Visualize what you want and tools show up

One of the other goals I set for 2013 had to do with date nights or date days with each person of the family. A majority of the time I'm doing stuff for them in the caretaking manner and I want to have more of that just bein with each other good feeling that I always imagined would come automatically with the mommy role. The truth it is, nothing is automatic. You have to work for it. I've been working on it. I have glimpses of those moments and then someone will be fighting and the bubble bursts. We started off 2012 the right way when I took Amberly to a paint your own pottery place and Cory took the boys to Monster Trucks... but the experience wasn't what I dreamed. I'm not sure exactly what was amiss. But I've been visualizing more and more about what our family outings look like, how disagreements can get handled, what words to use in certain scenarios. Well, when you give a lot of time and energy or focus to something, your tools show up.

When we were at the dentist office this morning I read about 2/3 of a great article about how to talk to your kids so that they will listen. What I got out of it is that it is more about ME listening to the way I talk to them and adapting. I wish I could have finished the article, but alas Amberly's appointment went so smoothly and she was ready to check out. The article talked about a book and a workshop. But, in reality I don't know how many more books I can buy and not read. So, this article was great because it gave great snipits of scenarios and where a parent had acted one way before and with their new tools how when applied the desired outcome actually manifested itself. Tomorrow I get to take the boys to the dentist so I'm gonna look for that magazine and perhaps accidently walk out with it in hand.