Mom Challenge Week 1

So there was a 52 week Mom Challenge floating around Pinterest a couple of weeks ago that caught my eye. I had previously pinned a 30 day one that has 30 things to do for each day of the month that you repeat over & over each month - but it seemed really fake with things like (on the 3rd day of each month) "hug your child 3 times today" ???? or on the 17th of each month "laugh with your child today." I don't know about you all but I don't think I'd be too happy to know that my Mum was hugging me 3x on the 3rd day of each month just to put a tick next to completing day 3 of a 30 day challenge lol.....so anyways, then I saw the 52 week Mom Challenge which is made up of 52 mini challenges to help strengthen your relationship with your kids & this seems a lot more sincere, so I've decided I'm gonna give this one a go :)

Rather than specifying that today is the day of the month to tell your child you love them, it just has a different focus each week for you to think about & concentrate on & which you can hopefully learn to incorporate into your normal Mommy routine as you move throughout the year & complete each challenge. 

You can click here if you want to read more about it. The challenge is actually up to Week 7 for anyone who started it on time, but I only did my first week last week so this is just week 2 for me.

So how did Week 1 go then?? Well Week 1 was to Eat Dinner with your kids. No Phones. No TV. Talk. Laugh. Eat.....we used to do this when it was just Mac, but now that there's Spence as well Mac is pretty used to eating his dinner sitting on the bar stools up at the bench while watching Nick Jnr.....

SOoooo was he impressed on Monday night last week when I dished up our dinner & turned the TV off to bless the food & then kept it off?? Not at all!! He whinged & carried on pleading with me to turn Dora back on so he could finish the episode he was half way through watching lol. 

I said "sorry Son. We're just gonna keep the TV off tonight while we sit here & eat together. It'll be cool though cause it means we can talk about all the things that happened today! You can tell me about what you did at kindy???" Unfortunately all I got in response to that invitation was a very grumpy "No!" lol....

So from there I tried asking heaps of different questions about what he'd done at kindy & who he'd played with etc, to try & get him to engage & to spark something to get him going, but would he oblige?? Not in the slightest!! All I got were one word answers (Talk about an awkward haha - hopefully he improves on his dinner conversation skills by the time he's old enough to date otherwise I think he'll be single for a very long time!!)

I have to say I found the whole situation a little ironic coming from the No1 chatterbox himself! Usually I have the opposite problem where I'm having to ask him to give my ears a rest cause this kid llooooooovvvvvveeeeesss to talk & is usually blabbing away from sun up to sun down....so what, you sit down & give him a chance to chew your ear off & he decides he doesn't want to now??? Man that kid is contrary! 

Thankfully, I'm able to report that dinner conversation did become a little more natural as the week went on, but I still think he prefers to talk at times that are more inconvenient, rather than when you're actually sitting down like this, giving him your full attention!! 

Oh well! All in all it was a fun little exercise that I guess we're just gonna have to work on some more :)

Our last dinner date of the week :)