Susan Merrill - Kids Say the Darndest Things

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Some things never change…

Posted On: May 18, 2013 Parenting	Leave a comment
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Making Time for Fun Family Traditions

We’re all busy. And it’s hard to ensure we are spending the time that we need to bond with our children, considering all of the things that everyone has going on. Find the time to commit to these family traditions and just watch the connections grow.

Here are 8 great ways to bond with your kids and create fun family traditions, and they don’t have to be huge!

1) Spectator Sports 5) Be a Fan Club

2) Fishing Hole and Hunting Lodge 6) Get Outdoors

3) Creative Outlets 7) Travel and Explore Cultures

4) Leisure Sports 8) Unwind and Converse

Posted On: May 17, 2013 Parenting	Leave a comment
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Confession: I Over-Project-Manage My Kids

over project manage your kids

Yes, I confess that I over project managed my kids. I fell into it very easily with my little mini-me Megan. She was so type A herself that dancing began at 4 and swimming and art lessons and piano and straight A’s and the diligence award accumulated quickly. She marched right through it all beautifully. I managed a very complex calendar of weekly events. My second, Emily, did it all, too. She thought all the activity was just what we do.

And so did I. We were living in the van. Snacks in the van, naps in the van, homework in the van. We had a cooler, case of waters, chairs, sunscreen, bug spray, bandaids, and lots more. We loaded the van with everything just short of a port-a-potty. I do know someone who did that! They took their little training potty and put it in the back of their van.

It all seemed fine until there were three. Then I began to see the light, little number three was spending his entire infancy in the van. Well not entirely, he got regular maulings from dozens of little girls when we went to watch all the activities. Still it didn’t seem right. It was hardly a developmental way of life for the little guy.

We stopped the merry-go-round or should I say slowed it down a bit at that point. We didn’t totally get off but we began to limit what any one child could do at one time. It’s a good thing because then we adopted two more. One mom can only be at so many places at a time. I still fight the impulse to let my kids do everything. And I still fight the impulse to try to manage what they do. Like insuring their homework is perfect and they’ve practice whatever it is they are supposed to be practicing.

I am a type A mom and I like to manage, but I am trying not to over do it. If I don’t stop managing their life projects, how will they ever learn to mangage themselves?

Posted On: May 15, 2013 Uncategorized	3 Comments
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Get Real About Married Sex

married sex

Sex is a popular topic. It gets 506,000,000 online searches a month. God gets 55,600,000. President Obama gets 823,000. The weather gets 185,000,000. I offer these stats for a little comparison. More people search for answers about sex than answers about religion, politics or the chance of rain.

Sex is a very popular topic. It is also a topic that I think gets over analyzed to the point that we are confused and discontent in our contrast and comparison of what we should or shouldn’t be doing as partners. I think that is a mistake on our part. Married sex is the best but it is not always perfect. Sometimes it’s worthy of an academy award but more often it’s quick after the kids go to bed but before we fall asleep from exhaustion. Everyone has their own reality about sex. Yours is not mine and that is fine because we are all really different. So let me be real about our married sex, in the hopes that it will encourage you to be realistic about yours. (click to tweet) I will begin with…

The First Night

Our honeymoon was our first night together. Our wedding was huge and our reception was packed. It was a blast but I never saw the food–ever. We took off for our honeymoon destination at 11:30 pm. It was an hour drive and he was hyper focused–not even talking. I was starving. Someone had thoughtfully given us a box of reception goodies to eat. The box sat enticingly at my feet and I offered some to Mark, but he was totally uninterested. Don’t ask me why I hesitated I have never been shy about food, but I was feeling a little uncertain about the intimacy ahead. We arrived, changed and once more I asked if he was hungry. He was hungry but not for food. And so we proceeded and it was lovely. But, I was still starving. So hungry that I could not fall asleep. In the dark I dropped to the floor and crawled around in search of the goody box. Finding it, I quietly opened the box to discover every morsel tightly wrapped in heavy aluminum foil. It made a racket and I sounded like a rat foraging for food. Mark, mr. eagle ears, woke up and said, “Susan, where are you and what are you doing?” I sheepishly confessed that I was hungry. He asked in confusion, “You’re hungry?” Like how could you possibly be hungry after that? How unromantic could I be?

At that point it should have been very clear to me–sex was more important to Mark than food.

The First Year

Three months into our marriage I was pregnant. It was a fairly easy pregnancy but the changes to my body were not always comfortable. This definitely interfered with my “intended for pleasure” first year. Sore body parts made me a little touchy about being touched. Two weeks before our one year anniversary I delivered our first. I was out of commission for the two remaining weeks of our first year and the first month of our second year of marriage.

The Baby Years

The ins and outs of pregnancies and nursing made making love a little inconsistent. I didn’t always feel like having sex. Mark, in comparison, was totally undeterred. It didn’t matter to him what condition my body was in, he liked it. For that I should have been thankful but at the time I wasn’t thinking that way. The ups and downs began to take it’s toll on him and left him feeling that “we never had sex.” I heard about this often. In my mind, we had sex a lot but I had to prove it and make him feel good about it at the same time. So for Christmas that year I gave him a promise in his stocking. I filled it with five boxes of a dozen condoms (our form of birth control) and I promised that all 60 would be gone by the next Christmas. It was a guarantee and the best gift of time and attention I could have given him–he loved it. The condoms were gone by October and he was a happy man. At that time with babies and pregnancies and nursing and sleepless nights, once or twice a week was a win for us.

At that point in our marriage I learned that Mark’s love language was physical touch. The Christmas stocking taught me that it comforted him just knowing that he was getting quantity time and attention in numbers.

The Years With Ears

Then we entered the years when the ears were listening in our old house with back to back bedrooms and wood floors that creek and echo every sound–five pairs of ears in the night, listening. We would wait for an hour after our five kids were all in bed. We would lock the door. We would put a pillow at the base of the door because there was a two inch gap at the bottom and then I would threaten my husband to shush! Half the time my ears would be straining for a sound beyond the door even as we made love. Sex was better in these years though, simply because my body had stopped morphing with pregnancies every other year. And because I usually went to sleep in our bed and woke up in our bed, versus falling asleep in a in a rocking chair with a baby in my arms or curled up on twin bed with a little one who had a bad dream.

The Years Ever After

We still have teens at home but no ears. Teens sleep so much more and when asleep they don’t even hear the alarm clock two feet from their face let alone us. Years of knowing each other intimately has brought an ease and harmony to our sex. It is good and I love Mark. He still out paces me in desire but we have found our way to contentment. And I think that is the point I want to make about married sex–you have to find your way. Intimacy in your marriage may not look like sex as advised by a magazine or portrayed in a movie. A compromise of giving to each other that meets your mutual needs must be decided upon by the two of you. And remember there are seasons in life when more loving is possible. Your physical relationship may have ups and downs throughout the years but it will get better because married sex is like many things in life that just get better and better with a little time and attention.

What about your married sex? Is it zapped from sleepless nights with babies? Or on the upswing because….?