Mommy Mondays (a new idea for this blog)

I want to start Mommy Mondays on this blog, in an effort to blog regularly again and in an effort to reconnect with my blogging friends :)

Having recently become a Mommy via guardianship of the sis in law's kids, I have a full appreciation of how difficult parenting is...especially when doing it alone (P won't be back until the summer). I love the children and the bonding is going MUCH better but wow, there are definite challenges. On Mommy Mondays I want to focus on all things relating to parenting. I am thinking that I will obsess write about one parenting "thing" (sorry, I am too exhausted to think of a better word) per week on here. If there's ever anything that you want to see me write about or that you just think would be a good topic, please comment on any post and let me know :)

I want to share a bit about the bonding/attaching that we've been working on here in our home. As y'all might remember things were rough here in the beginning. I am happy to report that things are MUCH better around here, I think due in a major way to my no longer being on the evil lu.pron. We have a night time routine now-15 to 30 minutes of cartoons while I make dinner; eat dinner; take baths; read a story and then bed time. That routine works 90% of the time, though sometimes SB (2.5 yr old niece) still has a meltdown when she gets in the bed. J (1 yr old nephew) rarely cries at bed time any more, unless he decides that he wants to stay up and play with the furbabies :)

SB is also seeking me out for hugs and sitting on my lap during Friday Night Family Movie and Pizza night. Her newest thing is to blow kisses to me or just come up to me for kisses <3 She also runs to me when I pick her up from preschool saying "Mommy hug"....yeah, she's a charmer :) J's face lights up when I come into his classroom and he immediately wants me to pick him up. He has also started having baby nightmares which is awful but he *does* calm down when I comfort him.

For the past couple of weekends, we haven't really done anything fun because I have had IVF appointments, which for me are 2.5 hrs of driving round trip. This coming weekend I have decided that we will go shoe shopping for all 3 of us, walk around the mall a bit and then go see my friend, S, at BWW on her lunch shift :) We are also going to go to church which is sure to be an adventure ;)

So what to you do to promote bonding/attachment in your children?