I was over at my friends CopMama and I saw this great meme she does.  She has a prompt for this week that I just couldn’t stop thinking about “Tell us about a time you did something absent minded as a Mom!”

My thoughts immediately went to:  When haven’t I done something absent minded as a parent.

Isn’t that awful that was the thought that went through my head?  I think it is but let’s be practical it happens all the time.  Let’s be truthful too.  It happens to me.  It happens to my friends.  It happens to you most likely.  I don’t want no pointing fingers that it doesn’t.  I’m assuming.  OK I know the saying that goes with assuming so if I’m wrong then I’m an cow’s butt. 

Seriously think about this:

You are working hard on your bills.  Trying to get them all done.  Trying to squeeze that last dollar out to pay this or that.  Getting frustrated because that last dollar is just not going to come out no matter what you do.  And this conversation happens:

Faith:  “Mommy?”

Me:  “Go talk to your dad”

Faith:  “Mommy, Jason hit me.”

Me:  “Faith, I’m busy go talk to your dad.”

Faith:  “MOMMY JASON HIT ME!” 

At this point, you are frustrated not thinking about it all.  Wanting to pay that bill and the nagging child is NOT helping.

Me:  “Go play!”

Next thing you hear is Jason screaming as he comes down the stairs. 

Jason:  “Mommy, Faith just hit me.”

Me:  “Go tell Daddy”

Jason:  “Can I hit her back”

Me:  “Leave me alone!  Go play.”

Did I intentionally tell them to hurt each other?  No I didn’t.  Was I even really concentrating on them while I was paying the bills and my absented minded husband was watching tv?  No probably not.  Did them hurting each other (though not bad) result from this?  Yes I’m sure it did.  Will it happen again?  Yes I’m sorry to say I’m sure it will.  Did I mention that I’m human?  Well I am.

Please join us for Mama’s Guilt Mondays at CopMama.

You know how you always get gifts from people for your kids that you would never buy? Well that’s what happened to me. Faith got a tattoo kit for Christmas. I put it aside thinking I would wait until the spring or summer to use it with them. I figured lots of water would be necessary to wash it off. The fact that there are markers in that kit was also a good indication that lots of cleaning would be involved.

As normal on Saturday morning, I got up to go shopping and left the kids with my husband. They knew where the kit was an immediately set to telling him that they needed to play with it. Ok now wouldn’t you think that he would be bright enough to know that if they were going to play with it that he should be involved? Well he did at first. Then he got bored with it. He wanted to do something else. So my clueless husband told them that they could play with it and do what they want.

Let me tell you.. I came home to Jason and Faith both being covered in ink. I’m not talking mildly. I’m talking flowers and marks on their faces, their arms, their stomachs, their legs, and anywhere else they could find. Jason had this thing around his wrist of like markers just going round and round. Faith had this huge glob in the center of her forehead. She told me it was a flower. It was a disaster. They had literally just had a ball with it. And they still had the markers that came with it up in their rooms?? I guess he wasn’t thinking about the color walls that we were going to have.

Now I asked him about it. He said well it will wash off. Wash off.. are you kidding me? Yeah right it will wash off. We started giving the kids baths on Saturday afternoon. I think they got more baths than we could get water for. Jason was complaining because he didn’t want anymore baths ever again. That boy loves water so that was new. I kept picturing sending Faith into school looking like this. I kept thinking about what the kids would say to her not to mention what the teacher would think. Finally Sunday evening these markers came off of them. So yes the package says it is washable. It is but it takes forever.

Don’t you just love it when you leave them home alone with a responsible adult??

I am seriously tired of being the bad cop in my house.  Come on my kids are wonderful but they aren’t perfect!!!  Why does my husband think that its ok to come home at night and act that way?  They could have driven me insane all day.  He walks in and they are perfect.  Why does he get to be the good cop?

Jason was swinging from the fan last week but he’s perfect.

Jason poured water all over my hardwood floors today…but he’s perfect.

Faith knocked Jason down five times..but she’s perfect.

Well guess what??? I’m not perfect.  I’m not the perfect mom.  I don’t clean sometimes.  I don’t cook that great!  My kids eat cereal for dinner when I want.  I feed my kids spaghetti even though my husband hates it.  I get mad.  I get even too.  At least I get even when my husband acts like I’m just exaggerating the situation.  I went on strike!  I got up looked at him.  You know what he did this morning again???  He woke me up for no reason.  Faith didn’t have to go in today.  We had a doctor’s appointment and he knew it.  He woke me up anyway. 

Told me to get up and start cleaning or some such nonsense.  This time…ladies and gents.. you will be proud of me.  I looked at him and said, “You stay home, big Idiot.  I’m not doing a thing today.  I’m on strike!”

He laughed at me and left.  HE LAUGHED AT ME.  Oh I was mad.  Ok let’s get real here.  I am not going to NOT feed my kids so I did do that.  I did take Faith to the doctors.  I let them have the run of the house all day.  Yes it drove me insane.  But its the principle at this point.

Ken walks in the door at night.  Looks around.  Looks at the kids.  Looks back at me.  I just looked at him.  I was sitting in my recliner.  He starts hollering about the mess.  Peck Peck Peck on the computer.  Then he starts hollering about the blog.  Peck Peck Peck.  Then he goes in the kitchen.  Yup no dinner.  Peck Peck Peck.  Looks over the counter at me.  “Can you get up and make dinner?”  Peck Peck Peck “NO, I’M ON STRIKE!”  Peck Peck Peck.

“You can’t be on strike!”

“Oh YES I can.  Fend for yourself!” and I sailed out the door.  Going to spend his money at Borders!!!

Man sometimes this blog is better than therapy.

One of the biggest things parents have to learn is how to educate their children about finances. I don’t mean to just give them the money. Truthfully that will never make them street wise. I believe that how my parents raised me about money is the best way. You have to appreciate what you have before you can really appreciate things. My mother has always told me that I would never understand why people get upset when others just jump on their furniture until they bought their own couch. Let me tell you that are so true. I get irate every time I see Jason run across the room and throw himself on the couch.

I’m definitely not a pro on this subject but here are some of the tricks that I have learned over the years from various people:

1. Start with you – If you don’t understand money, you can’t teach your child. Learn about how to keep a budget and staying within those limits. Learn about cost saving things. Learn about investing. Learn about savings. Go to the experts and find out so that you can save yourself money as well.
2. Teach them by example – Now I’m not telling you to explain all your bills. I wouldn’t want to do that and neither I’m sure would you. But I do keep a calendar that shows when a bill is going out or is due. They see me keeping an actual system they know that you are doing it. Explain that accidents do happen and how to pick up from it. Or when they want something special and you have a bill, show them the bill on the calendar. This, also, helps to keep you accountable for your finances.
3. Set an allowance up – Start your children on allowance early. Now this doesn’t mean that you just give them money every week. They need to earn. By earning the money, they feel like they are accomplishing something. A lot of people do the allowance by age such as if you have a 7 year old, you might give her $7.00. That is a dollar per age. If that’s too steep, just lower it down. But always do it so that it’s equal across the board with your kids. Now remember you are not just going to hand this money out for nothing, have them do chores around the house like doing the dishes, cleaning their rooms, etc.  Note:  I am not saying that you can never splurge for them.
4. Open up a savings account for them – Take them to the bank to open up a savings account. Explain how important it is to put money into their account. Now the trick here and yes you will probably shake your head at me is to let them control the account. Yes when they first have money they will spend it frivolous stuff but what they will learn as they grow if you don’t give them more money, is that they have to save to get what they want.  Teach them how their money can grow in the bank.
5. Talk about the prices of things – Talk to them about how much something cost. Look at what they want to get and how to go about getting something. If they want the newest game boy, take them to the store and see how much it is. Then talk with them about how much they have to say in order to get one. Something on the lines of: “Ok that costs $90; you need to keep your allowance for 6 months to buy that.” Don’t fall back on I’ll just buy it for you. They won’t learn about saving to get something.

So how do you help your child to learn about money?

While I was sick Menopausal New Mom was kind enough to tag me as a Theta Mom (The True, Authentic Mom). Menopausal New Mom shared with us why she thought she was a Theta Mom so please check out her post here. I want you to know that I was very touched by her request. I’m supposed to share five reasons that I believe have shaped me into a Theta Mom.
Here they are:

1.  When Faith was 12 months old, she began to get sick and stayed sick. I was literally terrified. My precious little baby was capable of having hand, foot and mouth, strep throat and ear infection at the same time and act like it was an every day occurrence. Did I accept the doctors telling me it was normal? No, I did not because there was something wrong with my baby. I wanted to solve the issue. We realized that she couldn’t stay in preschool with her being so ill. I chose to stop working outside the house and come home. I didn’t work for over two years as we fought to make her better. She had her adenoids, tonsils, and tubes removed by the time she was 18 months old. She saw top specialists. She had more blood work and tests than you can imagine. Still I didn’t stop.

My baby girl was almost 2 years old before she weighed 20 lbs. We were told that she probably had cystic fibrosis. Let me tell you hearing those words were like a cut to our hearts. I was so upset but then I kicked myself in the butt and said get up and find a way. I did my research on the internet. None of it was good but I was determined that my daughter would live a happy normal life. We would just change things to accommodate the illness. The illness would not be her life. It would simply be part of it. The doctors were wrong. She did not have it. She had a very bad immune system which really wasn’t surprising since her biological mother did not tell good care of herself while she was pregnant. We fought for several years with her health. But today she is a healthy seven year old girl. She is rarely sick. During her illness, Faith barely spoke. While she was sick, she would bang her head against the wall. We tried to stop her whenever we saw it. But we knew something was wrong because of it. It was so frustrating for me to see her frustration by it. I just wanted her to be able to communicate with me. By the time she was 2 years old, she spoke 10 words. She now suffers from a speech issues but we are working on that as well.

2. I carry a backpack with me as a purse so that I am always prepared. In the backpack, I have toys, crayons, paper, coloring book, snacks, drinks, and wipes. I used to try to carry a book or magazine with me but I never got to look at it. I stopped carrying them because I would want to look at it and my job was to entertain the kids. Period. I take an extra suitcase on vacation full of toys. It is so much fun packing for them on trips. Ok I have all their clothes ready. Now how many toys do we pack away?

3. I tried to maintain that relationship with their birth mother. I had known Marsha since she was 4 years old. I watched her grow up. I loved her as much as if she was my own during those years. She was the first child that I attached myself to when I found out that I would not be able to have kids. So you can see how hard it would be to walk away from her. You see, Marsha was willing to see Faith only when she could show her off to her newest boyfriend. Marsha was not stable enough for me to have around the kids. She was getting into drugs and the wrong people. I could not provide a stable environment with her in it. She would call to talk with me about this and that but never bring up Faith. So being Faith’s mother first, I chose to stop any communication. She has never called since. I still miss her today. But for the safety of Faith, I removed her involvement in our lives.

At one point, I was going to her Myspace and her aunt’s Myspace to get pictures of their siblings. Jason included. We found out about Jason going into foster care through the aunt’s Myspace. She was begging for people to call and tell foster care that it was wrong. I didn’t think twice about calling to tell them that if Jason was not returned to the aunt that we would take him. I thought of Faith’s and Jason’s well being first. They were my first priority. I didn’t think about what my husband would say. I didn’t think about how this would affect my family’s financials. I simply thought about how this would affect Faith (an ultimately Jason) if we did not try to get her brother out of foster care. If we let him fall into the system, I knew in my heart that Faith would wonder why we had not tried to get him. I knew that Faith would look for him for the rest of her life. So we went after him.

Getting Jason from foster care means that I had to change my entire life again. I had to quit working from home. He needed that extra attention. And as a busy little toddler he was so very active. There was no way I could work.

4. I can honestly say that I’m not a typical mother but then maybe I am. Maybe people just need to realize that motherhood has changed. I make mistakes. I laugh at them. I learn from them but I make them. For instance: when Faith was 2 years old, we decorated her room. We allowed her to do some of the decorating with us. We decked her room out. I came up with a design in my head for the room. She was going to have a tea area in the park. Some place for a little girl to feel like a princess. We put down tiles on the floor to represent the tiles you would find outside. We painted the ceiling deep blue for the sky. We painted the main parts of the wall a light pink. We painted the trim green for grass. And then we went about drawing flowers and butterflies. Now here’s where we goofed, we allowed Faith to put her hands and feet into the paint for prints on the wall. To this day, Faith still tries to paint her walls every chance she gets. It doesn’t matter how many times we tell her she’s not suppose to do it. My husband had out filler which is what you use to fill holes in your walls. He left for 5 minutes. I do mean 5 minutes. She got into and put it all over her walls in that amount of time.

I am always learning something new that is best for my kids. I am always willing to share that information as well. Here as well as in stores I found out today. Motherhood is not cut and dry. Things are always changing and we must change with the time. The more I am a mommy the more that I realize how very blessed I am. There is nothing more rewarding to me than watching my children grows. I often wonder what they will be when they grow up. I’m always telling them that they can be anything they want to be. My kids have taught me things as well. They’ve taught me to be patient. They’ve taught me to look at the smallest things in life and enjoy them. They’ve taught me to cherish my inner child. They’ve taught me that my family is more important than anything that I could ever buy. I knew that before just not as firmly as I do now.

I have realized that being a mother doesn’t mean I have to live by someone else’s way it has to work for us. So if I feed my kids’ cereal at dinner, that’s all right by me. I’ve started new traditions with them. I have fun with my kids. I put them first. I do allow them to watch cartoons. I allow them to be a kid. I play with my kids. I get down on the floor and color with them. We play games. I read them books at night. We say our prayers together. 

5. I go out of my way not to teach my children fear. We decided early on not to teach them fear. You see, my husband’s sister is terrified of everything. She’s scared of going into her own basement. She’s scared of dogs. She’s scared of rain storms. As the kids have gotten older, I realized how easy it was to teach fear. We were going to the park. I asked the neighborhood girl to go with us. Faith was jumping from one bench to the other. I was watching as a normal mommy would do. I was holding my breath because I knew that she could fall and get hurt. It’s the hardest thing I ever had to do. When all of a sudden, the neighborhood girl grabbed her and said, “No, don’t do that! You’ll get hurt.” She would never try again after that. She was taught to fear something. We never let on if we are scared of something. I’m terrified of spiders. The kids are not aware of that.

These are just a few of the reasons that I think I am a Theta Mom.  So am I?  The only thing that I can tell you is that I believe that I am doing what is best for my children.  Thats all that matters to me.

I would like to tag all of my readers. Even if you aren’t a mother, tell us what you think one is. Please let me know when you do so. I want to learn about you as well.

The boss of a big company needed to call one of his employees about an urgent problem with one of the main computers, dialed the employee’s home phone number and was greeted with a child’s whisper.

“Hello.”

“Is your daddy home? ” he asked.

“Yes,” whispered the small voice.

“May I talk with him?”

The child whispered, “No.”

Surprised, and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, “Is your Mommy there?”

“Yes.”

“May I talk with her?”

Again the small voice whispered, “No.”

Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, “Is anybody else there?”

“Yes,” whispered the child, “a policeman.”

Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee’s home, the boss asked, “May I speak with the policeman?”

“No, he’s busy”, whispered the child.

“Busy doing what?”

“Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the Fireman,” came the whispered answer.

Growing concerned and even worried as he heard what sounded like a Helicopter through the earpiece on the phone the boss asked, “What is that noise?”

“A hello-copper” answered the whispering voice.

“What is going on there?” asked the boss, now truly alarmed.

In an awed whispering voice the child answered, “The search team just landed the hello-copper.”

Alarmed, concerned, and even more then just a little frustrated the boss asked, “What are they searching for?”

Still whispering, the young voice replied along with a muffled giggle…

“ME.”

Well It’s that time out of the to join Heather at Thetamom‘s for her Time Out for Theta Mom’s on Thursday.   The idea is to grab one hour of time within one week to do whatever you want…without the kids! Yes I know what you are all thinking. I never leave the kids. Well I don’t but one hour. I’m going to try it. So once you have done the one hour a week, you are suppose to post about it and add Theta’s link on the side here and link up to other Theta Moms to see how they spent their hour as well.

This week has been really hard to grab that hour just for me. Let’s see so this week I have not only done my usual stuff like: taking care of the kids, house, volunteering at school, pets, blogging. I have, also accomplished three and a portion of my goals on my 101 Things to do in 1001 days.
I joined a mom’s group, Mom’s Club of Independence which I attended on Tuesday morning at 11:00 a.m. It was a good meeting. They had a Swap and Shop. The members brought things that they no longer used and could swap it for something that someone else didn’t use anymore. If there was anything left over, it was being donated to a local church. They talked about sending out a care package to someone that was sick. The last thing they had was a speaker Elizabeth Hickerson from Little Songbird Music Studio.

Little Songbird Music Studio specializes in music education for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. I was very interested. Did you know that kids have rhythm until they are 9 years old? Once they are 9, whatever their rhythm or music ability is will be what they have for the rest of their lives. Research shows that all children have musical abilities. You just have to nurture it. Some of the things that she had us doing were:

• Name Songs. This is where you insert your child’s name into a song like for instance The Muffin Man. You would say something like Jason knows the Muffin Man.
• Bouncing: Yes you guessed it. With your singing, you bounce. So I was bouncing Jason on my lap. He hurt. He’s 40 lbs.
• Finger Play: This was used for fine motor skills, and to develop a sense of rhythm.
• Locomotor Movement: We did the Walk and Stop. When doing the Walk and Stop, its simple it’s you walk and you walk and you walk and you STOP. Then repeat it.

I began writing for the Examiner.com as the Cincinnati Adoptive Families Examiner. I wrote my first article, List of possible victims to adoption scam rising: Are you one of them? I will mark that off my list as being published.

I created my blog for the project. I donated $10 to my church out of the $3,000, took 3 pictures out of 600 and made $.58 since on my posting out of $3,000 I want to earn.

So last night, I took Faith to CCD at 7:00 p.m. CCD is the basic teachings of the Catholic Church which children begin in first grade. Now I realized on the way that I hadn’t taken my free time yet. I knew that I had to pick Faith back up at 8:00 p.m. so I thought what better time than now. I dropped Faith off and took off to go to Borders to get my Café Mocha. Now I was not planning on spending an hour in the store. I know that I forget to go get Faith if I did that. Instead I got my Café Mocha and went back out to the car. I drove back to the church and parked the car. Then I picked up my cell phone and called my sister, Tabitha, in Florida. I don’t get much time to chat with my sister nowadays. It is always too late when the day is done or too early because she is sleeping.

I sat in my car and talked to my sister about everything. We talked about the struggles my nephew is having with his girlfriend because of the new baby. We talked about the financial issues my mother is having. We talked about the issues we are having with our husbands. Turns out they are a lot of the same issues. We talked about the funny things that Jason and Faith did this week. How my niece, Chelsey, was doing in college. You name it, we talked about it. At the end of the call, I was feeling so much better. I had gotten to rant to someone and help someone at the same time. Does it count for my hour away? I got peace of mind. I felt loved and cherished by someone I love.

Now please tell me what your free time was and then jump over to Thetamoms and see what other awesome moms did. See you there.

If you enjoyed this story you might enjoy these too:

First Grade Art Class – Time Out for Mommy
Time Out For Mom

I love these and can see some of these happening to my kids.

Thinking twice about visiting my sister in Florida now.

I have often thought about this question.  My answer is always I think so. I have my kids help me with little stuff around the house.  I have to say that it does make my day longer but it gives them a sense of being responsible for something.  That’s very important.

Yesterday, I had Jason help feed the dogs.  Now he can count but he doesn’t apply logic to what he is doing.  I am used to Faith feeding the dogs so I wasn’t paying much attention to what he was doing.  Not to bright on my part.  Live and learn.  I turn around when he is put the Jasmine, the Newfoundland’s, food in her cage.  The bowl is overflowing.  Then I look at the Lucky, the Sheltie’s, food.  Lucky’s food is overflowing as well.  He gave Lucky as much food as he gave Jasmine.  Now Jasmine was ready to tear into that food.  She barely waits for it to be put in her cage before she eats it.  She would have eaten all that food with one swoop so I basically had to redo it.  But he was trying.  I showed him how much to give her.  His response was, “Mommy, I will do it right tomorrow.”  Lesson learned.  Will I let him try again tomorrow?  Maybe with Faith’s help if she isn’t running late.

When I am cleaning, I have Jason and Faith walk around the house and pick up toys.  They have to put them up.  I don’t know how but we always end up with their toys everywhere.  Every morning they are responsible for picking up their rooms before breakfast.  Now you have to realize that with Faith going to school that doesn’t always happen.  They can’t always do it by themselves since it usually is a disaster.  They have collected a lot of toys lately.  Ken and I went alittle crazy when we first got Jason.  We would buy Jason something new.  Of course, Faith had to have something as well.  The kids and I have been deciding what they don’t use and donating those things to charity.

I have set up jars with their names on it.  The third jar is just for the marbles to be earned.  When we first started this process, I sat down with the kids and explained it.  I asked them to help me come up with ways that they could earn marbles.  Let me tell you they were perfectly willing to help me with a list.  Here are some of the things they thought of:

• Getting dressed before coming down for breakfast
• Brushing their teeth in the morning and at bedtime (without being asked.)  We are still working on this one.
• Feeding the dogs when they first get up
• Picking up their shoes and putting them where they belong
• Being good when we are out visiting
• Being good when we are at the store
• Being good to each other

The list continues to grow every day.  As they have gotten older they have new ones added to the list like Faith now gets the mail as she comes in from school or doing her homework without fighting.  I do special assignments with Jason too so he can earn the same amount of marbles.

Now the flip side to this is, they can lose marbles as well for bad behavior such as:

• Talking back
• Causing a scene when we are out.  Jason still throws tantrums.  I can’t reward bad behavior.
• Not listening to me.
• Fighting with each other

This simple process has made my life so much easier.  Jason and Faith know what is expected of them.  I realize that the kids are still young but responsibility is important even at their age.  There isn’t that much arguing about things either.  If they are acting up, they get one warning of “I’m going to take a marble out of your jar if you don’t stop.”  They usually stop.  Sometimes they don’t.

Now for the positive reinforcement to the good behavior, we have reward systems for those earned marbles.  Just getting the marble is sometimes enough.  But I wanted them to have some systems.  I think it helps them to realize why daddy goes to work since they have to earn special treats.  Some things we use as rewards are:

• Going to the park
• Going to Borders for hot chocolate
• Making a special pizza at home for them.
• Going to the mall to play
• Going to McDonalds to get a happy meal

Each item has a different value of marbles to it.  Sometimes Faith earns something while Jason doesn’t.  They had to learn that if they didn’t earn it.  They simply didn’t get it.   We still reward the child appropriately that did earn it. 

They are always coming up with ways to earn marbles as well.  Faith likes to pick out the prettiest in the jar to put into hers.  Jason gets a kick out of just taking his marbles from the main jar and putting them into his. 

Do you guys make your kids clean their own rooms?  Do you have a reward system?  Please answer these questions in the comments.

Tell them that you love them.  – Think about how much your parents used to tell you they love you.  Remember, how good that felt?  Tell them now.

Hug them every day. - Think about how good a hug feels even from a stranger.  Shouldn’t you be hugging your kids first?

Play their favorite games with them – I sit down and play Candyland with Faith and Jason all the time.  There have been studies that say that playing a game with a child when they are young opens up communication lines for when they are older.  You don’t want to have to try to open that communication line when they are a teenager.

Read a book at bedtime. - Teachers say it all the time.  Read to your child and they will love reading as well.  I really believe that statement.  Faith is just learning to read so our stories have changed.  She is reading with us.  I think Jason is picking some of it up as well.

Go for a walk together. - Have you seen how many overweight kids there are today?  Let’s get healthy by taking walks together every evening if possible.  Two or three times a week is good too.  You’ll be surprised how much you talk about during that walk as well.  I learn all about things at school that Faith forgets to mention when she gets home from school.

Ask.  Don’t order. – As much as it is natural, it benefits you more if you ask them to do something.  Rather than order.  Such as:  “Put your bike away now.” to “Do you think you could put your bike away?”  Yes sometimes it won’t work but a lot of the times it will. 

Volunteer or donate to a charity. – I like to go through Faith and Jason’s toys together and find things they don’t play with and donate them to charity.  They feel good about it as well since they know that it is going to someone who might not have what they do.  Doing this will cause your family to be pulled together by a common cause.

Adopt their sport or cause. - If you child loves gymnastics, soccer, dance, etc. make sure that you support them in their effort.  This tells them that you care about what they want.  Think about how you felt as a child and your parents supported your efforts in what you wanted.  Or if they didn’t support it.  How often were you likely to give up a sport if no one paid attention?  How often did you do better if they did support you?

Eat dinner together as a family.  – Do you eat with your family at night?  It’s a great way to sit and talk about what happened in each of our lives.  Tell family stories about Grandpa Don or Nana Phyllis. 
Make cookies.  I learn more about my kids when we are having fun making cookies in the kitchen.  They love to see flour on my nose.  You don’t have to make cookies.  It could be a homemade pizza.  Just something where they see you having fun with them.