My husband has recently made a significant career move which is for the short-term at least going to put our little family under a lot of pressure. My initial reaction was that of shock horror and an immense amount of stress and tension, but the closer I look at things the more I see that there are in fact a lot more positives.
Our lives are no longer dictated by his ridiculous work schedule and we have more family time together.
I was reminded of how complicated we sometimes make thing when I recently came across a post about simplifying your life for your kids and so many things struck me. We don’t need half the things in our lives, we don’t have to go out for dinner once a week, we can picnic in the park. My daughter doesn’t care about fancy outings and expensive things, she wants to draw pictures and colour and make tents in her room.
Here is a summary from a couple of posts I have read, all about how to makes things just a little simpler.
1. Want less.
2. Teach your child to do chores: I have found that my daughter loves to help around the house and as a working mom it’s a great way for me to spend some time with her.
3. Making cooking and cleaning a family thing: Some of our best family time is spent in the kitchen preparing and cooking a meal together.
4. Have dedicated family time: With such a busy lifestyle this one is particularly difficult but something I definitely think we need to enforce in our house. I think I might just start off small with meal times – making sure we all sit down and eat together.
5. Go on dates – have some one on one time with your kids and your spouse.
6. Get active: Walk the dog, play in the park, and take a stroll around the block. Your kids will appreciate the exercise as will you.
7. Prioritize – LET GO of things that don’t matter.
8. Have less toys, more art supplies. This is something I am going definitely going to work on for my daughter. She has more Barbie dolls than she knows what to do with, and I would much rather encourage her creativity in other ways.
9. Learn to go with the flow.
10. Focus on doing not spending.
Obviously it’s far easier to write lists than it is to follow them, I am going to do my best to make some small improvements in my little family. After all quality time with them really is priceless.
My life as I love it.. 