Are you a fun mom? - Page 2

[Keeping up]

Thanks everyone - I feel better already.

I went to the park on Monday (long weekend in Canada) and had a ton of fun with the kiddos (sans bebe!). I laughed and walked and talked and just had fun - not stressing about home (we just moved), or work at all. Just watched in awe as the kiddos let their crocs float down the water park riverlets.

This week too - just not worrying about the small stuff and listening, laughing and rolling on the floor. I still am not great at pretend - and won't pretend I ever will be - but the kiddos laughed and we had fun.

It was good to know I am not the only no-so-fun mom out there and that kiddos still just might like me when I am over the hill passed this parenting stuff.

FTR - I know my kiddos really like spending time with the nanny - she is awesome (and I tell her so). I am lucky my kiddos do love their days with her - wouldn't it be horrible for them not to!

[tjjazzy]

Originally Posted by AnnD

I love them and love spending time with them - but I am not a natural player of dolls or other silly games. I watch them, I retrieve stuff ... but I don't play with gusto.

anyone else?

i am the SAME. daddy and nana are way more fun than i am and i'm a SAHM! so i have the guilt of knowing that i have the time to do it but don't. i try to fill my non-fun gap in with reading books (mostly before nap/bed), teaching (alphabet etc.), talking to DS, cuddling 2 or 3 x a day when he has his milk cup, and taking him for walks. i'm just not into sitting and playing with his trains and cars. i have always tried to make a point of having him play independently b/c i knew that i was like that. hopefully i'm not scarring him for life or something!!

[Mama Poot]

I can be fun, but I don't have a whole lot of time for it having a little baby right now. I'll get "down and dirty" with my kids. I actually had people looking at me strangely at the beach when I was helping Henri build a mud and sand pool-I had sand all over my face from him throwing it at me. I try to make time to do things like sit down and draw pictures with them, I even let them draw on the wall with chalk (crazy I know, but it gets the urge out of them to do it with other things like pens and crayons and it wipes right off)

[textbookcase]

I think I'm pretty fun. We like to play and dance and be silly and do art projets. Of course, they're still excited to see babysitters and other family members since they're around me all the time!

[Sierra]

Different people, different dynamics of relationships. That's my vote.

dw and I are BOTH very fun moms. But we're fun in totally different ways.

We're both very goofy. We enjoy getting silly and laughing and playing.

But dw is very structured too. She is a good setter of boundaries because she keeps them. She doesn't like to make plans if there is even a small chance she won't do something (whether for herself or with the kids). But once she says something, she always follows through with what she said...whether plans for something to happen, or her responses to a certain thing happening, etc.

I am a very relaxed mom and flexible mom in many ways. I have no inherent sense of time and a more dynamic sense of boundaries, but at the same time have OCD tendencies (um, I am not "allowed" do laundry anymore because if I can't use the hangers in my color coding system I give up entirely !). I like to plan everything out to the point of extreme overkill. But then I don't feel attached to following through with all my plans exactly as I sketch them out. Sometimes I set rules or guidelines and then forget about them, but more often I just decide to be more flexible than I originally intended. If something is working, I don't change it for the principle of the matter. dw will stick with her word no matter what.

I like sitting and doing quiet pretend with the kids in short bursts, but dw can keep up crazy busy all-around the house pretend play for hours. dw plays on the playground equipment too. I get caustrophobic and prefer just to watch. Both of us get down and wrestle with the kids. I like doing gymnastics with them, mixed into all the wrestling.

dw gives the kids piggy back and shoulder rides and stuff. Those kinds of things exaserbate a neck injury for me. I also am much more serious in general than dw, who is a big joker. My sense of humor is much more dry. dw works harder to keep up with household tasks. I put time with the kids ahead of everything. On the other hand, I work full-time. It's just different.

And while dw is good at setting boundaries, I tend to be more stern. I have really high expectations for my kids, which they generally meet. dw is much less stern, but she also is always paranoid about bothering other people, so she tends to get frustrated when we are out and about and the kids get wild. I like wild kids!

[Norasmomma]

I'm pretty fun most of the time. I take DD to the beach and we go swimming and I'll play in the sand. She's just getting to the age where pretending is fun for her, so I do that also. The other night we laughed and pretended we were dogs, and got our old dog so wound up she was barking and playing with us and she's 13. We pick flowers and go for walks around our country road, and "talk" to the sheep, llamas, goats and chickens that our neighbors own.

That said, I also can be pretty stern, when it comes down to listening to me, so sometimes I am the bad mom. Daddy is fun because he takes DD out at night when I make dinner and changes our big sprinklers and lets her play with him in the field, most of the time we are just a fun family. There are also times when I am a total rag though.