I read a post at The Domestic Diva called Parents tune into your Kids, this was an interesting post to read. Take two minutes and read it than come back please.

I agree with what is said by The Domestic Diva, completely, we must give our children our best attention and provide them with quality time. I couldn’t agree more.

Now talking about my situation and most full time working mothers with no one to clean the house, to help with the meals, to go shopping, how can we give our children quality time when, even on weekends we have the house to clean, shopping to do and we are so tired that we can’t even walk because our legs hurt so much.

I try to give my kids most of my free time but there are those days that, no matter how much I want to be with them. I’m not 100% with them. There are those weekends when I take them to the park but I just want them to play alone because I’m too tired to walk and play with them. However most of the times when my attention is requested, although tired and not wanting to, I manage to drag myself and play with them. Is it quality time? Maybe for them it is, they don’t even notice that I’m not ok, but that’s for sure not quality time for me. Do they deserve the effort? Yes, of course they do. They are away from me 10 hours a day and they surely deserve a mom that spends time with them and plays with them even if that’s not what she really wants, I mean, I want to, but the tired side says: go to bed, rest and let them play alone.

Most moms (not all of course) I know from blogs are staying or working at home mothers, although I know it is not easy to handle a house and kids full time, at least they are at home and they can prepare some house stuff during the day.

When I come home at 7pm I still have laundry, cooking and some cleaning waiting for me, besides all the other activities (baths, playing) that involve the children. Am I proud of being a working mom? Of course not, my dream (which is slipping through my fingers) has always been to spend more time with my kids, pick them up at school, do the homework with them but the reality is different, I have to delegate those tasks to other people because…I’m working.

Should I have gymnastic classes or swimming classes to easy my stress? Of course I should, but when do I have time, when I should be asleep?

Of course I’m aware there are full time working moms in the US, moms with a career, with high status inside a company, but do they have time to blog? Probably not. The reality I see on blogging world is about moms that follow their kids, who have the computer on all day, who have time to socialize, to participate in forums. I tried to do that but I’m going down the drain, I’m tired because I can’t put up with that because I have little free time.

I’ve been blogging less lately because I’m so tired I can’t stay up everyday until 2-3am and get up at 7am in the morning.

Do I want to be a full time mom? Yes I would love to, but European reality is much different from US. Even if I blog for money, the reality is not good, two years ago if I earned 300US$ I would earn 300€, now 300USD$ means 192€ and it’s getting worse.

Do I want to work from home? Yes, I would love too but in Portugal there are no companies providing that type of work.

If there is a US company that wants to offer me a job I can do from home I will be pleased to accept! ?

I’m not criticizing anyone, on the contrary, I would love to hear from working moms to know how they manage time. I want to improve my parent skills, I’m always looking for ways to be a better mother, that’s why I sometimes instead of writing my own posts I read other mom’s blogs because I learn so much from them.

Are you a full time worker? Leave me your blog URL and I’ll be please to read about your daily life, I’m sure I will learn important lessons from you.

Before the pool I had little time to blog now, I have less time. Let me explain.

Before the pool:
We usually arrive home at 7pm, the kids watch some tv while I prepare dinner, just before dinner is ready there are the baths and then dinner. Afterwards some TV for the kids while I blog a little and than bed.

After the pool:
We arrive home at 7pm, it’s hot therefore the kids want to go to the pool. Once my husband only arrives home at about 7.40pm and I don’t leave the kids without supervision, I have to stay by the pool and dinner is postponed. This means we have dinner too late and later I’m so tired I can’t look to the screen.

Today my son had a birthday party so no pool. They are both asleep now while I’m updating my blogs.

My son and daughter are my priority so I want them to have fun in the pool especially when we have good weather. I could take the laptop outside to the garden table but they want my attention and they sure deserve it after spending 10 hours away from me.

For quite sometime we have been thinking about getting a pool to our backyard. Size does matter and so does price. We will probably have to buy a car until October so we couldn’t spend a lot of money on a pool. We searched a bit and although we preferred other type of pool for now we have to take advantage of a smaller and cheaper one.

Yesterday I bought a average pool (366 cm x 91 cm - 12′ x 36″), it takes 6786 liters of water, it’s filled with air on the border and the walls just come up with the water. I was quite skeptical that the walls would come up but, they did. The walls are built with three layers of strong material and I hope the neighbor’s cats don’t put their paws in there.

Here is a collage of the several stages we went through this morning and part of the afternoon. Today it was a National Holiday so we could do this today, the kids were thrilled of course.

I’ve been having some problems getting up my daughter in the morning on working days. Although I try to get up early to have time to wake her up, I always end up stressing and leaving home already late.

I bought a clock for her room some time ago and I was hoping to wake her up with the alarm clock, but the problem is that the clock has a loud Tic Tac and she can’t sleep well at night. I’m looking for other options now and the Teach Me Time! seems to be a good option.

This clock changes color and when it turns green it means the child can get up. This won’t work of course if the child is asleep, therefore we need to set up the alarm. The alarm works as a normal grown-up clock, we can even press snooze to have the alarm going off a few minutes later.

The Teach Me Time Clock is also very interactive. How does it teach children the time? The child presses the left toe button and the analogical clock will show the time than the child presses the right toe button and the Teach Me Clock will say the time and will display the time in the digital format.

This clock has other features like five levels of learning (we can start with easy level and increase as our child increases his/her knowledge), it can show analogical, digital or both type of clocks, etc..

I thinks this attractive clock will help me with three situations:

• Teach the time to my daughter
• Make her wake up on time
• Beautiful piece of decoration

The cell phone issue already come to an end. As I posted before the cell phone had a malfunction and went to the store for repair. Nokia didn’t repair the cell phone in the due time (30 days) so I called the costumer center. They immediately said time was due and therefore they were going to give me the money back or I could take another cell phone. I chose to get the money and I told my son that once he would only have the cell phone when school ends we would wait and then maybe buy a different one. Although a little reluctant, he agreed and put the money on his piggy.

He’s now thinking about buying a PSP and a cheap cell phone. If he wants both articles he will have to wait a few more months to gather the money so that’s see what he decides.

Every year, on the first Sunday of May, it’s Mother’s Day in Portugal. So last Sunday I received wonderful presents from my daughter and son as well as many kisses.

It all starter on Friday when my son, who had three presents to give me (one he bought, one he did at school and one he did in daycare), insisted in giving me one right on that day. He read a poem and I couldn’t hold the tears from rolling down my face. It was so beautiful.

On Sunday I received two presents from my son and two from my daughter. Now I have poems, a wallet, a purse, a Potpourri bag and two recipe books where I have to write my favorite recipes.

But like my daughter learned in pre-school: Mother’s Day it’s everyday and love should be shown daily.

This is Catherine favourite present: Barbie Make-Up case. Here you can find everything related to make-up: nail polish, eye shadow, lipstick, all in several attractive colours. Of course she ends up with a shower after she put the make up in herself but I already told her that dolls and nenucos also like make-up!

There was no big birthday party for Catherine this year. She turned 4 last Saturday but due to Easter holiday most family and friends were away for the weekend.

She’s too young to mind about that and what she wants is presents.

She had a birthday cake and we sang the birthday song together with her godfather (my youngest BIL) and his wife. The cake had the image of the Ballerina Princesses movie.

Her favorite present was something she has been asking for for a long time: make-up case. She also received a puzzle, a book and several pieces of clothes and other accessories.

At the end of the day we received the visit of my best friend E. and a couple of neighbors (she’s starting in the blogging world with: About Portugal).

Catherine was very happy even without a big party and that’s what matters.

As I mentioned before my daughter loves to color online. This drawing was one in many she colored yesterday.

Usually she colors hearts of blue but today they are red. She insisted with me in the nose detail…it’s white instead of piggy color.Her teacher spoke to me this week and she’s impressed with the drawings Catherine does. She’s very perfectionist and all the details are included in her drawings. I have to take pictures of some to post here.

Regarding coloring online, she already manages the mouse very well and she can already handle the browser.

Here is another one from last week:

There is a Dani girlfriend from her school class spending the afternoon with us. Being both 9 I understand it’s difficult to include my almost 4 years old daughter in the play. She just keeps getting in the way and things got rough now. Catherine ended up crying and after several warns I had to shout at Dani in front of her friend.

He’s not doing anything we request, I told him to get dressed before she arrived and there he is playing on his pajama.  Today dad asked him to put some toys in a box and he kept postponing it, dad, instead of insisting, he just put the toys away and said he will discipline him in a different way. It’s this situation that I complete disagree with dad. We have to take action right away not someday.

Catherine is now here next to me, while they are playing upstairs. A picnic inside the house today was promised to my daughter to end the dispute. Let’s see how it’s going to be the rest of the afternoon.

Saturday my son received his birthday present (a little late but worth waiting for) from his grandmother and grandfather (my in laws). It was money and together with the money he already had on his piggy he discovered that he could buy what he has been asking for for a long time, and we have been denying for a long time: a cell phone.

Since the age of 6 that my nephews have cell phone but I always refused to give one to my son. I didn’t think it was something essential for his daily life and he was too young to know the real purpose of a cell phone, that for me is essential calls, emergency calls and little more.

Now he’s 9 years old and he has enough money to buy the cell phone he wants. Well, he had enough money and we bought the cell phone.

At the age of 9 he already has the notion that the cell phone is not a toy but on the other hand:

• It has games
• It has radio
• It has MP3 player
• It has camera
• It has video
• It has more than I have.

I have a very basic cell phone and right now it’s enough for me. My son now has, and this is my point of view, an excellent cell phone and I truly hope he treats it well. If he loses it or damages it he knows that for a few long years he won’t have another one.

The question is: Does a 9 year old boy needs a cell phone?
Negative points of view:
No he doesn’t. It spoils him, makes him a show off. I’m going to have problems with cash control, he’s going to call all his friends (I hope I’m wrong), he’s going to receive messages with those abbreviated words that I sometimes have difficulty in understanding; he’s going to call me everyday just to use the phone.

Positive points of view:
I don’t have to go to school on my lunch break to know if he’s better from his tooth ache;
If he forgets something at home I can send him a message saying I will bring him that at school, so that he isn’t worried about it.

OK…I need more positive points of view…
The reality is that I still think he’s too young for a cell phone. He already has internet at home, friends in MSN messenger, PS2, GameBoy, MP3, why a cell phone that is better than mine?

Oh more positive points of view:
Now I can take pictures and make digital videos with his cell phone ( I don’t have a video digital camera).
I can use his calendar for birthday reminders

I’m really afraid that he will ruin the cell phone by taking it to school and daycare. The first day is going to be critical because he’s going to show it to everybody. I know…I should trust more on his care for his things. I hope he can prove that to me with the cell phone, because with other stuff he’s a “head in the wind”, he never knows where he leaves his stuff.

My boy is growing and I have to let him grow. He’s not my baby anymore and although a pleasure seeing him growing it scares me.

Here is an article about this subject: Talk to Your Kids About Cell Phone Use

Did you let your children have a cell phone at what age? Or when do you think you will let your children have a cell phone?

I found a great and simple site where my daughter (nearly 4) can do what she really likes: coloring.

Coloring is a very simple site where you can find a lot of interesting and beautiful drawings to color. Coloring is done by choosing the color we want and then pressing the area we want to color. It’s excelent for small kids because the coloring area is already defined and at a distance of one click.

Although I don’t want her to spend too much time only due to her young age, I let her color once in a while. She already has control of the mouse and can change the color of a zone if she doesn’t like to result.