Take it back

 There is a nice southern saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I'm sure it was meant to be encouraging. But sometimes there are too many lemons being dropped, thrown, rolled and left on your doorstep to deal with it. There has been times that I felt that lemons were all I had, I was swimming in them and I couldn't make enough lemonade, pound cake, cookie, bar, or muffin to find my way out from under them. Trust me I tried. 

So

Here are the dumpster fires I mentioned earlier.  Life is going to give you dumpster fires, you might as well get used to that idea now. There are two ways you can handle these fires when they happen.

Panic and add more stress because you are worried that your kids are going to miss school for X amount of days.

 Or 

embrace the warmth and find a marshmallow to roast while you are at it.

Here are some marshmallows we found to when fires happen:

• When taking care of sick family members, include the kids in the work. Have them help with the cleaning and tasks as much as possible.

• Let them do a research project or book report, even upper elementary aged kids can do this. They can pick the topic or you can give them perimeters and let them research to present for when the time comes around.

• Have them work on a skit/ play together. There are lines to memorize and then can figure out how to do it. They can even watch a movie version for ideas to help plan out their scenes. 

• Have them create a Rube Goldberg machine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine). Sky’s the limit on this. 

• Create a kids market day items for sale. Many towns and cities have craft fairs and kids markets where you can register for a little or no fee to sell your wares. 

• Just play board games and read.

Kids love the idea of planning out their own education. Giving them the responsibility once and a while won't hurt their college propositions.

Sometimes, a fire means everything HAS to STOP and that includes school. That is ok. You can teach them valuable life lessons in how to react to stress and what to value. When a fire happens what is the first thing you grab? This value will transfer to your kids, choose wisely.

Graphics designed on Canva.com using free features, images, ai generated images, templates.