Is it really that simple?

Tuesday I posted a list, created by my Dad quite a few years ago, about secrets to a happy life.  Today, I'm saying what I think of his list and how it relates to happiness.

Health.  Exercising, eating right, drinking in moderation, not smoking.  All of those contribute to health and when one of them falls away, health can decline and certainly lead to unhappiness.  Or a more challenging life, at least.
Teach your Children.  He's coming at this from the angle of "being finished."  His children either have their values now as adults or they don't.  There's little, if anything, he can do to "fix" them now.
Follow a sound financial plan.  Again, coming from the "last half of life" phase.  A favorite quote of his has always been, "If youth but knew what age would crave, many a penny youth would save."

These three principles are important in life and they are broad statements, under which many other things can fall.  And I believe, for the most part, they are good, sound principles that will add to your unhappiness if you don't follow them.

But I think they can be boiled down even farther to one concept:  do you practice delayed gratification?  All of his principles rely on the ability to delay gratification.  If you can delay gratification, then your life will be less difficult, less filled with obstacles.

And I don't mean to say life will be easy.  Life is hard.  There's no ifs, ands or buts about it.  But if you are a person who lives by instant gratification, then you're going to make it much, much harder on yourself and those around you.

Delayed gratification isn't fun, really.  It doesn't make you whoop it up with its excitement.  But it will make you feel more fulfilled in life.  It will, hopefully, help you look back and say, "I made good choices that I can be proud of throughout my life."

Time for Some Tough Love Around These Here Parts - Wednesday

Originally, this was to be a post about tough love for Youngest.  Now it's about tough love for both children.  Yay.

Youngest
The Official Goodbye to Paci Weekend happened 2.5 weeks ago.  Hind sight tells me I misinterpreted Youngest's reason for waking up nightly (sometimes repeatedly).  It wasn't because she needed her paci replaced.  It was just a good ol'bad habit.

Which has continued since Paci went buh-bye.  Add to it that she's taking close to an hour to fall asleep at night and has only been sleeping a little over an hour for her nap, and we've got one over-tired toddler on our hands.

And you know what that means - Mama's overtired and getting C.  R.  A.  N.  K.  Y.

Oldest
Last night Oldest really, and I mean really, showed herself at gymnastics.  No less than THREE times she took off (much like a toddler) to do a running jump into the pit, with the teacher calling, "Miss Oldest, Miss Oldest - it's not time for the pit.  Come back to class and participate!"  Which she would, AFTER she did what she'd decided to do.  In her defense, her friend was doing the same thing and sometimes peer pressure is a great motivator.  It's also a great teaching  moment for a parent.

Tough Love
So in keeping with my March resolution to NOT YELL (which SOMEONE needs to give me a cookie for being able to keep from it yesterday), we're having ourselves a little tough love 'round these here parts.

Cry It Out for Youngest and Grounding for Oldest.
Youngest is 2.5 years old - which is plenty old enough to sleep all night without a little pat, cuddle, re-tuck, drink, or question anywhere from midnight to 5am.  And I'm never going to reach a state of semi-rest if I'm catering to her.  And if I'm catering to her and therefore tired, I'm WAY more likely to yell during the day.  Because I'm mad at myself for this going on so long and because I'm TIRED.

Oldest?  This isn't new.  Sometimes she really has to stretch the boundaries of behavior to remember what her privileges are.  Don't all kids?  She's going to choose from a menu of consequences when she wakes up.  She will need to choose two items and most items last three days (for 3 times of not listening in class).  Things like no dessert for 3 days, no computer for 3 days, sitting out the last class, not taking gymnastics in the spring, going to bed early for 3 days (I'm kind of hoping for that one).

Seem harsh for either one of them?  Not really - if there's one truth I'm learning in my own project - sometimes to get happy, you have to get through some unhappy first.  And that's going to be for all of us for the next few days.

**Special Note:  As I finish this, it's 6:30am.  Youngest USED to sleep until 7:30/8am, but is right now up there starting to call out.  This is MY time - one of the few times a day someone else isn't asking for something from me.  Her waking up strengthens my resolve that IT IS TIME.

What about you?  What tough love have you done recently?  And what does it take to get you past "minor consequences" to the tough love stage?

Motherhood is not for Wimps

As soon as I read that quote, I knew I'd found the perfect book club.  The book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families and the book club can be joined online at Simple Mom.

I decided to join an online book club for 5 reasons:

1. I've never been invited to join a "real" book club (cue violin music for Poor Missy).
2. I haven't had the wherewithal, for a variety of reasons (courage being one), to start my own.
3. I have sitters way too much as it is anyway - do I really want to spend more time away from my family?
4. This first book dovetails nicely with My Happiness Project and Missy's Maxims.  
5. The first book has been sitting next to my treadmill, just crying out "read me, read me!" for over a year. Serendipity?  

So here we are - Week One.  And the quote of my title today was coupled with the sentence, "Through it all I've learned that parenting is basically a life of sacrifice."  How true both of these statements are!  Though I think I'll alter "Motherhood is not for wimps" to "Parenting is not for wimps."  I've always thought, and my communications with blog visitors has affirmed, both parents make many sacrifices for their children - most of the time.

The other quote I want to tease you with so you join the book club too give you before I shoo you over to Simple Mom and the forum you can join (anytime - you can jump in part way through  - if you don't have the book) is this one:

"[L]ike the 'road less traveled' spoken of in the Robert Frost poem, it's the road that makes all the difference.  Despite the priority that American culture clearly places on individual freedom, immediate gratification, efficiency and control, there is literally no road laden with as much joy and satisfaction as the road of rich, interdependent family living."

Page 20, 7 Habits of Effective Families.  

Powerful, isn't it?  It resonates with how I often feel over our parenting choices - the feeling of being a salmon swimming upstream against the current of mediocre parenting.  A feeling I haven't shared with many because, well, we are on a path that's not traveled by many.  And it's a path that, while I am sure it's the right one for us, is still lonely at times.  

It's one of the reasons I started this blog.

Before you leave today, share with me what you think of the quotes I've shared with you.  How do they make you feel?  Are you trying to take your family down a different path than the norm?