge you face with your child.

Whenever your child is ill, your observations of what’s going on are very important. When you are assessing your child’s illness, you’re really looking at two different things-signs and symptoms. These terms have specific meanings to your doctor.

A symptom is something a patient complains about. A sign is something the doctor [or you] can see, measure, hear, taste or smell. So, if your child complains of her ear hurting, that’s a symptom; if she’s pulling on her ear, that’s a sign. Signs and symptoms are indications of illness, but they are not illnesses themselves. When your doctor treats your child, he or she may treat the signs and symptoms of the illness, the illness itself, or both. For example, aspirin or acetaminophen is frequently given to a child with a fever, either may reduce the fever, but neither affects the underlying illness causing the fever. However, an antibiotic given to your child when he has an ear infection, actually helps the body to fight off the infection and, so, is treating the illness. The earache [a symptom] and the fever [a sign] will go away because the infection [the illness] is being treated. Most of the medicines you can buy in the drugstore without a prescription treat symptoms but doesn’t treat the illness itself. So the “cold” medicine you may buy for your child doesn’t make the cold go away any more quickly, but they may make your child feel a little better. There’s an ongoing debate about treating signs and symptoms of common illnesses. Some doctors believe that unless the signs and symptoms are severe, you’re better off not treating them. Some of the symptoms of an illness may actually be beneficial and speed recovery. Every medicine has side effects, and sometimes these can be worse than the illness itself.

Sometimes the word offering is used as anything offered as a gift. It is normally used to mean something offered in worship or devotion, as to a deity; an oblation or sacrifice. An offering is a collection of donations during worship. An offering can mean a religious sacrifice of plant or food that one does not partake of. You give up enjoying the plant, food or money in order to gain favor with the clergy or the gods. The one item to think about is that this is really just a form of mysticism.

Mysticism - meaning the beliefs, ideas, or mode of thought comes from the Greeks as a means to “initiate or initiation” such beliefs. The gift of the mystic or mysticism is that it leads us to believe that reality and the unknown is really one thing. This is essentially a double edged gift, because it lets people feel that they have a control over both what they can see and what they can not see.

Recently, I heard an explanation for why many people get nervous about writing exams or taking tests. The reason many people get nervous about this, as it was explained, is that people have a problem about making choices and predicting outcomes. Human beings are not very good at predicting outcomes. If they were good at predicting outcomes, Casinos would cease to exist. It is difficult to predict the outcome of a test or exam unless you know the questions and their answers beforehand. As this is seldom the case, people get nervous about writing tests.

When human beings have to make a choice, and there are only 3 things to choose from they are normally pretty good at deciding which of the three items will have the best outcome. By that I mean which of the three items will give the best benefit or satisfaction to the person making the decision. If there are more than 3 items to choose from it gets a little harder to be certain which one will give the best satisfaction. It can be over-whelming to the point that the person making the decision cannot make up their mind and will defer the decision until some future time. Think of this when you are at a specialty coffee shop where they have 15-20 different kinds of coffee, espressos and lattes.

You could also feel the same way when looking for a gift or offering a gift to that special person. The optimum outcome is to achieve an increase in esteem in the recipient’s eyes. This will have the added effect of increasing your own feelings of esteem or self worth. Your subconscious mind may see an aspect or quality of something, which will make it an appealing gift for the recipient. Your conscious mind may not be able to see this quality and you will only get a subconscious get a feeling that this would be an appropriate gift.

So you may want to listen to those feelings when considering the purchase of a gift for that special someone.

As you recognize your life to adjust to having a baby, do not forget your own requirement to have some time for yourself, however difficult it may be to schedule. You need private time to be a person in your own right and not only a parent, a homemaker, a spouse, and perhaps an employee.

You need the time to build and maintain the self- esteem that makes you effective in all those roles and effective at being yourself. You need time to exercise, to groom yourself, to read, or to work on a hobby… or to look at sky or water and let your mind wander. Finding this time will probably never be easy for you again, but it will continue to be very important that you do find it. Always look on it not as a luxury or a reward, but as an obligation to yourself.

You won’t always be able to have the hour or more that would do you the most good and be the most enjoyable, but you’ll find that even a few minutes snatched from a busy day will refresh you.  If you are a early riser, at your best in the morning, you may enjoy a few minutes of peace and privacy over a cup of coffee before the rest of the family is awake. Your baby’s daytime naps may give you some precious time. Even later, when you may not feel the need to sleep every time your baby does, nap time should be for you, not for housework.

Evening is a wonderful time for a leisurely bath, even for a good read in a warm tub. And evening is probably also the best time for a quiet hour or two for spouses. As important as it is for each to have some solitary time, it is equally necessary for a married couple to spend at least some time together alone.

It’s hard to think about writing a free-flowing letter when my life seems so programmed. Don’t misunderstand. It’s a good life, full of kids, work, husband, endless house renovations, dogs, cat, after-school activities, friends when they can fit in, and a whole lot of family with a whole lot of issues.

So I write this on a Wednesday eve, the oldest finally in bed and asleep after many minutes of wailing because she felt I’d yelled at her. “That’s how I feel,” she said when I commented that I had not yelled. How can you argue with someone’s feelings? The husband has retired to the bedroom to watch the baseball division playoffs, wondering but not counting on a little “nookie nookie” when I come to bed. That’s a constant and amusing subject-my sex drive. “Is it that you’re not interested?” my husband asks. “Is there anything that really turns you on,” he queries on a fairly regular basis?

It’s not that difficult to figure out why my sex drive isn’t at its height on a usual weeknight. It’s up at 6: 10 A.M.-press the snooze button two times for an additional ten minutes before going into overdrive for the next sixteen hours. Then it’s into the shower-let the hot, hot water run on my back, which is in constant ache mode since exercise was the first thing to hit the road when work and kids and everything else took over. Soon my husband and I share our constitutional morning bathroom dialogue-what’s on your agenda, can you pick up the kids, any meetings tonight? Then it’s what do I wear…

Child no. 1 arrives with a hole in his pajamas Superman pajamas-which he’s decided to wear to preschool today. Sorry, honey, I say, but the hole is right where your penis is and it really wouldn’t be good for you to go to school like that. “I’m gonna wear them anyway,” he replies. Before the final chapter of this story, there are plenty of negotiations. Child no. 2 has arisen. She’s in the other bathroom and says “go away” when I ask if she needs any help. Fine with me, I’m gone.

Found an outfit, don’t feel like making the bed, and just want to see if my husband will do more than simply pull up the sheets. Sheets pulled up-no complaints here. Not a good hair day. Oh, well. Breakfast, make lunches, and out the door by 7:30. One child to preschool, one to before-school care, and parents off to work. Work, work, work. Yes, we like it. It’s exhilarating, gives us mental stimulation, anxiety, satisfaction, and money.

At 5:00 P.M., pick up Child no. 1; 5:20 P.M., pick up Child no. 2; 5:45 P.M., home. Backyard dug up–drainage problem. Walk around the mud and hope the yard is seeded before winter. The dogs are ecstatic to see me and the kids. Jump on the kids and make them yell and cry. Into the house, change my clothes so the silk blouse can make it through one more workday before it hits the dry cleaner, and the kids settle in for a video. Dinner-what tonight? The homemade bean and beef soup was a hit for my hubby, a bomb for the kids. How about canned soup? Yes, canned soup it is. At 7:10, upstairs and bath time. The younger one wants to be dirty for the rest of his life dirty hair, long fingernails and toenails, the works. A minor struggle, but then into the tub. The older one is in heaven, hot water, ultimate relaxation and feeling good for a six-year-old. Bedtime around the corner after teeth brushing and pee time. Books for both kids and then…

It’s my time. Yes, there are the dishes, the bills, the phone calls I should make to my grandmother, mother, father, brother in

Detroit, mother-in-law who’s making an effort to keep the barbs off the phone lines, and then a friend. God, how I love to go out with a friend and have some beers, or even better, champagne and cigarettes, and get one of those nice glows.

  Full is my life. And it’s my choice. I’m not sure I thought the treadmill would be this fast, though there are days when the pace slows a bit. I know I’m not a stay-at-home mom. I’d be a loony tune. I love my managerial position, my hands in a pot that makes a difference in many people’s lives. Someday I’ll make the time to lie in the sun, plant a small garden and weed it often enough to differentiate the plants from the weeds, ride my bike to nowhere with my husband, and find a rolling hill to lie on and just stare at the clouds rolling by.Would I trade my life for another? No. Do I check myself at least once a week to make sure the stress level remains manageable? Yes. And so, as I feel like Superwoman and enjoy the comments others make acknowledging that I juggle a lot, I do have that inner peace of happiness.