Ok, I'm Losing It !

It's 11pm and hubby is STILL at his deacon's meeting at church, it started at 7pm. Poor guy is gonna' run himself ragged. Tomorrow he has to get up early to work in Tucson...

Tuesday night me and the kids drove down to Tucson to stay the night with him in the hotel. We had planned on spending the day there and going to a museum but hubby had a busy day yesterday and left town early to go to a meeting up in Phx. We weren't going to hang around if hubby wasn't even in town so we left around lunchtime. I stopped at Michael's on the way home and picked up some scrapbook paper. Me and Hannah are going to start scrapping on the night's that Michael is down in Tucson. I've gotta get my boxes of photos organized (somewhat!) first though.

I decided to start giving Hannah some more "big girl" type decisions to make. We had a somewhat serious discussion on the 2 hour drive home from Tucson. I asked her to seriously consider whether she wanted to continue with the piano or not. I was starting to have to "fight" her a bit to get her to practice and I was hoping that she'd take the initiative to do it on her own after just being "reminded". I was also looking for an attitude of "practicing till she got it right" instead of just putting in her 30 mins. KWIM??? I told her I was willing to pay for something else, like painting classes, if she would rather be doing those. I also told her though, that I think that God has given her the "gift" of being able to play, and that she has done very well in the 6 months of lessons that she's had. She stated some complaints about it being "hard" etc...which followed with my "some things TAKE work" speech (Becky this included bowling examples...). She thought about it for awhile, and I think has decided to continue taking piano. This is HUGE! When we first started talking, she jumped at the chance to "do art". After more contemplation, I think she's decided that she can still work on art/crafts but use her "lessons" for piano. Not sure if I'm getting across what I'm wanting to, but she made a "mature" decision, not just an emotional one or just picked what would be "easier". I'm also going to put her in charge of setting her goals for her schoolwork rather than just assigning pages. She will be required to stick with those goals though once they are set. Of course I will go over everything with her and not let her set unreachable ones or anything. I'm sharing all of this boring nonsense for a reason. This is a big milestone for ME:) I've been a micromanager with my kids and an authoritarian. I'm working really hard to NOT be like that anymore and let my kids be more responsible for themselves, their decisions, etc...It's really easy as a mom to get stuck in the rut of just bossing them around and managing their every waking moment. Don't wanna' be like that anymore! I want to be my kids' MOM, not their MANAGER.