Couponing Made Easy with These Five Resources

We can't buy groceries with our looks.  If we could, we would all be eating lobster and filet mignon every night for dinner because we're some pretty good looking parents. (Good luck getting your kids to try lobster.)

As I explained in a previous post, I used to not coupon.  I began couponing out of a necessity to save more money while paying for my kid's hockey.

If you've seen TLCs Extreme Couponing, then you know that couponing could very well be a full time gig or a lifestyle if you let it get out of hand.  That's not me. While I do have a stock pile of certain things (I haven't bought toilet paper or paper towels in a year), I don't have 100 boxes of cereal and I can't feed an entire army three meals of baked beans today.

I keep my couponing to an hour or two a week, and its wrapped up nicely in a couponing binder so it doesn't take over the dining room table or an entire room.

Many people have asked me where I learned to coupon so I decided to share my favorite 5 resources for other moms and dads who want to keep more of the money they earn in their own pockets.

1. Facebook Groups.  
In NJ, there's New Jersey Extreme Couponing.  This group was started by a couponing guru named Jenn Clarke. She's incredibly knowledgeable, encourages ethical couponing and she has a potty mouth. She and her admins post coupon matching deals for all of the NJ super markets and other stores such as Target and CVS, which is great because other Facebook groups will promote deals at stores located outside of Jersey. In addition, Jenn routinely hosts couponing meetings, which she will promote on this page.

I have learned so much from this group and its close to 7,000 members. This is a great starting resource, but beware, the members of this group will hold you accountable to your couponing posts. Do not promote unethical couponing practices.

2. Jersey Coupon Mom 

If the Facebook group is not your thing Jenn Clarke also runs her own personal coupon blog where she will post all of the great deals, especially for moms.  For example, starting July 2nd, Juicy Juice Splashers are as low as $.50 at Shoprite.  Jenn tells you all about the deal and other deals on her Blog.

3. Living Rich with Coupons

I LOVE CINDY LIVESEY, the founder of of Living Rich With Coupons.  This is a website you are going to want to bookmark. She literally wrote the book on couponing, so you have to check out her website.  She and her daughter will often post videos talking about the deals of the week on Facebook, where you can ask questions in real time.  I recommend clicking on her "beginners" tab for a step-by-step on how to get started.  Being a coupon beginner does not have to be daunting!

4. The Krazy Coupon Lady

Don't ask me why Crazy begins with a K. That drives me crazy. Or is it Krazy?

Anyway, in addition to learning all there is to know about couponing, this is the website where I downloaded and printed my coupon binder table of contents, which has really been invaluable in terms of organizing myself and not looking like a hot-mess at the register.

Also, if it wasn't for the Krazy Coupon Lady, I would never have tried couponing at Target.  This website can teach you all of the tricks of the couponing trade when it comes to Target, such as which days to shop for what, and gift cards. (Target gives away gift cards like they're pennies, ya'll.)


5. Your supermarket's coupon policy!
Everything you learn about couponing at the sites I've listed above will mean nothing if you do not get to know your store's couponing policies. For example, some stores will limit how many of the same coupons you can use in one transaction. So when you see that crazy wackadoodle on Extreme Couponing use 30 of the same coupon in one transaction, that will most likely not work at your store. Save yourself a lot of frustration and learn your store's coupon policy before you go to the register. You can usually find a copy of their policy on their website, but if not, don't be shy about asking for one at the service counter.

I hope the aforementioned resources help you become a beginner or better couponer; they have certainly helped me.

Poison Ivy with A Smile.

I know what you're thinking.  How the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks can she possibly be smiling with poison Ivy all over her face?

I guess it's just the giddy-ness of camping with the kids, or maybe I just don't take myself too seriously.

My kids love camping and it's a family tradition for my mom and dad to take their grand-kids camping for the week after school lets out.  I've tagged along the last couple of years.

So here we are, tent camping at Stephen's State Park in NJ. Foraging for firewood (in poison ivy as you can see), camp fires, smores, fishing - the whole nine yards.

There is something special about tent camping.  You're more in touch with the outdoors and the elements that come with it. It's great to snuggle up with your kids in sleeping bags and it even give you an opportunity to make up lies to tell your kids.  Last night my daughter was very concerned about daddy long legs, so of course on the spot, my mommy brain cooked up a great story.

"Dad stopped up and brought us those special daddy long legs capsules. The ones where you dissolve them in a little water, they smoke up the tent with a special smelling smoke that only daddy longs legs can smell. They can't stand the smell and it makes them sneeze, so they stay out of the tent."

"What about Grandma and Grandpa's tent?"

"He used the capsule in there too."

"What's it called?"

"Long-leg star dust, of course." (You've gotta be quick)

So yeah, camping and lying to our kids and poison ivy.  Good stuff.

As you can see in the picture, I'm all dressed and showered (no make-up though).  I'm off to a work luncheon.  Had to take one day off of camping to distribute some scholarship checks to some very deserving applicants for my job.

When you're a working mom, you make it work.  Poison ivy, and all.

How One Childhood Encounter Made Me Embarrassed to Coupon and How I Got Over It.

I don't know about you, but I love to save money.  It wasn't always that way for me. I was once embarrassed about using coupons. The embarrassment stemmed from one childhood encounter. 

It was first grade. We were standing on line in the gray-colored school stairwell.  I had been the lucky and proud student who was called upon to hold open the door.  We weren't supposed to be talking, but kids were whispering to each other, as we waited for the go-ahead to march back to our class. Every whisper echoed in the chamber-like stairwell. 

Ralph, who even in the first grade, seemed so much more popular than everyone else, was at the head of the line and we were face to face. I had been admiring Ralph's stone-washed baseball style hat.  Who could blame me, right?

I chirped up, "Ralph, I really like your hat!"  It really felt good to pay him a compliment.

"Like you could ever afford it," was his reply.

"Yeah," I murmured. 

I had no idea what he meant, but his tone was condescending; that much I knew. Isn't it amazing, how small kids can pick up on things like that?  

That moment played over and over in my mind the whole day. At some point, either during school or after, I figured it out.  

We must be poor.

The sadness was like a kick to the gut. At the time I wasn't even sure what made me sad. Perhaps it was because I believed him when he said, I couldn't afford to have a cool hat like that. Or maybe the sadness was embarrassing.  

It was the first time, that I can recall learning that my family didn't have the kind of money that other families had. It was also the first time that I learned that the amount of money your family had mattered.  First grade - 6 years old. That's too much reality for such a little person. 

This little insignificant exchange turned out to be pretty significant in how I viewed myself.

I started trying to walk away from my mom at grocery stores as she paid with food stamps. I remember hiding my face while she paid at a corner deli one time. Another classmate had been in the store with his mom. I was certain that he saw me, which meant that he saw the real me. The real, poor me. The girl who walked to town hall to pick up a block of cheese with her mom. The girl who  usually didn't meet the other kids at the ice cream truck. The girl who didn't bring money for souvenir shopping on the school trip to Waterloo Village.

I was embarrassed.  More than embarrassed; I was ashamed. Shame turned into anger and I took it out on my mom.

My parents worked hard to get off of public assistance, but it didn't matter to me. Mom still paid with coupons and coupons became food stamps in my mind. Every time she pulled out her coupons, I gave her grief.  It was never a quick transaction with coupons back then. Cashiers always had questions. People always saw. Temper tantrums at the register became the norm.  

One day I walked out of the Five and Dime to go sit in the car with my Dad, who had been waiting in the parking lot in our light blue Ford Grenada. The kind with vinyl seats that you stuck to in hot weather. Mom was still in the store. I left without telling her because I was certain she would be using coupons. 

The time ticked by and my dad remarked that it was taking mom a long time. What was taking her so long, he wondered.  I slumped lower in the back seat and didn't say a word. 

After a while, my mom came walking out of the store. I could see her in between the blue defrost grid lines in the rear window.  She looked really upset and she was walking super fast toward the car. She spotted my blonde hair and guilty eyes peering at her.  She was pissed. The kind of pissed that made entire rooms go quiet, and dogs take cover. 

Splat!  The palm of her hand slammed down onto the window right where I had been peering out at her. She got in the car and told my dad what I had done. She had everyone in the store looking for me. She was coming back to tell my dad to drive to the police station.  

"Why did you leave the store?" She cried.

"I just didn't want to be in there. You were taking too long."  It was a lie. I just didn't want to be around if she was going to pay with coupons. (Silly, they didn't even take coupons.)

As I got older, mom tried to talk to me about the value of using coupons, and how hard she and my dad worked to earn money. 

She used to say, "When you get older, you'll use coupons too."

Defiantly, I'd reply, "I will never use coupons."  Once or twice, I even said, "No, I won't, cause unlike, I'll make enough money."

I was an ungrateful asshole.

I carried my disdain and misunderstanding for coupons with me for a long time. I never used a coupon in college, when I was really broke. I didn't use them when I was just out of college and finally making real money. I didn't even use them on diapers when my son was born... although I did start buying Target brand diapers. Slowly, I began to understand that I needed to stretch the money we earned.

When my son began ice-skating lessons and when it became evident that he wanted to play hockey, I realized that using coupons might be helpful. In order to provide my son with the opportunity to play the most expensive sport he could have possibly picked, I started to coupon. It took some time to get the hang of it. One week, I managed to save almost $90 by using coupons. It was almost the same amount of money we had just spent on T-Ball registration. Suddenly, the light switch for what seemed like a flood light clicked! 

Today, I have a stockpile of items, such as hair care products, tooth paste, mouth wash, toilet paper, deodorant, laundry detergent, etc. Things that I will never pay full price for again. (Free would be event better.)

I am a couponer and I am proud of it.  Today, my dad is the coupon clipper in their house. He gives me coupons all the time, and I gladly take them. I've even taught my mom and dad a thing or two about coupon stacking.

My mom finds this funny and ironic of course.  She's called me on it a couple times, and what could I say but, "You were right and I was wrong. I'm sorry." 

So many of my friends and people I've met have asked me about couponing. I get a kick out of sharing tips of the trade. I even presented a Couponing 101 program to my Rotary Club last year. 

Tomorrow, I will post some of my favorite couponing resources and tips for parents who want to learn how to keep more of their own money in their pockets using coupons.

I guess I've come a long way.

As for that child-hood classmate from first grade?  I avoided him throughout grammar school and even high school.  Sometime after Facebook became a thing, he sent me a friend request. I never accepted it.  

Girl Scouts to Roll Out 18 Cyber Security Badges and This Mama-Bear Approves

The Girl Scouts announced that they are adding a series of 18 Cyber-Security Badges to their educational programming for girls in grades K-12, and this Mama Bear Approves!

Oh, hell yes!  More than those Disney on Ice, Princess Ball and Cooking badges, this badge earns two big thumbs up from me, a mom of a Daisy and budding Girl Scout. (That might have sounded snarky. There are also some really great badges in the areas of First Aid, Environmental Science, STEM, etc., that girls can earn.)

The largest leadership development organization for girls is debuting these badges in the Fall of 2018 and I can't wait for the educational component. Younger girl scouts will learn about data privacy, cyber bullying and protecting themselves online. Let's face it, we simply can't look over their shoulders every time they pick up a tablet. I mean, dinner has to get made, right?

It seems like every day we are hearing about some new and scary cyber threat online and what's worse; they are targeting our kids. The Internet has provided online predators easy access to our kids (boys and girls).  The most recently reported was the dangerous chat-side of Roblox, a popular kids' game where children can interact with other children. They create an avatar and interact with others while they navigate an online world.  To some it sounds like fun. To others, we know that there are grown men and women interacting with our kids and they can engage children in all sorts of conversations.

It is so vital for all kids, not just girls, to learn how to protect themselves online. I applaud the Girl Scouts for looking out for the safety and well being of our kids!

Furthermore, this curriculum will help narrow the gap between females and males in the tech field, by educating our girls on code, firewalls and host of cyber-security tools!  I am just so excited about this.

As stated in this article on CNN Tech, "Cyber security workers are in high demand. According to a report from Frost & Sullivan and (ISC)2, there will be a shortage of 1.5 million cyber security workers globally by 2020."

In partnership with Palo Alto Networks, the Girl Scouts will be empowering millions of girls across America, paving the way for them to become the cyber-security problem solvers of the future. 

Bravo, Girl Scouts. Bravo!


If you want to learn more about the partnership between the Girl Scouts and Palo Alto Networks and how they are empowering girls in the Cyber-Security field, click HERE for their Press Release.

Creating Memorable Moments for Dad

Parenting is not 50 – 50. My mom told me that once. It’s true; I don’t know why I ever thought it would be. 

Usually, one parent takes on the role as lead parent.  That is not to say that one parent over-rules the other.  It just means that one parent takes on the brunt of the daily tasks when it comes to the kids. I happen to be that parent. This is not by design, but rather because of my husband’s work schedule.  He doesn’t have the flexibility that I often have or can often create, so I’m the parent who takes the kids to more practices, more games, picks them up after school, gets their homework done, and takes them to the doctor, dentist, or birthday parties.

When you’re the lead parent, it can be a real drag. It’s why we want to tag out as soon as the other parent walks in the door.  I might feel like it’s unfair sometimes, but I'm wrong. It is just the reality of our circumstances. I see more and more fathers in these reversed roles. So much so that one day, I won't need to call it a "reversed" role. So I can’t say that it’s a mom thing, although I do think that moms will more often than not step into that lead parent role. There’s just something about moms.

Father’s day was here and gone.  We made dad a great breakfast, sent him to Monster Jam with his son, spent some time on the river together as a family. My daughter was nagging, whining, complaining and crying a good portion of that time, so I even treated my husband and took her away!  (Keeping it real.)

Father’s Day shouldn’t be the only day that we do something nice for dad.  Same for Mother’s Day. It’s just one of those days that you are reminded to be appreciative of your parent, it shouldn’t be the only day.

Thinking back on my role as the “lead” parent, sure, there have been times where I’ve felt frustrated that I had to do something without help. There are also times that I sit at a baseball practice or soccer practice, or at the playground, or at the ice cream shop and I relish the time I’m getting to spend watching my children enjoy what they’re involved in, or playing with them, or being able to giggle with them over the funny stories we’re telling.  Those times make me feel like being the lead parent is da BOMB! Those are the times that I feel like my husband is really missing out. He’s working hard in order to provide for us and he has to miss out on a lot of really great experiences, and just okay experiences and awful experiences that in ten years will seem funny.

The other day I decided to create one of those experiences for him.  I treated him to a water balloon fight between him and the kids.  He came home to a bucket of water balloons on the porch with a note for him to arm himself and find the kids in the backyard.  So many nights he walks in the door and hears me yelling, or the kids fighting and someone crying, dinner inevitably late and the house usually a mess. Not this time. 

He had such an adorable grin on his face when he saw the balloons and he really got into the battle. Hearing those kids in the yard giggling away behind their big red bucket of water balloons, I think made his day! Despite my yearning to pelt one of my kids with a water balloon in the forehead, I stayed out of it. I just took some pictures to document the joy as it unfolded.

It was a fleeting moment, but one that I hope my husband will relish for a long time. We all need those moments. Even dads.

The Fidget Spinner Craze and Alternatives to Spinning Fidgets

I’m going to talk about the F-word.  Teachers all over America don’t want this used in their classroom.  Parents everywhere can agree that it has no place at the dinner table. 

FIDGET SPINNER. Ugh!  

My son, who does not have ADHD, nor does he have anxiety, asked my husband to buy him this new toy everyone else had.  Twelve bucks and two days later, the fidget spinner arrived via Amazon.  My son showed it to me, and I have to say, I didn’t understand this toy. I asked him to show me how it works.  He pinched his thumb and forefinger in the center, and spun the arms of the spinner. It spun for a long time; I’d say 4 minutes or so.

“Now what,” I asked.

He put it on his chin and spun it.  There wasn’t much else. 

“You can do all kinds of tricks with it,” he said. 

Proud of his purchase for his beaming son, my husband said that they are actually used by kids who need help staying focused in class. They spin it and it helps them focus. It was a quick layman’s description.  My son never once told me it was to help him focus, stay calm or fidget less.  To him, it was just a toy. 

Now, I think the best kinds of toys, require imagination.

I look at a fidget spinner and I see a toy plane in a little girl’s hand.  She’s blowing air out of her mouth between her two pressed together vibrating lips, while she’s making the sound of the propeller powered by a massive diesel engine.  The plane is flying a flock of tourists past an active volcano.  Suddenly the volcano erupts and molten hot lava is spewing everywhere.  

The co-pilot yells, “Pull up! Pull up!”

The pilot pulls up and maneuvers the plane through the cloudy sky.  She sees a seemingly safe landing runway, just between two cliffs. It’s a dangerously narrow chasm, but this 7 year old girl is determined to bring her passengers to safety.  Cupping her hand over her mouth, she drops her voice and says, “Folks, I’m going to bring the plane in for a landing. Hold onto your peanuts - this could get bumping!”

 The pilot starts the ascent and just as the plane squeezes into the chasm the plane begins to shake. 

"Folks, it’s me again. You know, the pilot?  I apologize for the turbulence.  There’s no need to be alarmed.”

Then suddenly, a colossal ape, comes out of nowhere, blows out a primal growl, and swipes angrily at the plane, knocking the engine out.

“I take it back. We’re going down, folks. Hold on!”

Air is sputtering out of her mouth as the propeller comes to a stop. The seven year old pilot is in trouble, she loses control of the plane.  The plane ends up in a flat spin. Passengers are screaming, kids are throwing up their peanuts, teenagers are snapchatting their goodbyes; the co-pilot has passed out from the G-force.  It’s up to the pint-sized pilot to get control. She’s able to slow it down. (Don’t ask me how? It’s all in her imagination.) The plane comes in for a hard landing and just as the nose of the plane hits the ground, the propeller is flung from the plane. It takes out a couple trees and disappears into the landscape.

Miraculously, the passengers are safe, the co-pilot is awake, and the pilot is very proud of herself. Everyone safely exits the plane to assess the damage. She’s in rough shape. No working engine, there’s hull damage and where in the world has the propeller gone?

I know where it is. It’s in a small box in the back of a UPS truck. Someone forgot to put it on a toy plane and instead Amazon is shipping it out to a kid who just convinced his dad to buy it for him, so he can sit in a room and spin it on his knee.

Over the course of a couple days, I started asking other moms and googling what the fidget spinners are good for. I played out several scenarios, as moms will often do about how my son’s new fascination will get him into trouble at school.

I drew a hard line in the sand. I said, “Listen, I don’t want you to bring this thing to school. Do you hear me? I am certain that your teacher will not want you using this in class.”

He agreed to only use it at the after-school program he's enrolled in. 

Liar, liar, pants on fire!  A month later, his teacher confiscated it. Turns out, she banned them from her class.  She has a one-day confiscation rule, so she returned it to him the next day. I only know about this little infraction because Mrs. D. called me to tell me about my son getting into, what she called “End-of-school-year trouble”. 

Promoted as a tool to help kids calm themselves or keep focused in class, fidget spinners have shown up in classrooms all over America.  Suddenly every child needs or wants one.  Some parents called “bullshit” on this right away, saying that their child does not need to fidget.  My kid is not on the spectrum. He doesn’t have ADHD. There is nothing wrong with her.  It goes on and on.

When I was a kid, we sat up straight in class with out folded hands on the desk ahead of us. Some teachers wouldn’t begin or continue a lesson until everyone was in this position.  Focus was something that teachers demanded and a good portion of the time, they got it… to a degree.  We all remember how it used to be, but I'm not sure remember how it really was. We still fidgeted. For me, it was bouncing my knee up and down. Today, I doodle. If I’m on the phone with you, I’m doodling. Geometric shapes, trees, patterns, giant penises. (That last example might be an untruth.)

What do you do to stay focused? Do you bite your nails? Chew gum? Tap your fingers?  Click your pen?  Think about it, you probably need to fidget in order to stay on task or pay attention in a meeting.  There is no shame in it.  And there is no shame in a child needing something to help them remain focused in school. 

In doing some research, I came across an article about Shira Mechanic, a 27 year old occupational therapist, who is also on the autism spectrum.  She was interviewed by Amy Zimmer, a columnist at a New York based, online community news site called DNAInfo.com. You can read the full interview here.

Mechanic credits her career success to the very fidget spinners and "fidgets" she used in all of her graduate classes.

In response to fidget spinner backlash, Mechanic stated, “Fidgets aren’t appropriate for all students and generally work best when they are introduced to an individual in the context of using them as tools and in response to their specific sensory needs.”

This makes sense.  Even though they’re called fidget spinners, my son and now my daughter, only knows them as toys – not tools. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps fidget spinners can be helpful in a classroom setting. However, too many children are on the fidget spinner bandwagon without a ticket.

Teachers everywhere have banned these spinners for a multitude of reasons.  The biggest reason that they have been banned from schools is because they are not helping kids stay focused while the entire class is too distracted by them. One child takes out their spinner and gives it a whirl. Next thing a teacher knows, all of the other kids want to get a look at Susie’s spinner. What color is it? Does hers spin for a long time? Is it one of the spinners that blink? Can she balance it on her finger?

The good news for a lot of parents is that you can walk into a supermarket and find these spinners on an endcap for $3.99.  The Wharton NJ Shoprite has such a display right by their service counter. The bad news is the cheap spinners don’t spin as quietly as the $12 or $15 spinners, so as parents have run out to buy the super cheap spinners, all they’ve done is send their kids to school with noisy spinners that can't be hidden.

In speaking with several of my mom-friends, some of them special education teachers and some are parents of children with ADHD, I’ve learned that they too see the current spinning fidget toy as more of a classroom-wide distraction, than a help to one child.

That Occupational Therapist, who happens to be on the spectrum I mentioned? She is also an entrepreneur, who started an ETSY based Fidget Club in 2014.  Today, you can visit her online fidget store here.  In browsing her online store, and others, I’ve come up with 5 of my favorite alternatives to spinning fidgets.

1. Bead on a necklace.  Seriously, a simple bead or two on a string, around your child’s neck. This is a DIY fidget.  The child can twiddle the bead between his or her fingers and it won’t fall on the floor and cause a distraction. Or they can pull it from side to side while there’s a quick moment in the lesson, where they might otherwise be day dream.

2. Squeezibo: It looks and feels like a big marshmallow.  It is just like a stress ball; used for squeezing to help a child ease tension or stress.  There are a variety to choose.  Some look like little animal faces that I'm sure kids would get a kick out of. $7.99 at Fidget Club.

3. Neon Inside Out Ball:  It looks like a normal plastic rubber ball, but can be turned inside out to a spiky stretchy ball.  This is especially great for sensory seeking kids who need tactile stimulation. $2.75 at Fidget Club.

4. Tangles:  Basically, a very simple way to keep idle hands busy. It fits in the palm of your hand as you tangle and untangle it.  I can see a child using this under their desk, out of view from other kids – they don’t even need to look at it because it is just something to keep busy fingers happy.

5. Marble Sleeve: Another tool to keep fidgety hands busy, and it can also be used under the desk to keep from distracting other children in the classroom is a marble inside a sleeve. Simply move the marble from one end of the sleeve to the next. Amazon carries one called Frick Frack Fidget, and you can get a set of 10 for under $9.00.

There are so many others to choose from, like tactile textured pens, stretchy bands etc, but I can see them all becoming a distraction to other kids in class, thereby ending up on the teachers banned list.

I know the school year is coming to a close, so you’ll have all summer long to think about which fidget devices your child can really use as a tool in the classroom. Unless of course the fidget device craze is replaced by something completely different, which is entirely possible. 

By the way, I may or may not have doodled a dozen penises while you read this long post. 

Excuse The Mess - We Live Here

My house is a mess.  

There are piles of laundry in the hallway adjacent to our bedrooms. It accumulates quicker than we can wash it. There are stacks of papers on landing pads throughout the kitchen and dining room. There are toys everywhere. EVERYWHERE.  I can’t tell you the last time I dusted. Three months ago? Four? Lucky number seven? I dunno.

When I was pregnant with my first child I mentioned to a friend that we were cleaning like crazy and getting the house ready.  Alyssa said something in response that I will never forget. 

She said, “Don’t clean too much, you are building an immune system.” 

It was just the permission I needed to put down the Lysol and bleach. I worked some Google magic and found many supporting articles and blogs posts from a bunch of people way smarter than me – people with all sorts of letters after their names, who also cautioned new moms about walling off our kids from germs and microbes.

Take for supporting documentation this fairly recent New York Times article by Perri Klass M.D. (see the letters after her name?) It’s packed with all sorts of supporting statements surrounding the theory that a house can be too clean when it comes to your kids’ immune systems. 

Now, at this point I must inform you that I’ve made a promise to myself and will now make a promise to you, that I will be as honest (brutally honest) as possible in my posts. Therefor I must confess that my kids are 8 and 5 years old. Five and a half, actually. My daughter insists that I absolutely, positively have to include the "half" because the half counts. Given their current ages, I’m pretty sure their immune systems are established.

So why am I still keeping a messy house?

Well, call me crazy, but don’t call me lazy.  We are anything but lazy.  The title of this blog is Hat-Trick Mommy. It’s a hockey term, and I’m a hockey mom, but the title is not entirely about our family’s love of hockey. The title is mostly about the multiple hats and tricks that we, as moms and dads have to wear and pull off in order to make it work. And by “it” I mean EV-ER-Y-THING.

Case in point, every morning we have to wear our chef hats, fireman hats because there are half a dozen fires to put out before school, referee hats because of the fighting, jester hats because hey, if I can’t make her laugh in the morning, she’s usually crying  and of course, chauffer hats. Then, as I sit in the parking garage at work, I look at myself in the mirror and wish there was a psychologist hat.

We are at the moment a three sport, about to become four-sport, family. Add into the equation, daisies, homework, meals, the endless stream of birthday parties, and dishes. (Dishes have to be done. Hard line.) There is simply no time to clean. Take this weekend for example: baseball game, soccer game, birthday party, charity work, minor league baseball game with the family and good friends, and that’s only Saturday. Sunday is a bit more relaxed. I have to work from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM, but the hubby will take our son to his street hockey playoff game, and we’ll go to the in-laws’ for dinner.

If your family is like ours, you are bordering on over-extended in the family schedule. That said, its all quality, family-enriching kind of stuff! So who has time for cleaning up messes, when we're enjoying making those messes?

I once saw a lawn sign that read, “We’re raising kids, not grass.” Well, the same can be said for the inside our home. I can put it this way to you, “Excuse the mess. We live here.”

I feel in my heart that our kids will remember and cherish the time we spent together doing things as a family way more than a clean living room.  We are creating a lifetime of memories and I don't want my kids to look back on Sundays as the days we were held hostage by the broom and mop.

So if you come to our house, run your finger along the lamp shade at your own risk, ask me before you eat anything in the fridge… in case I should have thrown it out two weeks ago, and for the love of all that is holy to you, don’t call us lazy.