Surprise, Surprise.

Noddy And The Treasure Map Musical is going to be in a city not too far away from us so today, without saying a word, I bought tickets online for me and the kids for June 28th.

Tonight I’m going to tell them about this and I’m sure they will be thrilled, especially my daughter who loves Noddy.  Catherine is not very fond of masquerades and outfits so I hope she’s not afraid of Noddy and Friends.

It’s a special gift from me to them and I know they will love it.

I think this is something a little private but at the same time something I feel comfortable writing about. All women should make the Pap Smear and check if it comes out normal. Why? Because who does this test regularly has more chances to discover a dangerous disease at a very early stage.

Since my daughter was born, 4 years ago, I have never seen a doctor again, not even for regular test. This Monday I had an appointment with the family planner doctor and I did the Pam Smear test, I have some blood tests to do as well as mammography and breast eco. I have to wait a few weeks for he Pap Smear test, the longer the results takes to arrive home the better, it means everything is normal, but, I wish I could know right now the result.

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.

Do you see the animal shaped balloon on the bottom left side of my page? I’m participation on the Orange World’s First Internet Balloon Race.

Go to the site: http://www.playballoonacy.com, sign up, submit your blogs and place the code on your blog template. The race will start on June 23rd.

People from all over the world can participate, they will follow the balloon and visit the blogs/sites that are participating, this means more traffic, new visitors and possibly new readers.

And how does the race actually take place?

The balloons will fly across a range of sites, picking up speed & distance bonuses as they fly. They can also pick up tokens for entry in to free prize draws.

There are already a bunch of sites signed up to support the race, including The Sun and Yahoo.

Head to http://www.playballoonacy.com and participate.

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

Soccer tournament is over after two full Saturdays in the local park for soccer matches. My son is a fed up of soccer right now and he doesn’t wanna go to another soccer tournament that will take place Sunday. I don’t blame him…I’m also fed up of soccer matches right now.

He’s not a real soccer fan, he just plays his game and doesn’t pay attention to other games. I guess he was there only for the medal. The season is ending and he already told me in September he doesn’t want to enroll again. I must confess, for me it’s a relief. Getting up early every Saturday to drive long distances with my daughter for a soccer match is not something I’m longing to.

Although I don’t want to interfere on his decision, I know he won’t keep up with a complete soccer season, attending two training classes a week and one game per weekend is too tiring for him. He says he likes soccer but to play when he wants not when he has to. I will support his decision no matter what he decides.

Talking about soccer, EURO 2008 started last Saturday with Portugal winning 2-0 to Turkey.

My daughter is 4 and from time to time she “shots” me those questions I find difficult to explain to a 4 year old but I do my best to explain in a understandable way. Here’s one:

Catherine: Mom, how does the water goes from the sea into the clouds?

Me (thinking): Well, when it’s hot, a kind of steam of water comes out of the sea goes to the clouds, than the clouds have water.

Catherine (thinking): humm I got it, that happens while we sleep that’s why we don’t see it.

Me (relieved): yes that’s it.

Well, my answer was accepted and no more questions were asked.

My daughter was once again removed from the Ballet class because of her bad temper. It is the second time this happens, the first time was two months ago and today it happened again.

She loves Ballet classes but, sometimes, she doesn’t want to do what the teacher says and really refused to do it. When the teacher calls her attention and says that she has to do what the others are doing and not what she wants she gets into her bad mood and makes a tantrum. Once she refused to do what the teacher requested she was sent away from class because, and I understand, if she doesn’t want to do things right why is she in class.

I really don’t know how to handle this situation because she really loves Ballet. I had a conversation with her when we arrived home and I told her if she wants to attend Ballet classes she has to follow the teacher’s instructions. I don’t think this is going to solve the problem because at school the teacher has the same problem with her.

She’s 4 so I hope with time, she will get it but believe me she really has bad temper from time to time.

Suggestions will be appreciated.

I guess spring, although still shy, is finally arriving. I’m really tired of rain and cloudy sky, I want to get out and be able to walk without worrying about carrying an umbrella or getting wet shoes. It has been a hard spring for the kids because the weather is never good for them to play outside. Most of their free time is spent in the computer, video games or TV.

My daughter likes to color and draw so it’s easy to keep her entertained inside the house, my son, well is a boy and therefore likes to play soccer and more outside related activities. With the weather change and bigger days we will be able to play more outside. Although we arrive at home at around 7pm we still have daylight and if the weather is warm than they can play in the back or front yard.

I’m not that kind of mother that worries about dirty clothes, dirty faces, dirty hands, everything can be washed so I just let them play outside freely. My daughter loves to catch bugs and worms (ugh! yes worms), one day she even arrived at daycare with one on her hair, a black one, she didn’t noticed and she must have touch her hair while having a worm in her hand and it just stayed there.

One thing I don’t like is when they come inside after playing and wet the floor or forget to rub the sand away from their legs and feet. This is something I have to start imposing once they start playing outside for good.

For those wanting to spend some time outside, in the nature, in the backyard in the woods the book i love dirt! is the right book for you to buy. It shows activities we can do outside no matter if we live in the city or in the country.
Quoting:

I Love Dirt! is a call to parents, educators, and caregivers to help children recover one of the great joys of childhood. Through fifty-two activities, readers will find a wealth of creative ways to actively engage children, ages four to nine, in nature. Each project is meant to promote exploration, stimulate imagination, and heighten a sense of wonder.

Organized by season, and appropriate for both urban and country settings, each activity is accompanied by a fun fact to help further a child’s understanding of the natural world and open up a conversation.

We must be aware that in outdoor activities we must protect the children’s body: appropriate clothes for the weather temperature and a sun protector. Be careful with sunburns.

March 2007 was a special month for me. While reading blogs and jumping from one to another I come across paid posts. Paid posts and mouth to mouth advertising was something new to me and when I realized what it was and I started earning my own money writing paid post, I started enjoying blogging even more.

I signed up for paid post companies, message boards, social networks but soon the news about a “special” social network started running the net. The name SocialSpark was something I heard about but didn’t know exactly what it was.

During one promotion of the SocialSpark site, I was given a key I could use into the site that was still in Beta, and I had the first glimpse of what it was. SocialSpark is now open to the public and growing fast. But what is it SocialSpark?

SocialSpark is a network where you can earn money and friends. You just have to sign up for an account, enter your information, add your blog, add the itk code to your blog and wait for approval. Once your blog is approved you can check the marketplace and see which opportunities are available for you to write about. You can narrow down the opportunities available by selecting the options in order to filter them. After you select one you just have to follow the requirements, write your post and submit the URL.

SocialSpark opportunities are about real opinions, the advertisers really want to know the blogger’s opinion, transparency is a “must” so audit-able in-post disclosure is required. The links the advertisers request us to put in the post are SEO friendly meaning they are no-follow.

Beside the monetizing side there is also the social side where you can build your community and meet new bloggers and blogs.

Join SocialSpark today, start monetizing your blog, search the database and meet other people with the same interests and hobbies, from the same city or country, build your own community. Make your first contact with these two screen shots of the site.