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What Mom hasn't dreamed about having more time to herself? Moms are great at organizing their time each day to make sure that the household runs smoothly and the children's needs are met; but they lack in the simple skill of setting time aside just for them.

Without their own "Me" time, Mom's face burnout and stress. This can ultimately affect your spouse and children as well, so it's important to find that Mom time for yourself and keep your sanity as well as your family's. There are many ideas you can use to incorporate Mom time into your life and here are some of them:

Mothers' Day Out - There are many childcare centers that provide a Mothers' Day Out program. These programs don't require that your child be registered for daily care, so you can use it only as the need arises. This is a perfect solution for mom time, because this allows you an hour or two a week to shop, hang out with friends or just pampering yourself.

Play Dates - Take a look at who your child's friends are. Will their moms be willing to join you in a play date group? The moms in these groups can trade off and watch the other children while those moms get a short break. When it's your turn, you return the favor and watch their children while they take some time for their own short break.

Tea Time - Taking even a short break during the day can be enough to recharge your batteries. See if you can keep your children entertained with a movie or some kind of game they can play amongst themselves. While they're busy, you can sit down and enjoy a cup of tea or a drink of your choice. Take those couple of minutes to just sit back and enjoy a peaceful moment to yourself.

Date with Dad - It's important for the kids to spend some quality time with dad. Why not suggest he take them out for a few hours, while you stay home and relax. The kids can go on an adventure with dad and you can stay home and appreciate the quiet atmosphere that you don't normally experience.

Mothers' Helper - Ever thought of having another person to help you out a couple of hours a week? If you don't feel comfortable leaving your children with a sitter; consider having a sitter come in while you're there. Some young teenagers that are fresh out of babysitting courses can use some experience before they go off on their own. This would be the perfect way to relieve you of some of your motherly duties and enable you to be just a "supervisor" of sorts while the sitter learns the trade.

These are only a few examples of what you can do to get some time for yourself. Check with other moms and see what they do for their own Mom time. As a mom, you've done a great job with your family, but don't neglect yourself in the process. Mom time is not only something you need, but deserve as well.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Aurelia Williams. For more help, visit Real Life Guidance for a happier and more fulfilled you.

The answer is a simple and age-old one and one you may not accept at first. The answer is crafts! Kids of all ages are programmed to like crafts, they just may not realize it, and so you need to prove it to them - subtly.

These days kids are picking up TV and video games at earlier ages and spending more and more time with them. Don't get me wrong - I am not one of those people that believe TV and video games are evil. I don't call the television an "idiot box" like my mom did growing up. Our daughter loves to watch Sesame Street, The Little Einsteins and is even starting to play some basic video games and we do encourage all of these. She is 20 months old and can already count to ten, knows most of her alphabet and has pretty good motor skills. We attribute a lot of this to some of the educational kids shows she watches. But the problem starts when the TV and video games are used as babysitting instead of educational activities.

So why crafts? Crafts give your child great one-on-one time with you as a parent which every kid craves even if they don't realize it. The time you spend doing crafts with your child go a long way towards building a loving and open relationship. It's a great time to talk about things with your child and foster sound communication channels and family relationships.

Crafting also helps a child learn and grow. When a child does a craft, they gain confidence in themselves for their accomplishment. They develop their creativity and problem solving skills by making decisions about color, size, accessories, etc. when doing their craft. They also gain a great sense of pride. All children want to win their parents approval and creating a craft and seeing how pleased mommy or daddy is with it is a great feeling for them.

Your child is not going to get many of the benefits I mentioned above from watching TV and playing video games.

So why aren't we all doing crafts regularly with our kids? Obviously, it takes time for parents. So the first step is to carve off some time to do crafts with your kids. Don't worry about the ideas, that's the easy part - there are tons of great websites out there with easy and fun craft ideas for kids. I'll list some for you at the end of this article.

Why would your kids want to do crafts instead of TV or video games? Chances are, they won't... at first. So don't try to substitute completely, just set up some time to do some crafts and get a couple ideas and the supplies to do them ahead of time. Make sure to have a couple just in case your first idea isn't a winner. Then just do it and I guarantee you will have fun and so will your child. After you do this a couple times, I bet your child will start asking you when they get to do the next craft.

Remember, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with TV and video games especially if they are educational. It's just that your child is missing out on a lot of opportunity to develop in other areas if that's all they are doing. So start by making some time yourself and check out some sites for ideas to get started. It's not hard and any parent can do it (yes, even you dads reading this!).

If you want some craft ideas, here are a few sites that I would recommend and have used myself: DLTK-Kids.com Crafts, Kids Crafts at AllKidsNetwork.com and EnchantedLearning.com Crafts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

William Rybinski is an amateur article writer and website operator dealing with kids related craft sites. .

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